[Guardian] - Patch 5.4 Survival Guide

[Arielle]

Reported that too. DoC bug should be fixed today, set bonus bugs maybe not.

[Denal]

Hows the mastery stacking vs crit stacking in SoO?

[aggixx]

Seems like they're trying to set a record for "most bugs implemented in one pair of set bonuses" (although to be fair they are pretty mechanically involved).

[Elunedra]

lol you got thier private mailbox Arielle?, btw is anyone else his Mmo Champ forum looking a bit screwed? there seems tobe a css issue here

[Viromand]

Hows the mastery stacking vs crit stacking in SoO?

mastery stacking was always viable on certain bosses that do alot of physical dmg. But this will matter only on heroic, but you should be fine using crit on all bosses.

[Elunedra]

speaking about bugs, is it normal that even after the nerf the legendary dps cloak still counts for 7 - 9% of my total dps?
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/0...?s=2898&e=3174

[exochaft]

speaking about bugs, is it normal that even after the nerf the legendary dps cloak still counts for 7 - 9% of my total dps?
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/0...?s=2898&e=3174

It's still normal. On our farm heroic kills where I'm not gonna get hit for a ton of my HP, I'll use it for usually 10% personal DPS gain. For some of the harder-hitting fights, I'll still use the tanking cloak to be safe. I honestly wouldn't be upset if they nerfed the proc rate even more, since it doesn't really make-or-break any of our kills. I should note that since it scales with Vengeance, that's what really makes it still too good.

[Deleted]

speaking about bugs, is it normal that even after the nerf the legendary dps cloak still counts for 7 - 9% of my total dps?

Wasen't it only the caster and healing cloaks that got nerfed?

[Elunedra]

Wasen't it only the caster and healing cloaks that got nerfed?

nope, the proc chance for the melee dps cloaks also had thier proc chance reduced for tanking specs (same for dps meta gem)

[Arielle]

I think the DPS vs Tank cloak choices are fine. You will almost always choose the tank cloak for any sort of heroic progression, and for any non-threatening fights there should be another option rather than something that's completely worthless.

[exochaft]

So far, the only encounters I've seen the DPS cloak potentially makes a difference on heroic are Galakras, Malkorok, and possibly Spoils. I'm viewing this from 25man, I've only done normals on 10man.

If you're the adds tank on Galakras, the proc will likely be used to its full potential, and the damage intake isn't too bad as long as people are quick with getting the banners down. However, if you have a stacked raid comp that destroys AoE packs, it's probably not worth it.

Heroic Malkorok has a decently tight enrage, and the Vengeance is... well, I get up over 700k Vengeance on that encounter, enough said. Only thing that holds me back is if someone fails to soak properly and an AoE boom goes off when I don't happen to dodge a hit at high debuff stack (1.4mil melee attacks hurt if you don't have a full bubble up). If you feel comfortable with not dying (and this is highly dependent on how you tank this and your ability to keep your bubble high), it's feasible to use the DPS cloak.

Spoils is... well, it's Spoils! The DPS cloak is like a weaker version of the tank buff that's attainable, and if you don't get the tank buff life is miserable from a tank damage output. It's in the "maybe" category for me, since it depends if you get lucky or not.

Overall, I think there's more than enough incentive to at least use the tanking cloak on progression. I personally start making swaps from survival towards DPS-oriented gear choices based on if the tanking cloak procs or comes close to proccing. While everything will depend on an individual's gear, the tank damage does start ramping up quite a bit the closer you get to Garrosh, making the tanking cloak more desirable towards that end. My personal mantra is to make sure the wipe is never due to my death, and the cloak is an added buffer to that end.

[Elunedra]

So guide says to use mastery + armor elixers, should this not be crit and armor, since crit is generly a better stat then mastery

[Arielle]

So guide says to use mastery + armor sliders, should this not be crit and armor, since crit is generly a better stat then mastery

Yes, but I haven't updated this one in a while because I've been preoccupied with other things.

It's on the list of things to do. Unfortunately it's close to the bottom of that list.

[Braindwen]

Our two piece and four piece are mostly functional now!

Logged in today to it no longer using my rage when barkskin ended, and ACTUALLY CASTING THE 20 RAGE FR IT'S SUPPOSED TO CAST!!!. The 2pc is also actually smart enough to realize the FR costs 20 rage now, not 25, so it's finally giving the appropriate healing from the 4pc.

Last two things:

If SD is up when barkskin ends, that 3s SD cast won't register for the 4pc heal. 15% AP worth of healing lost .

Possibly related to the first, every now and then my normal SD casts would only give 30 rage worth of healing from the 4pc. Still the normal cost and duration, but half the expected 4pc heal (e.g. normal SD casts would give me 1781/s in healing, these would give 890/s). The way i found to repeat this was to do the above bug with barkskin, then use SD later when I didn't have SD going. Really an odd bug, I'm not 100% sure about it.

But the remaining bugs are very minor compared to what the 2pc/4pc used to screw up, so I'm overall happy.

Lastly, a little quirk with the 4pc. NV doesn't buff its healing by 12% immediately, instead any 4pc healing gained while NV is up is 12% stronger. For example, if I SD->NV, I'd get 1781/s for 8s, but if I did NV->SD, it'd be 1995/s for 8s. NV also treats all of the 4pc ticks as single-target heals, damaging an enemy and healing an injured ally (possibly you again) for 25% of the heal. Really minor and amounts to like 1-500k damage over most of the boss fights I've done with it, but a little extra boost .

[Arielle]

Lastly, a little quirk with the 4pc. NV doesn't buff its healing by 12% immediately, instead any 4pc healing gained while NV is up is 12% stronger. For example, if I SD->NV, I'd get 1781/s for 8s, but if I did NV->SD, it'd be 1995/s for 8s.

100% sure that's due to snapshotting.

NV also treats all of the 4pc ticks as single-target heals, damaging an enemy and healing an injured ally (possibly you again) for 25% of the heal. Really minor and amounts to like 1-500k damage over most of the boss fights I've done with it, but a little extra boost .

I reported this during PTR and nothing was done about it, so I'll assume it's intended.

Reported the other thing though.

[exochaft]

If SD is up when barkskin ends, that 3s SD cast won't register for the 4pc heal. 15% AP worth of healing lost .

Possibly related to the first, every now and then my normal SD casts would only give 30 rage worth of healing from the 4pc. Still the normal cost and duration, but half the expected 4pc heal (e.g. normal SD casts would give me 1781/s in healing, these would give 890/s). The way i found to repeat this was to do the above bug with barkskin, then use SD later when I didn't have SD going. Really an odd bug, I'm not 100% sure about it.

Beat me to it. I'd imagine that the bug is due to code similar to the FR portion of the 2pc and how it trickled over into normal FR usage and altered how it worked. I suppose Blizz is trying to cut down on making individual spells for every version of an ability and modifying one spell's functionality for all cases instead... but quirks like this are much more common due to this methodology.

My guess with the 4pc doing extra damage while NV is up started out as a bug, but since it's so incredibly small and NV isn't a mandatory Guardian talent that it was easier to leave it be than fix it. Hurray for 4pc being a sub-1% DPS boost with NV? I'll see how it does on H Malkorok this week, since I didn't have 4pc last week.

[Braindwen]

My guess with the 4pc doing extra damage while NV is up started out as a bug, but since it's so incredibly small and NV isn't a mandatory Guardian talent that it was easier to leave it be than fix it. Hurray for 4pc being a sub-1% DPS boost with NV? I'll see how it does on H Malkorok this week, since I didn't have 4pc last week.

Shielded heals work so well with it.

[17:20:23.448] Ahanss Ursoc's Vigor Ahanss +0 (O: 0, O: 1, A: 4960)
[17:20:23.958] Ahanss Nature's Vigil Malkorok 1

ONE DAMAGE WOOO!

Also, later:
[17:20:46.848] Ahanss Nature's Vigil Alastair +1 (O: 0)
[17:20:50.858] Ahanss Nature's Vigil Amourmort +1 (O: 0)


I mean, it might actually be nice during blood rage (particularly if you soak it and more or less cap vengeance), but don't expect much from it during the shield phases.

[exochaft]

I mean, it might actually be nice during blood rage (particularly if you soak it and more or less cap vengeance), but don't expect much from it during the shield phases.

A similar issue to what some of our resto druids were experiencing when trying to use NV to boost raid damage output indirectly, kind of expected it. Based on my Vengeance, it would've added roughly 1-2% extra DPS assuming the shields didn't make it go nutty, which is seriously a drop in the bucket. Although, that encounter on heroic (didn't try on normal) seems to be ignoring typical Vengeance caps... which might be by design, since the absorb mechanic is there to basically double our HP, causing AM's that only work when scaled with incoming damage to fail unless Vengeance can go higher. Sometimes theoretical info can be fun, too.

[Elunedra]

i am sure they exist somewhere, but anyone got a link to the bear BiS 5.4 gear list ?

[Deleted]

i am sure they exist somewhere, but anyone got a link to the bear BiS 5.4 gear list ?

http://theincbear.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=749