[Guardian] 7.2.5 Legion Guardian Guide by Pumps

[Pumpsm8]

But are you gearing with no haste? or just replacing mastery with vers?

Mainly grabbing highest ilvl for most pieces so i have a fair bit of haste, i rate haste only slightly behind mastery atm honestly, at least for 5 mans. Something like Vers > Mastery > Haste >> Crit

[Kaolin]

Mainly grabbing highest ilvl for most pieces so i have a fair bit of haste, i rate haste only slightly behind mastery atm honestly, at least for 5 mans. Something like Vers > Mastery > Haste >> Crit

Ah ok. I have a few variations of crafted gear for each slot that I have yet to upgrade. Before I saw your post I was choosing either Vers/Mastery and then Haste for my second stat pref at around a 70/30 split. I only have my bracers rings and cloak left to upgrade. Was just wondering if I should keep choosing crafted pieces with haste on them or just go Vers/Mastery for the last few slots. I currently have 19% haste 13% mastery and 4% vers.

[Seditian]

I can stack 3 today already for big hits if I pay attention, and I don't even have Gory Fur yet.

3 stacks is really easy and it works with the armor trinket (meaning: the bonus armor from the trinket gets the +100% armor as well), I've reached 87% physical damage reduction quite reliably. No Gory Fur yet either. With Gory Fur we should easily be able to get 4 stacks, but it won't be as reliable as 3 stacks, obviously.

E: Armor trinket being Impenetrable Nerubian Husk. I have a shitty version too, the complete natural one, ilevel 825.

[apinksquash]

That's strange, I only got fire and blood. Do you have another spec as loot spec by any chance?

Yeah, turns out I leveled to 110 in Resto loot spec. Didn't play this toon much leading up to the launch and forgot I had a different loot spec enabled. And since most gear swaps primary stats to match your equipped spec, I didn't notice anything was off until after I had finished leveling. Oh well...

On the bright side, it turns out you don't need much gear to tank mythic dungeons if you have a good group anyways. So anyone that considers themselves an experienced tank should take comfort in that. I was able to tank all the dungeons on mythic difficulty with a 770 ilevel. The sad part was I had bad luck with gear, so even after doing all of them I still couldn't queue for Heroics. :O

[Deleted]

Just a quick question: In your opener you use mangle before thrash, wouldn't the 20% more damage from a bleeding target make it worth using thrash first? So far I have prioritized Thrash(less than 3 stacks) > Mangle > Thrash (at 3 stacks), especially when running with Rend and Tear.

Simming this yields better results than your priority list, but that might be just me being unfamiliar with simcraft.

[Hashcrypt]

So I'm now charged with tanking for my guild in raids, so I'm deciding on Prot Pally/War, Blood DK, and Vengeance as my tank of choice. My tanking partner will be a Guardian druid.

Out of the specs I have to choose from, which do you think would best compliment a Guardian druid?

I'd also like to have an off spec available to me that would allow both the Guardian and myself to do Mythic+ dungeons together, so that's another consideration.

Thoughts?

[Bearygood]

I'm 843 and my health is at 3.2m health

I feel like it's still too low when other tanks are around my health as well

15% mastery

[Deleted]

@Hashcrypt: I would say guardian is a pretty well rounded tank with very few weaknesses. If he has one at all, then it is probably movement, even though that is way less of an issue than for example when playing a DK. So you could choose something mobile like a warrior or a demon hunter, but to be completely honest, there shouldn't be much of an issue in any combination.

[CenariusTheForestLord]

So I'm now charged with tanking for my guild in raids, so I'm deciding on Prot Pally/War, Blood DK, and Vengeance as my tank of choice. My tanking partner will be a Guardian druid.

Out of the specs I have to choose from, which do you think would best compliment a Guardian druid?

I'd also like to have an off spec available to me that would allow both the Guardian and myself to do Mythic+ dungeons together, so that's another consideration.

Thoughts?

Vengeance or pally will be best I think. Warrior is a good option too. Dk is a bit too similar in role with a guardian druid.

This is assuming you have full choice of course. The best option is always the option you want to play most. Strength has almost never anything to do with it.

[Unknownuser]

So since I'm bad at math and numbers does anyone have numbers I can use to edit the Stat weights on AMR because I'm under the impression that ilevel(armor/agi) should be top spot but it keeps telling me to stick with lower level blues and greens, any help would be rad thanks in advance

[Dreyen]

@Hashcrypt: I would say guardian is a pretty well rounded tank with very few weaknesses. If he has one at all, then it is probably movement, even though that is way less of an issue than for example when playing a DK. So you could choose something mobile like a warrior or a demon hunter, but to be completely honest, there shouldn't be much of an issue in any combination.

Main issue with guardian is bad utility. Especially in mythic+: our utility is almost completly worthless. Really wish incap roar was an aoe stun or aoe silence or whatever.

[CenariusTheForestLord]

Main issue with guardian is bad utility. Especially in mythic+: our utility is almost completly worthless. Really wish incap roar was an aoe stun or aoe silence or whatever.

AOE fear in place would be amazing and also fit in class identity. Doesn't break instantly on damage (but it can after a few ticks/hits) Still useful in the same way it is now.

- - - Updated - - -

So since I'm bad at math and numbers does anyone have numbers I can use to edit the Stat weights on AMR because I'm under the impression that ilevel(armor/agi) should be top spot but it keeps telling me to stick with lower level blues and greens, any help would be rad thanks in advance

Just make stamina 10 and have the others normalized around mastery at 1.

Putting stat weights something like the following should do well. They're not accurate, but they'll help until some theorycrafter comes along and actually finds the correct ones.

Stamina 4
Armor 2
Mastery 1
Vers 1
Haste .85
Crit .7

[Lysozyme]

This post will be purely about survivability. All considerations relating to damage done will be completely ignored.

TL;DR: Versatility is better than Mastery

Note - the numbers in section 2 mistakenly do not account for base mastery. That is addressed and accounted for in section 3.

Section 1

Versatility and Mastery are the best two secondary stats for survivability (the original post here considers haste, but that's out of date). It is often touted that they are equal to each other, and should be kept at even levels. This is not accurate.

700 mastery = 1% mastery = 1% extra max hp, 1% extra healing received, 2% attack power
800 versatility = 2% versatility = 2% extra damage done, 2% extra healing done, 1% less damage taken

The main thing these stats bring of value is 'effective health', or EHP. This is the 'effective' amount of health you have available to survive a hit. If you had 100 health, and a 50% damage reduction, you would have 200 effective health, because killing you would take 200 damage before mitigation. This is the most important thing for survivability - your effective health must always remain above the amount of incoming damage, or you die. It is not the only important thing - damage reduction is important because it means you need less healing. This is why damage reduction is a better form of effective health than just increasing your health, such as by stamina - though stamina is usually tuned to provide a lot more effective health than an equivalent budget of damage reduction.

Mastery provides a pseudo-damage reduction. This can be demonstrated in "health deficit", i.e. the amount of healing required to restore the damage dealt to you from a hit that has already happened. This is only accurate where the hit didn't actually kill you, but most don't - even if you did end up dying, all the preceding hits were benefiting fully from mastery, and the one that killed you only benefits from it partially.

This can be demonstrated as follows.
Scenario 1: I have 100 base health. I have 100% versatility, which provides me with 50% damage reduction (ignoring other factors, which apply equally to both scenarios). This means I have 200 effective health.

Scenario 2: I have 100 base health. I have 50% mastery, which provides me with 50% extra health, and 50% extra healing received. How much effective health do I have? Only 150. This difference is diminished at lower stat totals, however. For example, with 20% versatility (10% DR), you have, accounting for base mastery, (1.04)(100/0.9) health, or 115.556 (rounded) health. However, at the same stat total of mastery, i.e. 15.4285714%, you have 115.286 (rounded) health. This is slightly more effective health with versatility.

At 7,200 stat total, you have 9% DR from vers, so your EHP is (1.04)(100/0.91), or 114.285714. Alternatively you have 10.285714% mastery, plus 4% base, or 14.285714% mastery; bringing your health total to the same.

At higher than 7,200 stat total between versatility and mastery, versatility provides more EHP.*

*Note that this does include base mastery.

Section 2

Now consider damage reduction, or pseudo-damage reduction for mastery.

Consider taking a hit for 50 damage before mitigation. In the first example, I take 25 damage after mitigation. I am left on 75 health. I need 25 healing to return to the same health I was on before taking the damage. In the second example, I begin on 150 health. I take 50 damage after mitigation. To heal back up the 50 points of health, I need to be healed for 50/1.5. This is 33.333 (rounded).

50% mastery is therefore slightly worse than 100% versatility at providing effective damage reduction. Recall, too, that if you were to take, say, 198 damage in the above examples, you would survive on 1 health in the first, but die in the second, as the 'healing received' component of mastery would be of no benefit.

However, 50% mastery is not directly comparable to 100% versatility. 100% versatility is 40,000 versatility. 40,000 mastery is 57.1428571% mastery.

What is the result when comparing the above scenarios now?

Scenario 1A: The same; 50 damage taken before mitigation = 25 healing required
Scenario 1B: 50/1.571428571 = 31.818 (rounded) healing required. So it's slightly better than it appeared before, but still worse than versatility.

At 40,000 stats' worth, mastery requires you to have 27.273% (rounded) more incoming healing than versatility, per point.

Is this the same if you had 10,000 stats' worth?
25% vers = 12.5% DR
10k mastery = 14.2857143% mastery
Scenario 2A = 50 damage taken before mitigation = 43.75 damage taken after mitigation = 43.75 healing required
Scenario 2B = 50 damage taken after mitigation = 50/1.14.2857143 = 43.7499999945 healing required

At 10,000 stats' worth, mastery requires you to have almost exactly the same amount of healing as versatility; slightly less (but not notably so).

Is this the same if you had 5,000 stats' worth?
12.5% vers = 6.25% DR
5k mastery = 7.14285714% mastery
Scenario 3A = 50 damage taken before mitigation = 46.875 damage taken after mitigation = 46.875 healing required
Scenario 3B = 50 damage taken after mitigation = 50/1.0714285714 = 46.6666666679 healing required

At 5,000 stats' worth, versatility requires you to have 0.446% (rounded) more incoming healing than mastery, per point.

As you can see, the fewer stats you have in total, the better mastery is compared to versatility. However the more you have, the better versatility is. The sweet spot where they are functionally identical is at 10,000 rating.

1) Versatility provides considerably more effective health per point if you are at risk of dying from that particular hit. Mastery only provides roughly equivalent EHP when you were going to survive to go on to receive healing afterwards. This is usually not important, but can be.
2) Versatility also provides you with bonus healing done. This affects Frenzied Regeneration (though doesn't affect Ysera's Gift, for example). Mastery's healing taken increase cannot be compared to it, because that is already accounted for in the effective health calculation. The 'extra healing done' component to versatility is on top of that. This may or may not be significant depending on the situation. However it should be noted that Mastery's extra healing received does affect Ysera's Gift, and the Legendary item that gives you a bonus heal for a percentage of maximum health whenever you use Frenzied Regeneration; though they do not 'double-dip' from it.


We have seen that versatility and mastery are equal at providing effective health (providing that you survive the hit!) if you can have 10k rating of either.
What if you can have 5k of both?

5k vers = 12.5% vers = 6.25% DR
5k mastery = 7.14285714% mastery
Scenario 2C = 50 damage taken before mitigation = 46.875 damage taken after mitigation = 46.875/1.0714285714 = 43.75 healing required.

So 5k versatility + 5k mastery is identical in healing required to restore the health deficit to 10k of either stat.

What if you have 1000 versatility and 9000 mastery?
1000 versatility = 2.5% versatility = 1.25% DR
9000 mastery = 12.8571429% mastery
Scenario 2D = 50 damage taken before mitigation = 49.375 damage taken after mitigation = 49.375/1.128571429 = 43.75 healing required.

It is therefore clear that 10k stats is the equilibrium point. In any distribution between versatility and mastery, at exactly 10k total between the two, they are even. At less, mastery is slightly better. At more, versatility is slightly better - but the difference just gets larger and larger. For example, if you had 36,000 of one of them, and could add 4,000 more:
If you had 90% versatility and went to 100%, this would be going from 45% DR to 50% DR. 0.5/0.55 is a ~9.1% increase in DR factor.
If you had 51.4285714% mastery and went to 57.1428571429%, this would be going from 151.4285714% health and healing taken to 157.1428571429% health and healing taken, which is a ~3.8% increase.

Recall now that versatility has other benefits too. Firstly, you get extra self-healing done. Secondly, you get more effective health against hits that you would not have survived and been healed up for if you had mastery.

As such, I think that it is clear that when you have above 10,000* total versatility + mastery combined, versatility is the clear winner. Even before that, versatility provides additional benefits over mastery, i.e. more effective health against a hit which would otherwise kill you, and more self-healing. Bear in mind that 10,000* total versatility + mastery combined is very easily reachable even in pre-raid gear. As such, the stat priority should not treat them equally or have people keep them level. Rather, the stat priority should be:

Versatility > Mastery > Haste > Crit.

*See section 3

Please feel free to check this and point out any errors in logic or maths.

Section 3

*Edit (1) - regarding base mastery - @oswarlan correctly pointed out that I mistakenly omitted it. It is quite simple to fix though - it actually further deflates the value of mastery. It slightly changes the threshold. The threshold is in reality 10,000 stats, minus the budget given to 4% mastery, i.e. 2,800 stats. As such, the threshold is 7,200 stats.

At 7,200 stats:
18% Vers = 9% DR = 45.5 damage taken after mitigation = 45.5/1.04 = 43.75 healing required
10.2857142857% + 4%-base mastery = 14.2857142857% Mastery = 50 damage taken after mitigation = 50/1.142857142857 = 43.75 healing required

So as we can see, the threshold for pseudo-damage reduction and for EHP is the same. Once you have more than 7,200 versatility+mastery combined, you get more effective health from versatility, and less healing required to meet your health deficits.


P.S. Thanks Lim for the help <3

[celinamuna]

This post will be purely about survivability. All considerations relating to damage done will be completely ignored.

TL;DR: Versatility is better than Mastery

Versatility and Mastery are the best two secondary stats for survivability (the original post here considers haste, but that's out of date). It is often touted that they are equal to each other, and should be kept at even levels. This is not accurate.

700 mastery = 1% mastery = 1% extra max hp, 1% extra healing received, 2% attack power
800 versatility = 2% versatility = 2% extra damage done, 2% extra healing done, 1% less damage taken

The main thing these stats bring of value is 'effective health', or EHP. This is the 'effective' amount of health you have available to survive a hit. If you had 100 health, and a 50% damage reduction, you would have 200 effective health, because killing you would take 200 damage before mitigation. This is the most important thing for survivability - your effective health must always remain above the amount of incoming damage, or you die. It is not the only important thing - damage reduction is important because it means you need less healing. This is why damage reduction is a better form of effective health than just increasing your health, such as by stamina - though stamina is usually tuned to provide a lot more effective health than an equivalent budget of damage reduction.

Mastery provides a pseudo-damage reduction. This can be demonstrated in "health deficit", i.e. the amount of healing required to restore the damage dealt to you from a hit that has already happened. This is only accurate where the hit didn't actually kill you, but most don't - even if you did end up dying, all the preceding hits were benefiting fully from mastery, and the one that killed you only benefits from it partially.

This can be demonstrated as follows.
Scenario 1: I have 100 base health. I have 100% versatility, which provides me with 50% damage reduction (ignoring other factors, which apply equally to both scenarios). This means I have 200 effective health.

Scenario 2: I have 100 base health. I have 50% mastery, which provides me with 50% extra health, and 50% extra healing received. How much effective health do I have?

Consider taking a hit for 50 damage before mitigation. In the first example, I take 25 damage after mitigation. I am left on 75 health. I need 25 healing to return to the same health I was on before taking the damage. In the second example, I begin on 150 health. I take 50 damage after mitigation. To heal back up the 50 points of health, I need to be healed for 50/1.5. This is 33.333 (rounded).

50% mastery is therefore slightly worse than 100% versatility at providing effective health. Recall, too, that if you were to take, say, 198 damage in the above examples, you would survive on 1 health in the first, but die in the second, as the 'healing received' component of mastery would be of no benefit.

However, 50% mastery is not directly comparable to 100% versatility. 100% versatility is 40,000 versatility. 40,000 mastery is 57.1428571% mastery.

What is the result when comparing the above scenarios now?

Scenario 1A: The same; 50 damage taken before mitigation = 25 healing required
Scenario 1B: 50/1.571428571 = 31.818 (rounded) healing required. So it's slightly better than it appeared before, but still worse than versatility.

At 40,000 stats' worth, mastery requires you to have 27.273% (rounded) more incoming healing than versatility, per point.

Is this the same if you had 10,000 stats' worth?
25% vers = 12.5% DR
10k mastery = 14.2857143% mastery
Scenario 2A = 50 damage taken before mitigation = 43.75 damage taken after mitigation = 43.75 healing required
Scenario 2B = 50 damage taken after mitigation = 50/1.14.2857143 = 43.7499999945 healing required

At 10,000 stats' worth, mastery requires you to have almost exactly the same amount of healing as versatility; slightly less (but not notably so).

Is this the same if you had 5,000 stats' worth?
12.5% vers = 6.25% DR
5k mastery = 7.14285714% mastery
Scenario 3A = 50 damage taken before mitigation = 46.875 damage taken after mitigation = 46.875 healing required
Scenario 3B = 50 damage taken after mitigation = 50/1.0714285714 = 46.6666666679 healing required

At 5,000 stats' worth, versatility requires you to have 0.446% (rounded) more incoming healing than mastery, per point.

As you can see, the fewer stats you have in total, the better mastery is compared to versatility. However the more you have, the better versatility is. The sweet spot where they are functionally identical is at 10,000 rating.

1) Versatility provides considerably more effective health per point if you are at risk of dying from that particular hit. Mastery only provides roughly equivalent EHP when you were going to survive to go on to receive healing afterwards. This is usually not important, but can be.
2) Versatility also provides you with bonus healing done. This affects Frenzied Regeneration (though doesn't affect Ysera's Gift, for example). Mastery's healing taken increase cannot be compared to it, because that is already accounted for in the effective health calculation. The 'extra healing done' component to versatility is on top of that. This may or may not be significant depending on the situation. However it should be noted that Mastery's extra healing received does affect Ysera's Gift, and the Legendary item that gives you a bonus heal for a percentage of maximum health whenever you use Frenzied Regeneration; though they do not 'double-dip' from it.


We have seen that versatility and mastery are equal at providing effective health (providing that you survive the hit!) if you can have 10k rating of either.
What if you can have 5k of both?

5k vers = 12.5% vers = 6.25% DR
5k mastery = 7.14285714% mastery
Scenario 2C = 50 damage taken before mitigation = 46.875 damage taken after mitigation = 46.875/1.0714285714 = 43.75 healing required.

So 5k versatility + 5k mastery is identical in healing required to restore the health deficit to 10k of either stat.

What if you have 1000 versatility and 9000 mastery?
1000 versatility = 2.5% versatility = 1.25% DR
9000 mastery = 12.8571429% mastery
Scenario 2D = 50 damage taken before mitigation = 49.375 damage taken after mitigation = 49.375/1.128571429 = 43.75 healing required.

It is therefore clear that 10k stats is the equilibrium point. In any distribution between versatility and mastery, at exactly 10k total between the two, they are even. At less, mastery is slightly better. At more, versatility is slightly better - but the difference just gets larger and larger. For example, if you had 36,000 of one of them, and could add 4,000 more:
If you had 90% versatility and went to 100%, this would be going from 45% DR to 50% DR. 0.5/0.55 is a ~9.1% increase in DR factor.
If you had 51.4285714% mastery and went to 57.1428571429%, this would be going from 151.4285714% health and healing taken to 157.1428571429% health and healing taken, which is a ~3.8% increase.

Recall now that versatility has other benefits too. Firstly, you get extra self-healing done. Secondly, you get more effective health against hits that you would not have survived and been healed up for if you had mastery.

As such, I think that it is clear that when you have above 10,000 total versatility + mastery combined, versatility is the clear winner. Even before that, versatility provides additional benefits over mastery, i.e. more effective health against a hit which would otherwise kill you, and more self-healing. Bear in mind that 10,000 total versatility + mastery combined is very easily reachable even in pre-raid gear. As such, the stat priority should not treat them equally or have people keep them level. Rather, the stat priority should be:

Versatility > Mastery > Haste > Crit.

Please feel free to check this and point out any errors in logic or maths.

+1 10 char

[oswarlan]

Well, unless I'm missing something in your post... my 9732 mastery puts me at 17.9%, not the 14.2 range you listed above for 10k. (I'm guessing you aren't factoring in the base value? Of which we have zero vers base, 4% mastery base.) Not that it really swings the math a ton, of course, but it is worth using actual numbers when doing the math.

[Lysozyme]

Oh. Yeah, I did forget to account for the base value. It shouldn't change much, because obviously you have the base value when considering the vers as well, but it might change the 'equilibrium point' threshold. I'll think about it.

Edit - accounted for. It was actually quite simple to account for, but then I made a mistake when checking it, so I spent a lot longer on it than was necessary!

[jayg2772]

there not a whole lot of vers pieces in emerald nightmare

[Ausr]

Well, someone on Twitter asked about Mark of Ursol and the devs says it's weird and deserves a look. Just bake it into Ironfur. It's just weird.

[Deleted]

So what lysozyme is saying is that druids should balance out mastery/versatility at 50%/50% when they reach mastery 10k+? As if mastery has a mandary importance until 10k and then versatility comes in hand? thats how i got it.

I don't get it. I've always thought mastery is all the way the best then vers then haste.

Ok here is an important question : How do you think mastery - versatility % should look like ideally when having 890+ gear (raid gear)
20% - 20% ?
Personally when reading guardian guides they always put mastery above versa.


How do you think druid mastery /versatility stats are going to look like. Ideally guardians should have items which grant both mastery and versatility at the same time?

Having in mind some druids already hit 16-17% hp increase from mastery its more than safe to assume we will see 25%-30% hp /healing increase in raid gear 890+ .

honestl i feel confused. What do I do to make sure I have superb mitigation? Do I stack mastery or versa. Can anyone summerise please. Thanks!

[Deleted]

due to the way the damage reduction is calculated, mastery is more efficient at low values and versatility at higher ones. The best result, in this case due to how multiplicative scaling works, a combination of both will always be better than just one of the stats. In low gear, focus on mastery, the better your gear gets the more you go for versatility. if you have 4k mastery and 2k vers, that is better than the other way around, but if you have 10k vers and 5k mastery, that is also better than swapping the 2 stats around.