Guardian tank in 5.4

[nVIDIA]

after vengeance nerf and buffing dk and warr dps, is drood tank still good and have best dps compare to other tanks in 5.4 ?

[Deleted]

We'll have to see. Haven't been on the ptr

[Trubo]

after vengeance nerf and buffing dk and warr dps, is drood tank still good and have best dps compare to other tanks in 5.4 ?

If you're concerned about being the best tank in terms of damage and survivability you should just roll a paladin or monk.

[Kojo]

Guardians weren't best 'dps tanks' to begin with. We'll just have to see if riposte pushes warr/dk up that tiny little sliver bear had over them.

[exochaft]

It should be mentioned that the numbers pass for classes hasn't occurred on the PTR yet. That being said, I don't really trust the Guardian numbers yet, as I'm yielding consistently higher numbers on live compared to the PTR with higher ilvl gear (even w/o the LMG, which now works again on the PTR for Guardians). Not saying it's intended, Blizz just isn't that concerned about the numbers we put out yet.

[Simletir]

The buff to stamina in bear form along with the change to dream of cenarius should be pretty good.

[Deleted]

The buff to stamina in bear form along with the change to dream of cenarius should be pretty good.

Wasn't there a slight armour buff too?

[Kojo]

I don't think so, stam buff, barkskin cd reduction (though I'm not seeing this one now, was that just datamining slip?), doc change, I think that's about it. Armor would be about the last thing they'd buff considering how druids are overflowing with the stuff already.

[Deleted]

I don't think so, stam buff, barkskin cd reduction (though I'm not seeing this one now, was that just datamining slip?), doc change, I think that's about it. Armor would be about the last thing they'd buff considering how druids are overflowing with the stuff already.

Yeah I mis-read about the armour buff, I saw contribution from leather items and assumed armour, it was indeed stamina.

[Deleted]

The funny thing is, that DK's rank higher on dps in 10 man Heroic than Bears. Not much but still, while it's the other way around in 25 man. So Blood DK dps kinda didn't need the buff after all.

[Deleted]

How big is the stamina buff? I think i missed it

[Duco San]

I don't think it's going to be a big enough nerf to notice a major difference. Maybe instead of beating the other DPS we'll be at par or just below.

[exochaft]

We'll wait for the numbers pass to determine how our tanking DPS will really be in the end.

With respect to the changes on the PTR for Guardians (Barkskin cooldown reduction, stam buff, etc), the more I test SoO on the PTR, the more I understand why they made the changes. There are a myriad of armor debuffs going out, many are to facilitate tank swaps... I'd comment on the size of the hits, but Blizz said what they've released thus far is likely over-tuned. There are some fights where our Savage Defense and Frenzied Regen are very good, actually, allowing Guardians to be the "preferred" tank for the encounters. Be that as it may, nothing thus far seems to be too terribly threatening to tanks in general, or at the very least the threat is the same across all tanks (our massive HP does wonders).

[Deleted]

The funny thing is, that DK's rank higher on dps in 10 man Heroic than Bears. Not much but still, while it's the other way around in 25 man. So Blood DK dps kinda didn't need the buff after all.

well...that's when they gem crit for parsing as dps.

[aggixx]

well...that's when they gem crit for parsing as dps.

Right, comparing with a top 100 data set isn't a fair assessment between the two specs. If you look at all parses they're actually quite behind guardians.

- - - Updated - - -

How big is the stamina buff? I think i missed it

1.4x multiplier up from 1.2x.

[Viromand]

Currently I think all tanks are going to be about the same dps provided with the same ilvl and vengeance and so on. Monk dps got nerfed a small bit and you could say that Protpala got hit the "hardest" with the vengeance nerfs. Guardian dps will be very good still, so will monks and palas. I dont know about the Riposte change but in 10m with a haste DK and riposte he will do alot of dps. Warriors will also see a big dps gain not only from riposte but I think the enrage can proc of something else aswell not to forget the skullbanner which will do even more dps now with the extra crit prot gain aswell as the increase in overall dmg and more crit dmg by dps players.

There are alot of things to keep in mind.

With the higher enrage uptime warriors also get more rage, also providing more def stats. Druids has alot of ways to be played concerning sec stats, you can go crit, haste ormastery 2 will provide more dps aswell as more rage and mastery which is really strong on alot of fights.

if you compare tanks with Raidbots, its kinda hard to tell exactly, due to the fact that paladins will solo tank alot of fights, due to them having HoP already. And monks are also very common solo tanks with another pala in the raid. Dks are currently played with haste in 10m alot, the question is if its goind to be enough mitigation in 5.4 we will ahve to see that. And on some fights its just better to let certain tanks do certain things, horridon for example, the difference if a pala tanks horrdion and druid tanks adds is huge ifyou do it the other way around. Cause druids are alot better than palas on adds while palas are better on boss.


Mitigation wise I think it will be very nice. the barkskin changes will help alot, and with palas not having a insane scaling on SS they are still ahead in that part but not that much anymore. ToT is a very complex designed tankmechanic raid not in terms of difficulty more into certain abilities beeing superior.

Small example is Primordius due to the debuff beeing applied onhit and with his special it can be a pain in the ass for druids on heroic due to the dmg mehanic. While taking less dmg it can be really anoying if the boss debuffs runs out during the first black ooze.

Magaera beeing a boss where it come in quite handy to ahve FR for breaths.


Overall I think tank dps and the difference between tanks was handled very nicely and blizzard did a good gob there. You can argue about crit riposte beeing not so good for DKs and haste would have been alot better with a lower scaling. The real difference will be if you have a good tank or a bad one. Sure its like that right now aswell but on some fights some tanks are way to strong, especially the HoP stuff makes palas really strong.

But on ptr its always a different story concerning scaling, jinrokh was so overtuned on ptr that they almost cut his hp by 30% from last testing to live. cause it was almost impossible to kill him with a "normal" guild. Same goes for fight like magaera and council while the second one had way to much health the first one beeing totaly overtuned in terms of incoming dmg.

[Toby451]

The funny thing is, that DK's rank higher on dps in 10 man Heroic than Bears. Not much but still, while it's the other way around in 25 man. So Blood DK dps kinda didn't need the buff after all.

Its almost 100% because DK t15 DPS set bonuses functions/scales incredibly well for blood tanks. I don't have the numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised if they break even or actually lose DPS in T16 gear even with the riposte buff.

[AutomaticBadger]

I still get lost when it comes to people being so concerened with their DPS as a tank. I know we were never supposed to simply ignore the output we are able to do but to be frank I will always be more concered with keeping myself alive verses making sure I can get the best log for damage done/DPS.

Changes to Barkskin will help us since we can have a dependable cooldown to reduce spikes. With that I feel like we will be a damn lot smoother to heal and simply play as and the update to the Meta will also be oodles of fun in my eyes. There really shouldn't be a time where we are going to be taking completely unmitigated hits with the two.

More health will be win in my eyes and I will still be gemming Stam + Stam/Crit. I like having a huge health pool, I mean it is the only reason I moved to tanking as a Druid verses anything else since I like the lee-way it gives me, and that extra 0.2 increase will be welcomed.

I just want them to make their minds up with our mastery. We are going to start avoiding it like the plague if they don't change things up. Sadly I can't really think of something of the top of my head that will help the issue, maybe make it increase the rage generated from hits by a really slowing increasing rate per point like 0.1 per point of mastery?

[exochaft]

I still get lost when it comes to people being so concerened with their DPS as a tank. I know we were never supposed to simply ignore the output we are able to do but to be frank I will always be more concered with keeping myself alive verses making sure I can get the best log for damage done/DPS.

DPS/damage output has a bit more merit in a 10man environment versus a 25man, even from the pure ratio amount of players to roles. Despite that, and I know there are several people who agree with me on this, survival should be first and foremost.

Of all the encounters in SoO on the PTR thus far, I'd say the Spoils encounter is where tank DPS really does shine. It's one of those encounters (especially if you're lucky enough to get the tank buff) where tanks can completely dominate the damage output, and none of that damage is a waste nor is there much to worry about in terms of your personal survival... encounter tank buff + legendary DPS cloak + legendary DPS meta + tank cleave trinket = sick damage. All the other encounters, unless you're wiping a few seconds before a boss could be dead or enrages to wipe your raid, the tank DPS doesn't matter much at all.

[Deleted]

I still get lost when it comes to people being so concerened with their DPS as a tank. I know we were never supposed to simply ignore the output we are able to do but to be frank I will always be more concered with keeping myself alive verses making sure I can get the best log for damage done/DPS.

A noble goal, but it isn't this black and white. You lose survivability if you pump out more dps during times where damage is low, but you do not risk dying. If you are any good, you'd chose to do more damage in that case.
Also the difference in dps between a fully survival focussed bear and one who focusses only on dps, isn't very high at all. I feel like "I try to survive as a tank" is too often used as an excuse for bad play/damage.

Sorry but this was just my rant. Quite off-topic.