Are you a Guardian Main in Dragonflight or Rerolling?

Classes Druid
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How many of you Guardian players are going to reroll when Dragonflight comes out? Or, are you going to see how pre-patch feels? I have one of all the tanks at max level, so if I needed to I could just switch, but I don’t want to do that. That is the last resort for me.

Here are my thoughts. I’ve been a druid tank main since Burning Crusade. I’ve played bear when it was amazing, I’ve played bear when it was bad, and I’ve played bear through all of Shadowlands (in Mythic+), and even though we have never been the best, I’ve always had fun playing it, and bears feel good right now. We feel powerful, and it’s fun to play.

The elephant in the room is the talent tree for Guardian Druid. Picking Sunfire just to get down to CC, and not being able to use it a Bearform is bad. If you put Sunfire in the talent tree then (please) make it usable in Bearform. This is supposed to be fun right? Same with Innervate. These are simple changes that honestly could be changed in the 4 weeks of pre-patch. Having them go live like this really negates having choices in a new talent system. It just locks you off. The heals in Bearform need stance changing because having those spells in Bearform would need a complete rebalancing, so that is and had been fine for some time, but some other quality-of-life changes would help. However, I’d spend one talent point to remove Frenzy regen off the GCD, seriously.

The 3-point talent nodes in the class tree and the spec tree are absolutely egregious. I also think talent points in the spec tree, like layered Main (which is having a chance to apply a 2nd ironfur) should just be 1 point at 10%. Because 2 points and only a 10% feels like a punch in the gut. Think of it this way, 2 points for 90% not to do it. Percent chances and having them linked to 1, 2, and even 3-point nodes are really lazy design IMO.

To get vortex, typhoon, and hibernate feel super bad to get because you actively ruin your survivability to get them. If they can’t balance this in the talent tree, then should just be given to all druids at certain levels. Because having to spend many points just to get over there is the issue. It costs 4 points to get hibernate, and I don’t think Blizzard has thought about this enough for hybrid specs. Bears are losing out on all their current CC and now rely on others to bring the CC if you want to maximize their own survivability. A talent tree with lots of choices they said? I don’t see any choice.

The pathing on the spec tree is the real elephant in the room. It’s absolutely horrific. Maul should be a choice, not forced on us at the start because I don’t even have maul on my bars. I haven’t had maul on my bars for 3 expansions, maybe longer. For it to be the first talent is exactly what the new talent tree system feels like for bears. It’s a slap in the face.

THE GOOD - THE FUN!
With all that said. I still like bear, it’s been my main for all this time and I’m attached to my bear. I’m going to main bear for Dragonflight. With all of its imperfections, it’s still the spec that I love. I think I can make the spec work. I lose a lot, and I lose some quality of life, but, moonfire bear looks like fun. I think it looks like a better m+ tank than it does a raid tank. Am I pushing bleeding-edge content? No, I’m running 18s and 19s. In the next expansion will my talent tree hold me back? Yes, but, as I said, I think I can still make things work. I want to give it a shot. I don’t want to give up on bear.

My assumption is that the deadline has passed, and the only changes coming now will be in 10.1. For some, that will mean that they have to reroll. Even guilds will probably be telling players that we do not want Guardians’ next expansion, at least for the first tier. What are you going to do? Me personally I’m just going to play the game and have fun. Yes, even if my class / spec sucks, I’m just going to enjoy the expansion, and if I can make about 3 specs work, which is about all we have as Guardian druids, then I’m not going to overthink the talent tree. I’m going to focus on the playability portion of the spec, which I think is always enjoyable.

What will you be doing? Is this the end for you?

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I’m going to keep playing a Druid.

/thread.

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Why, is just playing bear enough for you? It is for me, but I fear that many will be jumping ship.

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People jump ship every expansion.

Then they come crawling back.

No one cares.

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I’ve been G-druid since BC. It’s a shell of it’s former self and quite frankly I really got tired for the first time of playing around the 3 min cooldown. I’m also ok with the UFR nerf because that gave into the dependency on Incarn… trouble is, they didn’t give us any other builds to really choose from for higher end content. If you plan on getting those 20+ Mythic’s for max reward in your vault, you’re gonna use incarn.

Yet I feel the loss of utility and definitely with this broken tree, we sacrifice points to get the only good build in the tree but even then at a loss of my former power. Just going off memory, I think I loose a charge of survival instincts and a node of ‘berserk’ so even that wont perform like it has always. A few others in the general tree.

Perhaps it’s not the Guardian druid spec itself to blame, but just myself after playing the single spec for 15 years. I have all the tanks, always raise them up every expac and alt tank with them on the side. They’re starting to look better for me for my own subjective fun preferences.

We can all agree, bears got little attention again and PERSONALLY, it’s getting old. I’ll probably forget about it all about it once I start having all sorts of utility to press, more meaningful and noticeable buttons to mash. Other than just waiting for Incarn to come back up.

I’d have to say it wasn’t 100% just the Druid class that kept me playing all these years, but the game itself and the friendships I’ve garnered over them. I’ve been blessed to have great friends all over this continent due to WoW and even had some come visit. So ,I’ll keep playing WoW because I love the game, I’m just getting to the point that I’m realizing it’s NOT all about playing one single class, but just doing something you enjoy regardless of the spec.

So, I’m quite sure druids will get some attention later on, I’m sure it will do fine in low to mid level content. Will it shine or will it struggle in comparison to the other tanks? in higher content? who knows. I’ll definitely raise him to top level at least for the professions, maybe I’ll go resto as I do like to heal in the times we’re not pushing keys. Not 100% sure though I’m going to push on him this expac, especially if I find the other tanks having more of the engaging/rewarding playstyle. only time will tell.

I just realized im in a situation to loose my home and lifestyle so , getting overly excited about Guardians or even WoW at this point is being put on hold because of this situation i’m in.

Regardless, if you love your bear, stick with it. You really can’t go wrong & if you’re ok with the form we’ve been handed, then more power to you.

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I only play guardian in m+. It’s all depends on if the return dungeons in DF are still the same garbage as this patch. I’ll stay a druid main because my raid will still need boomie. But if the m+ is fun, I’ll play a meta tank. If they are just as bad as this season, even the developers don’t want to spend time playing them, then I don’t see any reason to bother to gear a new tank.

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I don’t understand this idea that if you switch class/specs you are “jumping ship”. There’s going to be 13 classes and 38 specs in Dragonflight, nothing wrong to just go play another thing if you don’t like what you are playing or even if you just curious, no need at all to just “marry” one spec.

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I think it’s more like a ship is sinking, so everyone starts to jump off the ship. Well, this ship is under water long ago, now you can only swimming off the ship.

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Yeah thats the idea for DF. I’m gonna stop being a single one character main.

Well put, made me chuckle … only because I saw the iceberg a while ago.

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Druid will still be my main. It will still be my first to level cap. It will still lead the way for rep stuff, questing, unlocking account gates, etc.

Guardian will probably not be my go to tank until its reworked. Will it be okay? I think it will. Just compared to the other tanking specs, its just blah to play. While I play it? yeah I’m sure I will from time to time.

But its a druid and the fun about druid is everything else. Feral for world pvp shenanigans while leveling will still be fun. Resto is fun. Quality of life can’t be beat. And honestly, I still can’t beat being able to have stealth, heal, and tank all in one class.

I have 5 druids for a reason. Not leaving the class anytime soon. Its just too much fun overall. I’m just disappointed in the class tree and the guardian tree when compared to the other classes. Feral tree I find interesting and fun on beta. I like the Resto tree a lot. Boomy looks interesting, but I honestly have never done boomy so I have no grounds for comparison.

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Will be playing bear for pvp, questing, world content, m+ after gearing up enough to make it easier.

For pve going feral.

Shapeshifting is my favorite thing about a Druid, so I tend to stick to those aspects of gameplay most. I’m willing to try healing possibly as well.

I play at low skill level I’ll not pretend otherwise, but I’ll be happy if I get to consistently stick to playing in the first place irl stuff has been kicking my teeth in since 2019, lots of loss, and struggle.

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I personally like guardian still even with the changes. They’re not my preferred changes but I still find the spec appealing and the class too. I’ll keep going. If I switched around with the changes they make to classes then I’d never keep a spec for more than a month haha

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That’s a good way to look at it. I actually went in a specced some of the other tanks. Even though they have much better pathing and choices, they still have concessions to make. So, the biggest issue with our current spec tree is being completely locked into that way of play. Where the other tanks have many 1 point changes that can really change the way they play from dungeon to dungeon. If you want to play incarn bear and moonfire too then there’s only one spec to play, there’s zero choice. So, you really only need about 3 or maybe 4 saved specs on the talent tree. On the other tanks you could have 16 different specs all for different situations.

My other issue is that even if pathing of the talent tree was amazing, the talents in the middle of the tree are so bad, I want to minimize my time around them as quickly as possible just to get to the juicy talents. So, hopefully they change some of those middle talents also if they rework the pathing in 10.1

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I think the fact no one is gated by Legos or covenants or conduits anymore, spec switching will be infinatly easier and guardian will prob be played more than we think.

I’ll be playing all druid specs. Druid is fun.

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I’m thinking the same.

And also thinking ill aim for full haste/mastery and switch between bear/boomkin.

Versa might be a wee bit better than mastery for bears…but itll let me use same gear, except weapon, for 2 specs.

Since bears arent meta for anything, opposite side of the scale really, i’ll not aim for full bis anyways.

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Might be really fun to try out tanking M+ on my warrior in xpac.

But honestly I just like Druid too much. I like being able to roughly gather up 1 set and some change and be able to heal, DPS, or tank depending on what I feel like doing.

And I like shifting around for access to other abilities. Owl weaving convokes as a bear in M+ was super fun. I just wish the payoff was higher.

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Thats always been a problem with the whole shape-shifting bit as a tank. It has too be very rewarding too actually be worth it. And it really just hasnt been worth it what so ever, only time was pretty much season 1 and 2 of sl.

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I agree with your statement that Innervate should be useable in all forms, at the very least make another talent you have to spend to make that the case, otherwise why are you even able to acquire a talent that if you are a tank is impossible to use without risking basically being instantly killed. Does any other class or spec sacrifice this? Are there any monk, dk, dh, warrior, or paladin tanking abilities that are in their class tree (not even just their spec tree) that have such an incredibly high risk for meager reward playstyle? The answer is no.

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19

I think that’s what I was most disappointed about with guardian tree. Give us some talents that let us access our hybrid abilities without giving up the survivability of bear. Even if just for short windows.

But like Elarain said, thats why I always end up sticking with druid. Being able to swap from role to role easily and on one character is really nice, especially in the opening stages of an expansion. Druid has been my first to level cap every expansion since TBC. Alts usually don’t come in until much later for me.

As such, as much as I’m disappointed with guardian and truly envy the warrior tree, I’ll be starting on druid and playing like I always do, with Guardian/Resto with some Feral mixed in occasionally.

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100% rerolling. The spec is absolutely trashed, even compared to its current underperformance.