i’m playing elunes’ with just one point in the apex.
since we spam ironfur for rage spend, I still have a good chance for spirit bears.
I put the other three points in:
brambles: aoe damage on pull
sundering roar: more aoe threat when needed plus extra stacks on bosses
waking nightmare: free passive damage
I’m only farming +10s and will probably only push to 3k, but I like this build it gives me tools I like and when combined with moonkin/heart of the wild on bigger pulls, I don’t feel like I have any aggro.
Of course the thorns from thrashes help a great deal too.
amyway, just playing around with a build I like in weekly keys.
i’m not going to pretend that I know how the math completely works, but that 30% is for 8 seconds and the 4th point guarantees a spirit. the 1st point gives you access to spirits by spending rage. thrash and mangle generate rage. since you are spamming ironfurs, you are going to naturally get a lot of spirits over time.
and i am generate about 11% of my damage from where i put the other 3 points passively.
again, I don’t know how the math plays out but 11% damage for free might be very competitive in my world with the 4 pt apex and none of the other passives.
a) it seems people can’t even handle a conversation about someone having fun and experimenting without turning into a simming min/max. gg
b) that 11% damage contribution from the other talents wasnt from a sim. that was from me doing m0 pulls in murder row which is a much better way for a tank to see what their build is doing than hitting target dummies. that is rotational practice for dps.
c) people want to complain about copy/paste builds and they want to complain about people fiddling with builds. i ain’t pushing 20s and won’t be.
The 4th point also makes your Spirit Bear attacks generate 8 rage.
That said, it’s an interesting approach. Sheronir was experimenting with it as well. And I even saw Awoo trying a 2/4 Apex build in some +16s. However, Awoo conceded that with the fix to the 30%, the 4 Apex is now the better approach. Not that he is the ultimate authority you should follow, but he has been an advocate that we shouldn’t assume builds must revolve around full Apex. In this case, though, it seems the full Apex is the “better” overall build. That said, I also agree with playing what you enjoy. If you’re having fun, more power to you!
12.0.0 guardian apex talent was exactly how I imagined an apex talent.
It was meaningful and noticeable.
Then they decided to gut it and now replaced with this 12.1 apex talent which is actually exactly like nearly every other apex talent.
Meaningless passives, often not even new, just recycled from removed talents. In other words: bloat which is likely going to be removed in 1 or 2 expansions.
I am generally at loss with midnight’s class design, tho I am hopping there are specs at least which got something out of this expansion, even if I dont play them, but I am starting to doubt that.
if any, i am really experimenting with not being so reliant on incarn and being able to fill inbetween thrash casts. with my main concern being establishing and maintaining aoe threat in pugs.
life is better with the 4 piece and finally adopting the moonkin/heart of the wild pull really help. still, I like to mess around.
and Awoo is one of the reasons why i experiment. he was the guy who, as far as I know, was either the discoverer or simply major proponent of the no apex build last season.
i think he is mostly running 4 apex now, but he is also pushing 1% content.
with my gear in +10s, I could easily run DotC and now have any threat problems.
hmmm….
update:
for kicks, i just ran a +10 as DotC. it was noticeably inferior to elunes in terms of damage and defensives. 10/10 do not recommend lol
Yeah… I think so, too. And he was talking about it before S1 launch, long before the Thrash buff. And I’m definitely in support of experimentation and playing the way you want and having fun. That said…
I would be cautious here. Incarn really is a part of the core tool kit for Bears. I think it’s pretty much intended to be used as much as possible and is a huge part of our threat generation and defense on big pulls (via Ursoc’s Fury shields and via rage gen for IF and FR).
I haven’t had any issues this season with threat in pugs (other than the occasional caster that won’t come into the pack) even when Incarn is on cooldown.
i said that with 0 intent to insult. its a observation how your 11% could be less in reality since its not really 11% in capable hands. specific numbers become less and less of your overal when you have higher numbers of specific abilities like thrash or maul
ive always question this method of “testing” or practice" you just lose alot of factors like kill speed. its just not a realistic way to test potential damage output or practice your rotation. like good for you? i can also solo the first pull of murderrow as a vdh but it doesnt really do anything in practice or in useable data
i mean thats kinda the stigma isnt it. you can play whatever build you want and thats fine. its just weekly keys. but then i kinda think about the rest of youre team. how theyre probably giving it their all to time it with their potential best build and youre just idk…not?? ive always thought it was inherently selfish to use a build thats like a huge amount of damage lower than the standard. while it is you’re right and sub to play it. i kinda cant help to think about any potential issues you might have. like if a actual dps players goes into youre weekly keys and and rips threat off you and dies. which unironically happens alot when im on my paladin and my tank is one of those tanks who “plays what they want”
keep in mind im not popping my cds like a monkey, im actively giving my tank 5+ seconds to gather and establish threat. onl yfor me to rip it out the moment i press wings. usually the main offender this season are bears who arnt playing the apex. so you can understand where my bias comes from
i mean no apex was still worse defensively and offensively in s1 before thrash got giga buffed. yall like to forget that awoo conceded in s1 too and started playing his highest keys with apex before the imfamous bear buff. its easy to not remember or ignore stuff that kinda goes against youre point
You’re not wrong to feel that way. At the same time, you might also feel it’s selfish if the DPS is just tunneling the boss, not interrupting, late moving out of fire, not using defensive tools, etc. Or what about a player who is just simply not that good at the game? Is a player being selfish if he doesn’t study youtube videos of the boss fights? Is a tank being selfish if he doesn’t research and memorize the most optimal route and pull sequences? In pugs, you get what you get. You go to war with the army that you have.
Well that sucks. Is that happening regularly? Perhaps you’re overgeared for that key level and the tank is undergeared? That, along with an off-meta build, might be a contributing factor.
Be honest… how many Bears with non-apex builds have you really come across? I find it really hard to believe there are that many out there, certainly not so many that you would categorize them as the usual main offender.
This feels strangely like your other conversation on this topic…… I wonder if this may be the elusive “actual toon” of the other person you were arguing with.
The 12.0 apex is quite a few different itterations that you are generalizing.
First it was a horribly underpowered version that everyone skipped.
Then it was super powerful but incredibly unsuited for anything but raid damage amp phases.
Then it was quite underpowered as Ravage and the apex got nerfed multiple times.
Then it was forgotten as EC took over and people ignored apex all together.
Frankly, they seem unable to design interesting apex talents that aren’t mostly passive. I like the new one. I like our crack bears that love to charge all over and hope they make improvements to it.
If I could proc more than 1 that would immediately fix a ton of issues of overwriting and wasted rage during a proc. We’ll see if they get there.
What you deem to be the best build or what icy veins deems to be the best build or what wowhead deems to be the best build might not be what that player deems to be the best build for him.
Yeah… they probably should. I interrupt. You probably interrupt. But not everyone plays the way we do. And entering a pug, we know we’re getting a group of players who may not play the way we play, so we simply need to adapt… and we need to calibrate our expectations.
Why not? If we’re demanding optimal play from pugs, why stop at builds and interrupts? Why not demand they fully research the dungeons. Why not demand food and flasks? Why not demand more group utility usage like Stampeding Roar?
Wanting better performance from strangers you are grouped with is fine. Just be cautious in how you react when they don’t meet your expectations.
Then I don’t know what to tell you. I’m a pretty mediocre player and I can’t recall ever having aggro ripped off me from a dps in a M+.
Then don’t play with that person?
So… 1 or 2?
I follow this forum quite regularly as wells as a couple discord channels. First, I’m not sure your characterization of “a lot of bear players” is really accurate. We’ve seen here two guys (Kontiki and Sheronir) really advocating for this alternate build. And while Awoo was playing around with it before the bug fix, he expressly did not recommend it. Further, I don’t think characterizing the alt build as “crippling” is accurate, at least not while the bug was in place. Critics were suggesting prior to the bug fix that the alt build was like 5-10% worse. I’d hardly call that crippling. Honestly, that’s probably within the variance you might see from an average skilled player anyway.
I play mostly a standard build with full Apex. I like the new Apex. I don’t like that you have to press both Wild Guardian AND Maul to get the free Spirit Bear to trigger. That doesn’t make any sense. But I still like it. On the other hand, I don’t play HotW. I don’t shift to Moonkin for Starfall pulls. I don’t do the Bearcatting thing. So I don’t take Persistence; I take Front of the Pack. I don’t take Fluid Form or HotW. I prefer Mighty Bash over Incap Roar. I don’t take Raze. I don’t even press Maul except after Incarn to get the free Spirit Bear, so I also take Ursoc’s Endurance over Gory Fur. I don’t take Ursol’s Vortex. Am I being a selfish player by making these playstyle choices?
Or at least EXTEND the duration rather than just overwrite. Also, I understand why people may want to hold off on generating the free Spirit Bear immediately after Incarn, but why do we need to press both Wild Guardian AND Maul to activate it. I don’t see the logic there.
by practicing pulling bigger and bigger in a dungeon where you don’t have a healer, you learn to juggle your defensives to live as long as possible. as you get better at living and your gear gets better, you pull more and see how long you can live. this is exactly how you get better at tanking m+
and it does give you a chance to see how your damage profile works too. sims usually run a patchwork scenario. if you are an m+ player, you aren’t running a single target build, so patchwork sims don’t make much sense. they also, as their disclaimers make plain, don’t factor in anything about taking damage and how that might affect play.
So, rather than using a sim, i take my various builds into murder row, do the same pull over and over with different builds and see what my DPS is and what my damage profile looks like.
healers can practice healing in BGs. DPS players have target dummies.
i mean if they’re gleefully losing a ton of damage and defensive power for no reason its just going to make the run harder. i understand that people are allowed to play what they want. but theres a inherit selfishness on eating a huge nerf to damage and defensive power in decent level content. as much as we meme about 10s being casual content. its really not. its a content that gives you max level of vault where things kinda hurt if it goes wrong.
idk why were phrasing “interupting” as a playstyle choice. its a actual mechanic in the game that players need to interact with or they will die. ya we can adapt to it, but we should never phrase it as a quirky way people can play viva a choice.
why are we going this extremists route? what is this all or nothing attitude that im seeing more and more off? sure you can do mats and pots idc. that doesnt effect me personally. builds and interupt stuff do effect me personally so i care abotu that more than anything else. im also the tank so im going whatever route i go and if we hit 100% great.
a route wont make or break a timer, having a weird build will absolutely make or break a timer not interupting will make or break a timer.
i literally just want the bare minimum. if you guys cant do the bare minimum for everyones benefit. then idk what to tell you
i mean mostly because all the good dps rarely pug
its not a singular issue tho? its a multiple person issue. why should a person be punished if theit tank runs a weird build for no benefit. a dps perma floor pov after doing everything right like waiting a few seconds between pulls because their tank refuses to press buttons is just not good
i mean, the real answer is yes? im not going to tell you to do all these things obviously. like the minmax of mauling everynow and then is a small gain and mostly a show of skill ceiling. but if you’re doing poorly in a key and i find out youre not doing alot of these things. then frankly im going to be kinda peeved off.
its not a way to test a tank rotation, because you’re not going to be soloing entire packs. you’re going to be with a healer and with dps. you could have externals, you could have the healer pocket you so you can free up defensives for more bigger pulls or specific pulls.
its not a good test
also you gain max defensive power from doing your rotation correctly.
except you dont get better. you’re just blowing youre defensives because you dont have a healer and you dont have dps killing things. there is no skill learned from doing this. you’re just cycling your defensives. which is something you should already be doing
a good example is your incarn usage. you’re barely using incarn according to you’re logs which is in itself a loss of offensive and defensive power. give to what you are saying, i stand to reason that your using incarn as a “oh no button” because in youre words a tanks purpose “is to live” instead of being a good tank and just pull around youre incarn window. incarn off cd? pull huge then cycle si and other stuff like barkskin.
but it doesnt, because youre holding incarn aka you’re biggest damage window for when youre about to die. you’re completely messing up youre damage profile.
you’re basically wasting time because you’re testing things that ultimately dont apply t o reality. you are with a team of people. youre not alone.
this is all wrong and this mentality is just a self debuff.
its just going to make the run harder. i understand that people are allowed to play what they want. but theres a inherit selfishness on eating a huge nerf to damage and defensive power in decent level content. as much as we meme about 10s being casual content. its really not. its a content that gives you max level of vault where things kinda hurt if it goes wrong.