Bear Druid Suggested Changes

Classes Druid
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Hey everyone,

It’s me again, shouting into the void of the forum hoping that surely this time someone at Blizzard will see my post and care.

This is a list of suggested changes and my reasoning to Guardian Druid. I’m going to be comparing them to Prot War, and trying to fix some of the issues surrounding their survivability (as compared to Prot War) as well as some talent nodes that either don’t make a lot of sense or are severely cost-prohibitive. This will include changes to both Druid of the Claw and Elune’s Chosen.

:bear: Guardian Druid Changes :bear:

  • Pulverize: Now deals damage and damage reduction as an AoE frontal cone (instead of single target) and now longer removes 2 stacks of Thrash. Damage reduction reduced from 35% → 25%.
    • Note: Pulverize sees no play in any situation with more than 1 target, and for some reason consumes 2 stacks of Thrash? I think this should do its effect as an AoE Frontal, which would also give it use with the Druid of the Claw talent Tear Down the Mighty.
  • Ursoc’s Fury: During Berserk (or Incarn), Shield generated from casting Thrash and Maul is tripled (25% → 75%)
    • Note: The nerfs to Ursoc’s Fury have been so severe that you can now die during Incarn. This used to give (back in Shadowlands as a Legendary) 75% damage as a shield, and was the reason Bears were immortal during Incarn (which is the niche of Bears). I think you should go back to incentivizing that, even if that means having to nerf Ursoc’s Guidance talent (CDR on Incarn per rage spent).
  • Frenzied Regeneration: Now castable off the GCD for Guardian Specialization
    • Note: It is insane that this ability is on the GCD. Imagine the outrage if Shield Block or Ignore Pain was on the GCD. Completely absurd. I also think the same for Word of Glory for Protection Paladin, but I won’t go into that right now.
  • Raze: Now baseline, replaced with Beastial Fury
  • Beastial Fury: Every 300 Rage you spend causes your next Maul to deal 100% bonus damage and generate 2 stacks of Ironfur.
    • Note: Why does Bear have to talent into an AoE version of Maul instead if it just being baseline? Yes, Prot War technically has to talent into Revenge, but it’s literally the 2nd talent in Prot War’s tree. This spell should most definitely be baseline and certainly should not take a capstone talent point. In it’s place, I put a talent based on Prot War’s Violent Outburst, which a lot of people really like.
  • Rage of the Sleeper: Now baseline, replaced with Twin Moonfire.
  • Twin Moonfire: Now in Rage of the Sleeper’s position, old position replaced by Orbital Bombardment
  • Orbital Bombardment (new talent): Consuming Galactic Guardian also applies Moonfire to all targets within 8 yards of your target. Does not deal the upfront damage to nearby targets (i.e. the +300% damage is only dealt to current target, but DoT is applied to all nearby).
    • Note: I would like for Rage of the Sleeper to be baseline because it is essentially mandatory in all contents due to it being a strong defensive on a short cooldown with easy threat generating potential, and also because it sticks out like a sore thumb on the right side of the spec tree, which is clearly supposed to be Moon-oriented. In it’s place, I put a talent Twin Moonfire, and added a new that allows your to apply the Moonfire DoT in an AoE when you proc Galactic Guardian, which is very important to Elune’s Chosen Bear for Elune’s Favored, Moonless Night and Scintillating Moonlight.
  • Reinvigoration, Vulnerable Flesh. Layered Mane and Survival of the Fittest are now all 1 talent point (down from 2 talent points).
    • Note: This row feels supremely bad to talent into for Bear. So many 2 point talents that should not be 2 talent points. The worst offender, in my opinion, is Layered Mane, and its only small benefit is that it leads to a very strong talent (Reinforced Fur), but it’s just so awful to talent into. Even talents like Vulnerable Flesh, which are very strong offensive talents, are actually quite weak because your prime concern is surviving pulls, and thus DPS-only talents like these are typically not chosen for higher-end content. I feel like bears should have the ability to pick up the DPS talent and their choice of what defensive line to go to.

:paw_prints: Druid of the Claw :paw_prints:

  • Ravage: Now replaces Maul at all times, but damage decreased by 20%
  • Claw Rampage: Now increases the damage of Ravage during Berserk by 25%.
  • Aggravatae Wounds: Damage from Dreadful Wounds now has a 5% chance to refresh Thrash’s cooldown (ICD = 3 seconds).
    • Note: One of my frustrations w/ Druid of the Claw is how seldom you get Ravage procs outside of Incarn. It’s a great button to have, but I’ve gotten through 15 second windows outside Incarn without getting a proc, and it feels really bad. Plus it’s a source of snap threat, which Bear needs. I would like for this to permanently replace Maul, and thus would need a nerf. I think the damage it does during Incarn currently is good, so I changed the capstone (Claw Rampage) to increase the damage of Ravage back to where it currently is during Incarn (i.e. no change to Ravage during Incarn with the above, but more frequent Ravage otuside Incarn). The change to Aggravate Wounds is there simply because if Ravage is now permanently on then extending the bleed’s duration doesn’t matter, so I just gave it a fun reset mechanic w/ ICD on it.
  • Killing Strikes: Your first Mangle after entering combat now grants you 3 stacks of Ironfur.
  • Ruthless Aggression: Casting Ravage reduces the cooldown of Pulverize by 1.5 second per target hit, up to 4.5 seconds reduction per cast
    • Note: Ruthless Aggression, even though it is the higher DPS option for ST in raid, feels bad to play. I can’t feel the talent at all; it just makes your swings happen faster and gives more proc chances for Ravage, but overall really doesn’t feel good to me. Killing Strikes has the benefit of guaranteeing a Ravage proc when entering combat for M+, but with the above change to Ravage this needs a replacement, so I instead made it apply 3 Ironfur stacks upon entering combat (with first Mangle hit) since that is the time I find most dangerous as a bear in M+.
  • Tear Down the Mighty: Now reduces the cooldown of Pulverize by 15 seconds (up from 10 seconds).
  • Strike for the Heart: Now also allows Mangle to hit up to 3 targets at all times.
    • Note: this is to reinforce synergy with Vicious Cycle talent, as you can now choose between the more defensive option of decreased Pulverize cooldown (with Tear down the Mighty) or more Ravage damage in AoE (with Strike for the Heart in combination with Vicious Cycle).

:new_moon: Elune’s Chosen :new_moon:

  • Astral Insight: Now grants a chance for Arcane damage to grant 5 seconds of Incarn in addition to Incarn granting 10% increased Arcane damage. (ICD = 20 seconds).
  • Stellar Command: Now also causes Lunar Beam to last an additional 3 seconds, in addition 30% increased damage.
  • Arcane Affinity: You now also leech 10% of all Arcane damage dealt, in addition to 3% increased Arcane damage.
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Our forums are extra dead! But just wanted to say I agree, especially with the idea that pulverize could be better and that something to address our very precarious “on pull” squishiness is in order.

Lots of cool ideas in here. We don’t even need half of them to be in an amazing space. But we’re very “settled” as a spec

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Another point that’s been brought up is our DPS. While I get that tanks shouldn’t outshine DPS players, Guardian Druids could use a small damage increase to improve their overall group contribution. This is particularly noticeable in raid environments where other tanks seem to bring more utility or raw damage output, making Guardian Druids a less appealing option for many groups.

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I couldn’t agree more with everything you said here! Guardian Druids have been a little behind for a while, and those suggested changes would really help make the spec feel competitive again without tipping it into the overpowered category.

The survivability issues you mentioned are spot-on. It’s rough going into high-level Mythic+ and feeling like you’re barely hanging on while other tanks seem to handle the same content with ease. Adding more sustain through buffs to Ironfur or self-healing would make such a difference.

And yes, a slight DPS bump would be so helpful! It doesn’t have to be massive, just enough to make us feel like we’re contributing a bit more when we’re holding aggro or during downtime. The talent rework suggestion is also a great idea—allowing us to bring more utility without sacrificing core tanking power would give Guardians a much-needed edge.

Here’s hoping Blizzard takes a close look at this feedback. Guardian Druids are a dedicated bunch, and we all want to see our bears brought up to par with the other tanks. Thanks for putting this out there so clearly!

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As I play a Guardian Druid in TWW (the last time I played one regularly was TBC), I’m comparing them to the Prot Paladin I play now and the Prot Warrior I played in Dragonflight (and have played all the way back to Vanilla) …

Why do Guardians have five (maybe more?) different AOE or Cone attacks?

Raze, Swipe, Thrash, Ravage, Incarnation Mangle

Why do they have 3 different stacking Berserks? Why is there Incarnation and also Rage of the Sleeper? Why is Frenzied Rengeration on the GCD? Why is Pulverize solely single-target being that deep in the tree?

Some of these seem redundant or holdovers from various past talent trees/legendaries/etc. when things should be more streamlined, baked-in, baseline or at least VERY different from one another. But instead, Thrash remains a better Swipe, Raze is kind of a better Maul while not replacing Maul, and Ravage sits on top of that as well. On the keybinds side of things, it’s… active to say the least. It’s worse if you keybind anything for other forms, even a few utility or heal abilities that wouldn’t work in Bear.

My Prot Paladin goes in and Avenger’s Shields a pack, Consecrates, and then two of their key rotational abilities work AOE or Single Target. I don’t have to pick a single-target or multi-target Shield of the Righteous … I don’t have to pick a single-target or AOE Hammer of the Righteous either, but if I wanted Blessed Hammer I could use that in place of it.

I’m not saying Guardian should play like Prot Anything, but Guardians are definitely more finger-twisting to manage mitigation AND to keep up threat/multi-target damage than some/most other tanks?

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i think druids atm suffers same problem as warriors during cataclysm - panda days

LOW RAGE GENERATION! for Druids of the Claw

Moon Druid’s feels 100x better in terms of both rage generation and dps atm, AND mitigation LOL!!! or may be that fren Hero Talent is only for Off tanks and u go kitty for a sec when u are not getting pounded by the boss.

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The problems with bears right now are their low DPS and low threat generation due to low rage generation OUTSIDE of Incarn window.

If you’re outside of Incarn, you barely generate any threat as Moonfire and Swipe does low to minimum damage and rage generation, so you won’t have enough rage to keep yourself up with Ironfur stack, and spend it on Raze even if you have it talented. If you’re talented in ToI, yes, your Ironfur damages mobs around you, but ToI damage is very low for threat generation during that non-incarn window because you can’t spam it that much either.

Defensive wise, it’s relatively okay, if you’re playing EC you’ll have Lunar Beam, Barkskin, 2 Survival Instincts (If talented), Incarn and Rage of the Sleeper, that’s 6 defensive in total that you can rotate, not including Ironfur which is your primary spender.

You won’t get 1 shot by any pack if you come into a pack with Lunar Beam with any 1 of the other 3 defensives even if you have 0 Ironfur stack going in…

If you’re playing with DOTC you just have to be careful about timing your CDs and spending on Ravage as soon as you proc it. Use your frenzy Regen as a “Defensive” instead of a self-heal if you’re on DOTC.

I have 25% haste and 25% vers and having trouble with getting threat with these pallies, enhancement and DKs that blasts on pull and I can’t get threat on any mobs because thrash has a 5s CD and mangle a single mob for rage generation and stuck with spamming swipe when we’re outside of incarn window because of such low DPS and rage generation from those.

TLDR; Give us a better rage generation during non-incarn window, it’s pathetic how we have 4 specs and all 4 specs are in the bins because of bad design.

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I suggested this, which while not a full rework, would prop bears up into a competitve spot.

  • Flashing Claws and Scintillating Moonlight and all Row 5 talents dropped to 1pt for same effect as 2.
  • Beserk talents all combined into Beserk talent on row 4. Move Ursoc’s Fury and Twin Moonfire into the spots vacated by the bottom Beserk talents.
  • Ravage 20% increased chance to proc from autoattack and costs no rage, deals damage in a cone in front of the Druid without requiring a target in melee range.

These 3 changes would allow Guardian to make up the DR gap, select talents that are barred currently, and allow Druid of the Claw a chance to be useful. None of these changes are drastic compared to how any other spec is designed post reworks (all of them are nearly all 1pt talents and CD talents were largely combined).

Sadly, nobody reads these forums from Blizzard.

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Gave Druid of the Claw a try and wow, I struggled. Coming from Moonbear/Elune’s Chosen, Claw felt like a mess. Worrying about Raze vs. Maul, still using Swipe/Thrash anyway, hoping for a Ravage proc so the Raze/Maul decision was a lot easier, Pulverize felt underwhelming and my Rage generation was less than ideal unless I was using Incarnation of Ursoc.

This is just me screwing around in Timewalkings. I’m sure some masochist who runs Mythic 25s or whatever will say “Claw Druid is fine.” Personally, Moonbear was fun, Claw was a struggle, so my decision was easy. If it was a matter of “easy vs. challenging” I could understand it, but Claw just seems needlessly complicated and underwhelming even when it worked.

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To give you a bit of help with DotC, try playing it much like Elune’s Chosen, except take the maul talents (ignore Raze) and spend nearly every Raze only with Tooth and Claw procs. Do not take Pulverize, that is a trap talent.

Effectively it is the same rotation as EC, but you filler with Swipe and burn T&C procs on Ravages. The spec works fine this way and does a fair bit of damage, especially during CDs, however outside of CDs it feels much less effective and its rage economy is really bad compared to EC.

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As much as i Love DOTC Its all Over the place… between the Cat Weaving and the Procs of ravage itself… For something that is based off of Auto attacks and having talents incentivize to switch in and out of Cat form. its a little rough and the Direction isnt there… Like Elune’s Chosen.

A QOL change to the Shapeshifting side of the tree, have Ravage Be a 360 ability and Be Usable in Cat form would be Fire, would tie into the whole, Auto-attack Based procs. Raze is able to be used in cat form but not Ravage???

Im a Oddball/Hippy w.e you wanna call it. i play the specs that aren’t showcased cause i find it enjoyable, Buuuut i will say going into cat form is a wittle scary, when you dont have the rage for the Iron fur stacks to shift Safetl, there just isnt enough Safety to switch in and out of Cat form especially with how hard everything hits.

Why doesn’t guardian have a talent node, Like resto where you get HOTW for 10 secs every 1 min when we shift, can we get a 90% DMG Reduction for 10 secs every time we shift?

I also believe that All the cat-weaving abilities should also contribute to Ursocs Fury shielding FB, Shred, Rake (Dot) Rip (Dot) Cause For some reason Cat’s Thrash is entirely different from Bear thrash so if used it’ll completely overwrite the stacks u have when applied in bear, i don’t understand that.

I love the fantasy of being able to go into cat and Dps During a Pack pull but it’s Near impossible.

1 Like
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Wow who the hell revived this thread.

Well since it’s back up here, 1 more suggestion:

  • Mechagnomes and Gnomes can now be druids.

This is mandatory by lore. You see, Gelbin Mekkatorque once saw a branch and decided to wack the troggs with it. From this, he saw the power of wood, and said that it was good. And thus, gnome druids were born.

That is all

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Make Dream of Cenarius guardian tree talent not take you out of bear form.

(just seems a common sense thing, cannot understand why it works the way it does now)

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Make Dream of Cenarius Great Again

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Pulverize (reworked): A devastating blow that deals (67% of Attack power) Physical damage (increased by 100% for each stack of Thrash on affected targets) to all nearby enemies and reduces the damage they deal to you by 30% for 8 sec.

Comments: with this proposed change, pulverize will no longer consume stacks of thrash. the ability is now easier than ever to use and because the damage reduction component is now aoe and not single target, pulverize is now more effective in more situations, like if you are doing a big mythic+ pull. of course, to truly master pulverize you’ll want to try to make sure targets have more stacks of thrash on them before unleashing a pulverize - you’ll be rewarded with significant additional damage if you do. we’ve also added a new visual effect: a massive shockwave and crater with pillars of earth inspired by the druid ability Pulverize from Diablo 4. this visually looks awesome, but also makes it a lot easier for the healer in your group to know when you’ve used this awesome ability, which is now worthy of being one of the awesome choices you’ll have at the very bottom of your spec talent tree.

Ursoc’s Fury (reworked): No changes needed. sorry! while being basically unkillable was very fun in legion, we feel this isn’t healthy for the overall game so that level of brokenness isn’t coming back. the aoe change to pulverize will however make you a lot tankier for 8 seconds so be sure to use it at the right time for optimal effect on your mythic+ pulls

Frenzied Regeneration (reworked): Removal from GCD: approved!

Raze (removed from game): Raze competed in your rotation with your other abilities. As a guardian druid the focus should be on using swipe and thrash, mangle and maul which are already 4 abilities on your action bar, half of which are already aoe. So it just doesn’t really make sense to have a capstone talent that gives druids yet another aoe cleave when they already have so many ways of doing AOE damage.

Rage of the Sleeper (reworked): no changes needed to the ability. It’s great! That said, it’s position has been moved to where Raze used to be, which makes the left side of the Guardian tree definitively themed around physical abilities, and the right side of the tree is all about your lunar abilities.

Reinvigoration, Vulnerable Flesh. Layered Mane and Survival of the Fittest are now all 1 talent point (down from 2 talent points): No changes needed. Sorry! Freeing up 4 talent points in the tree would be excessive and take away a lot of the interesting and meaningful choices that the player has to make as they get deeper into the tree. Don’t worry, we are still going to free up 1 talent point (more on that later and by later I mean now).

Fury of Nature (2 point talent) (reworked): You deal 15/30% increased arcane damage and are healed for 25% of all Arcane damage done
Comments: Fury of Nature and Elune’s Favored were 3 talents that you would basically always take together if you were going to take any of them, so we’ve just rolled them into a single 2 point node, which does free up 1 talent point.

Elune’s Favored (removed)

Orbital Bombardment (new talent where Elune’s Favored used to be): Moonfire has a chance to call down a minor moon, dealing arcane damage in an area. This chance is significantly increased if you are standing in a lunar beam

Lunar Calling (Elune’s Chosen): Thrash now deals Arcance damage and its damage is increased by 12%. Thrash now visually has a more astral appearance (lots of stars will rotate around you when you thrash. it’s like hitting your enemies with your own little pocket galaxy!)

Grace of Elune (new capstone talent where Rage of the Sleeper used to be) (passive): The next time you would die, instead survive and regain 40% of your health. This effect can only trigger once per 3 minutes. This effect cannot prevent massive damage.

Comments: this puts guardian druids on par with blood death knights and vengeance demon hunters that can both avoid death with similar talents. of course, we know you never die, so you’ll never need to take this awesome new talent, right? right… ?

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I like your ideas but please for the love of God add some formatting and indentation.

Reading your suggestions (which are interesting!) felt like reading in English class again and gave me an aneurysm

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I think they’re trying to make talents like Pulverize and Raze niche choices with a kiss/curse type of trade off. Pulverize has a really low kool down, but it’s trade off is it only reduced damage from a single target.

Raze is kind of the reverse. I like both but often give up both because the trade offs are too severe for anything but niche fights.

Maybe make swipe something more meaningful, along the lines of raze. Or just make DoC competitive–I love ravage. Just can’t play that spec because the numbers are too low.

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I agree that Raze should be baseline as a Rage AoE spender… Really, simply becasue on harder content we can’t afford spending a lot of rage on anything other than Ironfurs.

I wish CoE bear could look more… Celestial, somehow. Lunar Calling should change Thrash’s visuals to an arcane swirl. Can only imagine how cool it would look like that. I know some people dislike the built in eye glow from Oracle, but I would love some astral effects on the bear’s skin for this hero talent spec. They could come up with something to deactivate it visually.

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I can’t believe that I read the whole thing, instead of just saying TLDR.

These are great! Agree. Would entice me to begin actually tanking again.

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Maybe give the whole bear form a celestial glow or astral recolor (like Algalon) at least when in incarnation. But yea, astral thrash would look awesome.