[Guardian] - Patch 5.4 Survival Guide

[exochaft]

I hoep they change that cause the talent was always designed to heal and when you heal you gain a small dps. Sure its really nice but it feels like the talent was only half designed for druid tanks.

healers get heal from dmg, cats get dmg from heal. And the guardian gets heal.

I'd say NV still fits that role for talents, if one so desires.

For DoC, why it doesn't provide a damage component for Guardians is likely due to the size of the heal. In our flex raids (ilvl downgraded to 506), I was easily getting 400-500k HT crits w/o high Vengeance on a regular basis (baseline zero Vengeance HT heal is around 75k on average for me). The downside is that using HT requires a GCD, which could be used for an offensive damage ability. Be that as it may, the healing done by a single HT while actively tanking will rival and usually beat Renewal. It turns out to be a choice between a little less damage for great healing potential.

[Viromand]

For DoC, why it doesn't provide a damage component for Guardians is likely due to the size of the heal.

I know what you mean but still, the talent tier is about dps/heal. NV gives you dps increase and a hps. HotW gives you stats and dps increase or heal. DoC gives you heal, and it has a short duration and is not guaranteed to be up when you need it.

I wouldnt want a big dps buff, but something like every time you use HT your next mangle gains 10% critical strike chance.

BLizzard always states they want the talent tier to be kind of the same. Its not the case as a guardian.

Dont get me wrong I dont really think we need it. And taking HT off the gcd when DoC procs would be too op. But gaining something to "sacrifie" a gcd would be kinda cool. And gainin a small critchance on mangle will not really have a big impact on our dps but it will raise the chance of us getting a new DoC proc.

OVerall I think they did a great job considering how talents started in MoP as a guardian. We really didnt have much of a choice back then. But with 5.4 it will be great beeing able to choose so many different talents depending on boss mechanics is kinda nice. The only thing im worried about is that we might heal to much next tier. With 4piece YG DoC and FR, we might turn out a bit to strong on that part considering that Yg and DoC also heal lowhptargets.

[Arielle]

Be that as it may, the healing done by a single HT while actively tanking will rival and usually beat Renewal. It turns out to be a choice between a little less damage for great healing potential.

Did some Flex testing yesterday, and I agree that the healing is substantial enough to not need a damage component....if it were off the GCD.

It's such a massive DPS loss when it's still on the GCD that you do need something back for it. There are other problems with it (buff too short, no Aura) too.

[Ampere]

Did some Flex testing yesterday, and I agree that the healing is substantial enough to not need a damage component....if it were off the GCD.

It's such a massive DPS loss when it's still on the GCD that you do need something back for it. There are other problems with it (buff too short, no Aura) too.

How long is the buff? It's nice that the talent is at least viable for Guardians in 5.4.

[Arielle]

8 seconds like Exo mentioned before. So that's 5.66666666~ globals which is not even close to enough time to use it reasonably effectively.

[Viromand]

if it were off the GCD

I think that would be too OP. A 400k heal off the gdc, that can be used to heal other is way too strong, and the argument will be it will make it to complicated for average players.

no Aura

what do you mean with that?

t's such a massive DPS loss when it's still on the GCD that you do need something back for it.

is it really that massive? I mean ok a gcd so you skip one lacerate.

I think it will be good but at high amounts of vengance but if you use NV for selfhealing with the dmg increase thats alot too. Not as much as DoC but IMO it could be overkill. Sure 2piece t15 will be gone, but how often do you really need so much heal that a renewal or high rage FR cant save you or the bearhp thingy. Even on heroic leishen with the extra dmg debuff I hardly use my renewal to keep. And for hits like fusion slash a FR heals me completely full cause it does so much dmg you get alot of vengeance. I mean whats the average DoC HT heals noncrit it has to be so high that it will outperform FR which is off the gcd and will give us a hot with new 4piece plus the fact that DoC is on the gcd.

If you use every DoC proc it will be a huge dps loss, plus if someone really drops that low and you heal them with HT ill bet the healers have already started casting on him or he used a healthstone. So either wouzld you heal be already a bit ovberheal and healers will waste mana.

How often does DoC proc? How much HT do you actually use? And how effective will that heal be? NV is a smart heal selfcast HT is not. Dont know all the bosses from SoO yet so maybe some fight DoC will be great and on all other fights it will ok. but is it worht sacrificing for a 50% uptime dmg boss with smartheal on the lowest target or a stat increase with massive aoe healing or dps gain on something that is a bit rngish and if you get the wrong timing healing someone else you waste a Heal and dps. If you dont makro it you will automaticly go out of form if you missed the buff or doubleclicked which will most likely kill you

8 seconds like Exo mentioned before. So that's 5.66666666~ globals which is not even close to enough time to use it reasonably effectively.

yes and I really hate FF low GCD due to haste, and with that happening on HT casts aswell I will go crazy.

[Arielle]

I think that would be too OP. A 400k heal off the gdc, that can be used to heal other is way too strong, and the argument will be it will make it to complicated for average players.

See: DoC Feral. That's fine.

what do you mean with that?

There's no poweraura.

is it really that massive? I mean ok a gcd so you skip one lacerate.

At 76% crit you get 0.0748125 DoC per second. So over 10 minutes you get 44.8875 DoC procs (not including Zerk or Incarnation).

So that ends up being a total of 0.616*44.8875*0.68*1.79 = 33.65643204 AP in damage. Multiply by 250k (for random total AP value) and you get 8414108.01 damage, or 14k DPS. Or anywhere between a 5-10% DPS loss depending on what you're doing at the time.

That's not insubstantial, considering NV is a 3% DPS gain, and HotW is more than that if used properly.

[exochaft]

At 76% crit you get 0.0748125 DoC per second. So over 10 minutes you get 44.8875 DoC procs (not including Zerk or Incarnation).

So that ends up being a total of 0.616*44.8875*0.68*1.79 = 33.65643204 AP in damage. Multiply by 250k (for random total AP value) and you get 8414108.01 damage, or 14k DPS. Or anywhere between a 5-10% DPS loss depending on what you're doing at the time.

That's not insubstantial, considering NV is a 3% DPS gain, and HotW is more than that if used properly.

If DoC ends up being that substantial of a DPS loss by itself, Blizz would have to address it even from just the standpoint of perception. Since people split hairs over something as small as 1% DPS gains versus doing something else that may be productive, 5-10% may be too much for the general population to consider. I want to get exact numbers on the PTR, but I've been experiencing a major damage decrease on the PTR even on target dummies, and the scaled-down raids lowering all of our stats doesn't give us a clear indication of what to expect ahead (I think the damage loss is tied to the new tier pieces, I have to mess around with it a bit more).

[Arielle]

but I've been experiencing a major damage decrease on the PTR even on target dummies, and the scaled-down raids lowering all of our stats doesn't give us a clear indication of what to expect ahead (I think the damage loss is tied to the new tier pieces, I have to mess around with it a bit more).

Well the Meta wasn't proccing for a while. Would that have something to do with it?

[exochaft]

Well the Meta wasn't proccing for a while. Would that have something to do with it?

I was testing w/o the meta for simplicity, but it still wouldn't account for the loss in damage. Who knows, my char could be bugged on the PTR, but on the target dummy I was experiencing a 20% DPS loss on average after changing to 553 tier compared to live with 543 tier. I'll run the numbers with my old gear once the PTR gets back up and see what happens.


*edit* - As of the new build on the PTR, my DPS is back up where it should be, at least on target dummies. The DPS meta still isn't proccing for Guardians, but there was a nice benefit with the new build: Windsong literally has 100% uptime for every buff. Don't think it's intended, but having 1500 crit/haste/mastery buff with 100% uptime is kind of fun.

Was messing around with SotF versus Incarnation, and I've been showing roughly a 3-4% better DPS with Incarnation if used on CD from combat logs using different gearsets. Didn't know if someone had theorycrafted this out yet, want to see if it matches up (from a design standpoint, it seems to make sense since active > passive talents according to Blizz). If this is the case, I think SotF would be ideal for lowly-geared druids or fresh 90's (or 95's next expansion)... using it in LFR/Flex while being below Hit/Exp caps by a mile seemed to let me have SD uptime pretty much where it should be under an infinite rage model.

*edit #2* - I decided to try SotF and Incarnation with DoC talents to see how they faired. Compared to HotW (not using the on-use aspect of HotW, purely passive), it's definitely a DPS drop, although I got roughly the same DPS with SotF + DoC as I did with Incarnation + DoC using every single proc (which now lights up HT on your bars, much more visual in this build). Using Incarnation, I saw a 12% DPS loss using DoC instead of HotW. Using SotF, I saw an 8% DPS loss. Both are fairly consistent with respect to the DPS difference between SotF and Incarnation that I found in the previous edit. I didn't test against NV because I'm tired and want some sleep, so someone else can mess around with it.

[Arielle]

Didn't know if someone had theorycrafted this out yet, want to see if it matches up (from a design standpoint, it seems to make sense since active > passive talents according to Blizz). If this is the case, I think SotF would be ideal for lowly-geared druids or fresh 90's (or 95's next expansion)... using it in LFR/Flex while being below Hit/Exp caps by a mile seemed to let me have SD uptime pretty much where it should be under an infinite rage model.

That's about right. However SotF will generate more Rage assuming even 3 minute intervals. It's pretty much in the right place and I'm not going to worry about it.

[Viromand]

See: DoC Feral. That's fine.

Really didnt notice that last time I played feral. And I doubt that the ferl one is as high as the guardian one

There's no poweraura.

That is not intended I quess. That would really suck.

Well the Meta wasn't proccing for a while. Would that have something to do with it?

Is it proccing again, cause they said they dont want to nerf the dps one for tanks but make the other one better.

At 76% crit you get 0.0748125 DoC per second. So over 10 minutes you get 44.8875 DoC procs (not including Zerk or Incarnation).

So that ends up being a total of 0.616*44.8875*0.68*1.79 = 33.65643204 AP in damage. Multiply by 250k (for random total AP value) and you get 8414108.01 damage, or 14k DPS. Or anywhere between a 5-10% DPS loss depending on what you're doing at the time.

That's not insubstantial, considering NV is a 3% DPS gain, and HotW is more than that if used properly.

4.4 ppm that sound really nice in terms of healing, now if you use only half of them a 7k dps loss still is alot but on fights with alot of magic dmg it will be nice. And isnt NV a 5% dmg increase?

- - - Updated - - -

I decided to try SotF and Incarnation with DoC talents to see how they faired.

I would say SotF and DoC is really bad cause you will loose alot of possibly mangle procs when you use the gcd for HT. resulting in an even higher dps loss

[Elunedra]

how long does the buff from the next DoC last? becase currencly with NS i know i can almost savely cast a Ribrth when needed, but i feel with the DoC buff i probely have to check my buffs first before casting the Rebirth

[Arielle]

how long does the buff from the next DoC last? becase currencly with NS i know i can almost savely cast a Ribrth when needed, but i feel with the DoC buff i probely have to check my buffs first before casting the Rebirth

That's exactly my complaint. It needs to be really easy to tell if you have DoC up or not.

[exochaft]

I would say SotF and DoC is really bad cause you will loose alot of possibly mangle procs when you use the gcd for HT. resulting in an even higher dps loss

While I didn't disclose my explicit numbers that I came up with wailing on a target dummy forever, I mentioned SotF + DoC and Incarnation + DoC were roughly the same. In reality, SotF + DoC yielded more DPS than Incarnation + DoC, albeit not by much (we're talking less than 1k DPS difference over all parses). This is likely due to the damage gain brought by Incarnation via more Mangles is truncated from potential DoC procs during Incarnation... simply put, the Incarnation cooldown is wasted as DPS the more DoC procs you get. In general, I didn't waste any Mangle applications with SotF if I my reaction time was good enough to use HT before using another ability that could proc a free Mangle (although the case could be made that any "free" Mangle proc was delayed).

[Tarazet]

While I didn't yield my explicit numbers that I came up with wailing on a target dummy forever, I mentioned SotF + DoC and Incarnation + DoC were roughly the same. In reality, SotF + DoC yielded more DPS than Incarnation + DoC, albeit not by much (we're talking less than 1k DPS difference over all parses). This is likely due to the damage gain brought by Incarnation via more Mangles is truncated from potential DoC procs during Incarnation... simply put, the Incarnation cooldown is wasted as DPS the more DoC procs you get. In general, I didn't waste any Mangle applications with SotF if I my reaction time was good enough to use HT before using another ability that could proc a free Mangle (although the case could be made that any "free" Mangle proc was delayed).

I would suggest to try it again without taking any breaks to heal during Incarnation. If you just maintain Thrash and spam Mangle, the amount of Rage you generate (and can spend on FR) should be far ahead of anything you can get from DoC.

[exochaft]

I would suggest to try it again without taking any breaks to heal during Incarnation. If you just maintain Thrash and spam Mangle, the amount of Rage you generate (and can spend on FR) should be far ahead of anything you can get from DoC.

That assumes we'll use DoC heals on ourselves, and in most cases I'm finding that I don't on the PTR... I think I've maybe cast it on myself 3 times since the PTR started in the heat of battle. As is the case with NV and HotW, in raid settings I'd say the heals from this tier generally benefit other people more than ourselves as Guardians. Frenzied Regen will still be the more efficient self-heal we have, mostly with how it scales with Vengeance and being off the GCD and being much easier to execute.

[Arielle]

I agree with Exo. If DoC is going to remain on the GCD you're not going to use it on yourself, you're going to use it on others. Further the amount of RPS we have in 553 gear is ridiculous (15+), with plenty for FR if we're in a situation where we need it. The only time this would change is maybe if glyphed FR became viable, but we're not there yet.

[Viromand]

I didn't waste any Mangle applications with SotF if I my reaction time was good enough to use HT before using another ability that could proc a free Mangle

How did you manage to do that.

im assuming you you use HT after mangle so it will be a lacerate you will miss and a possible mangle proc. Cause if you do mangle>ht>lacerate>thrash>lacerate>mangle your mangle would have been rdy the second lacerate. Just saying if you play SotF you want every gcd to be able to proc mangle.

If DoC is going to remain on the GCD you're not going to use it on yourself, you're going to use it on others.

Why would you even use DoC, I personally thought it would be kinda nice, but everything I read makes this talent very crapy. Why would anyone spec DoC with NV doing the exact same without gcd wasting for 45sec and gives you a dmg increase. kSure DoC heals more but I doubt that every heal will be effective and actually save someone, but most likely NV would have done the same. If someone drops low and gets 100k from NV or 400k from DoC in both szenarios they would have survived.

I dont see the point of taking a talent thats lowers our dps with a proc you dont even use for yourself but to "help" the healers. HotW will be alot stronger anyway but Id say the amount of people you save with DoC and NV is about the same and thats the biggest issue with DoC doing the same as NV but instead of gaining dmg you loose it

[aggixx]

I dont see the point of taking a talent thats lowers our dps with a proc you dont even use for yourself but to "help" the healers. HotW will be alot stronger anyway but Id say the amount of people you save with DoC and NV is about the same and thats the biggest issue with DoC doing the same as NV but instead of gaining dmg you loose it

Funny how guardian's DoC is pretty much the opposite problem of feral's: Utility is fine but there's no damage bonus so it's useless.