[MoP Bear] Guardian Druid MoP Discussion Thread

[exochaft]

Unless they drastically tone down their rates of change on unmit boss damage, scaling tank survivability off of AP won't work. It'll either be drastically OP at the bottom end (5mans) and balanced at the top end (Ht14), or vice-versa.

Same argument was given about SD in the Cataclysm beta, and the result was more similar to the former (although I don't think Blizz cared too much about the balance of 5mans as much as raids, though Challenges may change that). Perhaps they figure it's the best balance if there is to be any imbalance.

[Arielle]

Same argument was given about SD in the Cataclysm beta, and the result was more similar to the former (although I don't think Blizz cared too much about the balance of 5mans as much as raids, though Challenges may change that). Perhaps they figure it's the best balance if there is to be any imbalance.

I think they went for some sort of middle point, and it ended up being unbalanced at both the extreme bottom and top ends. Granted this was back when the Vengeance gain formula was completely stupid which thankfully they've since fixed.

But Cataclysm was just messed up in general thanks to Block Capping.

[Elunedra]

So the new FR gives +40% healing, this is intresting as +40% more healing is more stable\ releiable thne +45% dodge,
but ofcourse +45% dodge can save a lot of damage, while healing wont save you from getting 1 massive hit

[dancm]

So the new FR gives +40% healing,

If you use the Glyph of FR. Else it delivers a 250% AP heal. So 30k AP will deliver a 75k heal. You would need a total of 187.5k healing from your healers to get the same 75k additional heal with the glyph.

[Arielle]

If you use the Glyph of FR. Else it delivers a 250% AP heal. So 30k AP will deliver a 75k heal. You would need a total of 187.5k healing from your healers to get the same 75k additional heal with the glyph.

Unglyphed will be better in most situations for now, unless there's some sort of healing multiplier involved.

[Keiyra]

Unglyphed will be better in most situations for now, unless there's some sort of healing multiplier involved.

Not necessarily, 187.5k healing in 6 secs is not that hard to accomplish now (3 crit DL/GH's can do it), let alone once we get some numbers from MoP.

[Arielle]

Not necessarily, 187.5k healing in 6 secs is not that hard to accomplish now (3 crit DL/GH's can do it), let alone once we get some numbers from MoP.

That's 3 crits in a row. Remember that all rating coeffs will get nerfed hard as you level to 90. I doubt there'll be much of a choice until HT14 gear at the earliest.

[Kaeth]

Unglyphed will be better in most situations for now, unless there's some sort of healing multiplier involved.

It's also asking for a lot of coordination on the part of your healers to land all of that burst right after you activate the ability, before you get splattered by a big hit 2 seconds later. They're not all going to spam you with greater heals constantly throughout a fight to make the glyph a benefit in any situation other than "recovering from a big hit." And when that big hit comes -- unless it was completely expected, like an Impale, and all healers were precasting greater heals -- there's also less of a delay in receiving the bonus healing. Unglyphed is more idiot proof. And still has the benefit of letting you bleed rage for healing when you have less than 60 available.

No complaints from me -- I can be lazy and not have to remove the glyph for 5-mans and stupid solo bear tricks.

[Fudge]

Got to be honest here, I'm not really a fan of the changes they made to our defensive stats. They took everything that made a bear a bear and flipped it. Armor was always a gimme, now we have extremely low armor and need to greatly consider mastery for it. Though I have a feeling that mastery will now be our least desirable stat, that and crit since...

They switched our passive shield and made it an on use dodge talent with a high rage cost. This change makes zero sense to me. I understand that Blizzard wanted to go to a more active mitigation model, but I feel like they really missed the mark on this. Looking at the DK model of DS activating the shield, they could've done this for mangle or another spell.

We still have no other form of mitigation other than armor and dodge, and we now have the lowest base of both of these. This combined with the change to Savage Defense has really made us fairly week defensively unless we actively stack dodge, mastery and use all available rage to maintain the shield.

This wouldn't be too terrible except they also removed our ability to dps effectively as a cat. So now our offensive moves are the exact same as defense w/ the only difference being maul vs SD. While they did buff the damage of tanking moves, they had to have reduced the threat ability of said moves, which leads to initial aggro issues.

All and all, I have not been impressed with the direction of druid tanking in MoP. Suggestions for improvement would be to revert to the currently working model for feral defensive mode. If they really preferred a more DK form of active mitigation, they would only need to have a move such as mangle/thrash/maul proc the shield from SD vs it being passive.

[Arielle]

Didn't you cross-post that on the official Beta forums?

Crit is actually our most desirable stat right now thanks to Primal Fury and 1-roll white attacks.

While they could have attached some form of mitigation to Mangle, they would've had to re-work our entire rotation and it probably would've ended up much worse than it is right now (which is a snoozefest 1buttonmacro). Besides neither SD nor FR are on the GCD so it's not really a big deal at all.

Do you have any empirical evidence to back up your claim that Druids now have the lowest armor? I'm still running around at 64% DR from armor at level 87. I don't think anyone else comes close. And btw, Monks have way less Armor, by a country mile. As for Dodge, they couldn't very well give us a Dodge "on use" button when our Dodge is already 30%+ could they? I'm fine with it.

You won't want to stack Mastery (at least not with what we know right now). Dodge is currently our second best secondary stat behind Crit, which makes it pretty interesting imo. And you're supposed to spend Rage on SD, unless you're soloing something or need to recover from heavy magic damage - which is what FR is for.

I have no idea what you're talking about with regards to the whole threat thing. Threat mod is still 5x damage, this has never changed. Mangle hits like a freight train, so you should never have any initial aggro issues. Our abilities now scale spectacularly well off of AP (Vengance) so sustained threat is definitely not an issue either.

[Disegame]

Didn't you cross-post that on the official Beta forums?

Crit is actually our most desirable stat right now thanks to Primal Fury and 1-roll white attacks.

While they could have attached some form of mitigation to Mangle, they would've had to re-work our entire rotation and it probably would've ended up much worse than it is right now (which is a snoozefest 1buttonmacro). Besides neither SD nor FR are on the GCD so it's not really a big deal at all.

Do you have any empirical evidence to back up your claim that Druids now have the lowest armor? I'm still running around at 64% DR from armor at level 87. I don't think anyone else comes close. And btw, Monks have way less Armor, by a country mile. As for Dodge, they couldn't very well give us a Dodge "on use" button when our Dodge is already 30%+ could they? I'm fine with it.

You won't want to stack Mastery (at least not with what we know right now). Dodge is currently our second best secondary stat behind Crit, which makes it pretty interesting imo. And you're supposed to spend Rage on SD, unless you're soloing something or need to recover from heavy magic damage - which is what FR is for.

I have no idea what you're talking about with regards to the whole threat thing. Threat mod is still 5x damage, this has never changed. Mangle hits like a freight train, so you should never have any initial aggro issues. Our abilities now scale spectacularly well off of AP (Vengance) so sustained threat is definitely not an issue either.

Hi guys, im fairly newish to bear tanking so "bear" with me lol. I mostly agree with the point your making but Ive recently made premades of all tanks (except for monk since theyre prob the most un-balance atm being new) and ive noticed a few things that might be trouble for a druid compared to the others.

I didnt take note to how much mastery each tank had but basically it ended up like this: The druid had about 10% more DR from armor than the other tanks but they all had more than double the chance to passively avoid damage (parry/dodge combined) than a druid not to mention block (or block like mechanic in the case of dk) making it seem that druids are much more reliant on "active tanking" than other tanks.

Please note that im not claiming to be a expert on tanks or anything, just some base stuff ive noticed when trying each out. It could well be that 10% dr from all melee hits is much better than an extra 15% to avoid it some of the time passively but when you also factor in block I think they maybe at an slight advantage unless our "active mitigation" is that much better in comparison or they give us back our "bear block".

[Fudge]

Didn't you cross-post that on the official Beta forums?

I did in fact, however, I don't feel that attempting to generate discussion on more than one site is a bad thing. I have no empirical data that I am basing those statements on, only feel. I would suggest to you though, that sometimes feel can be just as good of an indicator. If you need evidence, look two pages back where despite me pointing out something Tangedyn (someone who I have great respect for) told me I was flat out wrong and pointed out Arielle's comprehensive testing, which was incorrect.

[uzumati]

Do you have any empirical evidence to back up your claim that Druids now have the lowest armor? I'm still running around at 64% DR from armor at level 87. I don't think anyone else comes close. And btw, Monks have way less Armor, by a country mile. As for Dodge, they couldn't very well give us a Dodge "on use" button when our Dodge is already 30%+ could they? I'm fine with it.

At 88 (no buffs only bear form) with only the native mastery from gear (1553, 7% increase) i am sitting at 60K armor (64.74% DR) compared to my pally sitting at 32K in similar gear levels. As for the dodge how are you getting close to 30% reforging to 4% hit and exp so i dont miss mobs up to +1 level and dumping the rest into crit (1910 rating giving 17.66% chance) I have a whopping 9.38% dodge chance with it taking 620 Dodge rating to give 1% dodge. If i could reforge ALL of my Haste, Hit, and Expertise to Dodge I would only gain 5.3% chance and if i added in all of my Crit it would only go up to 8.2% leaving me with no stats except for Dodge.

I didnt take note to how much mastery each tank had but basically it ended up like this: The druid had about 10% more DR from armor than the other tanks but they all had more than double the chance to passively avoid damage (parry/dodge combined) than a druid not to mention block (or block like mechanic in the case of dk) making it seem that druids are much more reliant on "active tanking" than other tanks.

I noticed this also comparing my above avoidance numbers with a premade warrior with 0 Reforging, Enchanting, or Gemming he has 8.8% Dodge and 20.38% Parry from just gear. Not to mention that his "Savage Defense" blocks every melee attack for 6 seconds, doesn't have stacks, and is only limited by rage

[Arielle]

As for the dodge how are you getting close to 30%

It was a random number I used to illustrate how OP SD would be if we still had the highest avoidance of any tank.

[tangedyn]

I did in fact, however, I don't feel that attempting to generate discussion on more than one site is a bad thing. I have no empirical data that I am basing those statements on, only feel. I would suggest to you though, that sometimes feel can be just as good of an indicator. If you need evidence, look two pages back where despite me pointing out something Tangedyn (someone who I have great respect for) told me I was flat out wrong and pointed out Arielle's comprehensive testing, which was incorrect.

In this case you are flat out wrong. Druids will have more armor than the plate classes. You can easily check it by adding up all the available armor from datamined gear. Don't forget to add multipliers.

Also, Arielle's testing was correct, it was my fault looking at the wrong set of data.

[uzumati]

It was a random number I used to illustrate how OP SD would be if we still had the highest avoidance of any tank.

That makes more sense now i was thinking i might have some sort of dodge bug. All in all bears feel pretty good atm, the only problem i have is i don't "want" to hit Savage Defense because far more times than not when it is active i still don't dodge anything for that 6 seconds. I have fallen into a rut of just taking the hit and popping Frenzied Regen for that ~85K heal for the 60 rage.

[Fudge]

In this case you are flat out wrong.

Yep, I am incorrect about the armor.

[xebtria]

Hey Guys,

disclaimer: I tend to write a lot if I write something about theorycrafting. And as of writing this sentence after I'm done with the stuff below, it seems to have happened again. My apologies, It wasn't supposed to become THAT much. Yet I'd appreciate it, if someone tries to read it all and give me some feedback about it Thanks it advance.


I'm currently trying to figure out, what I'm going to play in MoP, and guardian druid is one of the possible options. What I'm currently interested in would be gearing and rotations. I know, stuff liked that is almost guaranteed to change until release, yet I want to be somewhat up2date most of the times, because once I'm somewhat up2date, I think I can make my own amendments to changes throughout the beta.

according gear: As it looks know, we most likely will choose once again from gear with mastery+x and reforge that X into dodge. The gems however are a bit different. SD isn't affected by AP and crit anymore (is it?), because it's a flat 45% dodge for 6 seconds and a 60 rage cost. according to the tooltips, agility only gives AP and crit anymore, however I read and a simple "swith an item out with no dodge rating and check the %" test confirms, that it does. But I read, at a much worse ratio than pure dodge rating. so by any means of logic, does that mean, that bears will go and start gemming dodge or mastery respectively (and not agility anymore), depending on what turns out to be better? (don't consider staming builds. if we are going to stack stamina, the question agility vs dodge vs mastery isn't really a question anymore) If the overall healing picture will continue to favor steady damage reduction instead of bursting out the damage via RNG, this means that bears will start stacking mastery. so far, so correct? or is there something else, I totally missed out?

Talents: I think, the current state for a guardian bear would be feline swiftness + renewal + faerie swarm + sould of the forest + ursol's vortex + disentanglement. that gives us more movement, another defensive CD, singletarget snare w/o cd, more rage, aoe snare w/ cd and another defensive CD (via a macro for shapeshifting out and in bear form).

now the rotation. It basically looks like this for me:
1. Mangle (generates rage, because that doesn't happen anymore via taking damage)
2. Thrash (applys -10% dmg done + chance to reset mangle CD),
3. Lacerate (threat ability, also chance to reset mangle CD).
4. if there is nothing to do (should happen VERY RARELY), there still is swipe, also 3 sec CD, but doing nothing else. But that should really be a very rare case .
5. For the pull, feary fire/swarm, to apply the weakened blows debuff instantly.
that being done, it's priority to max out the uptime of either savage defense or time the heal from frenzied regeneration after spelldmg taken - the only two abilities so far which cost rage. I think as long as the target is purely spelldamage, there is no reason not to use SD as soon as the rage is available for it. this requires 10RPS to maintain. Maul is out of the picture as long as the rage gen doesn't reach 20 RPS. and even then, if survivability is at stake, "spamming" frenzied regeneration is still the better option, except when you really take no damage at all.
now what do we have as rage generators:
- mangle: generates 5 / 7 rage, depending on whether it's talented or not.
- every auto attack generates 6-7 rage.
- Leader of the pack. I don't know if that is buggy, but the tooltip currently says: causes your melee critical strikes to heal you for 4% of your health and energize you for 8% of your mana.. well that last part currently turns out to 12-13 rage everytime the heal from LOTP fires off.

Now I currently have 2,42 attackspeed with 3% hit and expertise each, so that turns out in a ~13% chance not to hit a lvl+3 target, so the autoattack gives roughly 2.3 RPS (it would be 2.7 with full hit/exp capped).
mangle is 7 Rage every 6 sec, and a 24% chance every 3 sec to reset mangle CD, so it's a 12% chance per GCD to reset it, so on average, every 8th mangle will be "double", so you don't do 56 rage in 42sec, but 63 rage in 42 sec, which is roughly exactly 1.5 RPS. considering 13% not-hit, that is 1.3
For LOTP is can be assumed that you should get a crit every 6 seconds as a druid, so it is 12-13dps every 6 seconds, which is 2.1 RPS.

added altogether it would be 2.3+1.3+2.1 = 5,7 RPS (6.3 if hit/exp. capped). But we need 10 RPS to even maintain only the SD uptime... how are we supposed to reach that? in my current gear,
- we have berserk, which makes mangle to be spammable 7 times (the 7th is the first which causes CD again), so that is 49 rage in 10 seconds per target (4,9 RPS, 13% not hit, 4,3) - so if that mangle hits 3 targets, it generates 21 rage (I tried it out, that is a fact as of now on the beta) each.

but for a single target, berserk is currently the only real way to even come close to a RPS of 10. (2.3+4.3 (it replaces the standard 1.3) + 2.1 = 8.7). But then again I read in this thread, that even 359 geared druids get to 9.8 RPS already... how? I seem to have forgotten (overseen something)...



therefore I don't think, that threat stats will have a big concern for defensive, even though it would increase my current RPS from 5.7/8,7 to 6,3/9,7 RPS, I don't think that is really enough increase to make it viable. without berserk, a full hit/exp gearset may have potential to increase the RPS by ~1RPS, maybe increasing the uptime of SD from around 55% to 65%. 55% uptime means ~25% dodge on average, 65% uptime means 29%. I think, that you'd loose more than 4% dodge, if you switch from a dodge gemming/reforging to a hit/exp reforging/gemming to achive the caps...


What do you think about that? I have the weird feeling, that I might have missed something, especially when It comes to rage generation.

Thanks for anyone who has read all of it and thanks for any feedback for it.
best regards,
xeb

[Raugnaut]

Xebtria, you seem to be missing Primal Fury- an ADDITIONAL15 rage whenever you criton Auto Attack and mangle. That is a huge amount of rage- a melee crit, mangle crit, and another melee crit can easily put you at 60 rage. Mangle/berserk, criton all 3 targets? Instant Savage Defense/FR. Crit is our most favorable rage-gen stat.

[Kazlehoff]

From everyhting i've read, bear has been gutted of all the kitty stuff, and given nothing to replace the gap. our rotation is looking piss poor for MoP in current betas. our savage defense has been changed to dodge so it doesnt allways block damage like warriors.... then they made warriors ALLWAYS block.

from what im seeing now, Druids are going back to the bottom of the totem pole for tanks.