When was Guardian Druid at it's Peak? (Gameplay)

[Razion]

Wrath of the Lich King for me. Spamming Maul and Swipe was a lot more engaging and active than *occasionally* being able to press Thrash and Ironfur, etc. It's all just so infrequent and slow compared to the Maul and Swipe of yesteryears. Faerie Fire silence was a lot nicer to have than Moonfire's damage and DoT for threat. It would probably be another story if Moonfire hit all nearby targets, though, or if Moonfire also silenced for bears. The only thing I really like about current bear over old is Barkskin doing the cool AoE talent reflect damage and Frenzied Regeneration being available more often and not absolutely destroying *all* my rage. During WotLK, I really hated having to spread lacerate on as many targets as possible, but I admit Thrash just automatically having it on everything is a heck of a lot more boring in practice now, even with Moonfire acting as a soft replacement doesn't feel as thematic, though functionally a ranged Lacerate is better. I wish there was more of a middle ground that could have been reached there between Thrash and Lacerate, and Faerie Fire and Moonfire. Looking back on WotLK, the three-target cleave of Mangle-spam from Berserk was really fun and one of the major fun parts of playing a Bear at all. A lot of tanks during WotLK acted a lot more like DPS back then, and I admit it was more enjoyable to just pull the entire heroic dungeon and just destroy things with AoE.

[Deleted]

I loved bear in EN and early NH gameplay wise. Catweaving on ST felt really good. The addition of the traits that came with concordance sadly made this not worth anymore. Not a big fan of the Maul change and the removal of Displacer beast either.

[Mystikal]

Didn't faerie fire have a silence on it or am I going crazy?

You could glyph it with 'Fae Silence' to make it interrupt casters. I believe there was also a glyph to extend the range by 5/10 yards, as well.

Good times.

[Venziir]

I'm curious, since I don't know much about the history of this spec. In your experience, at which point in WoW's history was guardian (or feral I guess at some point) the most fun, complex or interesting gameplay wise?

Wasn't Guardian pretty much invincible up until 7.1'ish?

[Deleted]

@Venziir: Guardian was pretty much the best tank from the warrior nerfs in EN until the release of ToV (I'd argue monks were the best tanks in ToV). They were also top tier in every raid of this expansion.

[Gulamarth]

Still remember the time in WotLK when an OT druid could just swap forms in midfight and freaking own the dps counters... Not the best tanks back then, for sure (damn those DKs!!), but definitely a highly useful and fun class.

Now in Legion guardian druids have finally became the type of tank they should have been since the beginning and are doing really good. I would say this was the best expansion for them as tanks so far.

[Queen of Hamsters]

During Legion.

[exochaft]

That tier was Dream of Cenarius / Nature's Vigil / Heart of the Wild, if I recall correctly, and I really miss them on all specs.

That's what the third one was, and I remember being okay with all of them and actually using all of them (HotW was more niche since it had the 6min CD, but you could make it work usually). This was probably the last time I felt like a hybrid tank class, as it let me do my job with varying options for offering healing utility to the raid... from targeted heal via HT procs, smart damage-to-heal conversion, or Tranq/Rejuv blanketing the raid (or damage if you wanted). Did have some scaling issues? Yeah, sure, NV + scorp buff in SoO raid was crazy damage, but most of the balance came down to ridiculous scaling modifiers via Vengeance or whatever it was called then... and it wasn't limited to just druids, all tanks pretty much sat in bad stuff to boost their damage output and mitigation/heals. The old HotW/NV/DoC row is what I wish the Affinity row could bring back to druids in general.

[Dreyen]

Legion for sure. Cata feral was fun becuase you could dps really hard while being a tank, but legion takes the cake. Great AM, decent rotation, some potentially nice choices for talents even though i still ran the same stuff all expac. I pretty much had no frustrations with bears.

[Mystikal]

That's what the third one was, and I remember being okay with all of them and actually using all of them (HotW was more niche since it had the 6min CD, but you could make it work usually). This was probably the last time I felt like a hybrid tank class, as it let me do my job with varying options for offering healing utility to the raid... from targeted heal via HT procs, smart damage-to-heal conversion, or Tranq/Rejuv blanketing the raid (or damage if you wanted). Did have some scaling issues? Yeah, sure, NV + scorp buff in SoO raid was crazy damage, but most of the balance came down to ridiculous scaling modifiers via Vengeance or whatever it was called then... and it wasn't limited to just druids, all tanks pretty much sat in bad stuff to boost their damage output and mitigation/heals. The old HotW/NV/DoC row is what I wish the Affinity row could bring back to druids in general.

I completely agree with you. I really wish we could get that level of 'hybridity' (is that a real word?) back. I understand it might lead to Druids being OP in some scenarios, but since Blizzard wants every class and spec to have a chance to shine, why can't we?

[Valkaneer]

I'm curious, since I don't know much about the history of this spec. In your experience, at which point in WoW's history was guardian (or feral I guess at some point) the most fun, complex or interesting gameplay wise?

Well back the the day it was feral Bear, and I would say BC, they were quite fun back then.

[Deleted]

I remember them being fairly solid in WotLK mainly because my 10man raid team always had one.
(Definitely a feels more than reals anecdotal comment.)

Guardian wasn't a spec in wotlk.

[Zafire]

In WotLK, bear druids were pretty OP in PvP. They were extremely hard to kill, could self-heal, and any melee class couldn't even tickle them while they spammed 3-4k mauls. It wasn't possible for a Rogue or Warrior to kill a bear druid. They had a ranged silence, too, iirc.

[-Gr-]

I'd say with its current rendition in legion it is the best it has ever been. I actually dumped my warrior for guardian and played one class for the most part this expac which never happens for me.

[Razjel]

At the beginning of legion. Loved Mark of ursol.

[HeiAggra]

I'm curious, since I don't know much about the history of this spec. In your experience, at which point in WoW's history was guardian (or feral I guess at some point) the most fun, complex or interesting gameplay wise?

The Guardian at is best... i would say maybe now in Legion.
My favority time was in Cata that Crit and Agil build omg loved it soo much!!!!