[Guardian] - Patch 5.4 Survival Guide

[Arielle]

If you would like to see some numbers, Arielle did a nice write up back in Feb comparing the 5.2 trinks. Not sure how much that info has changed since the original posting.

http://theincbear.com/monday-roundup-february-19th-2013

Not much, if at all.

Plus you can just download it yourself and plug in your stats

[Trubo]

Not much, if at all.

Plus you can just download it yourself and plug in your stats

For some reason whenever I load theincbear up it briefly shows the correct color and page layout, then finishes loading as such.

[Arielle]

For some reason whenever I load theincbear up it briefly shows the correct color and page layout, then finishes loading as such.

Works fine for me. What browser are you using?

[Trubo]

Works fine for me. What browser are you using?

Firefox. Also, is theincbear currently down? Won't even load for me now.

Edit: took it about 20 seconds to load, nevermind.

[Arielle]

Firefox. Also, is theincbear currently down? Won't even load for me now.

Edit: took it about 20 seconds to load, nevermind.

Yeah we've been experiencing performance issues with Wordpress. Maintenance is trying to find a solution when they have time.

[Deleted]

Quick question about gear/4 set bonus.

Atm I have 4set and durumu legs (all normal and 2x upgraded). Do I drop set bonus for HC head from Jin rokh? Keep it as it is? Swap it when I get tier legs?

[Viromand]

I myself dropped the 4p once i got the head of jinrokh.

It depends from fight to fight, on iron qon hc i still use 4p.

Try it out, noone can really tell you if its better or worse, if you miss the insane rage every 1m you should keep 4p if you have good rage without it drop it

[exochaft]

Quick question about gear/4 set bonus.

Atm I have 4set and durumu legs (all normal and 2x upgraded). Do I drop set bonus for HC head from Jin rokh? Keep it as it is? Swap it when I get tier legs?

I literally think of 4-pc Guardian as a small survival CD. While having high RPS innately will give you the necessary rage on average, using Enrage with 4-pc is like having guaranteed unlimited rage for the duration (since "average" doesn't mean "always").

While it's useful when RNG is against you in terms of rage generation, it may have specific uses. If anything, using it on a pull can likely get quite a few SD charges used in a very short duration, allow more FR/T&C usage at your leisure. I use it as a specific CD for encounters where I literally have no tanking downtime to allow SD charges to fully replenish where damage taken is relatively high (although this is pretty much just for heroics where this can occur), allowing liberal usage of FR/T&C w/o concern for having rage for the next SD charge.

I suppose the simply answer is 4-pc is beneficial for extended periods of tanking where you'll see yourself with no SD charges. Most encounters in ToT don't require such extended periods, with the exception of some heroics.

[Elunedra]

so how to handle rage capping?

i often find at 100 rage, SD on cooldown, and maul nog empowered, and i am already at 100% hp
i often just ignore it and continue to use maul when it procs and use SD when its off cooldown.

however beeying at 100% rage indirectly means i am not optimaly using my crit / hit / exp / haste
so i am thiking maybe i should use frenzy regen just becase i got the rage for it

or maybe i should get the ghlypth of frenzy regen so that FR has an effect even when i am at 100% hp

[exochaft]

so how to handle rage capping?

About the only thing you can do is liberally use Maul if you cap on rage and don't need to use it on SD/FR/T&C. I wouldn't arbitrarily use FR, especially if I have 2pc T15 and stacks built up. Glyphing FR could be feasible if you find yourself not really using FR as an emergency heal and literally excess rage most of an encounter. In order to maintain full uptime on SD and glyphed FR would be roughly 17 rage per second if I did my pre-coffee math correctly, and certainly during procs Guardians can achieve this... of course, no one said one should have full uptime on glyphed FR. Regardless, I still find being able to emegency heal myself with FR much more useful than what the glyphed version would provide, since about anything that would kill me usually occurs between heals or burst damage where external heals may not be the answer (and my healers thank me for instantly healing myself back up after big tank-killer mechanics via FR). I don't doubt Blizz could introduce some mechanics that would make glyphing FR more attractive in the future, we'll just wait and see.

Another option, as you mentioned, would be to reforge/regem to reduce your rage generation. Ironically, this probably isn't worth it since excess rage generally means we have excess survivability, and the only thing we could reforge/regem into would be more passive survivability or DPS-oriented stats (both which generally won't affect our excess rage problem).

Overall, I don't really mind having excess rage on occasion, it's much better than not having enough constantly.

[Viromand]

if you are ragecapped use your Maul without T&C, it does good dmg. How long or how many times are you ragecapped. Without 4piece its really hard to be rage capped alot of times or for long times and the 4p is more of a def cooldown now. Or dps boost.

In tot you should never use FR glyph since it makes the 4p a bit stronger but I think the 2piece will be completly wasted.

If you are constantly rage capped use maul more often. I you are ragecapped 1-2 times during fights, it doesnt matter that much.

[Motoma]

If you don't have anything to use your Rage on, it's not "wasted" if you cap.

[Arielle]

It mostly comes down to playing in a such a way that prevents Rage capping in the first place. When you're not tanking anything this is pretty impossible since your RPS is going to exceed 10 (keeping Maul on CD), and you won't have anything to heal most of the time. However when you are tanking it's pretty easy to prevent.

1. Use Maul between SD while SD is still up.
2. Use Maul when you know you won't need a big heal in the next few seconds or use SD, regardless of the amount of Rage you have.
3. Use Maul whenever T&C is up and you won't "waste" it completely. That is when you're already at 100% absorb on next melee before using it again.
4. Save Enrage (especially 4pc) for high damage situations where you need lots of Rage immediately, or you need to "catch up" on SD.

In most normal encounters you can pretty much just bind Maul to your regular buttons with hardly any detriment. In Heroics you have to be smarter about your Rage usage while still maximizing the DPS contribution from Maul.

[Navoan]

Yeah, don't underestimate the damage benefit to your raid by using Maul more liberally. Even with the 4-set (which I'm considering dropping tbh) I find I'm not Rage capped very often because I use Maul nearly on CD when Enrage is up. There's no reason not to

[Viromand]

What do you guys think about the stuff going to be added in 5.4

Talking about setiersets and new talents.

Ysera gift: Dont know really maybe cool for soloing, but Renewal still better. would be cool if its crits. The raidhealing effect maybe kinda nice while OT healing the other tank aswell, but not really that strong.

New set: Not sure yet but i really dont like the new healing stuff, druids already have strong healing, 2 piece is kinda good, cause you will most likely need the heal after you use barkskin. 4piece i dont know looks really shitty to me, why do I need a hot when I use SD, You dont need a hot when you dodge. And FR with crit build heal enough most of the times, so the hot would be wasted alot. And comparing them to other tank boni like 2piece monk, or 2 piece pala druid set pieces seem kinda bad.

DoC: Still a crappy as before. not even worht considering even with the rebirth now (which is sad for guardian that are the only one wit BR in a raid group cause it would feel mandatory to them, cause we cant use NS anymore). With alle the extra healing through set boni and FR i really doubt we want to spend that GCD. Maybe good while OT to heal the other tanks but so does NV.

5.4 would make druids very strong against DOT dmg, i hope they will change the Bonus on T16 cause they seem very weak compared to other tank classes, and it doesnt feel like it synergizes with the druid itself especially the 4p

[rated]

New set: Not sure yet but i really dont like the new healing stuff, druids already have strong healing, 2 piece is kinda good, cause you will most likely need the heal after you use barkskin. 4piece i dont know looks really shitty to me,

What are you smoking ? 4 piece looks fucking amazing. Free heal for something we're always using (SD/FR).

[Deleted]

how much crit should i max get i have 72% crit atm

[Viromand]

What are you smoking ? 4 piece looks fucking amazing. Free heal for something we're always using (SD/FR).

So after you use SD you get a heal that heals for 10% over 8 seconds. No I have 650k hp full buffed that will be 8.1k hps or 65k over 8 seconds. Now with SD up and T&C the dmg you take will be close to 0. Except from big hits. So this will be overhealing alot. A guardian is designed to not take dmg, not like most other tanks to decrease the dmg but to avoid it. And if we take dmg FR is there to heal us and so are healers. We dont need another heal, so 4p is almost worhtless in my eyes. And 2piece is not that huge too its nice but compared to other tanks the druid bonuses suck big time.

So in 5.4 You may get 10k hps from the 4piece. Dont know the exact mechanics yet but I quess it will not stack and not behave like a normal hot(crit), maybe with FR glyph it would be nice. But as a last tier set bonus it is really disapointing.

2 Piece not bad with the free SD, and the extra FR is not bad but barkskin lasts 12 seconds, so maybe a makro with cancelaura barkskin would help to make it more reliable.

Both are unreliable and kinda dumb cause with bad RNG a druid can get bursted really fast a small hot will not help.

Compare to the other tanks.

With a 5stacks bastion of glory, a pala can use 1 HP to get 5. And thats off the GCD.
A monk get a shield. And a very strong heal as 4piece that can be used when he wants to.
warrior 2 piece is really awesome. 4piece is meh.
DKs set boni are perfectly designed for the class.

[Sonnillon]

how much crit should i max get i have 72% crit atm

I've read that from items and stuff until 76% (when in bear), then rest to haste/mastery....
I do believe that few pages back this crit thing was discussed or was it even a separate topic, can't recall. Can you give armory link ringstorm? I am curious on what kind of gear you have atmo that you would get 72%

[Deleted]

ye sure here u go http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte...%C3%B8m/simple