Guardian m+ experience at mid to upper mid range keys??

[Grimdeeds]

I am looking at maining boomy with guardian off spec for BfA, and I'll most likely be tanking most of my m+ team's keys. I didn't play a druid in Legion so I am not familiar with the experience. I've watched Sco's ranking video for m+ tanks and I've read the wowhead guide for guardians and those sources, as well as a few others I've come across, all seem to agree Guardians will be hamstrung in utility and self-sustain ability for m+ groups compared to most, maybe all, the other tanks.

So, my question, could I have some Legion Guardians that handled harder keys (not bleeding edge type m+ content, but still challenging, like doing +15 keys while the Trial of Valor raid was current stuff), tell me how hamstrung you felt doing those kind of challenging dungeons as a bear?

What was the most challenging aspects? Was there anything about it that you enjoyed and felt strong at?

Appreciate any help!

[CenariusTheForestLord]

I am looking at maining boomy with guardian off spec for BfA, and I'll most likely be tanking most of my m+ team's keys. I didn't play a druid in Legion so I am not familiar with the experience. I've watched Sco's ranking video for m+ tanks and I've read the wowhead guide for guardians and those sources, as well as a few others I've come across, all seem to agree Guardians will be hamstrung in utility and self-sustain ability for m+ groups compared to most, maybe all, the other tanks.

So, my question, could I have some Legion Guardians that handled harder keys (not bleeding edge type m+ content, but still challenging, like doing +15 keys while the Trial of Valor raid was current stuff), tell me how hamstrung you felt doing those kind of challenging dungeons as a bear?

What was the most challenging aspects? Was there anything about it that you enjoyed and felt strong at?

Appreciate any help!

I never felt hamstrung in Legion doing High Keys.
However. Most of the things that helped us in high M+ is gone or nerfed.

- Frenzied Regen healing based on damage taken (and off the GCD).
- ROTS was a damage/defensive/CC cooldown. No roots, stuns when it was up.
- Roar every minute.
- Dependable snap threat with high Thrash damage (through relics).
- Useful legendaries depening on the encounters.

With all of those things gone. I feel guardians (and most of the other tanks as well) will have a very hard time in high BFA keys.
From what I tried on beta, I felt in mortal danger 95% of my M+ run, which was only a 6 max.
I have to say this will be a problem for most tanks (maybe not DK/DH).
We just lost a lot of fun niche things that helped us, which is sad.

[Wild]

Guardian will have less utility/self-healing/mobility/tankability in BFA for sure. But we will have a lot more of a challenge, which will be nice.

I was a 970 (~245) guardian off spec. I was literally walking though +15 with no problem, health never dropping, and if so I clicked frenzy reg and I was max health again. So it kinda got boring. (I didnt go high keys, cos of too many noobs)

I mainly heal, which will also be a challene, however I will keep guardian as off spec. Druid in general will not be as viable in BFA than in Legion. But like I said, I like the challenge. Dru for life!

[Rioo]

Losing the slow on thrash and 5 yard balance affinity was probably the biggest nerf imo. Still think we'll be fine though in BFA but no way we'll be top tier for m+.

[hulkgor]

I am looking at maining boomy with guardian off spec for BfA, and I'll most likely be tanking most of my m+ team's keys. I didn't play a druid in Legion so I am not familiar with the experience. I've watched Sco's ranking video for m+ tanks and I've read the wowhead guide for guardians and those sources, as well as a few others I've come across, all seem to agree Guardians will be hamstrung in utility and self-sustain ability for m+ groups compared to most, maybe all, the other tanks.

So, my question, could I have some Legion Guardians that handled harder keys (not bleeding edge type m+ content, but still challenging, like doing +15 keys while the Trial of Valor raid was current stuff), tell me how hamstrung you felt doing those kind of challenging dungeons as a bear?

What was the most challenging aspects? Was there anything about it that you enjoyed and felt strong at?

Appreciate any help!

Weakest point are big bursts of magical damage, imagine Hyrja blast on high tyrannicals. It will happen very frequently and barkskin might not cut it, whilst survival instincts is a very long cooldown.

It's pretty solid on everything else, albeit a very boring, spamming swipe, playstyle.

[Grimdeeds]

ty guys for these responses, this is helpful

[Marrilaife]

I am looking at maining boomy with guardian off spec for BfA, and I'll most likely be tanking most of my m+ team's keys. I didn't play a druid in Legion so I am not familiar with the experience. I've watched Sco's ranking video for m+ tanks and I've read the wowhead guide for guardians and those sources, as well as a few others I've come across, all seem to agree Guardians will be hamstrung in utility and self-sustain ability for m+ groups compared to most, maybe all, the other tanks.

It's true you can't compare Legion bear with BFA bear because bear artifact was one of the best tanking ones, so bears lost more than some other tanks in both dps and defensive traits.

However if you just want to tank for your friends for weekly chest level (not: push high keys) it will be more difficult at start when everyone's undergeared but become less and less class reliant as you get more gear. Important part is have people in your team cover what you can't do yourself as a tank. For example you don't have a slow (wtf did they remove infected wounds?) so pair with someone who will help you kite like frost mage, hunter, shaman, fury warrior, etc. As long as other people can cover for you, it should be fine at the level of keys where you don't need super cookie cutter meta comp. Yep, except combat rez (which costs rage now) and stampeding roar druids don't have that much utility for dungeons. At least they can still spec typhoon for sanguine weeks.

Weakest point are big bursts of magical damage, imagine Hyrja blast on high tyrannicals.

All tanks got nerfed in that aspect. And even then some stuff in Legion was cheesed, like the shadow slash on Ymiron being soaked by lock pet instead of tank, because it was too frequent too high magical damage.

[Radaney]

Guardian Druid will still be ok at M+ keys because they still have 100% uptime on physical mitigation with Ironfur, which beats out DH etc. who don't have 100% physical mitigation. They also have Bristling Fur. So they're excellent at damage smoothing.

Guardian Druids still have the most HP out of all the tanks which helps with magic mitigation. They also have a lot of CDs to help with magic mitigation.

Self-sustain is worse compared to Legion, which means your healers will have less time to do DPS.

Guardian Druids don't have great mobility, which means kiting mobs which is currently quite a big deal in BFA is harder outside of using CDs like Incap Roar. In comparison, Warriors have Leap which is great for kiting mobs.

It's got ok Mythic+ utility with Roar, Incap Roar, Typhoon, Entangle and BR. However some of these can be brought by a Balance Druid who are very popular in M+. Guardian Druid utility is more skewed towards being excellent in raids rather than M+

Guardian Druid damage is not great, which is a concern when you start pushing high keys, say your 20's+ comparatively in Legion.

Guardian Druid is just fine at tanking, which is fine until you get up a certain point where you need your tanks to do more by offering High DPS or unique utility.

Overall, if you just do a weekly 15 and say around that level maybe going up to 20, or the BFA comparison Guardian Druid is fine. In fact, any tank is fine doing this. However, if you're going to be pushing 20+ and doing CE server first M+ key levels Guardian Druid won't be your best pick.

If you want to push really high keys in terms of high server ranking, whilst also doing Mythic level raiding on one character. Your best bet would be a Monk or DK. Who perform very well at CE M+ and CE Raiding. Whilst a Druid skews towards being strong in raiding and a DH skews towards being strong in M+. Paladin is kinda mid level at both.

Once again, if you're just doing your weekly 15 or push up casually as high as you can, and do none server first or very high level progression raiding then any tank is fine for anything.

[Tech614]

Guardian Druid will still be ok at M+ keys because they still have 100% uptime on physical mitigation with Ironfur, which beats out DH etc. who don't have 100% physical mitigation. They also have Bristling Fur. So they're excellent at damage smoothing.

Damage Smoothing isn't really relevant for M+, it's more of a raid tanking term as the smoother the damage in take the more efficient it is to be healed when you have 3-5 healers with things like HoTs and beacon rolling on you.

Unlike in raids a healer will need to target you with ST heals regardless of how "smooth" your damage in take is as a single healers efficient healing spells are not going to keep you up.

[Radaney]

Damage Smoothing isn't really relevant for M+, it's more of a raid tanking term as the smoother the damage in take the more efficient it is to be healed when you have 3-5 healers with things like HoTs and beacon rolling on you.

Unlike in raids a healer will need to target you with ST heals regardless of how "smooth" your damage in take is as a single healers efficient healing spells are not going to keep you up.

Damage smoothing is still important so your healer might know when they can DPS and when to heal.

[Tech614]

Damage smoothing is still important so your healer might know when they can DPS and when to heal.

Explains why Monks and Druids are so sought after for high end M+ eh?

It's not important in M+ at all, damage, control and utility are what make tanks better at M+ then others. Guardian provides almost none of these in bfa which is why you see people rating it as so for bfa. If you want to just do your cap for the week, yes you'll be fine but let's not act like "damage smoothing" means anything in M+ when all of the healing required is mostly burst healing to boot.

[dcc626]

Explains why Monks and Druids are so sought after for high end M+ eh?

It's not important in M+ at all, damage, control and utility are what make tanks better at M+ then others. Guardian provides almost none of these in bfa which is why you see people rating it as so for bfa. If you want to just do your cap for the week, yes you'll be fine but let's not act like "damage smoothing" means anything in M+ when all of the healing required is mostly burst healing to boot.

hey, monks are gonna be fine for m+ in bfa

[Grimdeeds]

Explains why Monks and Druids are so sought after for high end M+ eh?

It's not important in M+ at all, damage, control and utility are what make tanks better at M+ then others. Guardian provides almost none of these in bfa which is why you see people rating it as so for bfa. If you want to just do your cap for the week, yes you'll be fine but let's not act like "damage smoothing" means anything in M+ when all of the healing required is mostly burst healing to boot.

I guess one thing I'm trying to figure out, since I have no experience yet with higher end guardian tanking, is this: Isn't dis.roar as an aoe interrupt AND typhoon to knockback and slow mobs fairly decent control? I have heard (but cannot confirm) that the typhoon knockback is stronger now for BfA than it was in legion? Then is stamp.roar not useful very much in m+ (say for kiting or moving the group quickly to the next trash pack, etc.)?
What about a ranged/charge interrupt?

Then, regarding intake of magic damage, again as a noob here, it seems like guardian has more health than most tanks and has a 1 min cd with straight damage % reduc in the form of barkskin and then 2 charges of Surv Inst. with an even greater straight up % DR on a 2.7 min recharge timer. IDK that seems, I guess decent, if not good?

Not at all trying to be argumentative just wanting to understand is all.