Guardian Alpha Patchnotes

[Teye]

Other tanks don't have a huge physical mitigation absorb at their control.

The physical mitigations include:

Warrior: Shield Block: Increased block and critical block.
Paladin: Shield of the Righteous: % reduced physical damage taken.
Monk: Shuffle + Stagger + Elusive Brew: Increased parry and dodge and smooth damage intake.
Death Knight: Death Strike: Small physical damage absorb shield.

Giving Druids control of their mastery shield would be giving us a physical damage shield that is greater than half our health pool on a 9 second recharge with 2 charges.

Okay...

Warrior: Shield Barrier. On live, I have a 1.3 MILLION absorb with 60 rage and 500k Vengeance.
Paladin: In ToT, Sacred Shield was hitting absolutely insane numbers when solo tanking Tortos and Ji-kun. It may not be something they use for every fight anymore, but it's still an on demand absorb.
Monk: Guard. I don't even need to say anything else.
DK: With 105% Mastery the bubble from Death Strike is anything but small.

My statement stands. Every other tank spec has an on demand shield. I never said that shield was tied to their AM (It is for 3/4 though).

Giving Druids control of their mastery shield would be giving us a physical damage shield that is greater than half our health pool on a 9 second recharge with 2 charges.

Warriors on live have an absorb every 10~ seconds (dependent on rage regen, I.E. Crit Blocks and Crits.) that's equal to their max health. That's literally twice as good as what Bloodrayne proposed.

[Callsignecho]

Okay...

Warrior: Shield Barrier. On live, I have a 1.3 MILLION absorb with 60 rage and 500k Vengeance.
Paladin: In ToT, Sacred Shield was hitting absolutely insane numbers when solo tanking Tortos and Ji-kun. It may not be something they use for every fight anymore, but it's still an on demand absorb.
Monk: Guard. I don't even need to say anything else.
DK: With 105% Mastery the bubble from Death Strike is anything but small.

My statement stands. Every other tank spec has an on demand shield. I never said that shield was tied to their AM (It is for 3/4 though).



Warriors on live have an absorb every 10~ seconds (dependent on rage regen, I.E. Crit Blocks and Crits.) that's equal to their max health. That's literally twice as good as what Bloodrayne proposed.

But you have to realize that every heal and absorb that tanks have got nerfed into the ground. All you have given is live numbers and everything that you have stated doesn't even come close to applying to beta.

Assuming the full raid buffs one can get in Shatt:

Warrior: Shield Barrier: 331K health, base ~45k absorb, at 100% resolve ~90k absorb
Paladin: Sacred Shield: 379k health, ~6.5k base absorb, at 100% resolve ~13.5k absorb
Monk: Guard: 401k health, ~12.5k base absorb, at 100% resolve ~16.5k absorb
Death Knight: Death Strike Shield: 420k health, 116% mastery, ~33k base absorb, at 100% resolve ~ 70k absorb

As you can see, most of the shields are complete garbage now. They ones that are on the high side go completely against their tooltip numbers, so I will assume they are higher than they are suppose to be (Warrior and Death Knight).

Druid: New Mastery: Gain a physical absorb shield equal to 56.8% of that hit's damage.

If we are hit with a physical damaging attack that does about the same damage each time, it is a passive 28.4% physical damage reduction through an absorb shield. On top of that, it doesn't require the Druid to waste resources and/or and global CD in order for it to work. It just comes every other hit naturally.

[exochaft]

It's a bit hard for us to say exactly how we compare to other tanks until Blizz comes out and says "This is the balance we want," especially since I think some of the other tanks are undertuned or not functioning properly. Regardless, as I've said before, our Guardian model and the power it may or may not contain is the price of flavor. The reason we have quite a bit of passive mitigation strength is because the rest of the Guardian package makes it necessary to work. Other tanks don't require as much passive love because their active abilities make up for it, particularly when it comes to active mitigation.

The side effect of the Guardian model, in order to balance at the high end of content (current raid content), is that Guardians will likely be stronger at the low end of content. It's similar to how blood DK's have operated in the past, being amazingly strong at survival in the low end content while becoming balanced with other tanks at the high end. Encounter design will likely play a big role in how we actually perceive the high end balance for all tanks, which is what likely matters to most people (I don't see much complaint about <insert tank class> being too good at easy content).

[Gemini Soul]

But you have to realize that every heal and absorb that tanks have got nerfed into the ground. All you have given is live numbers and everything that you have stated doesn't even come close to applying to beta.

Assuming the full raid buffs one can get in Shatt:

Warrior: Shield Barrier: 331K health, base ~45k absorb, at 100% resolve ~90k absorb
Paladin: Sacred Shield: 379k health, ~6.5k base absorb, at 100% resolve ~13.5k absorb
Monk: Guard: 401k health, ~12.5k base absorb, at 100% resolve ~16.5k absorb
Death Knight: Death Strike Shield: 420k health, 116% mastery, ~33k base absorb, at 100% resolve ~ 70k absorb

As you can see, most of the shields are complete garbage now. They ones that are on the high side go completely against their tooltip numbers, so I will assume they are higher than they are suppose to be (Warrior and Death Knight).

Druid: New Mastery: Gain a physical absorb shield equal to 56.8% of that hit's damage.

If we are hit with a physical damaging attack that does about the same damage each time, it is a passive 28.4% physical damage reduction through an absorb shield. On top of that, it doesn't require the Druid to waste resources and/or and global CD in order for it to work. It just comes every other hit naturally.

They haven't even done a numbers pass yet, and resolve is still buggy from what i heard same with the dummies. So all those numbers are pointless. Our mastery is more or less our version of Block from shield tanks so it should passively provide an avg dmg reduction.

Point is SD needs some kind of change because of them removing a charge and its hit or miss AM play style.


With the change i suggested, all it would do is make sure we get a mastery shield if we don't all ready. We will get them during SD usage any ways because of RNG but with a change like that it makes SD rage spend worth it.


Has any one been able to test out the MS wep enchant yet, would love to see some up-time/HP% boost with just the wep enc. With the raid MS buff 5% + wep enc + w/e MS we have on gear while focusing on Haste/mastery, should be enough to maintain Ursa Major at a decent lvl while letting us gear for better stats.

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Ironically, I tried doing that. The unfortunate part is that I've gotten used to the rhythm of the typical Lacerate every other GCD, and the new beta model is killing my finger that's in charge of the Lacerate bind. Figured I could buy a foot pedal, bind Lacerate to that, and get majorly buffed leg muscles by the end of WoD.... alright, I'd have to get two, I want my legs to be even.

One of the people i raid with, uses a Pedal for vent lol.

[Teye]

One of the people i raid with, uses a Pedal for vent lol.

I did this for years until I swapped to tanking. Once I was tanking, I spoke often enough that I needed something more easily accessible.

[trifrost]

Change Pulverize to Baseline and remove the 20% DR. Add in a buff to either X% boost to FR healing for the next 10 sec or X% boost for the next FR healing. This allows Pulverize to be a normal rotation skill with a slight benefit that wouldn't be a great lose if you miss Pulverize within 10sec (maybe like during aoe/berserk/incarnation)

Change the T100 Pulverize into Enhanced Pulverize. Add in 10%DR for 10sec and a 10sec Absorb shield based on either X% Resolve or Mastery or max HP. This change Pulverize into a hybrid button where you can execute Pulverize as a normal rotation skill and a On Demand Absorb Shield by timing or delaying Pulverize right before Boss Alpha Strike.

[Gemini Soul]

If there was a glyph that changes your bear form to this would you use it?

[Callsignecho]

Looks like nothing happened in the new build for us.

[Dreyen]

they removed the "balance, restoration" tag from entangling roots and a few other spells... either just tooltip stuff, or maybe these spells are becoming available again for the specs that had them pruned? If so, thats really nice considering its mostly spells that saw usage in out of spec roles.

[sdkphoenix]

they removed the "balance, restoration" tag from entangling roots and a few other spells... either just tooltip stuff, or maybe these spells are becoming available again for the specs that had them pruned? If so, thats really nice considering its mostly spells that saw usage in out of spec roles.

Jumped on and as feral I have roots back. Glad that change has been reverted.

[Braindwen]

Jumped on and as feral I have roots back. Glad that change has been reverted.

Bear has roots back too. We also got rejuv back, so yay!

[exochaft]

Guardian mastery actually working against bleeds and Incarnation not messing up bear buffs this build? I'd check myself, but I've been plagued by the b.net error #107 until someone on Blizz's end fixes that.

*edit* - Got the error fixed, but I probably won't be able to get on the beta for a while (gogo minecraft with my kid), so if anyone happens to know the answer to my previous query, I won't be upset if you tell me before I discover it on my own!

[Arielle]

Incarnation still clears Ursa Major.

Not sure about the bleed thing. I'll check tonight though.

Edit: Complete list of known bugs: http://www.theincbear.com/forums/vie...hp?f=46&t=1279

[Raugnaut]

Bear has roots back too. We also got rejuv back, so yay!

So HotW is now "no longer complete and total trash". Is still trash compared to NV. but not quite as trashy.

I really hope they redesign HotW, but I doubt that will happen.

[Braindwen]

So HotW is now "no longer complete and total trash". Is still trash compared to NV. but not quite as trashy.

I really hope they redesign HotW, but I doubt that will happen.

Rejuv spam in cat form is what we do with HotW on live, so it's not really trash for us with just rejuv. And NV is very underwhelming on the beta, like <50% of one person's HP over the duration underwhelming.

[exochaft]

So HotW is now "no longer complete and total trash". Is still trash compared to NV. but not quite as trashy.

I really hope they redesign HotW, but I doubt that will happen.

Same goes for DoC in that tier of talents for Guardian... I'd say convert it to a hybrid of the Feral version of DoC, but that'd probably be very overtuned in a good way (been testing Feral for my guild, DoC + Rejuv/HT while not leaving kitty is sick).

On some level, I've been wanting to steal the Feral leveling perk of casting Rejuv without leaving form (at least would like b-rez to work that way). The obvious downside is that it would make our self-sustainability a little too good. However, I think this more about being able to cast spells in Bear Form without the need of a talent, aka HotW and DoC. Rejuv could be tuned for bears to not be super sexy unless you pick Talent A, akin to DoC making Healing Touch have oomph behind it. Our GCD situation is already a deterrent from doing something other than offensive versus healing in this manner anyways. I suppose the best way to view it is that the current combination of talents and QoL issues seem to be butting heads currently... I'll think of a better way to word it later, since I have my kid jumping up and down on my lap as I type.

[Gemini Soul]

The way the 90 talents are looking now, seems like i will end up taking DoC for the buff to mangle and to be able to FINALLY br in bear form and when not tanking i can use the free HT on my co-tank or other raid members.

HoTW seems pointless to take w/o the passive stats and can't see NV doing any real decent healing now that we won't have vengeance to boost our DPS high when we actually want to use it.

[Callsignecho]

The way the 90 talents are looking now, seems like i will end up taking DoC for the buff to mangle and to be able to FINALLY br in bear form and when not tanking i can use the free HT on my co-tank or other raid members.

HoTW seems pointless to take w/o the passive stats and can't see NV doing any real decent healing now that we won't have vengeance to boost our DPS high when we actually want to use it.

The problem with DoC is that Mangle has to Crit before you get the chance to to get HT and Rebirth in form and, with the way the stats currently look, Crit is our worst stat. At least NV will work off of your damage output, even if the heals are not that great. HotW could still be used at a very niche point in a fight, now that we have Rejuv back, to heal the raid when you are not tanking something. However, I think the talent would be better if you could perform any Druid ability in any form. That way, you could heal in Bear form.

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Also, has anyone been able to get Pulverize to work since the new build was released?

[exochaft]

The problem with DoC is that Mangle has to Crit before you get the chance to to get HT and Rebirth in form and, with the way the stats currently look, Crit is our worst stat. At least NV will work off of your damage output, even if the heals are not that great. HotW could still be used at a very niche point in a fight, now that we have Rejuv back, to heal the raid when you are not tanking something. However, I think the talent would be better if you could perform any Druid ability in any form. That way, you could heal in Bear form.

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Also, has anyone been able to get Pulverize to work since the new build was released?

The row of talents will probably need another pass, especially since NV doesn't provide a damage boos while the others technically do. Not necessarily saying that there should be damage boosts across the board, I'm rather implying that the lvl 90 talent row being "all about heals and nothing else" isn't really there yet... at least for Guardians. I'd still be a fan if we could cast any druid ability while in Bear Form being baseline while being tuned to only be powerful if you spec into a certain talent. Could be something along the lines of HotW making Rejuv worthwhile to use while tanking, DoC making Healing Touch worthwhile while tanking, and NV could be what it is as a damage->healing conversion. Not saying exclusively just doing those things, but the net effect in the healing department would have more direction to it. While I can already see some people saying "but that's what they already do!", I'd rather have the ability to use spells in form not be tied to talents.

And yes, Pulverize is bugged or disabled in this new build.

[Raugnaut]

The row of talents will probably need another pass, especially since NV doesn't provide a damage boos while the others technically do. Not necessarily saying that there should be damage boosts across the board, I'm rather implying that the lvl 90 talent row being "all about heals and nothing else" isn't really there yet... at least for Guardians. I'd still be a fan if we could cast any druid ability while in Bear Form being baseline while being tuned to only be powerful if you spec into a certain talent. Could be something along the lines of HotW making Rejuv worthwhile to use while tanking, DoC making Healing Touch worthwhile while tanking, and NV could be what it is as a damage->healing conversion. Not saying exclusively just doing those things, but the net effect in the healing department would have more direction to it. While I can already see some people saying "but that's what they already do!", I'd rather have the ability to use spells in form not be tied to talents..

Unfortunately, even with HotW Rejuve is barely worth casting. Remember that next expansion, every single GCD will become significantly more valuable then now. ATM, the only ability that is "worth" using on CD is Mangle. Every other ability is just filler that can be used whenever, so if you want to sacrifice all your lacerate/trash/FF GCDs for rejuve spam, you can do that. Next expansion, however, every single GCD slot will become significantly more valuable, especially if you take Pulverize. So the only way for HotW Rejuve/DoC HT to be worth casting is either A) For both abilities to be off the GCD when proced, or B) for both abilities to generate a good amount of rage, at a minimum of 7-8 rage.

Damage wise, HotW-Cat Form/Wrath spam is... not really worth it. ATM, sure, use it if you have 0 vengeance, and won't be actively tanking anything for a full 45 seconds. (That basically doesn't happen atm, and HotW is much more worth saving to use with Tranq). Next expansion, however, you will be dealing a significant amount of damage baseline, with the damage buff all tanks are facing. HotW really isn't worth using anymore- Cat Form has basically all of its abilities removed, which significantly lowers the damage output of HotW-Cat for all 3 specs, and Wrath-Spamming puts the bear druid at great risk. Thus, HotW is pretty much not worth using for dps.

As for DoC... ATM, the 10% extra crit chance on mangle is roughly a 2% dps increase, which pales in comparision to the current dps increase by Nature's Vigil, and is roughly equal to HotW's 6% agility. However, next expansion, Mangle does a much smaller amount of our overall damage- Lacerate had its damage increased quite a bit, there is Pulverize, Maul will be seeing much more usage with the improved Tooth and Claw perk, ect. Thus, Mangle's overall damage contribution goes down compared to live. The healing portion has already been covered- its just not worth using over a different ability, compared to live where a HT can easily top off any player, and heal the guardian for 50%+ of their max health.

NV, on the other hand? Sure, it doesn't offer any damage benefits, but the damage benefits offered by the L90 tier in WoD will become very small. It greatly increases Guardian's utility, as NV puts out about the same amount of healing as Tranq, just over a longer period of time (30 seconds compared to the 8 seconds for tranq.) It also has significantly higher uptime and usage ability- 33% uptime, 90 second cooldown, compared to the current 8 min CD of Tranq. (The only reason that NV isn't picked over HotW+Tranq is that currently having a huge amount of instant-healing once a fight is superior, fight-design was, to moderate amounts of trickling healings multiple times a fight)

Yea, as it stands, for Guardian, NV just outright beats HotW/DoC so bad that its not even funny. HotW needs a significant revamp for Boomkins/Ferals/Guardians with the removal of Tranquility from those 3 specs. Sadly though, since there has been very few changes to that tier since the start of the beta (few touch-ups here and there) I think that HotW will go live in its horrible form, and be replaced during 6.3 or something. DoC needs to make either HT grant rage to the druid, or make HT off the GCD on procs. In addition, with the change to crit for Guardians, it needs to be a guaranteed proc on crit, instead of a 40% proc on a small chance.

Finally, Rebirth needs to be castable in all forms baseline, pure and simple.