[Guardian] - Patch 5.4 Survival Guide

[Arielle]

hi there guys. is it good to trade 2 WF items from ordos (chest and shoulders) for the 4 piece normal mode?

Depends on the content you're doing. H10m? Yes. Anything else? Ehhhhhh, kinda debatable how useful the bonus actually is. Really the best way is to evaluate your own logs and determine how much use you get out of the 4pc.

And no, Bindings are not better than Renataki's.

[FluFF]

So Im levelling a druid alt atm , first time tanking since cata dungeons on my pala.

Call me stupid but why does every Guardian have the Xuen legendary cape and not the Niuzao ?
I have to admit that everyone I looked at also had Feral as 2nd spec but is there something bad about the Niuzao cape? or is it just a preference now that the whole ''must do more dps'' mindset has also filtered into tanks their heads since cata ?

I was thinking about getting the Niuzao cape , but then again I don't got a guild and only use my bear for dungeons and at lvl 90 for LFR and then maybe normal raiding once WoD arrives, so the Niuzao cape looked like the logical option?

[Dreyen]

People use Xuen because they think they are too good to die outside of a wipe and it makes them do more dps. I guess if you do non-life threatening content, you might as well use Xuen's instead of Niuzao, but for anything challenging, you might as well use Niuzao's. If it prevents a wipe its always nice.

TBH though the proc is kinda underwhelming, it will save your life here and there, but the fact it doesnt make you immune to damage of 1-2s or that it doesnt heal you when it procs means you can still die from the next attack. I always felt like the legendary cloak needed a dps benefit for tanks too...

[exochaft]

So Im levelling a druid alt atm , first time tanking since cata dungeons on my pala.

Call me stupid but why does every Guardian have the Xuen legendary cape and not the Niuzao ?
I have to admit that everyone I looked at also had Feral as 2nd spec but is there something bad about the Niuzao cape? or is it just a preference now that the whole ''must do more dps'' mindset has also filtered into tanks their heads since cata ?

I was thinking about getting the Niuzao cape , but then again I don't got a guild and only use my bear for dungeons and at lvl 90 for LFR and then maybe normal raiding once WoD arrives, so the Niuzao cape looked like the logical option?

Proc aside, the stats on the legendary DPS cloak are good for Guardians (stats are still good on the tanking cloak, too). When we consider the procs and their uses, the tanking proc is likely underutilized by most people unless you're doing heroic progression raiding while the DPS proc is a little extra damage that scales with Vengeance in terms of damage. In your case, since you're only doing dungeons and LFR, you probably will get more mileage out of the DPS cloak since you probably will never have the tanking cloak proc even if you tried.

I personally use both depending upon what I'm doing, and while I could get away with using the DPS cloak on all heroic SoO bosses, I still use the tanking cloak for heroic Blackfuse, Paragons, and Garrosh since our method of dealing with things can lead to... well, let's just say I prefer the extra measure of protection, especially when doing sales runs. However, if there's slim to no chance of ever having the tanking cloak proc, I use the DPS cloak.

*edit* Dreyen beat me to it! Also, another negative about the tanking cloak is that not all sources of your death will proc the cloak, as in you'll still die without the cloak proccing.

[opbear]

not all sources of your death will proc the cloak, as in you'll still die without the cloak proccing.

That's never happened for me before. Are you sure you didnt get hit consecutively?

If you have 999k hp and you get hit for 1 million from 1 add and 1 million from the 2nd add, at the same time, your cloak will stop the first but you will die from the second.

[Arielle]

That's never happened for me before.

He's referring to instant kill mechanics, or mechanics that would do enough damage to kill you even with the proc.

[opbear]

He's referring to instant kill mechanics, or mechanics that would do enough damage to kill you even with the proc.

Common sense... why would anyone even refer to that.

[aggixx]

Common sense... why would anyone even refer to that.

A lot of people aren't familiar with the distinction between instant kill mechanics and something that just deals an extremely large amount of damage.

[exochaft]

Getting a little more specific about some rarer details I've observed with the tanking cloak:

-I have seen instances of tank deaths where the cloak should have proc'd but did not (was pretty much exclusively on heroic Paragons and heroic Garrosh, but wiping +100 times to a boss before killing it lets you notice this). We wrote it off as server-side lag, and the chance mathed out to about 0.04%... not really earth-shattering, just don't be shocked if it happens once or twice. Only really happened to me during Paragons doing scorpion fun-time, happened to my co-tanks a lot more often.

-The Endurance of Niuzao debuff can expire prematurely! Does that mean the cooldown is up? No! We've had the typical "I'm gonna do something crazy that might get me killed, but I have my cloak proc just in case!"... only to have them die w/o the debuff popping and checking the logs to see that the debuff expired prematurely (we're talking it expires 1min to 1min30sec early). I think it may happen when moving into and out of vehicles or changing rooms like Garrosh. Again, the occurrence rate is super low, but the moral of the story would be to play like your cloak will not proc and minimize the risks if you can afford to... also, don't purposefully stand in something that you shouldn't.

In the more general sense, as aggixx stated, many people aren't familiar with the distinctions of deaths nor the fine print associated with the tanking cloak. Typical of the black dragonflight!

[opbear]

You honestly wouldnt (I personally dont) use the tanking cloak for Paragons or Garrosh heroic, mainly because there's so much damage going out to yourself that with or without it you would die.

Pretty much mainly on garrosh heroic, the only time you're going to die from excessive damage is when you're tanking adds and garrosh, and with the tanking cloak that's going to be useless since you'll be hit again immediately after.

And well... paragons... You shouldnt die from excessive damage in the first place lol. Unless you're doing something seriously wrong...

Thats my opinion. I have yet to kill H Garrosh so we need all the dps we can get. Currently im always on top of dps charts tanking both garrosh and adds in phase 1 and doing most damage to the doubts in first transition, thanks to my dps cloak hitting 1mill+ per tick

[Deleted]

nice guide!

[exochaft]

You honestly wouldnt (I personally dont) use the tanking cloak for Paragons or Garrosh heroic, mainly because there's so much damage going out to yourself that with or without it you would die.

Pretty much mainly on garrosh heroic, the only time you're going to die from excessive damage is when you're tanking adds and garrosh, and with the tanking cloak that's going to be useless since you'll be hit again immediately after.

And well... paragons... You shouldnt die from excessive damage in the first place lol. Unless you're doing something seriously wrong...

Thats my opinion. I have yet to kill H Garrosh so we need all the dps we can get. Currently im always on top of dps charts tanking both garrosh and adds in phase 1 and doing most damage to the doubts in first transition, thanks to my dps cloak hitting 1mill+ per tick

Or I'm doing something right, it's all about how you do it.

Our strategies are a bit on the risky side, since we killed it under-geared initially. To put it mildly, I generally hit max Vengeance a lot for H Paragons/Garrosh by design and abuse said levels of Vengeance. If we went for a more conservative method of killing bosses, I'd probably shy away from the tanking cloak a bit more, but even when I used the DPS cloak while the numbers looked sexy on the surface, they ultimately meant nothing and didn't shorten our kills or speed up phases. Simply put, if the extra DPS from the cloak doesn't matter or change the outcome in my case, the damage is just eye candy for me and my raid (I'm 25man and the overall damage gain was sub-1%, and I'm certain 10man would have different but not drastically different results).

If your raid's DPS is a bit lacking, the DPS cloak could help push phases/transitions faster, that's why it's a personal opinion and a choice everyone has to make! As a caveat, I'd have to say that the entire raid executing properly tends to outweigh gains from changing cloaks, similar to the whole legendary tanking cloak discussion we had a while back. Neither cloak is needed to kill H Garrosh, it's just icing on the cake.

Good luck on your future H Garrosh kill, opbear!

[opbear]

Good luck on your future H Garrosh kill, opbear!

Thanks, we're working on getting to phase 4 cleanly atm. I hope to expect a kill in 1 or 2 more raid nights. Given the DC gods let us stay online. (australian internet ftl?)

[throwaway2604]

You honestly wouldnt (I personally dont) use the tanking cloak for Paragons or Garrosh heroic, mainly because there's so much damage going out to yourself that with or without it you would die.

Pretty much mainly on garrosh heroic, the only time you're going to die from excessive damage is when you're tanking adds and garrosh, and with the tanking cloak that's going to be useless since you'll be hit again immediately after.

And well... paragons... You shouldnt die from excessive damage in the first place lol. Unless you're doing something seriously wrong...

Thats my opinion. I have yet to kill H Garrosh so we need all the dps we can get. Currently im always on top of dps charts tanking both garrosh and adds in phase 1 and doing most damage to the doubts in first transition, thanks to my dps cloak hitting 1mill+ per tick

I'm just happy to see that druids are being taken to H Garrosh and other heroics. I just recently stepped into the tanking world and settled on a druid and have been torn down ever since for not leveling a pally. So I have hope again!

[Dreyen]

Honestly, i believe people are really overdoing the whole fotm aspect for tanks, the way a tank is good isnt as visible as dps or healers. Bears are very strong, ive had to tank a few heroic garrosh attempts this week and i felt like he was barely tickling me.. and i took less damage than our other tanks with 7-9 more ilevels than me, even though i was supplying them with healthy amounts of tooth&claw procs on garrosh while they tanked. hell, i had to use Frenzied regen twice over 12~ attempts because the damage wasnt high enough to warrant using FR. Thats all in 25m.

[Gemini Soul]

Honestly, i believe people are really overdoing the whole fotm aspect for tanks, the way a tank is good isnt as visible as dps or healers. Bears are very strong, ive had to tank a few heroic garrosh attempts this week and i felt like he was barely tickling me.. and i took less damage than our other tanks with 7-9 more ilevels than me, even though i was supplying them with healthy amounts of tooth&claw procs on garrosh while they tanked. hell, i had to use Frenzied regen twice over 12~ attempts because the damage wasnt high enough to warrant using FR. Thats all in 25m.

I was in a 25 Man with a co tank also a bear but i got sidelined because the RL didn't want 2 of the same type of tanks for Heroics what makes it worst is i got dropped for a DK aka a DG i would not have been so upset if it was for a pally/war cause they have so many raid CD's they can use.

[Elunedra]

and therefor your avatar is a DK ?

well my guild on 25 man HC has 3 tanks, 1 Pally, 1 DK and me
sometimes they do want the DG guy in on first kill, but the DK isnt 100% active these days so i get to a lot of first kills also
overall i am happy

[Nikcug]

This has been very helpful, and has gotten me into tinkering with my Guardian set!

[exochaft]

I was in a 25 Man with a co tank also a bear but i got sidelined because the RL didn't want 2 of the same type of tanks for Heroics what makes it worst is i got dropped for a DK aka a DG i would not have been so upset if it was for a pally/war cause they have so many raid CD's they can use.

While I don't want to rehash my belief that some classes have way too many CD/utility abilities to the point where replacing them would almost never happen, I'd like to say that Stampeding Roar has definitely been a boon for our 25man raids for SoO (especially H Garrosh). I found it ironic that our druids were generally brought in not because they could use Tranquility as a raid cooldown but rather for another Stampeding Roar... our raid leader likes us moving from point A to point B as fast as possible.

Tank-wise, Guardians are really strong on H Garrosh and most encounters really, especially when complimented with good gear. Guardians only get the bad stigma because everyone hates when a humanoid becomes inferior to a beast, so they try to keep us tamed! Although my co-tank thanks me for the +400-700k T&C absorbs I pump out while he's tanking.

[Arielle]

Guardians had some pretty nasty problems in H25 ToT (particularly on Animus), but the bigger problem there was that Paladins and Monks were so OP.

But yeah, Guardians are really in a good place right now. A few tweaks and a redesign of the Raid CD game and we're pretty much perfect.