[Guardian] 7.2.5 Legion Guardian Guide by Pumps

[Ausr]

Thoughts on the new archaeology neck? Currently wearing 865 neck (1258 stam, 887 haste, 1054 mastery, +socket). How good would the 850 neck be with 3 versa gems? Both offensively and defensively.

I would've been more impressed with the neck if it was higher ilevel or boa to send to another character. Other than that, not thrilled with it.

[Daan]

I would've been more impressed with the neck if it was higher ilevel or boa to send to another character. Other than that, not thrilled with it.

Maybe a good neck for timewalking?

[Ausr]

Ironfur nerfed from 100% to 80%.
Soul nerfed from 6 to 5 rage.

[Deleted]

Well Ironfur thanks to armor was getting out of control.
Soul of the forest nerf is the one I can't understand.

[Deleted]

Yes ironfur deserved a nerf. Don't forget that patch 7.2 we are getting the chance to provide 3 artifact traits which have 3 points in them with an additional 4th point which means that the trait which gives ironfur 4% additional absorbtion will get stronger. 7.2 we are also getting relics which boost 2 traits at the same time and this will get boosted even further. We will soon hit the armor cap with that and that's stupid. Well deserved.

[Soulwell]

Yes ironfur deserved a nerf. Don't forget that patch 7.2 we are getting the chance to provide 3 artifact traits which have 3 points in them with an additional 4th point which means that the trait which gives ironfur 4% additional absorbtion will get stronger. 7.2 we are also getting relics which boost 2 traits at the same time and this will get boosted even further. We will soon hit the armor cap with that and that's stupid. Well deserved.

You can hit armor cap in current gear with 4-5 iron furs.
With that being said all these nerfs and bears are still going to be dominant 7.2.

[GT4]

With that being said all these nerfs and bears are still going to be dominant 7.2.

What are you making that claim based on?
The rage generation nerfs as well as the iron fur nerf hit both physical damage mitigation and EHP pretty hard. Going by healing required under comparable circumstances (e.g. main-tanking guarm mythic), other tanks (outside of brewmasters) already seem to be capable of matching guardian druids. Going by EHP, guardian druid currently seems to be the second best after brewmasters (which require more healing to make up for that) but relatively close to warriors which could also solo tank guarm mythic pre-fix.

Now looking at other tanks' survivability changes, you're seeing at worst marginal nerfs (heavy repercussions, blessed hammer) and at best significant buffs (demon hunter passive mitigation and HP).

Obviously pure survivability isn't all that a tank brings to the table:
You also have damage where brewmaster and vengeance DH are receiving buffs across the board (9% increased damage compared to guardian only getting 4% to make up for the crit loss) and warrior is receiving AoE buffs (revenge and thunder clap damage increased).
You have utility where druids are already often losing out (roar is nice but can also be brought by shamans and ferals) and other tanks are getting some buffs as well (lower mass grip CD, lower aegis CD).
You have mobility where druids are losing one of the strongest tools at their disposal (displacer beast) and some other tanks are already superior to begin with, even allowing for a vastly different helya strategy when playing with two prot warriors.

Taking all of this into consideration, I just don't see guardian being "dominant" after 7.1.5 unless set bonuses end up being heavily imbalanced. Most guardians will probably stick to their class because of the heavy investment (mostly legendaries but also artifact power) but I'd expect top guilds to prefer at the least warriors over druids now.

[roi]

T19 bonuses pretty much negate the rage nerf. Also don't forget that the overall primary stat buff includes armor, which is way better for us than other tanks due to all the multipliers, as well as the +29% armor buff from maxed out weapon which is again incredibly strong for us.

And most importantly, nothing of that is live yet. There still will be additional changes on PTR I guess.

[Lysozyme]

This post is regarding the defensive benefits of stats.


TL;DR

With 4 set and no UE relics: get ~11% haste first
With 4 set and 1 UE relic: get ~6% haste first

(explanation here)

Then:

When above 11800 Versatility + Mastery put together, Versatility is strictly better for survivability than Mastery. It is also better for DPS, assuming you don’t have a ridiculously, unattainably large amount of Versatility. For this reason, coupled with the fact that Versatility gives an additional benefit to your self-healing; and that Mastery’s benefit is significantly truncated when you do not get healed; I recommend prioritising Versatility above it at all times.




Versatility and Mastery are the best two secondary stats for survivability. In 7.1.5, the amount of stats you need per % of that stat changed. Formerly, it was 400 Versatility per %, and 350 Mastery per 0.5%. Now, it is 475 and 400 respectively.

800 Mastery = 2% Attack Power; 1% extra max health; 1% extra healing received

950 Versatility = 2% additional damage done; 2% additional healing done; 1% less damage taken

These stats do two things. They provide EHP (‘effective health’), and they make you not need for that health to be healed up after it’s damaged. They do this in similar but different ways.

Section 1 – Effective Health

If you had 100 HP and a 50% DR (damage reduction), you would have 200 EHP, because killing you would take 200 damage before mitigation. This is the most important thing for survivability – your EHP must remain above the amount of incoming damage, else you die. It is not the only important thing, however. DR is important because it means you need less healing. This is why DRs are a better form of increasing your EHP than just increasing your HP directly, such as via Stamina – though Stamina is usually tuned to provide a lot more EHP than an equivalent budget of DR, and as such, is still very good for survivability.

Guardian’s Mastery provides a pseudo-DR. 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 only works when the hit did not actually kill you, but most hits do not – and even if you did end up dying, all the preceding hits were benefitting fully from Mastery; and the one that killed you only benefits from it partially.

This can be demonstrated as follows.

Scenario 1: You have 100 base HP. You have 47500 Versatility (100% Versatility), which provides you with 50% DR (ignoring other factors, which apply equally to both scenarios). This means you have 100/0.5, or 200 EHP.

Scenario 2: You have 100 base HP. You have 47500 Mastery (59.375% Mastery), which provides you with 59.375% extra health, and 59.375% extra healing received. You therefore have 159.375 EHP.

This difference is diminished at lower stat levels. For example:

Scenario 3: With 4750 Versatility (10% Versatility), you have a 5% DR, which gives you 100/0.95, or 105.263157895 EHP.

Scenario 4: With 4750 Mastery, you have 5.9375% Mastery, so you would have 105.9375 EHP.

This means at low stat totals, Mastery gives more EHP than Versatility, but at high ones, Versatility gives more than Mastery.

The above calculations omit Base Mastery. Druids start off with 4% extra HP and healing received, with 0 Mastery on their gear.

As such:

Scenario 1: With 47500 Versatility, you really have 208 EHP

Scenario 2: With 47500 Mastery, 163.375 EHP.

Scenario 3: With 4750 Versatility, you really have 109.473684211 EHP

Scenario 4: With 4750 Mastery, you really have 109.9375 EHP.

Section 2 – Damage Reduction

Consider taking a hit for 50 damage before mitigation, with 100 base HP.

Scenario 1: If you had 47500 Versatility, you have 50% DR. You begin on 100 HP. You take 25 damage after mitigation. You are left on 75 HP. You need 25 healing to return to the same health you were on before taking the damage before Mastery; accounting for Mastery you need to be healed for 25/1.04, or 24.0384615385.

Scenario 2: If you had 47500 Mastery, you have 163.375% Mastery. You begin on 163.375 HP. You take 50 damage after mitigation. You are left on 113.375 HP. You need 50 healing to return to the same health you were on before taking the damage before Mastery; accounting for Mastery you need to be healed for 50/1.63375, or 30.6044376435.

47500 Mastery is therefore slightly worse than 47500 Versatility at providing effective damage reduction. Recall, too, that if you were to take, say, 180 damage before mitigation, you would survive in Scenario 1, but die in Scenario 2, because Mastery’s “healing received” component would be of no benefit. Recall also that Versatility further increases your own healing done, notably by Frenzied Regeneration, which is of an additional benefit, unquantified here, albeit not extremely important.

Consider now Scenarios 3 and 4, with a much lower stat total.

Scenario 3: If you had 4750 Versatility, you have 5% DR. You begin on 100 HP. You take 47.5 damage after mitigation. You are left on 52.5 HP. You need 47.5 healing to return to the same health you were on before taking the damage before Mastery; accounting for Mastery you need to be healed for 47.5/1.04, or 45.6730769231.

Scenario 4: If you had 4750 Mastery, you have 109.9375% Mastery. You begin on 109.9375 HP. You take 50 damage after mitigation. You are left on 59.9375 HP. You need 50 healing to return to the same health you were on before taking the damage before Mastery; accounting for Mastery you need to be healed for 50/1.099375, or 45.4803865833.

As we can see here, at 4750 stats, Mastery requires you to receive less healing than Versatility does, by a small margin.

So the fewer total Versatility and Mastery you have, the better Mastery is compared to Versatility; and the more you have, the better Versatility is compared to Mastery.

This is because Versatility’s value increases the more Versatility you have; whereas Mastery’s value decreases the more Mastery you have. This can be easily seen due to the fact that to gain a 50% damage reduction (doubling your EHP) when at 98% DR-from-Versatility, you need only to go up to 99% DR-from-Versatility; and you go from taking 2% of the damage before mitigation, to 1% of the damage before mitigation. However, to double your EHP with Mastery when at an equivalent amount of EHP via Mastery – to go from 50 times your ordinary HP, to 100 times your ordinary HP – you would need to double your Mastery.

Equilibrium

The equilibrium point where Versatility and Mastery require the same amount of healing after accounting for Mastery to heal up the same damage taken is 11800 stats of Versatility and Mastery combined.

This can be seen as follows, with 100 base HP, taking a hit of 50 damage before mitigation:

Scenario 5: 11800 Versatility, 0 Mastery
Versatility % = 11800/475 = 24.8421053
DR-from-Versatility = 11800/950 = 12.4210527
Mastery % = 4 + 0
Damage taken after mitigation = 50*(1-((11800/950)/100)) = 43.7894736842
Healing required = (50*(1-((11800/950)/100)))/1.04 = 42.1052631579

Scenario 6: 0 Versatility, 11800 Mastery
Versatility % = 0
DR-from-Versatility = 0
Mastery % = 4 + 11800/800 = 18.75
Damage taken after mitigation = 50
Healing required = 50/1.1875 = 42.1052631579

Scenario 7: 5900 Versatility, 5900 Mastery
Versatility % = 5900/475 = 12.4210526316
DR-from-Versatility = 5900/950 = 6.21052631579
Mastery % = 4 + 5900/800 = 11.375
Damage taken after mitigation = 50*(1-((5900/950)/100)) = 46.8947368421
Healing required = (50*(1-((5900/950)/100)))/1.11375 = 42.1052631579

So when below 11800 Versatility + Mastery put together, Mastery is better at increasing your EHP and reducing the healing you need. At above 11800 Versatility + Mastery put together, Versatility is better at increasing your EHP and reducing the healing you need.

TL;DR

With 4 set and no UE relics: get ~11% haste first
With 4 set and 1 UE relic: get ~6% haste first

(explanation here)

Then:

When above 11800 Versatility + Mastery put together, Versatility is strictly better for survivability than Mastery. It is also better for DPS, assuming you don’t have a ridiculously, unattainably large amount of Versatility. For this reason, coupled with the fact that Versatility gives an additional benefit to your self-healing; and that Mastery’s benefit is significantly truncated when you do not get healed; I recommend prioritising Versatility above it at all times.

[Inuyaki]

You could add some graphs maybe?
Damage reduction for Vers is just plain f(x) = x and damage reduction for Mastery is f(x) = x / (1+x).
If you know how the last one looks, you know why Mastery is better for low values and worse for high values.

PS if you wanna bring in the rating required for 1%, its f(x) = x / 950 and f(x) = x / (800+x)

[roi]

Barely anyone has 11800 combined mastery + vers right now (OP has ~9k, I myself have ~11k). So what you're (not) saying is that we should go mastery for defense right now?

[Lysozyme]

I have more than 11800 mastery + vers in my defensive set. It will be much easier to reach it in 7.1.5 because gear will have more stats on it.

Yes, Inuyaki, I could add those graphs; what would be the point? :P

I do not think it is sensible to go for mastery, because it's only a tiny bit better than vers for pure survivability when below the threshold, assuming you do get healed, and not counting bonus to self healing from vers, and not counting damage done

[Soulwell]

What are you making that claim based on?
The rage generation nerfs as well as the iron fur nerf hit both physical damage mitigation and EHP pretty hard. Going by healing required under comparable circumstances (e.g. main-tanking guarm mythic), other tanks (outside of brewmasters) already seem to be capable of matching guardian druids. Going by EHP, guardian druid currently seems to be the second best after brewmasters (which require more healing to make up for that) but relatively close to warriors which could also solo tank guarm mythic pre-fix.

Now looking at other tanks' survivability changes, you're seeing at worst marginal nerfs (heavy repercussions, blessed hammer) and at best significant buffs (demon hunter passive mitigation and HP).

Obviously pure survivability isn't all that a tank brings to the table:
You also have damage where brewmaster and vengeance DH are receiving buffs across the board (9% increased damage compared to guardian only getting 4% to make up for the crit loss) and warrior is receiving AoE buffs (revenge and thunder clap damage increased).
You have utility where druids are already often losing out (roar is nice but can also be brought by shamans and ferals) and other tanks are getting some buffs as well (lower mass grip CD, lower aegis CD).
You have mobility where druids are losing one of the strongest tools at their disposal (displacer beast) and some other tanks are already superior to begin with, even allowing for a vastly different helya strategy when playing with two prot warriors.

Taking all of this into consideration, I just don't see guardian being "dominant" after 7.1.5 unless set bonuses end up being heavily imbalanced. Most guardians will probably stick to their class because of the heavy investment (mostly legendaries but also artifact power) but I'd expect top guilds to prefer at the least warriors over druids now.

It's like you typed all of this out and you have no idea what you're talking about. Comparing guardians to brm is probably the dumbest shit I've ever seen. Brm isn't even close to guardian as it stands, no tank is. And guarm?? What does solo tanking guarm have anything to do with anything that's relevant currently as you can't do it any longer and clearly wasn't intended. Our rage gen is beyond stupid as it is right now, you can almost have 2 ifs up at all times if you don't go into cat. The if nerf is nothing considering the ilvl of gear is going to go up so the armor will be going up, it's more of a scaling thing.
The damage buffs for tanks means nothing, if you think a 9% damage buff is going to help a monks do 200k+ more damage you're crazy.
Going on utility warriors bring nothing, Druids have a 1m roar. Talking about displacer?? Nobody takes displacer outside of mythic dragons progression, it puts you into cat, makes you lose all rage, furs, and you might get melee' for all your health, since form swaps are on the global now it's pretty useless over a 1m roar that with the trait is like a bear sprint.
Druids will still rein supreme with or without tier, this patch is just going to closen the gap between them.
You made no points that were even relevant to your claim.

[Dreyen]

Barely anyone has 11800 combined mastery + vers right now (OP has ~9k, I myself have ~11k). So what you're (not) saying is that we should go mastery for defense right now?

Remember that items are getting buffed across the board, everyone will have more ratings next patch.

[Selerian]

Barely anyone has 11800 combined mastery + vers right now (OP has ~9k, I myself have ~11k). So what you're (not) saying is that we should go mastery for defense right now?

I have around 16k of mastery and vers combined atm on my dps gear so it's easily doable. Pumps is low'ish on those numbers because at his gear level (and lack of progression content) he doesn't need any survivability and is pushing his stats purely for damage. In any case, in our current semi-op state, going full mastery is not required (if you have trouble surviving, there's something wrong with you or your healers), so you'll never go wrong with opting for versa.

[GT4]

It's like you typed all of this out and you have no idea what you're talking about.

Ad hominem doesn't substitute for an argument.

Comparing guardians to brm is probably the dumbest shit I've ever seen. Brm isn't even close to guardian as it stands, no tank is. And guarm?? What does solo tanking guarm have anything to do with anything that's relevant currently as you can't do it any longer and clearly wasn't intended.

I'm trying to make a nuanced point based on different characteristica and you're basically just generalizing based on the "brewmaster is bad" memes you heard. Good fucking job.

Brewmasters' huge strength is that they're basically immune to any form of burst thanks to stagger. This can be huge in certain fights. E.g. after killing mythic odyn the day after release, I checked logs for what other guilds did in P3 and you saw guilds generally either using multiple battle rezzes for tanks in P3, rotating cooldowns with a paladin tank or simply using a brewmaster (I believe Serenity also did this) because they cannot die to the spear if there's enough heal to outheal the resulting stagger. Of course their big downside is that they take more damage than other tanks overall and subsequently require more healing as well.

I mentioned guarm because it's the only fight in ToV mythic where guardian truly shined compared to some other tanks because they couldn't one tank it (paladin/dk/dh). It's basically the most indicative of a tank's actual survivability out of any of the ToV fights. The fact that Blizzard forced you to two tank it after all basically shows that such hard tank survivability tank checks were never intended and probably won't happen again, making pure survivability potentially less important than utility.

Our rage gen is beyond stupid as it is right now, you can almost have 2 ifs up at all times if you don't go into cat. The if nerf is nothing considering the ilvl of gear is going to go up so the armor will be going up, it's more of a scaling thing.

Armor goes up by a relatively small amount, e.g. going from 895 (live) to 920 (night hold) only increases armor by ~8.6%. The iron fur nerf alone would've already resulted in your average armor in 920 gear being lower or at best equal with current armor in 895 gear. Add the rage changes and you're looking at significantly lower average armor in 920 gear in 7.1.5 than in 895 gear right now. On the other hand, all other tanks will actually see an increase in their armor.

The damage buffs for tanks means nothing, if you think a 9% damage buff is going to help a monks do 200k+ more damage you're crazy.

You're clearly showing that you have no clue about other tanks if you believe monks need to do "200k+ more damage" (I guess you mean DPS here because otherwise you make no sense at all). For the vast majority of raid bosses, single target damage is by far the most important form of damage. Looking at guarm which is the one single target fight this tier that doesn't allow for endless padding, the highest guardian is barely 10% above the highest brewmaster (328k vs 292k) even though 1) there's 7.1 times as many guardian logs as there are brewmaster logs and 2) the breath cast allows you to catweave which isn't possible for many fights out there. Many paladins and warriors are already outperforming druids regardless when it comes to DPS.

Going on utility warriors bring nothing,

Safeguard / Inspiring Presence would like a word. One can be situationally extremely useful (it's basically an additional low CD defensive for the other tank) and the other provides some decent HPS everywhere.

Druids have a 1m roar. Talking about displacer?? Nobody takes displacer outside of mythic dragons progression, it puts you into cat, makes you lose all rage, furs, and you might get melee' for all your health, since form swaps are on the global now it's pretty useless over a 1m roar that with the trait is like a bear sprint.

Displacer beast is the only form of instant mobility that druids have. Otherwise druid mobility is shit compared to intervene/heroic leap, roll and infernal strike which means that losing the choice of speccing into displacer beast might be huge for specific fights/tactics (once again, see the 2 warrior helya strategy for one that trivializes one phase while not being possible with other tanks). By the way, most of the issues you're mentioning here are L2P issues rather than issues with the skill itself. I've used the skill on many occasions (including our top 50 world odyn mythic kill) and I've never died because of it.

Druids will still rein supreme with or without tier, this patch is just going to closen the gap between them.
You made no points that were even relevant to your claim.

I didn't? I'm fairly sure a tl;dr of "druids are already close to other tanks in many situations so these heavy handed nerfs make it unlikely for them to dominate other tanks in 7.1.5" is a fairly easy point to grasp... apparently not.

In any case, it's apparent you're lacking the required in-depth knowledge about other tanks (instead relying on memes) as well as actual progress mentality to properly judge how useful tanks can be for actual high end progress. The latter isn't exactly surprising considering your guild's lack thereof.

[Ephrael]

Do you guys think it's wise to switch to druid for nighthold ? I'm maining paladin atm and my guild and I are considering it.

I've been reading the discussion about the upcoming nerfs for a while and I can't really decide.

[Dreyen]

lets just say the nerfs were completly justified, bears are still good.

[Deleted]

Do you guys think it's wise to switch to druid for nighthold ? I'm maining paladin atm and my guild and I are considering it.

I've been reading the discussion about the upcoming nerfs for a while and I can't really decide.

Depends on what and where you're going to raid. Druids will be on a significant disadvantage at lower gear levels now (and lower artifact traits), as the plain IronFur nerf will hit them the same as the well geared ones , those wont notice that much of it as they have already high armor values and IronFur artifact trait. Without it will be now a disadvantage compared to other tanks on the same low gear level, you will just be weaker plain and simple.

Iron Fur got nerfed because it gets too good at high levels of gear, however Blizzard didnt make a thought about those who do not reach that level or aiming at a completely different goal.

So yes it makes a difference, if you are currently running Mythic EN&ToV you'll be fine no problem at all.
If you're a Heroic Guild you will not benefit from switching to guardian.

[kryptik93]

Hello, what do you guys think are the best two dps trinkets for running m+ after the nerf to the aran's relaxing ruby?