[Guardian] Considering the jump?

[Bearshield]

The concerns being raised here stem from concerns that many of us brought up during beta, only to have certain well-respected members of the community argue with. There are still a significant number of people arguing that bears are "fine". Well "fine" and "viable" don't equal good or desirable. Here are some of the issues as I see them:

The Bear as it has existed since patch 1.8 does not fit Blizzard's active mitigation model. Passive mitigation/avoidance was ALWAYS a bear thing since the days when Warriors were spamming shield block to avoid crushing blows and we were eating them with our high armor or dodging them completely with high dodge. Blizzard tried forcing active mitigation on us before to an extent by reducing our armor and giving us the original Savage Defense, which some of you will remember was a mediocre absorb mechanic riddled with issues. Eventually our armor was given back and SD changed from an absorb to a drastically increased chance to dodge, and while good bears were using SD, it was certainly not vital to our survival. Then we get to WoD and Blizz is pushing for tanks to be even more reliant on active mitigation. The obvious way to do this is by reducing your passive mitigation/avoidance to FORCE you to depend on those AM buttons. The problem is, out of all the tanks, bears still do not have a true active "mitigation" button.

Solution: Re-design Savage Defense to be an absorb again, effectively a "bear block". Scrap the current mastery, and tie it to SD the way it is for other tanks. Personally I'm not a fan of AM period (am I the only one who remembers when crushing blows were removed because Blizz acknowledged having to time shield block to line up with them wasn't fun?) but since it looks like it's here to stay, we need a reliable way to do it. Wouldn't mind having Might of Ursoc back either since we are now the only tank lacking a Last Stand-type ability. Give it a 3 min cd.

I also feel Pulverize should be baseline again (it was in Cata). Perhaps reduce our HP bonus and make Pulverize baseline. Like others have said, having a more moderate health pool and better overall survival is much more desirable in a raid setting than a huge health pool that is frequently spiking. And as was shown in this thread, healers aren't watching to see if you heal yourself when you spike, they're going to race to get you back up at the same time you're popping FR and that hurts everyone.

Then there's the matter of our AoE: No one can argue that Thrash was ridiculous the way it went live, but it was our ONLY aoe. There was no good reason for the removal of Swipe. Button bloat has never been an issue for Druids due to forms and Bears have always had one of the smallest toolkits of all the tanks.

Solution: Bring back Swipe, put a 15-30 sec cd on Thrash.

Our utility is still severely lacking, as it has since we lost the ability to play as bearcats (which you could argue was never really "tank utility" anyhow). There is no good reason for us to still not be able to brez in form without relying on DoC to proc. If a fat chicken can ride a mount, a bear can wiggle its toes and cast a rez. I wouldn't mind seeing something like Demo Roar come back honestly.

The idea that "Bears will get better with gear" is poor game design. No guild when given a choice wants to carry the tank that "gets better with gear" on progression fights and we should not feel compelled to gear out another tank class to avoid burdening our guilds until content is on farm.

[Deleted]

Agree with the above Bearshields. We're somewhere in between the 'old' style of tanking (which I think suits us better) and the new AM style, and we have no synergy between the two sides. Personally, I'd like to see us retain the flavour of the old style whilst keeping up with the fun that AM has to offer. I think that's what they tried to do, it just didn't really work.

I don't think turning FR back into an absorb would work too well though, it feels like a large health pool and an absorb kind of do the same thing, not to mention TnC and our mastery; although it would solve the problem that we are competing with our own healers to heal ourself. I'd prefer to see FR turned into a healing-taken buff, or a HoT, or some kind of hybrid (overheal is converted into a HoT). Right now, I only use FR in an oh-**** moment, whereas it should be made such that its our default AM - much more fitting with our style.

[Farseer]

The concerns being raised here stem from concerns that many of us brought up during beta, only to have certain well-respected members of the community argue with. There are still a significant number of people arguing that bears are "fine". Well "fine" and "viable" don't equal good or desirable. Here are some of the issues as I see them:

The Bear as it has existed since patch 1.8 does not fit Blizzard's active mitigation model. Passive mitigation/avoidance was ALWAYS a bear thing since the days when Warriors were spamming shield block to avoid crushing blows and we were eating them with our high armor or dodging them completely with high dodge. Blizzard tried forcing active mitigation on us before to an extent by reducing our armor and giving us the original Savage Defense, which some of you will remember was a mediocre absorb mechanic riddled with issues. Eventually our armor was given back and SD changed from an absorb to a drastically increased chance to dodge, and while good bears were using SD, it was certainly not vital to our survival. Then we get to WoD and Blizz is pushing for tanks to be even more reliant on active mitigation. The obvious way to do this is by reducing your passive mitigation/avoidance to FORCE you to depend on those AM buttons. The problem is, out of all the tanks, bears still do not have a true active "mitigation" button.

Solution: Re-design Savage Defense to be an absorb again, effectively a "bear block". Scrap the current mastery, and tie it to SD the way it is for other tanks. Personally I'm not a fan of AM period (am I the only one who remembers when crushing blows were removed because Blizz acknowledged having to time shield block to line up with them wasn't fun?) but since it looks like it's here to stay, we need a reliable way to do it. Wouldn't mind having Might of Ursoc back either since we are now the only tank lacking a Last Stand-type ability. Give it a 3 min cd.

I also feel Pulverize should be baseline again (it was in Cata). Perhaps reduce our HP bonus and make Pulverize baseline. Like others have said, having a more moderate health pool and better overall survival is much more desirable in a raid setting than a huge health pool that is frequently spiking. And as was shown in this thread, healers aren't watching to see if you heal yourself when you spike, they're going to race to get you back up at the same time you're popping FR and that hurts everyone.

Then there's the matter of our AoE: No one can argue that Thrash was ridiculous the way it went live, but it was our ONLY aoe. There was no good reason for the removal of Swipe. Button bloat has never been an issue for Druids due to forms and Bears have always had one of the smallest toolkits of all the tanks.

Solution: Bring back Swipe, put a 15-30 sec cd on Thrash.

Our utility is still severely lacking, as it has since we lost the ability to play as bearcats (which you could argue was never really "tank utility" anyhow). There is no good reason for us to still not be able to brez in form without relying on DoC to proc. If a fat chicken can ride a mount, a bear can wiggle its toes and cast a rez. I wouldn't mind seeing something like Demo Roar come back honestly.

The idea that "Bears will get better with gear" is poor game design. No guild when given a choice wants to carry the tank that "gets better with gear" on progression fights and we should not feel compelled to gear out another tank class to avoid burdening our guilds until content is on farm.

I agree with this. I've been playing Druid since just before TBC, main-spec bear since cata and have to say I feel like the choices Blizzard made for WoD Guardian Druids make absolutely no sense. They removed the extra passive dodge and armour we used to have, removed swipe, nerfed Thrash, removed our Last Stand ability, demoralizing roar, challenging roar, bear hug (which couldn't be used against bosses and some big adds but still a good stun/dps cooldown)...

I mean, I know they were trying to address the ability bloat but it feels like I'm lacking so many useful spells that I was using all the time. I don't see why they had to go. Surely these abilities didn't make us OP compared to other tanks, who have kept most of their useful abilities. We're left with one AoE spell. The DoT is nice but I don't see the point of a DoT if we have to spam the ability anyway to keep up with the threat of our dps and co-tanks. Similarly, it feels weird constantly having to consume my 3-stack Lacerate DoT after 3-5 seconds in to keep up Pulverize.

Come 6.1 I will try Bristling Fur to see how that works out. I can't help but feel a little weird about the thought of having 3 different defensive cooldowns that do the exact same thing: reduce your damage taken by X% for X seconds. It feels like they're pushing AM just for the sake of it. I mean come on, 3 different spells for the same effect? Isn't that totally uninspired? Doesn't that create the same ability bloat problem they were hoping to fix? How about an ability that mitigates magic damage instead?

Even though I'm not a fan of Savage Defense, if they are so hell-bent on Guardian Druids being dependent on AM, I agree that the old version of Savage Defense absorb with the Mastery tie-in would better. Having your main AM ability depend on RNG (you can cast it and there's still a good chance you'll get hit) doesn't feel very helpful.

I'm still going to stick with Guardian Druid because I prefer tanking over dps and healing, and my Druid has always been my main character, but if I can summarize my WoD Guardian Druid experience in one word, it would be uninspired.

[Deleted]

It's just the culmination of changes being done without planning how it will be for the class in the long run, removing things like Innervate and Tranquility made sense at the time but left us with no utility at all. At the time they were just small steps but the end result is less fun for players and being less useful to raids.

This would be fine if they were at least consistent but take one look at other classes and they haven't had to lose these things (Paladin and seals, loh etc). It's all rot that set in after they separated cat and bear.

[enak101]

Recently levelled a monk up and it feels like I can tank 5 mans at ~630 almost as well as my ~680 guardian. Levelled him up to do challenge modes since Guardians are a bit of a joke in those and am highly considering switching mains for the raid after blackrock (didn't gear up someone quick enough for blackrock). It's just a bit sad, because we are 'viable' but thats the best that can be said. I'm doing mythic ko'ragh tonight, paladin tank will probably be picking up the adds but I'm gonna feel quite useless.

[Gothmog]

Mained my druid since t4, rerolled to monk in December. Haven't regretted it for a moment.

Monk is stronger, with WAY more tools at his disposal, a more engaging playstyle, less clunky and a CRAPTON of niche abilities/talents. Wait till you get to Gruul / Oregorger and you have Monks taking 4th and 5th stacks with 90% DR while druids flail around with 40% and 50%.


Bear is dead for the expansion. They won't significantly change playstyle until the next one.
Hopefully they'll realize it needs more buffs, but omg does it seem Blizzard doesn't have a clue about their own class balance. Monks just getting buff after buff because they're "fixing" windwalkers, Warriors overbuffed in damage while bear is getting a completely absentminded pat on the back, points for effort in Mangle damage buff.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...706&dataset=75
Monk goes to 30k without any massive survivability drop, singletarget.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...722&dataset=75
40-43k with decent play.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...719&dataset=75
As expected.

In revised 6.1 Patch notes, Mangle damage is now increased by 27%

We'll still be last on singletarget by a noticable degree.

In other news, they're buffing BrM's by increasing Tiger Palm by 66%. Tiger Palm is something you're pushing as much as you can whenever you don't need to blow some energy so you don't cap. Making the damage output even higher and we're already gearing for Crit (offensive) instead of Mastery (defense) because we're taking so little damage.

[teddabear]

Quick napkin math shows Mangle needed a 90% increase to bring Guardians to middle of the pack and a 300% increase to bring them up to Pallies in single target. 27% seems underwhelming. More alarming though that they completely ignored toolkit and utility issues. Definitely agree with the posts that some self appointed Bear representatives don't have a clue.

[Casagrande]

+50% to mangle/maul would have brought us about even with other tanks on single target DPS, actually. Our AoE is a bit low, if they brought thrash up a bit to 75% of where it started it would be okay. Sustained cleave is very poor, but this is rarely a problem. Survivability issues could be mostly solved by significantly increasing rage generation to let us do more healing to make up for all the extra damage we take (like in SoO). Then some easy quality of life things like not dropping bear on displacer beast, letting us brez in form without a proc, shorter cooldown and duration on hotw. Give us back tranq for a bit of utility. Done, bears are fixed, you're welcome Blizzard. Our talents would still be boring, but at least we wouldn't be holding the raid back. I can deal with boring talents.

[teddabear]

That would probably bring them up to viable but not desirable. Utility and toolkit would still be sorely lacking. Unfortunately the same people that kept insisting that Bears were fine are now saying bears will have to wait until the next expansion to get fixed.

[Gothmog]

I hope you're not refering to me

I'm hardly a notable bear and most definitely haven't been saying bears are fine right from 1st day of release


I do agree with the "bears overhaul next expac". It's how Blizzard is handling these things. Although, it has to be admitted, these balancing hotfixes they put out during HM are a novelty. In the past, they left whatever balance patches for next raid release. Now they just kinda did it inbetween.
But real class mechanics remodel is never done midexpansion.

[teddabear]

Not entirely true other tanks have had lots of big adjustments during an expansion, sometimes a little change to how something works makes a huge difference. Imagine if the mastery absorb was not consumed entirely by any size hit but the hit subtracted from the absorb. That would make a huge difference on dealing with adds. Displacer beast doesn't change form, a small change that would help bears tremendously. Blizzard has made dozens of changes like that to other tanks, they have just always ignored Bears which led to them being in this state.

[Gothmog]

Oh yeah, smaller improvements like that, sure. Changing a specific ability to be more user friendly, more versatile or simply more powerful.

But a general spec overhaul, like ditching Pulverize as a talent and making it baseline, scrapping the RNG of AM, giving us more brand new tools (abilities) to our limited set,... that kind of major impact changes. Those are what I don't see happening.

That said, you're right.. Guardian doesn't NEED these big shifts to make it decent, small scale will do for the nonce. In the long term, they just have to figure the fuck out what they want Guardians to be, philosophically, so we're not constantly stuck somewhere in no-man's land. Wouldn't be such a problem shipping out fixes if they had a clear idea what we are meant to be.

[Bearshield]

In the long term, they just have to figure the fuck out what they want Guardians to be, philosophically, so we're not constantly stuck somewhere in no-man's land. Wouldn't be such a problem shipping out fixes if they had a clear idea what we are meant to be.

Those of us who have played Bears for the long haul have been saying this for years. 10 years later, Blizz still has no idea wtf to do with Druids. Druids have always been the real "hero class" of the game, with the capability to do everything in one way or another and it's been a blessing and a curse at the same time. It seems we're getting the same treatment as the pures now, where since we at least have one spec that's good, the rest are allowed to be subpar.

[Pooch]

I made an account here just to get some help with this very difficult decision

On an alliance toon, I have been a bear since Karazhan. I switched to horde for Ulduar and have basically had a feral alt (my former alliance bear who faction transferred) and a priest alt (along with some disc twink-style low levels).

I have never wanted to seriously raid with anything other than a bear. I absolutely love the idea of a big ass bear tanking for the raid.

I remember the double stamina nerf and was pretty freaked out about that, but ultimately I was wrong. I remember amazing times like bearcatting and being hugely instrumental on heroic spine and heroic Deathwing because I could drop to cat and pump out dps like a dps. And it was most amazing on Heroic Rag in beating that dps timer to get to the final phase. I knew bearcatting wouldn't last but MoP was good to us eventually as well. We ended up as wrecking balls in SoO who didn't need heals and topped the dps meters. I knew that wouldn't last either.

Then this expansion just felt stale to me. Wasn't too challenging. Bland talents. And one button thrash spamming. It was stupid. I was fine with the nerf initially b/c I was literally starting to get carpal tunnel from mashing one button. But a funny thing happened. We just became the weakest tank.

I have read over and over again on the warcraft forums, inconspicuous bear and here a percentage of bears saying we are fine, etc. And to some extent we are. My guild should go 6/7 mythic tonight and I don't feel like I've held up progression in any way. I know how to keep pulverize active, when to use tooth and claw and when to use my cd's. I HotW cat to much success on butcher and Koragh. So we may be "fine" but we are in no way comparable to any of the other tanks. That is just not true. There is not a high end guild raid manager on this planet that would choose a guardian over any other tank class considering equal skill and equal ilevel.

I have also waited patiently for guardian changes. But I started to get nervous so I boosted a monk and got really lucky in one guild alt heroic run and am sitting at ilevel 646 on him (compared to 675 I think on my bear -- in our guild tanks get last priority for gear). I already notice the huge difference in what I can do on the monk. I've often heard that a monk tank can do whatever a bear can but better. I now fully understand that statement. And I understand why bears I've known of for a long time like Evov and Casa are potentially switching.

So I had a chat with my raid leader last night who used to be a world top 10 guild tank and is now a dps for us. He said it's up to me if I want to make the switch. That tells me plenty b/c no way in his right mind would he sacrifice 30 ilevels at the start of a tier unless he understands the issues.

a few things:

1) I don't want to switch
2) I love my bear
3) I get monk tanking well so far -- I didn't think I would but I just do. And the tools they have just crush that of the guardian -- plain and simple.

So I came here looking for help with this decision before BRF drops tomorrow. I know the old cliches like "it's the player not the class" and "play the class that you enjoy" do not apply here. Is one 27% mangle buff enough to balance the guardian.

I'm really torn here but in this last 24 hours or so before the new raid, I'm leaning to switching.


Thoughts? Help? Advice?

I really appreciate it.

[Dreyen]

You've said it yourself.. if you want to be more, maybe monk is for you, you sound like youre attached to your druid, just like i am. I don't think anyone can deny a druid feels sluggish compared to a monk in what they can do. All I can say is that a guardian will probably always work, and who knows, you might see some niches where GoE and bristling is actually useful.

[teddabear]

Thoughts? Help? Advice?

You already know the answer.

[exochaft]

Monk is stronger, with WAY more tools at his disposal, a more engaging playstyle, less clunky and a CRAPTON of niche abilities/talents. Wait till you get to Gruul / Oregorger and you have Monks taking 4th and 5th stacks with 90% DR while druids flail around with 40% and 50%.

DK's are pretty good in this regard, as well, but it touches on a common theme: other tanks classes can still trivialize tanking mechanics that Guardians cannot by the use of niche abilities or even standard active mitigation. The question is should Guardians receive adjustments/abilities to trivialize various mechanics, or should other tanks get those abilities removed/toned down/adjusted so they cannot be used in such a manner? I think most of us would opt for the later for the sake of balance. I still find it rather hard to believe that Blizz lets <insert important mechanic> be trivialized or negated by a tank CD that isn't shared by all the tanks (at which point, it's intended to be trivialized). Having a tank be good at one fight is one thing, having a tank be good at all fights in comparison to others or completely inferior to others on all fights should be a huge no-go.

I'm digressing slightly, but I will say that within my guild and raiding circle of friends that this is the first time I've received such negative feedback just because of the class I'm tanking with since classic WoW (yes, I was a bear back then, too). It's not about how well I play, it's about how "you should just use <insert non-Guardian> tank instead since they're obviously better and probably holding your raid back." I'm referencing the stigma around Guardians, which has not always been the best, but I think we're reaching a new low. While I know my tanking status is secured with my druid, I worry about the ramifications upon the druid community as a whole. I don't believe that we're in dire straits to the point where we're completely non-viable, but the perception may become reality if things stay the same. FYI, I'll be Guardian the entire mythic BRF progression for my guild, so I won't give up hope!

[Dreyen]

I know what you mean exochaft, as much as i complain about the state of guardian, the amount of exageration i see is insane. I've read too many posts where people say they'Ve been turned down for being guardians for.. normal and heroic highmaul (lol)

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Bears are awesome in raids.
You need to use your CDs at the right time as all tanks, but I suppose they have a good amount of passive stuff that you can get by with.

If you want a challenge, go do CM as guardian.
Best of luck.

[teddabear]

Our top geared DPS is a Hunter. The plan last I heard was for him him to bring his severely undergeared Monk to main tank the hardest fights. That is not perception, that is the reality of the current state of tanking.