Guardian Alpha Patchnotes

[Merlinb]

Just listing the things that currently apply to Guardian Druids and thought it would be better suited to have it's own thread to discuss the Bear changes.

THESE WILL CHANGE. CALM DOWN. SKY IS STILL KK IF THERE'S SOMETHING YOU DON'T LIKE

General Changes

*Vengeance has been redesigned and renamed Resolve. Resolve does not increase outgoing damage, but does now increase tank self-healing and absorption based on damage taken.

*Hit and Expertise have been removed; they're no longer needed in order to reliably land attacks!

*Professions no longer have combat benefit perks tied to them.

*Agility no longer provides an increased chance to critically strike with melee and ranged attacks or abilities.

*The base chance to critically strike is now 5% for all classes. There are no longer different chances to critically strike with melee, ranged, and spells.

*There is a new passive, named Critical Strikes, which increases chance to critically strike by 10%.
It is learned by all Rogues, all Hunters, Feral and Guardian Druids, Brewmaster and Windwalker Monks, and Enhancement Shamans.

*Each point of Agility or Strength now grants 1 Attack Power (down from 2). All other sources of Attack Power now grant half as much as before.

*Weapon Damage values on all weapons have been reduced by 20%.

*Attack Power now increases Weapon Damage at a rate of 1 DPS per 3.5 Attack Power (up from 1 DPS per 14 Attack Power).

*Attack Power, Spell Power, or Weapon Damage now affect the entire healing or damage throughput of player spells.

*The amount of Dodge gained per point of Agility has been reduced by 25%.

*All players now have a 100% chance to hit, 0% chance to be dodged, 3% chance to be parried, and 0% chance to glance, when fighting creatures up to 3 levels higher (bosses included). Tank specializations receive an additional 3% reduction in chance to be parried, so tank attacks have a 0% chance to be parried vs. creatures up to 3 levels higher.

Talent and Spell changes/removals/additions

*Thick Hide now also reduces the chance for attacks to be parried by 3%.

*Enrage has been removed.

*Swipe (Bear Form) has been removed.

*Symbiosis has been removed.

*Dream of Cenarius now also increases the critical strike chance of Mangle by 10%.

*Leader of the Pack now causes your melee critical strikes to heal you for 3% of your health, down from 4%.


*Druid: Faerie Fire now applies Physical Vulnerability, increasing Physical damage taken by 4% for 30 seconds.

Specific Class Changes to Bears

*Survival Instincts is now available to all Druid specializations. Survival Instincts now reduces damage taken by 70% (up from 50%) with a 2-minute cooldown (down from 3), and for Feral and Guardian specializations can have up to 2 charges (up from 1).

*Guardian Druids' Mastery (Nature's Guardian) has been replaced with a new Mastery: Primal Tenacity.
Mastery: Primal Tenacity causes the Druid to gain a Physical absorb shield equal to 16% of the attack's damage when they are hit by a Physical attack. Attacks which this effect fully or partially absorbs cannot trigger Primal Tenacity.
(Mastery: Primal Tenacity now also passively increases Attack Power by 12% (percentage increased by Mastery), in addition to its current effects.)

*Auto-attacks now generate 5 Rage (down from 10.9 Rage).

*Lacerate now generates 10 Rage, has no cooldown (down from a 3-second cooldown), EDIT: Lacerate will remain having a 25% chance to reset the CD of mangle

*Thrash now generates 2 Rage every time it deals direct or periodic damage, has no cooldown (down from a 6-second cooldown), but no longer has a chance to reset Mangle's cooldown.

*Faerie Fire no longer has a chance to reset Mangle's cooldown.

*Primal Fury now generates 5 Rage (down from 15 Rage) when you dodge or non-periodically critically strike (up from only Auto Attacks and Mangle).

*Mangle now generates 30 Rage, and its cooldown is reduced by Haste.

*Bear Form no longer increases Haste and Crit from items by 50%, but instead causes Haste to reduce the global cooldown.

Bear Talents!

Level 100 Talent Choices for Guardian:
-Guardian of Elune (Guardian) - Savage Defense now lasts 4 sec, and increases your chance to dodge by 100%.

-Pulverize (Guardian) - A devestating blow that consumes 3 stacks of Lacerate on the target to deal 290% weapon damage, generate 30 Rage, and reduce damage taken by 20% for 10 sec. Melee Range, Instant, Requires Bear Form

-Bristling Fur (Guardian) - You bristle your fur, reducing all damage taken by 50% for 3 sec. Instant, 1 min cooldown

Class Perks *These are Perks gained while leveling throughout Draenor*

Guardian
*Enhanced Tooth and Claw - Tooth and Claw now also makes Maul free, and can accumulate 1 additional charge.
*Empowered Berserk - Increases the duration of Berserk by 5 sec.
*Enhanced Bear Hug - You are no longer immobilized by using Bear Hug.
*Improved Mangle - Your Mangle deals 20% additional damage.
*Improved Maul - Your Maul deals 20% additional damage.
*Empowered Thrash - Increases the periodic damage of your Thrash by 50%.
*Empowered Bear Form - Bear Form grants you an additional 20% Stamina.
*Improved Barkskin - Barkskin provides 10% additional damage reduction.
*Improved Frenzied Regeneration - Increases the healing from Frenzied Regeneration by 10%.

*Note- Eventually you will have all of these perks, although the order you earn them will be random.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If I missed anything drastic, please let me know and I'll update it.

All and all, I'm pleased with the current state of bears based on what I can read.

I believe our stat priority as of now would be Haste > mastery > Crit

Our rotation would look something like:
1.) Mangle
2.)Thrash Dot uptime
3.) Faerie Fire Bitch
4.) Lacerate *To three, then pulverize if you take the talent (Which I currently think is the top talent)*
5.) Lacerate spam

[Angrybathtub]

Loving the changes to Guardian to be honest. Will probably make it my main spec in WoD.

[adynn]

Attacks which this effect fully or partially absorbs cannot trigger Primal Tenacity.

This really puts me off the new mastery.

It should just shield based on physical damage taken from attacks (if it's absorbed then it's not counted). I could be wrong but the wording makes it seem like if you absorb 5% of a massive hit, that 95% damage taken doesn't lead to giving you any shields.

I do love the 100 talents though.

[Bearshield]

I like the 100 talents and I like the perks. I hate almost everything else they are doing with us. No, I don't care that it's alpha because in my experience most changes I disliked made it to live over the years. (like the fact that we STILL have to choose between Feral Charge and Feline Swiftness despite having both in our spec for years prior to MoP) Honestly some of the things people are most excited about are fixes to things they broke going into MoP. (like removing the cd on Lacerate)

Thinking I need to get over my sentimental attachment to my Druid and move on to a new class.

[TZM]

WHat is that new Mastery? Iam sorry blizzard,, but this part:

''Attacks which this effect fully or partially absorbs cannot trigger Primal Tenacity.''

it seems so lame.

[Arielle]

Basically you just can't trigger a second Primal Tenacity bubble if you have one up already. That's all it really says.

[Deleted]

pulverize is back, hell yeah baby :>
<3 the changes

[Elunedra]

pulverise is indeed fun., but 100% dodge on SD? that sick lol

i love it how they reduced the dodge gained from agility by 25% lol, as if we where getting any significant values out of it anyway

[Mandibleclaw]

I'm in ABSOLUTE LOVE with the 6.0 patch notes for guardians. I loveeeee it! I felt like happy WTF when i saw our new lvl 100 talents which is how i should feel abt it! all in all I can't wait to be guardian in 6.0! (Not that I changed in the past or I will ever change anyway but oh well). Happy Guardian Druid Here!

[Cerus]

Did I miss something or did bear just lose half their AoE abilities and rage generator?

[craigp100]

so we're going back to the Cataclysm mastery and stacking lacerate up to 3 stacks only to consume it with pulverize almost instantly? I can't see anything to get excited about in all honesty and would love to see something new and refreshing for the Guardian to make the spec more interesting as I find it to be pretty dull.

[Gliff]

They basically fixed everything that I hated about Guardians. I'm very happy.

[Anuibus]

2 charges of SI buffed to 70%, might of ursoc, barkskin buffed 10% with the leveling passive, t100 defensive talents, more stam on bear form with the leveling passive and a new mastery. Druids are getting a lot of defensive buffs o_O

[Deleted]

Love the changes. At least now our mastery will be a thing that happens, rather than just like wearing a sweater.

[Deleted]

i like how the backtrack on a significant amount of changes they made from Cata to MoP, realizing they were shit (e.g. Mastery and Pulverize).

just tells that they sometimes really have no idea what they are doing

I mean srsly, why the fuck is an ability i have been using while i was 85, a lvl 100 talent now???

[baskev]

Did I miss something or did bear just lose half their AoE abilities and rage generator?

nope. was thinking the same thing. and we allready have enough of them ( sarcasme ftw).
hope they notice it in time. otherwise looks fine to me somethings i am going to miss some things i dodnt.
but by the looks of it where the new mages of tanking. 3 button class

[Deleted]

nope. was thinking the same thing. and we allready have enough of them ( sarcasme ftw).
hope they notice it in time. otherwise looks fine to me somethings i am going to miss some things i dodnt.
but by the looks of it where the new mages of tanking. 3 button class

3 buttons?

Mangle, Lacerate, Thrash, Faerie Fire & possibly Pulverize is 5. You are also not taking into account that defensive abilities are buttons, that should be used while tanking. Having the mindset of a dps doesn't really work as a tank. Your defensive abilities, ie Barkskin/SI/L100s etc, are buttons you should use.

[Rioo]

Did I miss something or did bear just lose half their AoE abilities and rage generator?

Thrash will have no CD I believe, so I'm okay with them removing swipe.

Overall these changes make me really excited for guardian in WoD. The lvl 100 talents seems like a lot of fun and while I think Pulverize looks like the strongest one I can see the other two being used on a lot of bosses too.

[Kaiarra]

To me, the whole set of patch notes just feel like a giant clusterfuck of dumbing stuff down, nerfing and/or changing shit for no real reason; will see how it pans out but certainly doesn't feel like something to be excited about (more like dread). Hate the stat squish, hate the reforging removal, really not a fan of the new D3 style random modifier loot (that will never drop what you want), hate mythic raiding being 20-man, and now some pretty mediocre Druid patch notes to boot - about the only thing that made me smile was the facing removal for Shred (about damn time). Making all professions worthless seems a fun change too - guess we can all go reroll engi and some gathering profession if they're all pointless?

Loving the removal of Symbiosis after we just got it... guess they just gave up on trying balance it because PvP? Seriously going to miss SWG when I'm messing around as Resto; I guess I won't miss it much when tanking as the buffs were all so mediocre - I could at least pretend they hadn't removed Thorns with Lightning Shield though.

Can live without Swipe with no CD Thrash, but I rather dislike the Enrage removal mainly because I see no reason for it to be removed. It's just starting to feel a bit tedious needing to relearn tanking/healing every expansion when they persist on making such sweeping changes.

The level 90 talent nerfs seem like they'll push everyone into use Vigil (and I'm gutted DoC Feral got dumbed down for the masses).

No, I don't care that it's alpha because in my experience most changes I disliked made it to live over the years. (like the fact that we STILL have to choose between Feral Charge and Feline Swiftness despite having both in our spec for years prior to MoP)

I still feel SO much bitterness over this. But hey, we should probably be 'thankful' they haven't decided to remove out rootshift again, right? /sigh

[baskev]

3 buttons?

Mangle, Lacerate, Thrash, Faerie Fire & possibly Pulverize is 5. You are also not taking into account that defensive abilities are buttons, that should be used while tanking. Having the mindset of a dps doesn't really work as a tank. Your defensive abilities, ie Barkskin/SI/L100s etc, are buttons you should use.

damm rage allot ?!!!....dude sarcasme like: mage's are a 1 button class?!?
yes we have more things we can use. and you missed 1 in your 5...all druid classes get shred?!? so its 6 melee buttons if you take pulverize :P