[Guardian] Taking too much damage?

[Vouksh89]

My guild is just now starting to foray into raiding again. Last night we downed normal kargath and butcher fairly easily (Kargath was a 1-shot once we realized that were attempting heroic, and butcher went down once we got our groups straightened out). We got a couple attempts on Brackenspore, but we were just destroyed each time.

When I looked at the logs, on each attempt I took way more damage than our prot warrior. He was getting melee'd for maybe 44k on average, whereas I was getting hit for 63k.

Here are our logs: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/N8Z4LatmykrBYC27
My armory: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...lekai/advanced

Is there anything I can do to help reduce the damage I take? I do my best to be near the healing/rejuvenating mushrooms, and time my cooldowns with Necrotic Breath. However, it's harder than normal to maintain both rage generation for SD and pulverize on that fight for some reason, unless I'm near a rejuv mushroom.

We're going back in tonight for a few more attempts, and I'd like to do so without feeling like a liability.

[uzumati]

We really dont take more damage that other tanks my logs i am generally taking about the same or just less than the other tank

Just looking at the Butcher kill your Pulverize had 63.37% uptime should be as close to 100% as possible, for savage defense i save 1 charge to make sure it is up for cleave ( i have gone 4 stacks of tenderizer without taking a single bleed stack from cleave) you had 49 T&C procs and 49 mauls so that was good as long as you didnt "waiste" any procs and use Maul without the T&C proc up. Thrash uptime is kinda low its not much but it is free rage. All in all i try to keep up savage def as much as possible during times i am taking Heavy Handed damage and then save 1 charge for cleave when i am primary on the boss. Other than that i BS the 2nd tend and SI the 3rd and 4th or call for Healer cd if SI on cd.

[Vouksh89]

Actually, it's Brackenspore that I'm struggling with. We got the Butcher down (and I know I'll get better with practice) but we're barely getting to 60% on Bracken. I feel like if I could lower the damage I take a bit, we wouldn't struggle as much. It just seems like I'm doing something wrong, and I can't figure out what.

[uzumati]

Same thing

Pulverize 33.13% uptime
T&C 91 Mauls 66 T&C procs
Savage Defense 16.58% uptime

BS for 1st Breath SI for second or call for Healer CD, CW right after Breaths since Resolve will be high

[exochaft]

Actually, it's Brackenspore that I'm struggling with. We got the Butcher down (and I know I'll get better with practice) but we're barely getting to 60% on Bracken. I feel like if I could lower the damage I take a bit, we wouldn't struggle as much. It just seems like I'm doing something wrong, and I can't figure out what.

Well, from the logs, there's a couple things going on in the encounter that will just add up and cause issues (most of it resolves around the Fungal Flesh-Eaters). For example, zero excuse for Decay to ever be cast by the Fungal Flesh-Eaters. Also, there's evidence that DPSers are not prioritizing getting the Flesh Eater down... I think one of the DPS outright ignored the first two. While this may not seem directly related to tank survival, it is: the longer this add is up, the higher the stack of Flesh Eater on the mobs gets, making it hit faster, cast faster, and hit harder. Your adds were getting 6-7 stacks, which I believe equates to 60-70% faster attack speed and damage done on Normal. Obviously you cannot avoid getting some stacks, but there appears to be a lack of interest in killing the Flesh Eaters, and that will translate into more tank damage than necessary.

As uzumati has been pointing out, there is room for improvement in the Guardian department. SD uptime is very low for the amount/size of melee hits that are coming in. While T&C is nice, it seems like you're spending too much rage on Mauls and getting hit a lot more often due to lack of SD uptime (on my logs for the same fights, I'm avoiding roughly 35-50% more attacks on average than you are). Also, you have my permission to use Berserk on all boss encounters, it's not only damage but more rage to get better SD uptime. Plus, I'd hiiiiiiiighly recommend getting health pots, as they scale with Resolve and heal for massive amounts (>200k)... healthstones are also okay, but they heal for a lot less.

While it will come down to personal preference, at the very least use Pulverize when you know you're going to take huge amounts of damage, such as Necrotic Breath or high stacks of Rot/Infesting Spores. I've personally been using Pulverize mostly just on those abilities even on mythic Brackenspore with very good success, as other times either don't require Pulverize up or having Pulverize up wouldn't be as productive as doing something else. That doesn't mean I won't put up Pulverize as much as possible, I just prioritize its use probably more than just blindly keeping it up. If you feel incoming damage is an issue, by all means keep it up all the time until you feel comfortable otherwise.

[Bashari]

Definitely need to improve savage defense uptime. The majority of damage that you're taking is from melee swings. My SD uptime is about 33% over an 8min Brackenspore log. Keeping up pulverize the whole time will definitely help reduce your damage taken. Remember that even when you're not tanking the boss you'll probably have the ticking debuff and/or the add on you, so 15% damage reduction will almost always be useful on this fight. Advice from the bears above is all very good.

Here is a my brackenspore log if you want to compare.