Am I The Only One Who Hates Guardian DF Talents?

There have been patches and even expansions where Incarn wasn’t even used, so a lot of it really comes down to whether or not Incarn remains a viable choice in DF.

Personally, I don’t mind the 3-minute style of play as long as we have some CDR or way in which we can reduce the 3-minute cooldown.

For example, there is a build for Protection Warrior where the more rage you spend, the faster other abilities come off cooldown, and I think having something like that in the Guardian tree would do wonders for making the 3-minute Incarn style less of a pain point, particularly in M+.

The middle final node in the Guardian spec tree is meant to try and focus on this, but I just don’t like the idea that we’ve gotten the Venthyr Ashen Hollow legendary power. I think a more synergy focused way would make more sense, every consumed Gore proc or Thrash usage reduces the cooldown of Incarn by X seconds would be far better.

Then why come here to complain in the first place? If they aren’t going to read your feedback, then what makes you think they’re going to read your complaint?

Because I want to? Who said I think they are going to read my comments? I came here to communicate with my fellow players and druids because I want to.

Are Guardians supposed to get the same treatment Ferals just did?

Hopefully, though I doubt it will be next week. We’re probably looking at something maybe the second full week into September at this point.

So I’ve been playing around in Beta and I can say while Guardian isn’t where I think it should be, it is far better than where it is now.

I’m very disappointed by the lack of appeal of the capstone talents. I’m only playing with 1 of them from both talent trees total on guardian, and that’s untamed savagery. That’s it. To me, that’s just poor talent tree design where the capstones are so lack luster, I don’t even want them.

I combined moonbear build with the new maul and mangle interplay and honestly its much more engaging than the SL playstyle. I don’t have any meters up and running yet, but seeing some moonfires and mauls hit pretty hard is nice. Healing from arcane damage and absorbs from ursoc’s has given me plenty of self sustain. I have eschewed a lot of the pure defensiveness (which is a MAJOR departure for me who tends to be VERY defensive oriented as a tank), but so far have found I don’t need it.

I intentionally avoided the 3 min incarn build. In fact, I only took one berserk talent, and that was only because it was required to get to ursoc. I skipped every other one. But that’s because I loath the 3 min CD playstyle, so I set out to avoid it.

I’ve only played 3 of the tanks so far, BDK, Pally, and Guardian. Honestly right now, from an enjoyment view point (aka, how much fun I have playing them) I’d rank them as follows. Again, this is a ‘fun’ ranking, not a performance ranking:

  1. Prot Pally
  2. Guardian
  3. BDK

However I will say, I will definitely be keeping druid as my main in DF. I’ve just started working with the feral rework and it looks promising at least. And Resto…OMG…such an awesome tree.

I liked the first iteration, but the 2nd iteration is awful. If they do not get changed I will be swapping to prot pally/warrior.

I hate it too.
Feels like they chopped off my limbs and ask me to pick 2 out of 4.

It feels terrible, to say the least, and the return of Mark isn’t enough to cover it.

It might seem like, at a distance, that druids get alot of utility, but i mean compare to vortex/typhoon/incap roar to bdk’s abomination limb, aoe grip, 2charges of grip, and st stun.

Spear of bastion for warriors is like a vortex on steroids add aoe stun and st stun, aoe snare and aoe fear on top…

I tihnk druid cc/utility needs a little help going into DF.

Currently its getting nerfed / chopped / removed instead.
Druid needed a nerf in utility… right? <.<

(Being sarcastic… Im a sad guardian bear… especially since a lot of people seem to think this is fine… :confused:)

My best guess is the people who think it’s fine are bear mains but rather only hop on bear when a public figure says it’s good.

Don’t forget to add mass grip to their Heroic Leap now :slight_smile:

Oh and the fact Warrior got Sigil of Misery (AoE fear in place) and they can also talent into our old Intimidating Roar talent where AoE fear doesn’t break as soon by withstanding 300% more damage.

You can include me

Hate that Incarn is locked behind talents I would skip. Hate that if I push to get Incarn I can’t get my normal level 15 talent of blood frenzy. (in the build I’m theorizing of using) .which for some god awful reason is now a top tier talent locked behind survival of the fittest, which again, I normally skip.

Easy fix:

Move Circle of life and death ← to the left of Fury of nature → Elune’s favored stays on the right of Fury of nature. and where Circle of life and death is currently… put incarnation. This way if you want to go lazer bear , just follow that path to the left and right of Fury of nature.

then put Blood Frenzy in the same bubble as Bristling fur and brambles… this way it’s just the same repeat of what my bear has done forever… .pick Blood frenzy and call it a day.

Why is it a must have in mythic+? It’s not, especially considering it’s 1 time per 3 minute CD, it’s not necessary nor required. Yes, I do keys as a bear on live and yes, it does suck not having it up. However on beta, as of this moment you still deal a lot of damage with Thrash having a 20% chance to multi proc, with Maul and Mangle increasing the damage of the other by 15% stacking up to 3 times, with Moonfire bear being so prevalent, too, especially when Guardian procs.

Now, if you mean about fun, then that’s a different story but this whole CD thing being a requirement I do not play with CDs and I play good.

Yeah I do agree with this, placement is weird for some talents and too unnecessary

I fully agree with this, too.

No, they’re people who understand bear is a simple spec to play, as it should be, always has been and always will be. They also understand, that, not everything is gonna go your way and regardless of talent tree placement it’s still fine. It’s not a full mess, only 50% of a mess, which again is “fine.”

This is the build I will be using as of currently. It’s “fine.” It’s not good, it’s not great, it’s not bad, just “fine.”

I could get behind this sentiment, at least with the class tree. It isn’t terrible, but I do believe that we have so much in the tree, either 31 points need to be raised up 35 to compensate for the number of specs we have or some things need to be baselined to allow for more flexible builds.

Additionally, the capstones in the class tree are just a hot mess. They’re not overly fun, they are not overly impactful, and I wish they were all replaced with something really cool and fun.

  • Abomination Limb does insane damage for Death Knight
  • White Tiger Statue does insane damage for Monks
  • Spear of Bastion paired with Avatar does insane damage for Warriors
  • Seraphim / Sanctified Wrath are both really good for Paladin damage
  • The Hunt is good for Demon Hunter damage

And then you compare that to Druid, our capstones suck.

It’s just so frustrating that its the same song and dance every iteration where we see all the other tanks get really cool things that are impactful to their damage baseline in both their class and in their spec trees and ours just feels so out of touch with the others.

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Yeah but the thing is this: the Druid fantasy is a shapeshifter. Some people want more of that. These capstones actually give you more of that. Some people do not want that and want to remain in a single form without swapping. These do nothing for that, really.

Again, the Druid fantasy is Shapeshifting. They shift forms to go into a specialized form to do something they wanna do. These capstones embody that shapeshifting fantasy fully.

Nature’s Vigil lets you heal while DPSing, but Furor is good for shifting out of bear into caster form to heal for 4 seconds without consuming any mana or going into Cat form to throw bleeds up without consuming any energy.

HotW does the same thing it does now, promoting shifting into a diff form for something else. They are good for the fantasy, they just aren’t omegaimpactful like Abom Limb. The reason is: the Druid needs to shift in order to do other things. No other class has to shift, they’re always in their respective bear forms without ever leaving bear form while doing a lot of raw damage.

All these capstones effectively say “Guardian you’re a support spec”.

I arrive at this because there isn’t generally a good time in a high-key setting where you are going to shift out of bear form to do anything you mentioned except when all the mobs are dead, so it’s a support-centric capstone, and I think that’s fine if you want one capstone to focus on that aspect of gameplay, but not all 3.

The core issue is creativity needs to be amped up here rather than just rehashing the same old garbage that was ditched moons ago for the same reasons we’re rehashing the problems these abilities present today.

There is no reason why druid can’t get at least 1 capstone that focuses on damage rather than being a support spec when literally every other tank in the game gets that.

Again, though, how would you stress the fantasy of a Druid shape shifting, then? The literal fantasy is that of a shifter. If you don’t have the fantasy/theme of a spec being good it turns many players off before even getting to content. If it doesn’t fit or feel good to play, it’s done. The class is dead or near dead, then.

I agree, but nonetheless you are looking at it only from a Guardian Druid standpoint, and from a mythic+ standpoint at that, where you are the only tank. In a raid setting these capstones are fine since you’re not always the tank, so you can shift out and do other things. In PvP it’s basically same as in raid settings, which is fine.

Every other tank literally doesn’t have to shift in order for their fantasy/theme to fit together. That’s why the Druid is different. That’s why many players enjoy playing the Druid: they want the shape shifting fantasy. That’s also why over many expansions they’ve been asking for more reasons to shift instead of just staying in a single form.

That’s already built into the talents/abilities today. Some spells already auto-shift you into a specific form or require that you be in the given form before you can use those, so just build on that foundation for that fantasy.

So does not providing competitive options across a role.

But what you may find is a “feel good to play” concept the next person may not. That’s the entire basis for my argument over the capstones, they’re effectively identical and focus solely on the notion of being a support class, none of the capstones vary at all and that to me is the inherent design flaw.

TL;DR - there needs to be variety among the choices that work for all 4 specs, not only a subset of specs, which in my humble opinion is the current issue.

I don’t deny that is the lens from which I am evaluating the class tree, but that’s the same lens that I use to evaluate the class tree for every other tank in the game as well, so why is it if other “hybrid classes” get damage capstones they can use in their tank spec without restrictions, why must Guardian be different?

I’m not saying these don’t have usages in modes of content, they surely do, and I have also asserted they have use in M+, but only from the standpoint of being a support class, which no other tank role in the game is forced into.

Look, I guess we’re going to have to agree to disagree. I’m not saying that class fantasy with shapeshifting can’t be a capstone pillar choice in the class tree, but under no circumstance should it be the only path.

Maybe casuals, maybe those who do trivial stuff, but that ideology doesn’t translate into more bleeding edge situations where you can’t justify the risk for the reward mid-combat.

Because they do not utilize shape shifting. You cannot get out of bear form if you’re the only tank and you’re currently tanking unless you want to die or you’re really far ahead of the mobs, some kinda circumstance like that.

No other tank role literally shifts outside of their stance, though, which is the whole and entire point I was making. This is why the Druid is literally different from the others and why it’s so much more difficult to balance for play wise.

I agree with you, but what I’m saying is fantasy always comes first and foremost. You might be a player who plays for damage purposes or numbers or something, but there’s so many more players out in this game who play for the fantasy aspect of their characters. Those are usually the more casual playerbase and they outnumber everyone by a mile.

That doesn’t matter because the playerbase that does bleeding edge content, again, is a fraction of a fraction. If the casuals stopped playing they would lose, I would guess, 60-75% of their full income from this game.

Take a look at how many players do higher than a 15, and even then a 15 on a key is still done by only a fraction of the playerbase. It’s a much smaller fraction who do higher than 15. It’s a much smaller fraction who do mythic raiding. It’s a smaller fraction who hit higher than 2100 rating in PvP.

Again, the cutting edge players are in an extreme extreme minority. Yes, it does suck not being catered to but those players are not what’s to be catered to for a business. The smart money is always to go with the biggest bang for your buck. If you could please 75% of the customers doing 1 change vs the other 25% not being satisfied you would easily choose the 75% over the 25%. That’s just smart business.

I do agree there could be better capstones, but I also understand that, again, playing for the numbers, playing for damage purposes, playing for cutting edge or bleeding edge content is in the extreme extreme minority so that should not be catered to.

If you want stats go look at raider io stats or wowprogress, take into account the number of guilds, assume every guild has 30 players in their raid team for raids. Count how many guilds have done 1 boss or more in mythic, in heroic, in normal. You’ll find that most raiding players are centered around heroic raiding. Most mythic+ players are centered around 10-15s, and that most PvP people do not hit above 2100 in rating.

These are what their design choices should be for. They can design another stone around non shifting play, but it’s highly unlikely, as this fits the theme much better for Druid.

Warrior stances are back, so that’s not true anymore.

It’s not even about damage numbers, that can easily be tuned by having Guardian’s base toolkit do more damage than the other tanks because they get no benefits from options in the class tree to buff their raw damage; that’s not my point.

My point is the 3 capstones as they stand are niche at best.

Furor
Allows me to heal a party member without mana after combat ends, yet there goes that entire pool of rage I needed for that next pull in the dungeon.

HotW
Would never be used for damage because no one is taking Convoke. This pushes this ability again to the perspective you’d use this as a healer cooldown by shifting, which you would only do post-combat, and suffers from precisely the same issue that Furor has lost rage.

Nature’s Vigil
The only viable option for Guardian of the 3, but on a 90-second cooldown and is extremely niche. The only saving grace is it doesn’t deplete rage.

My issue is all 3 focus on Guardian being an off-healer, nothing else. Why can’t there be an option that focuses on allowing a non-damage class to do some damage?

Except if it were being catered to, I’d demand there to be 3 for that, I’m simply asking for more alternatives than the crappy 3 that all essentially force Guardian into doing precisely the same thing regardless of which we take.