Beta Guardian Druid feels

[Peacemoon]

I’m quite happy with little changes to the spec in general because I enjoy it a lot. However with the GG nerf, and the nerf to threat in general, and the removal of RotS, I’m thinking of taking Incarnation. I think the benefit of incarnation during a crunch time, both for DPS and threat, and extra rage, will be far more useful than GG always on even when it’s just a convenience and saved a GCD.

Do we still have scintillating light trait in BfA? Moonfire reduces damage received? If not, another nail in the coffin of GG. There isn’t much benefit to keeping moonfire up other than for pure damage purposes.

I always went resto affinity in Legion combined with the legendary chest for massive self healing. I’m still planning on going resto affinity now as with frenzied rejuvenation nerfed ysera’s gift will be even more useful. And maybe there will be opportunities to swiftmend ourselves. Having Wild Growth would be interesting too.

I usually took guttural roars so leaning towards Wild Charge now. Although Tiger Dash might have its benefits for motif and then self healing. Probably not a raid thing though. Plus you could always reverse life grip a healer with wild charge if you needed to get out of somewhere.. so probably definitely going wild charge.

Disclaimer: I’ve not played beta I’ve just been theorising.

[Jaewalk]

I’m quite happy with little changes to the spec in general because I enjoy it a lot.

Other tanks have received far less nerfs, retained better tools and cooldowns, and have higher threat generation both in burst threat, and in consistent damage. Warrior and Demon Hunters look like they received straight buffs from Legion, both in mechanics and stats. There is no reason for a Bear to exist as it is right now. Our niche is only physical damage raid tank. People already do not bring bears to high keystones and its only going to be worse.

[dcc626]

Other tanks have received far less nerfs, retained better tools and cooldowns, and have higher threat generation both in burst threat, and in consistent damage. Warrior and Demon Hunters look like they received straight buffs from Legion, both in mechanics and stats. There is no reason for a Bear to exist as it is right now. Our niche is only physical damage raid tank. People already do not bring bears to high keystones and its only going to be worse.

they dont bring warriors either. or monks for that matter. sometimes paladins.

doesnt mean they cant do them. just that people gravitate to what is deemed the best.

[Jaewalk]

they dont bring warriors either. or monks for that matter. sometimes paladins.

doesnt mean they cant do them. just that people gravitate to what is deemed the best.

Maybe this will help you understand



Druids, one of the most played tank - are bottom of the barrel in M+... even warriors are having more success in M+. Monks- who are the least played class/spec have way more tools to deal with keystones and are doing better..

So... this is our baseline. My point is druids are having much taken away now on top of this while other tanks are keeping their great utility/cooldowns or getting buffed in the case of DH/Warrior.

Are you happy with this? Does this have you excited to be a guardian?

[Deleted]

they dont bring warriors either. or monks for that matter. sometimes paladins.

doesnt mean they cant do them. just that people gravitate to what is deemed the best.

Bears are not top tier for M+ even now and they are removing/nerfing some of the most important things that makes them somewhat viable and fun to play like GG, RotS, LatC + FoN combo and Thrash damage/bonus procs. I already know I won't be playing the ultra boring and subpar Guardian in BfA based on those changes.

[Deleted]

Are you happy with this? Does this have you excited to be a guardian?

It's +23 and up, basically a minority when it comes to mythics. On top of this, content is timed and players want to get the best possible results to get good times for loot and / or leaderboard position, thus using setups that make it smoother. The same can be seen with greater rifts in Diablo III, where buffs and nerfs dictate which classes will be seen at the top of the leaderboards. It's a sad reality, but not all classes make the cut for top dollar.

I always play what I want to play, not because it's the best, but because I enjoy it. If you want to play druid and something doesn't add up with the changes come BfA, I suggest you leave feedback where feedback is due. Though I would leave the statistics out of it, because they are already aware of it. It's not like they don't care but rather that they can't really do anything about it; there's always one or two tanks that will be the "best" for mythic+, no matter how many buffs or nerfs they bring.

[dcc626]

Maybe this will help you understand



Druids, one of the most played tank - are bottom of the barrel in M+... even warriors are having more success in M+. Monks- who are the least played class/spec have way more tools to deal with keystones and are doing better..

So... this is our baseline. My point is druids are having much taken away now on top of this while other tanks are keeping their great utility/cooldowns or getting buffed in the case of DH/Warrior.

Are you happy with this? Does this have you excited to be a guardian?

while i dont agree with your assessment of class strengths (dks certainly lost one of their most important tools for being used for high level keys (group leech) and warriors are still a mess.) i agree that bears are not in a good state. it would be one thing if they were still top of the heap for raiding, but they seem fairly middle of the pack at best in everything they do.

[Peacemoon]

Other tanks have received far less nerfs, retained better tools and cooldowns, and have higher threat generation both in burst threat, and in consistent damage. Warrior and Demon Hunters look like they received straight buffs from Legion, both in mechanics and stats. There is no reason for a Bear to exist as it is right now. Our niche is only physical damage raid tank. People already do not bring bears to high keystones and its only going to be worse.

I’ve never even tried a keystone above +16; why bother? I wouldn’t say no to some love for Guardian, I like being the tank with the highest hp and flat mitigation, even if we have to sacrifice interesting cooldowns for that privilege. But I think people should keep perspective (as ever...) when discussing this.

The metric we should be comparing Guardian against is:
Can they solo and quest at a reasonable pace without too much downtime or threat to life?
Can they run normal and heroic dungeons while leveling and gearing up and do the job to a reasonable level?
Can they tank in normal and heroic raids without disadvantaging the raid group by picking a Guardian Druid?
Can they tank Mythic+ dungeons, up to the loot cap, without disadvantaging the group as above?

These 4 questions will cover the majority of play.

We don’t have to be the BEST at everything, but if we can do the job without disadvantaging the group, and actually have one or two niche advantages, I’d be happy. Personally I like our niche being high hp and flat mitigation, even if it is uninteresting and less spikey.

[CenariusTheForestLord]

I’ve never even tried a keystone above +16; why bother? I wouldn’t say no to some love for Guardian, I like being the tank with the highest hp and flat mitigation, even if we have to sacrifice interesting cooldowns for that privilege. But I think people should keep perspective (as ever...) when discussing this.

The metric we should be comparing Guardian against is:
Can they solo and quest at a reasonable pace without too much downtime or threat to life?
Can they run normal and heroic dungeons while leveling and gearing up and do the job to a reasonable level?
Can they tank in normal and heroic raids without disadvantaging the raid group by picking a Guardian Druid?
Can they tank Mythic+ dungeons, up to the loot cap, without disadvantaging the group as above?

These 4 questions will cover the majority of play.

We don’t have to be the BEST at everything, but if we can do the job without disadvantaging the group, and actually have one or two niche advantages, I’d be happy. Personally I like our niche being high hp and flat mitigation, even if it is uninteresting and less spikey.

Most of the downsides I mentioned are actually not about being UP. Just that the spec feels boring/bland in design without all the cool perks of legion.
The only thing I mentioned even close to power was the burst threat issue. Which isn't all about power really, more about annoying playstyle on pull with burst dps classes overaggroing us. (They do, I checked)

[Jaewalk]

I’ve never even tried a keystone above +16; why bother? I wouldn’t say no to some love for Guardian, I like being the tank with the highest hp and flat mitigation, even if we have to sacrifice interesting cooldowns for that privilege. But I think people should keep perspective (as ever...) when discussing this.

The metric we should be comparing Guardian against is:
Can they solo and quest at a reasonable pace without too much downtime or threat to life?
Can they run normal and heroic dungeons while leveling and gearing up and do the job to a reasonable level?
Can they tank in normal and heroic raids without disadvantaging the raid group by picking a Guardian Druid?
Can they tank Mythic+ dungeons, up to the loot cap, without disadvantaging the group as above?

These 4 questions will cover the majority of play.

We don’t have to be the BEST at everything, but if we can do the job without disadvantaging the group, and actually have one or two niche advantages, I’d be happy. Personally I like our niche being high hp and flat mitigation, even if it is uninteresting and less spikey.

I don't think anyone ever said they cant do casual content. If this is your measure of success than every spec/class is fine and there is never need for debate.

As evidenced by the MDI, raider.io and Warcraftlogs many of us are competitive and do not like to be held back by our class/spec in such dramatic fashion.

[Arawrabearialis]

I’ve never even tried a keystone above +16; why bother? I wouldn’t say no to some love for Guardian, I like being the tank with the highest hp and flat mitigation, even if we have to sacrifice interesting cooldowns for that privilege. But I think people should keep perspective (as ever...) when discussing this.

The metric we should be comparing Guardian against is:
Can they solo and quest at a reasonable pace without too much downtime or threat to life?
Can they run normal and heroic dungeons while leveling and gearing up and do the job to a reasonable level?
Can they tank in normal and heroic raids without disadvantaging the raid group by picking a Guardian Druid?
Can they tank Mythic+ dungeons, up to the loot cap, without disadvantaging the group as above?

These 4 questions will cover the majority of play.

We don’t have to be the BEST at everything, but if we can do the job without disadvantaging the group, and actually have one or two niche advantages, I’d be happy. Personally I like our niche being high hp and flat mitigation, even if it is uninteresting and less spikey.

Your question is "Can we do X without disadvantaging the group", but when other tanks bring an actual advantage, they're going to get picked first. Every beta people argue over the same issue; Are we viable? The answer is almost always yes, but viable doesn't necessarily = good and for competitive gameplay, you're going to take good over viable any day. There's no question Bears were one of the strongest tanks for raiding in Legion, despite bringing very little utility. But for mythic+ it's a very different situation. That lack of tools stands out a lot more there.

I do agree with you, that our easy to maintain mitigation is one of the nice things about Bear gameplay, but as others have stated, our rotation really does feel slow and boring on beta.

[Arlee]

Seeing as this thread is dead after 13 posts, it's sad to see there's only about 6 guardian druids left on this forum.
I wonder how many will be left in BFA.

I'm still here! But yea... I've pretty much stopped talking about bear on beta both here and on the official forums because it's gotten to the point where it feels pointless. Those of us who've been in since Alpha have been giving the same basic feedback since then and they don't seem to care. There hasn't even been any kind of "we see your concerns but this is why we think it'll be ok" post it's just been nothing which is nothing short of discouraging.

I stopped caring about Azerite Traits. I still haven't seen any that even come close to set bonuses, let alone artifact traits. I doubt they will become what Blizz promised.

Same... I was watching them for awhile but nothing seemed to stand out or was really interesting so now I just can't be bothered