I’ve been playing a Paladin and it has a few of the things I’ve been saying Bears ought to have. It’s been quite fun and I think I may stick with it for SL. I don’t play at the highest level but I’m finding the Paladin more fun. I’ll level up my Bear, but I think it’ll be shelved for now. I recently got my Beta invite so I’ll be giving a fair opportunity for the SL Bear to impress me, but I don’t have high expectations.
Sad Bear is sad.
That’s probably what I’ll be doing, leveling my bear just in case but probably swapping to either Monk or Pally. I’m hoping I’ll get a beta invite eventually to test it for myself sooner or later.
And yeah, sad bear is sad 
Ok so… I’m a little confused…
Most of the twitch/Youtube streamers I watch seem to think Guardian Druid is “alright” and “decent”… then I skim thru these forums and it’s all doom and gloom and “the spec is ruined now”? 
So which is it? Is it good or bad? Logically it can’t be both, it’s usually one or the other.
I admit I haven’t really been watching much beta Guardian Druid gameplay, been spending most of my spare/extra time keeping an eye on Boomie changes/developments.
Someone give me the quick TL;DR on the main nerfs to Bear Druid, if you would.
I’m fairly out of the loop on the topic of Guardian Druid in Shadowlands, like I said I’ve only heard the odd (mostly positive) second-hand remarks from these twitch/Youtube streamers.
How many of those streamers played a bear in BfA?
I have a Mage alt who just sits in Thunder Bluff and does my auction house stuff. He’s Arcane. When I level him as Arcane, I’m like “yeah, this is okay”. But any actual Mage will tell me I’m out of my mind. And I know from looking at data that Arcane is terrible, but if I just tool around on it for an hour (like streamers do with bear) then I don’t get an in-depth understanding of that.
Good rule of thumb, if Tewa says it’s X/10, double or triple that score. That’s probably around where guardian is.
Also,
Here you go.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-druid-class-changes/490706/13?u=tewa-hyjal
And keep in mind that other tanks, like Brewmaster, are getting huge buffs in Shadowlands.
Unfortunately yes. I have mythic raided on druid and did 15+ achieve. Quit the druid due to not being able to find a decent raid spot.
Now I am playing this dk.
Plus there’s the complete lack of response from Blizzard in the Shadowlands Druid Feedback thread. It’s honestly kinda funny. I believe this is everything they’ve said about bears so far in all of the blue posts:
Survival Instincts now gains 1 Charge at Rank 1, and 2 Charges at Rank 2 (Guardian only).
Made Sylvatican Charm work with Frenzied Regen. It was designed with Resto HoTs in mind, but this is a neat interaction for people playing Guardian. Its uptime will still be much better if you keep Resto HoTs on yourself.
In regards of Convoke the Spirits, the Night Fae covenant ability (16 druid spells/abilities over 4 second channel):
–Bear form only abilities: Mangle, Ironfur
–Thrash is used more often in Bear Form than in Cat Form
I believe that’s it, unless I missed one. It seems like bear will be as bad off as they were in early WoD, but like I said in the first post there is still time for change. I don’t expect it, but it could happen.
Tewa is pretty correct though. Guardian isn’t as strong as the other tanks. It has problems that need addressed and buffs before there is some parity with the other tanks.
I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve been pretty fortunate and my RL has said they’d be fine with me staying bear, but I don’t want to end up in the same situation as WoD where just about any other tank would be considerably better.
So I was thinking about tank class identity among different classes over ~10 years and how it has changed. Correct me if I’m wrong.
So they took everything that was fun from us, we are no longer have higher armor / health and dodge is probably the worst mitigation stat in game at least on aoe. Also game meta has changed too - auto-attacks from bosses are no longer the #1 damage source but instead its magic.
Mastery is useless for several expansions and always gets outnumbered by incredibly boring versatility.
Bears have gone through some changes.
In Burning Crusade, when combat table manipulation was still a thing, we were the tank that couldn’t push crushing blows off the table but instead relied on massive armor to mitigate them (far higher than warriors/paladins had). But once they streamlined the combat tables for same-level content, that went away.
In Mists they tried changing us to The Dodge Tank by making Savage Defense cost rage and give us dodge. That persisted through Warlords. Eventually they started to realize that a Dodge Tank was a horrible idea and also added a flat 20% mitigation to Savage Defense to try and salvage the idea.
In Legion they converted us from dodge tanks to Mitigation Tanks and we got the dual tools of Ironfur (for physical) and Mark of Ursol (for magic). But then they removed Mark of Ursol after the first tier.
And then in BfA we were just bad.
What’s your favorite iteration of a bear tank? Mine was in TBC.
Well, I have fond memories of BC just because it was such a great expansion, and was when I really got into raiding and made a lot of life-long friends.
And we certainly did have our niche, where we were THE tanks for bosses like Azgalor and Morogrim Tidewalker. And Fathom-Lord Karathress remains my favorite tank fight ever, just because you needed 4 tanks with very different specialties. But on the other hand, it was impossible for us to tank Illidan.
But in terms of bear design, it’s Legion, hands down.
Legion was definitely the top. We had a strong identity and good tools. It was fun. They stripped it away. Even our identity as highest hp tank.
last stand isn’t an oh sh*t button right now, and neither is shield wall. if that’s how you’re using them you’re not playing the class correctly.
Meanwhile posting on an lvl 11 character as if we’re suppose to take you seriously.
I typically fact check what I say before I say it, agree with it or not. That track record should speak for itself.
Ya gotta past the time somehow huh?
this level 11 character that knows more about the game than 99% of the playerbase lol, yet is being called a troll.