Guardian Alpha Patchnotes

[Karnudge]

What. You can totally Lacerate. You're just choosing not to because you feel Damage is more attractive (also PF is bugged). There's a distinct difference there.

Also giving UV damage at all makes no sense.

You can't spam lacerate to pulverize when you have to spam aoe to get threat, they share the GCD. You can't even cast your aoe twice and miss the 10 sec duration and then pulverize falls off and now you're taking 20% more dmg on a character that has already has its DR nerfed.

Yes, you can hit thrash once, and then lacerate-lacerate-lacerate-pulverize, but then the mage has pulled threat, and the poor little bugger panics and he's running away, taking your mobs with him.

You can do it, but it sucks.

And adding dmg to UV would make it like DND or Consecrate. It makes a little sense, and would ease aoe threat to the point where you could lacerate all day.

But I feel as though we're kind of just arguing back and forth here. Can we all agree that our DR is too low, and with Vengeance gone we need more aoe threat?

[Gemini Soul]

Just wonder how Thrash spam Threat output vs all the other tanks multiple AoE attacks Threat output.

As in all 4 tanks doing everything they can to keep aggro on every thing W/O taunting, have a feeling bears will be the bottom feeder.

They need to move some of the dmg from Thrash bleed to its impact instead, to give it more of a Snap aggro feeling. Still don't understand why bears are THE ONLY TANK with a single AoE attack.

[Promdates]

Still don't understand why bears are THE ONLY TANK with a single AoE attack.

Perhaps their outlook is "thrash has no CD, the others are all have CD involved". Not saying it's a good outlook by them, but there is that possibility.

[szandos]

Put a 3 sec cd on Thrash (lowered by haste ofc) and increase the initial damage of it. Problem solved.

[Mandibleclaw]

Put a 3 sec cd on Thrash (lowered by haste ofc) and increase the initial damage of it. Problem solved.

The only aoe ability we have and on CD. haha.

[Karnudge]

Put a 3 sec cd on Thrash (lowered by haste ofc) and increase the initial damage of it. Problem solved.

Input swipe.

Put a 3 sec on thrash, and then we swipe swipe swipe swipe SWIPIN ALL DAY

[Arielle]

You can't spam lacerate to pulverize when you have to spam aoe to get threat, they share the GCD. You can't even cast your aoe twice and miss the 10 sec duration and then pulverize falls off and now you're taking 20% more dmg on a character that has already has its DR nerfed.

What?

There's a major disconnect here somewhere. I'm willing to chalk it up as me not understanding what you're trying to describe though. However you can definitely use Thrash at least twice (actually 3 times with Haste buff) within the 10 second duration. Although again this brings me back to my original point of "Pulverize's Duration is too Short" which also addresses your issue (at least somewhat).

but then the mage has pulled threat

Since DPS tuning hasn't even been attempted yet, I'm not sure how you can make an objective statement like this.

But I feel as though we're kind of just arguing back and forth here. Can we all agree that our DR is too low, and with Vengeance gone we need more aoe threat?

Neither of these statements are objectively true.

[Karnudge]

What?

There's a major disconnect here somewhere. I'm willing to chalk it up as me not understanding what you're trying to describe though. However you can definitely use Thrash at least twice (actually 3 times with Haste buff) within the 10 second duration. Although again this brings me back to my original point of "Pulverize's Duration is too Short" which also addresses your issue (at least somewhat).

There is a major disconnect lol, that's why I stopped the back and forth. And yes, giving pulverize a longer duration helps.

Since DPS tuning hasn't even been attempted yet, I'm not sure how you can make an objective statement like this.

That was hypothetical. But with Vengeance gone, we're trying to do AOE, maybe some big spellcaster decides he/she wants to do single target, maybe she/she pulls, ya know, stuff like that.

Neither of these statements are objectively true.

Ok here's the crux. Our DR is ok? Our Threat is ok? Is our DR too low...in certain situations only? I thought it was pretty much agreed that this latest beta build hit us too hard in too many different areas. However, I may very well have misread or read too deeply into a wrong post.

How are we doing?

[Arielle]

maybe some big spellcaster decides he/she wants to do single target, maybe she/she pulls, ya know, stuff like that.

Then they shouldn't be stupid and you should let them die. Or you (as in the tank - whoever that may be) screwed up and didn't focus on the predetermined target. You should never be able to maintain aggro vs a single target DPS with purely AoE abilities. At least not indefinitely.

How are we doing?

Objectively in terms of survival performance relative to other tanks, pretty much fine. Our problems are entirely mechanical ones that make the spec frustrating to play by forcing a specific gearing style (Armor/Mastery/Versa), forcing specific talent choices, or incentivizing counter-intuitive tanking styles (i.e. as many things that melee you as possible without threatening you).

[Raugnaut]

You can't spam lacerate to pulverize when you have to spam aoe to get threat, they share the GCD. You can't even cast your aoe twice and miss the 10 sec duration and then pulverize falls off and now you're taking 20% more dmg on a character that has already has its DR nerfed.

Yes, you can hit thrash once, and then lacerate-lacerate-lacerate-pulverize, but then the mage has pulled threat, and the poor little bugger panics and he's running away, taking your mobs with him.

You can do it, but it sucks.

And adding dmg to UV would make it like DND or Consecrate. It makes a little sense, and would ease aoe threat to the point where you could lacerate all day.

But I feel as though we're kind of just arguing back and forth here. Can we all agree that our DR is too low, and with Vengeance gone we need more aoe threat?

A couple notes.

One- When numbers tuning are done, all tanks SHOULD be relatively equal in dps. As should dps, outside of niche situations. The current aim seems to be for tanks to be within ~75% of a dps's output, or 25% less then what a dps can do.
Two- All tanks generate 900% additional threat. In order for a dps to out-threat you, they will have to do 10x your damage output. Given that a tank should be within 25% of an equivalent geared dps, something would have to be going very wrong, or it would be a retardly niche situation (I.E Destro Lock going balls-to-the-wall on a new add that just came out.)

This means that in AoE situations, you Thrash once. You now have threat on ALL targets hit by thrash, FOREVER, in AoE situations. If a dps is going ape with single-target damage and is pulling threat, this either means that A) That dps is a dumbass and deserves to die from a mob-in-face cause, or B) a primary focus target was designated, and you failed by not using a single mangle on that target.

Now, something I am currently unsure of- did they remove the 200% extra threat modifier on Taunts? If that's still baked in, you simple taunt primary threat target, mangle it, and dps will never, EVER pull threat off you, as long as you continue to do some modicum of damage on it.

So atm, guardians have no problem with AoE, in terms of damage and threat. We DO have a problem with our AoE being boring as fuck. Doing what Arielle suggests would probs alleviate that.

[Dreyen]

They removed the 200% threat modifier from taunts... i think it's pointless to remove it as it was a nice quality of life thing if you ever outdpsed your co-tank, but oh well.

But out of all this discussion, i really like arielle's suggestion of no front damage thrash, swipe sharing a cd with mangle, giving the same bonuses as mangle and acting as a huge kegsmash would be really nice, so you'd keep your single target rotation and keep thrash up / swipe on cd.

[Munkey]

Input swipe.

Put a 3 sec on thrash, and then we swipe swipe swipe swipe SWIPIN ALL DAY

Theres a reason people have not posted swipe as a rotation...
Swipe (Bear Form) has been removed.
Hence thats why we are posting about Thrash spamming, cause theres no point in swiping cause it cannot be used in Bear form come Dreanor.

[Totaltotemic]

New build has 5 rage every time you dodge, that seems incredibly awful for single target tanking but wildly overpowered for multitarget tanking, odd choice. There's still nothing done about Pulverize or passive damage mitigation, which is kind of disappointing.

[exochaft]

For all the raid testing i've done, i've never felt rage starved.. had plenty of rage to keep SD 100% up and use some FR, had to choose a bit between maul and FR though.

Getting back here a little late, health hasn't been treating me well and keeping me away from the comp.

Part of the reason why you don't feel the rage issues as much in raid testing is because gear is getting scaled to the appropriate raid level, and you (kind of) have a choice in how you gear out for it if you make a premade 100. Also, as we've beaten to death, PF bug with Thrash works in our favor on a lot of fights in terms of RPS and hides pure single-target issues. Before getting full raid gear, it's not uncommon to pass 5-6 GCD's before you generate 60 rage for single-target. New beta build may change that, though.

Anyways, moving on to the AoE, I'd definitely be in favor of a more Keg Smash-esque implementation of Swipe (honestly thought it should've been that for a long time, or at least Thrash taking that role when we had both). I think Guardians are reaching their limit of spammable abilities, anyways, as my Lacerate finger is already crying before WoD going live. A slight note on threat: perhaps the only issue would be tank vs tank threat rather than DPS vs tank threat in AoE situations once everything is balanced properly. Having a strong impact damage ability for AoE may allow Guardians to maintain or establish AoE threat instead of automatically losing to another tank class's strong cleave or burst AoE. Don't get me wrong, I haven't seen this come up in testing where it's been a problem yet, just a minor quality of life issue that pops up occasionally since AoE threat seems to be balanced over time versus short windows. Also, if DPS windows are tight enough in Mythic difficulty, I can't see guilds not telling both tanks to AoE when it matters.

[Raugnaut]

New build has 5 rage every time you dodge, that seems incredibly awful for single target tanking but wildly overpowered for multitarget tanking, odd choice. There's still nothing done about Pulverize or passive damage mitigation, which is kind of disappointing.

The 5 rage thing, hasn't that been in since start of beta?

In AoE situations, we are pretty much swimming in rage due to that, and Thrash (which was bugged and giving more rage then intended due to Primal Fury, may be fixed in latest build). After ~4 targets, SD pretty much pays for itself for rage cost with some decent RNG. (Guardian of Elune requires 6 targets in order to pay for itself. Mobs have a 1.5 sec attack speed, they attack twice, GoE is guaranteed dodge, 10 rage generated per target per GoE.

For single target, its basically passive rage that comes trickling in- essentially gives SD a 55-45 rage cost.

ATM, the problem for single target is that our baseline rage generation is really, really low, especially with Pulverize. We generate enough rage to use SD on CD, and to use a 60 rage FR once/30 seconds or so. (Although you will probs wind up using it on Maul for max rage usage. Since tank tuning is coming up, it makes me wonder whether or not Maul-TC will just be much more efficient then FR, causing you to only use maul/SD)

Gear isn't going to make it better. Arielle calcd it out, and it requires 2k haste/crit (our RPS stats) in order to get 1 extra RPS. Considering that 2k MS gives ~20% MS, a huge EH boost (Possibly equivalent/better to haste/crit in terms of self-healing due to Ysera's Gift, will need to calc that out), MS/Mastery are infintely better then haste/crit, making any piece with haste or crit absolute trash.

So, as it stands, bears are currently faced with an extremely slow active mitigation for the entire expansion. We will also be taking more bleed damage then all other tanks unless we take pulverize.

Good news is, we will have a TON of EH. We will probs wind up having 2x, potentially 3-4x (close to 100% MS) more health then warriors/paladins

[Arielle]

The 5 rage thing, hasn't that been in since start of beta?

Yes.

Gear isn't going to make it better. Arielle calcd it out, and it requires 2k haste/crit (our RPS stats) in order to get 1 extra RPS.

It's 1650, but same diff. Taking 1650 rage stats over 1650 Mastery or Versa is dumb move, at least right now. Fixing that problem involves nerfing Versa (which it should anyway, since it double dips for tanks) for tanks, but that's easily done.

[Braindwen]

Fixing that problem involves nerfing Versa (which it should anyway, since it double dips for tanks) for tanks, but that's easily done.

Um.... what? Never expected anyone to say or even think versatility was OP .

Mastery is still in every way better than versatility except magic damage and raid-healing (and probably DPS, but ignoring that for now). ~.75% Physical DR vs. .5% DR. ~1% boost to FR and T&C for mastery vs. 1% boost to FR, HT, Rejuv, and CW for versatility (um, I should probably post in the TiB bug report that versatility still doesn't buff T&C, just been slipping my mind). 110 rating for that vs. 130 rating for that.

Not really sure that double-dipping matters. .5% DR on its own would be pretty terrible, the healing boost keeps it in the running at least.

[Arielle]

Um.... what? Never expected anyone to say or even think versatility was OP .

It's fine relative to Mastery and Bonus Armor. It's not fine relative to Haste and Crit. Mastery is supposed to be our 2nd best secondary anyway, so I'm inclined to leave it where it is. Versa is far, far, far better than Haste or Crit right now, but removing the passive DR from it fixes that problem.

[Braindwen]

It's fine relative to Mastery and Bonus Armor. It's not fine relative to Haste and Crit. Mastery is supposed to be our 2nd best secondary anyway, so I'm inclined to leave it where it is. Versa is far, far, far better than Haste or Crit right now, but removing the passive DR from it fixes that problem.

Or they could buff haste and crit to not be terrible.

A stat that only buffs our healing by 1% alongside stats that buff our healing by 1% AND do other stuff is garbage (bonus armor is actually far more than a 1% buff to healing on top of its armor...). I'd be inclined not to have 1 god stat, 1 good stat, 3 garbage stats, and 1 health stat as our "choice" of secondaries.

[Arielle]

Or they could buff haste and crit to not be terrible.

A stat that only buffs our healing by 1% alongside stats that buff our healing by 1% AND do other stuff is garbage (bonus armor is actually far more than a 1% buff to healing on top of its armor...). I'd be inclined not to have 1 god stat, 1 good stat, 3 garbage stats, and 1 health stat as our "choice" of secondaries.

Oh yeah, I 100% agree with that. I'd rather have 3 stats on the level of Versa, Mastery slightly higher, and BA as the god stat. It's entirely possible there's something we haven't seen coming up in the tank tuning pass.