Serious Guardian druid nerf in 7.2 :(

[SupBrah]

They're a mitigation tank, they don't rely as much on self healing. However, they have frenzied regen post big hits and resto affinity (3% health every 5s so ~40k HPS pre mastery with 6.5M health). Swapped from VDH to Guardian druid for my M+ group and the smoothness of runs was and still is ridiculous (even with a 20 ilvl discrepancy and 10-15 less weapon traits it was smoother on druid).

Edit: Will note some things are easier on VDH. Namely EoA last boss on Tyrannical or surviving if healer dies since DH can keep self up/not need as much healing on some bosses than a Druid will so healer can concentrate on group damage.

lmao no, Druid can keep himself up way, way easier than a VDH.

You can literally smash your face on the keyboard over and over and tank heroic with a bear right now. it's ridiculous.

[PraisCthulhu]

Health doesn't have anything to do with mitigation. It only allows you to take more damage before you die and wastes more healer mana. Bears are strong simply because their mastery increases health and healing taken, so them stacking mastery doesn't make healers use more mana to heal them.

For other tanks maybe, but for Blood DK, a lot of their mitigation is in fact based on max health. A lot of their mitigation are after the fact heals, and many of them say "X% of damage taken over the last A seconds or Y% of you max health, whichever is greater". So, if a Blood DK stacks enough max health it makes their mitigation A) bigger and B) more predictable.

[Kagonos]

While you are right on both shield and EoT, also keep in mind that both need you to be in melee range while a druid can bank rage then use his mitigation outside melee range. This is very relevant because several encounters have the tank taking significant magical damage while outside of melee range; to use shield you need to be very inefficient and waste a lot of charges so it will be up when needed.

You raise a good point. It's poor design that the paladin actually need to be in melee range to activate this, actually. It should function like the Captain America shield, since there are times when you can't maintain contact with the boss and need the mitigation. It doesn't counter the point I was making; however, it does serve to support the superiority of a bear over (any) other tanks.