I sense a GDru nerfstorm coming in 7.2.5.

[Saverem]

From the blue posts in the BrM thread, it looks like GDrus are going to be slapped with the nerf hammer in 7.2.5. Don't know how severe it's going to be, but it looks inevitable.

Hold on to your bear butts!


Thread: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...3776674?page=1 (follow the blue posts, they mention GDru twice, and not in a positive fashion)

[Deleted]

Nobody should be surprised by this at all.. guardian has been the strongest tank for a long time

[Saverem]

Nobody should be surprised by this at all.. guardian has been the strongest tank for a long time

Looks like GDru and BrMs are getting nerfed. I'm going to assume BDKs and VDHs will be getting buffs. Judging by Blizz's tendency to over-nerf and over-buff, there is actually a good chance that BDKs and VDHs might be the best tanks for ToS.

[Swalload]

I'm still baffled it stayed this insanely OP for so long.

[Emerald Archer]

Looks like GDru and BrMs are getting nerfed. I'm going to assume BDKs and VDHs will be getting buffs. Judging by Blizz's tendency to over-nerf and over-buff, there is actually a good chance that BDKs and VDHs might be the best tanks for ToS.

Even if Guardians are nerfed, the chance of them being bad is very low. Because what makes them OP is their core kit. The spec would have to be totally overhauled to become weak or average, or even not great. They just have access to too many defensives.

[Swalload]

Absolutely nothing in the BrM post suggests any form of nerf. And no, fixing their cheese/exploit capability is not a nerf, it's a fix, very different.

[Puri]

You can obviously deduct from the april fools patchnotes that they are aware GDruid might be slightly too strong now, so yes, nerfs are more than likely before ToS.

[Swalload]

You can obviously deduct from the april fools patchnotes that they are aware GDruid might be slightly too strong now, so yes, nerfs are more than likely before ToS.

Slightly, haha, oh boy that's cute.

[CerealLord]

They have already said in previous blue posts that Mark of Ursol is too good and will be taken down to an appropriate level.

[Polarthief]

Nobody should be surprised by this at all.. guardian has been the strongest tank for a long time

I'll never understand why they don't make other tanks better/more desirable over nerfing the ones that actually feel good to play. Makes no sense and only upsets those who are getting nerfed (while doing nothing to bring underperforming tanks up).

Here's the thing though, how can they nerf Guardian without making it sub-optimal? We're already one of the few tanks who have to choose between physical mitigation and magical (most other tanks do both in one button or choose between Mit or Self-Healing, or don't even have a choice of any kind such as Paladins!), and I don't think there's going to be a fine balance here when you have so many varied tanks. If we're a tank who's meant to have a ton of armor (THE LITERAL THING THAT MITIGATES PHYSICAL DAMAGE), I don't get how you can balance that around other tanks. Are bears suddenly going to go back to being dodge-based and being undesired by literally every mythic raid team? *still has PTSD of Horridon Heroic with 2 Bear tanks in ToT*

The most balanced way to do this would be to buff other tanks up instead of bringing bears (and I guess Monks) down.


Oh and you know what's more fun? The lack of mobility to cheese mechanics or get out of somewhere unless a hostile target is where you want to go.
- Warriors have Leap and Intervene
- Monks have ROLLING ROLLING ROLLING
- Paladins have Steed
- DHs have Leaps
- Even fucking DKs (the least mobile melee in the game) have Wraith Walk
- Bears have a hostile charge (talent) which isn't great for targeted mobility, a raid cooldown for a sprint (which I guess you can use but for some fights it has to be saved for the raid), and if they use their other choices (Dash, Normal/Travel/Moonkin Form Wild Charges), they will likely get oneshot due to not being in bear form (you also lose all Ironfur stacks if you drop Bear Form).

So yeah, if they're planning on nerfing Bears, be ready to be the bottom-tier tank once again.

[roi]

Only stuff mentioned about guardian druids is (also why the hell didn't you quote that directly instead of letting us crawl through tons of unrelated posts?!):

That is exactly my retort, and Guardians shouldn't be able to either. Soloing every 100-Energy Fel Scythe is perfect example of the cheese this is intended to prevent, and we'll be preventing it on Guardians as well.

Guardian Druids are also overpowered against Magic damage, and that will be adjusted as well.

We are absolutely aware that similar mechanics can be cheesed by other classes. It's a matter of how trivial it is to do, how frequently they can do it, how much external assistance they need, etc. A Paladin being able to Divine Shield through 1 Fel Scythe every 5min is acceptable. A Brewmaster being able to just 2-3x Purify every one of them is not. Guardians are also quite high on ability to do that, which will also be adjusted.

We will be discussing Guardians (and others) separately. Please keep this thread to Brewmaster discussion.

Nothing of that is new information, MoU rework has been confirmed for a while. In the worst case it'll end up being a magic damage SI I guess (something like 60-80% magic damage reduction for 6-10 seconds with a 2-3 minutes cooldown).

[Killuha]

The most balanced way to do this would be to buff other tanks up instead of bringing bears (and I guess Monks) down.

If they were to buff the other tanks, it would result in an increase of boss damage. Which in essence is a nerf of survivability for other specs.

[fallenangel-succ]

I'll never understand why they don't make other tanks better/more desirable over nerfing the ones that actually feel good to play. Makes no sense and only upsets those who are getting nerfed (while doing nothing to bring underperforming tanks up).

Here's the thing though, how can they nerf Guardian without making it sub-optimal? We're already one of the few tanks who have to choose between physical mitigation and magical (most other tanks do both in one button or choose between Mit or Self-Healing, or don't even have a choice of any kind such as Paladins!), and I don't think there's going to be a fine balance here when you have so many varied tanks. If we're a tank who's meant to have a ton of armor (THE LITERAL THING THAT MITIGATES PHYSICAL DAMAGE), I don't get how you can balance that around other tanks. Are bears suddenly going to go back to being dodge-based and being undesired by literally every mythic raid team? *still has PTSD of Horridon Heroic with 2 Bear tanks in ToT*

The most balanced way to do this would be to buff other tanks up instead of bringing bears (and I guess Monks) down.


Oh and you know what's more fun? The lack of mobility to cheese mechanics or get out of somewhere unless a hostile target is where you want to go.
- Warriors have Leap and Intervene
- Monks have ROLLING ROLLING ROLLING
- Paladins have Steed
- DHs have Leaps
- Even fucking DKs (the least mobile melee in the game) have Wraith Walk
- Bears have a hostile charge (talent) which isn't great for targeted mobility, a raid cooldown for a sprint (which I guess you can use but for some fights it has to be saved for the raid), and if they use their other choices (Dash, Normal/Travel/Moonkin Form Wild Charges), they will likely get oneshot due to not being in bear form (you also lose all Ironfur stacks if you drop Bear Form).

So yeah, if they're planning on nerfing Bears, be ready to be the bottom-tier tank once again.

So basically you're complaining about having a near unique raid wide CD?
Rich.

[Polarthief]

So basically you're complaining about having a near unique raid wide CD?
Rich.

I'm saying that even compared to DKs, bears are quite slow (unless you aren't taking any damage and can manage to shift) and immobile, unless you use Stampeding. I'd gladly give up Stampeding if it meant getting some form of leap or mobility like all other tanks have. 2M is a fairly long cooldown just for a quick burst of mobility. Anyone who has tanked as a bear knows it would be really helpful to have some form of movement like this.

Also once they tone down bears (as they're already planning to), they will be bottom again as they have been for years and years.

[roi]

I'd gladly give up Stampeding if it meant getting some form of leap or mobility like all other tanks have.

Then spec wild charge?

[VarianceWoW]

Stampeding roar often functions as a movement speed CD, if you aren't taking Guttural Roars you are doing it wrong. Even in mythic+ Guttural roars is way better than Intimidating Roar. Having it on a 1 min CD is a big difference as you can still use it as a raid CD multiple times a fight as well as a personal movement speed a few times as well. On fights where you have to use its 1 min CD as a raid CD in quick succession like the storms on guldan its also really the only time you need a personal mobility CD as well. I really don't think bears have a mobility problem, have tanked 8/10M and not once can I think of a time where I felt like I needed more mobility.

[Polarthief]

For the record, I don't tank as my main spec, though I have tanked Heroic raids and plenty of M15 pre-buffs (now I just deal with M10 because lazy).

Then spec wild charge?

WC only lets you go to where a hostile is while in "Tank Form". In the other forms:
- "Normal" lets you fly to an ally
- Cat is same as bear (except you leap behind instead of charge to their front)
- Moonkin (if you have Balance Affinity) bounds you backwards
- Travel (if outdoors) leaps you forwards
But the biggest problem is you lose all Ironfur stacks and a huge portion of your Armor (unless in Moonkin form) and health if you swap.

Oh and I run WC anyway so... yeah.

Stampeding roar often functions as a movement speed CD, if you aren't taking Guttural Roars you are doing it wrong. Even in mythic+ Guttural roars is way better than Intimidating Roar.

People actually take that crap (Int Roar)? I just always run with WC.

Having it on a 1 min CD is a big difference as you can still use it as a raid CD multiple times a fight as well as a personal movement speed a few times as well. On fights where you have to use its 1 min CD as a raid CD in quick succession like the storms on guldan its also really the only time you need a personal mobility CD as well. I really don't think bears have a mobility problem, have tanked 8/10M and not once can I think of a time where I felt like I needed more mobility.

One of the worst offenders IMO was Odyn Phase 3 where I would just get demolished at times (not always). Having a DK as my other tank didn't help matters either, especially when Monks could either stand still and purify the stagger or roll like crazy and take nothing. Even Paladins and Warriors could Steed/Leap away and Steed/Charge back.

Overall though, I feel like it stems from how versatile a Druid is, but needing to sacrifice so much to use some of that versatility (in a tank's case, the ability to take a hit, in a DPS's case, losing globals which means losing DPS). It'd be nice if Bears had that Feral trait where they get 100% dodge and armor if they shift out of form (could just be "retain your Bear Form health and armor as well as Ironfur stacks"). I think that'd fix the issue I sometimes have because locking you out of using abilities because forms... idk, it seems weird and foreign nowadays considering nearly every other class/spec has lost the stance or form system.

[CptBlasto]

After reading over the BrM discussion its pretty clear some nerfs are coming. Its blatantly stated that Monks and Droods being able to straight cheese 100 energy Fel Scythes is NOT OK and I have to say I agree. While a pally being able to do it every 5 min is acceptable, being able to do it reliably every 100 energy is broken, lets be real here.

In addition to Scythes, its been mentioned that our overall magic damage mitigation is just too strong vs other tanks, which again, seems pretty accurate. The real question here is HOW they plan to adjust these things to bring balance to us (no pun intended).

The Blue said that they plan to host a similar discussion for feedback like they did with BrMs so hopefully we get some good discussion going before nerfs hit the PTR. The real question we should be talking about in this thread is HOW we should be 'nerfed' instead of QQing, not that anyone is as of yet. I have a few ideas:

Mark of Ursol:
Obviously its too easy to keep this up 100% and at 30% DR its hella strong. So a fix could be done twofold - keep the DR and reduce the duration by something like 60% (like a Pally SotR) - or reduce the mitigation to something like 15-20%. As a bear I love being able to blanket myself in mitigation catered to the fight, so I would prefer something like the latter, but thats just me.

Mechanic cheese potential:
This is clearly a more complex issue that relies on several factors. We have a massive toolkit of CDs that are very powerful, which is awesome, but obviously too powerful when core mechanics of fights can simply be ignored with careful management of them. Similar to Ursol, you could simply reduce the strength of several of these CDs like SI and Barkskin. This would reduce the ability to avoid one-shot mechanics while keeping the existing toolkit intact.

Alternatively you could remove charges/increase CDs of these abilities making them less frequently available or possible to stack over each other consistently. Honestly, I don't know which I would prefer. Again, I like having a big toolkit that is more 'spammable' and able to combo for bigger DR when necessary so I think I would choose nerfs to the strength of some of CDs opposed to reducing the availability of them

TL;DR - keep our kit how it exists on live, just reduce the strength of Ursol, SI, and maybe Barskin. I like having lots of abilities to stack according to the amount of Damage I know I'm gonna take vs the Pally style of very strong abilities on long CDs... just my two cents

[Manabomb]

Absolutely nothing in the BrM post suggests any form of nerf. And no, fixing their cheese/exploit capability is not a nerf, it's a fix, very different.

Ehhh, you see "fixing exploit capability", I see "terrible implementation that will hamstring the spec."

[Cannibalus]

Then spec wild charge?

No way that's possible in most scenarios as i am required as a tank to spec into guttural roars to have raidwide utility. There isn't one fight in Nighthold where it's useless, thus making it mandatory