Can anyone explain to me why I should be excited at all for guardian druid in dragonflight? Everything I read and test on the ptr seems so lacking it’s depressing. 15 years as a guardian and we are not even C tier.
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Do you like bears/guardian?
Been my main for 15 years
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The same thing was said going into SL and we did just fine.
It’s all hyperbole.
If you like playing your Druid, as many of us do, Ignore all the drama and do what you like.
Unless youre pushing bleeding edge content , all of the ranking and meta debate is meaningless.
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Unfortunately, that hyperbole means he will get denied invites for content because the greater community will think “Guardian sucks” and he will thus play less content and be looked down upon by members of the community.
The response to that is “make some friends and find a guild” which seems logical and reasonable, until you go into the psychology of peer pressure which will actually make him MORE likely to reroll another class because of the guilt he will feel by not playing a better class for his friends.
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That’s reason enough then. Tical’s words are true too. Await final tuning but you don’t have to play the best spec to succeed or have fun. There’s always going to be a technical best and worst but it doesn’t really matter that much. Especially being a tank, you won’t struggle to find groups. If you’re pushing world first, things can matter. Literally anything below that and it’s usually of no consequence.
As a tank I bet this won’t be the case much. I mean maybe for raids if there’s a lot of options but m+ should be fine. It is definitely annoying that the community creates this superficial demand for the best ceiling even though hardly anyone plays even remotely close to good enough to require it.
This is where you lose me. No one should ever feel that way and if you do you care way too much about what strangers think. If your friends are peer pressuring you then find different friends.
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Can you make any tank work up to a +25? Sure, but what you have to ask yourself is whether the extra effort that comes with that choice is worth it.
A great example was BFA when Prot Warrior dominated the M+ scene. You could most certainly make a Guardian druid work, but you had to use a very specific composition to do it and if you didn’t have that comp, it wouldn’t; at all.
So is it easier then for you to change the spec you play rather than also potentially force one or more of your friends to also switch specs to make up for your shortcomings all because you want to play the trash-can tank spec?
At the time of this post with regard to M+ (on a +15 key with Fortified):
- Guardian is 55% behind the next tank in raw damage.
- Guardian is now the lowest HPS tank, behind Protection Warriors.
Why would you play a spec that is so far behind the current mark?
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I understand the “find new friends” but it goes a little deeper than that IMO. I should have been more clear that the peer pressure i was referencing isnt necessarily bullying or from his friends…but possibly internal pressure combined with outward indirect peer pressure. Im getting into the weeds with it, so I apologize, my point was simply that it increases a ton of psychological stress and the innate desire to help your friends puts pressure on someone to play a more acceptable tank.
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Well to me, if you enjoy bear the most, then yes, it’s worth it. Here’s the thing, if I had to choose between having fun playing 20-23 keys or not having fun and treating it like a job to do 25’s, I’m doing 20-23’s all day. You have to ask yourself why you play this game. This game. Do you want to play the class and spec you love and resonate with or do you only care about topping the ladder? If you only care about ladder standings then you’re someone who’s gonna swap specs very frequently anyway.
This is like me and arena. Boomkin is not always good. In fact rarely is it like, noteworthy. It can work in very specific comps though. My buddies are a war and rsham and that’s what I play with. Is that a tier 1 comp? Lol not even close, but I make it work and manage glad every time. Do I push for rank 1? No. That comp isn’t rank 1 viable and I accept that. I strive to do the best I can with what I enjoy playing, how I enjoy playing it, and that’s just that. I strive everyone to adopt that mentality.
Because you like it. That’s really all there is to it. I mean those statistics don’t have all the context. You didn’t say guardian was lowest on dmg, just 55% behind the next. Is the “next” just really OP? Must also be that other specs are also behind it yeah? And it has lowest HPS. Ok. But does it have the lowest armor? Tankiness? What about utility? Surely it has some strong points. I mean balancing is always going to be a thing and you’re not always going to be the best. You won’t always be the worst either though and if you are the worst, and complain, and get buffed, someone else is now the worst. Someone has to be. Know what you always will be though? A bear.
I get that theoretically. I’ve had this dilemma with playing Kyrian vs necro I prefer necro but Kyrian is better in this meta most of the time. My friends have all said I can play whatever I want but I’ve ejected to go Kyrian for our final push because it’ll make life easier. But that’s still my choice and I valued my achievement over my fun for the time being. I will swap back once I’m done. Either way you have to have priorities. Cake, eat it too, yadda yadda. Swapping covenants is as far as I’d go. Now what if my war asked me to reroll ret or enh or dk, or even spriest. All of those would be far better comps. He’d be met with a fat “no” though. I’ll never not play druid. It’s what I like and that trumps absolutely everything else.
It’d be like being a fotm player and getting glad on a lock instead of druid because it’s easier. So now I have glad… cool. But I didn’t get on druid, which was my goal. So does it matter? Are you as “good” as you thought if you just re rolled? Same with keys. If your goal is to hit a 25 with a bear, do it. If you swap tanks and do it then… cool I guess but it’d matter more and feel better to do it on a class you wanted to
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Sames.
Every expac its the same usuall suspects who come here are cry wolf and threaten to quit playing Druid…. And I’m just like….
K….
Bye!
Druids are too much fun to care about all that mess.
It’s a game. Have fun.
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Yeah I mean I may not recognize repeat people who say whatever but I’ll definitely never reroll and I don’t cater to fotm. I like what I like and I’ll play it indefinitely. Makes hitting various milestones and achievements that much more satisfying.
That’s interesting, I don’t care how high I can push, but think about how long you need to wait until you can join a key this season? And I definitely won’t agree if you like bear, then suck it up.
They just dont care about bear, im done with it man, not gonna play a dpec they refuse too actually fix and seemingly make worse on purpose.
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Well stated and some good points. I think your key point is “choice” and you chose an achievement over fun. I think some people will struggle more with that choice when it involves a class vs. A talent. But your point still stands. I guess it all depends on what someone defines as “fun” and we will all have our own interpretations.
I do agree with the previous poster about waiting for keys and such. I mained feral this expansion and couldnt get into an RBG to save my life, and when i did theyd go “lol we got trolled, hes not boomie” or something and then boot me out as soon as it was over. Felt bad.
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That’s a fair point. This is a game, everyone play it for fun. If you think this spec is fun and you will play it for whatever it’s like, I feel glad for you that you have fun here. But if you said you should play this trash because you love this spec, I strongly disagree.
The worst thing they did, is that they create discrimination on purpose. No matter how many ”diversity hire" they have, they don’t care about diversity. They are always the old bliz. It’s impossible to make each spec equally powerful, I agree with that. But make 1 spec behind others so much on purpose, they are just creating cyber discrimination. Just imagine the “break the meta” list, what if those are human races instead of specs? Behind the char there is a player, everything targeting the spec is same as targeting the player personal. This is unacceptable.
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This is the focal. To me there’s like 2 types of players. 3 sort of. There’s:
—A die hard supporter of their favorite class. I fall into this category. Through thick and thin, they always stick to it and play it. They do so because class fantasy, intrinsic mechanics, aesthetics, whatever appeals to them too much to switch.
—Fotm player. These players care more about success and clout or achievements above all else and will play whatever is OP or busted to achieve it the easiest way possible. There’s a gray area here where if they main dps, they’re afraid of not getting invited into groups. This still follows the mindset thought of “path of least resistance.” That’s what these people focus in.
—A slight mix where they may have 2-3 favorite classes or specs they love equally and will reroll, but only between those 2-3. These players are loyal to their interests but still want to have it as easy as they can without giving ui their footing.
One just has to figure out which one they are and the choice thereafter will be easy.
This isn’t surprising. Rbgs are total memes anyway and feral offers almost nothing to a 10 v 10 format as a melee ST dps. You can’t really blame them to be honest. Different specs shine in different brackets. Boomy is great in rbgs, meh in 3’s, and awful in 2’s. Feral is awful in rbgs, and great in 3’s and 2’s.
I can’t tell if you’re being racist or not…? Which given your way of typing seems… ironic and odd if so. Care to clarify? Why do you mention diversity hires? Are you implying only certain types of people can develop a game well? Hill why would you assume anything with druid was done maliciously on purpose?
I mean what you say would only be true if it were literally unplayable. Which it won’t be. Tuning isn’t done, nor is it unable to be changed after launch. If you’re that scared of bear’s viability at this stage, then play something else.
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Maybe my English is too bad so ppl can’t understand what I’m implying. I’m implying blizzard hiring ppl based on their race/gender…, not their ability to do the job. Which I think is the meaning of racist. They are just using their employees as a shield to defense their racist behavior.
Agree and disagree. I don’t think “playable” is the bar for any game. I agree the tuning isn’t done, miracle could happen still.
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Please read what I said. I didn’t say anything with druid was done maliciously. I always say the druid dev team is just incapable, not maliciously mess with this class. I said they create discrimination on purpose. Every patch, there are meta specs, it’s fine one spec is better than the rest, I said it’s impossible to make all specs equally powerful. But make a spec so powerful at every perspective, just like the bdk, I don’t think it’s incapable. They know exactly how to build a tank.
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Well I understand what diversity hires are. I guess my follow up question is why are you implying they’re doing that or that’s the cause of the bad balancing? Seems like it just came out of left field.
despite using literally, I mean playable in a competitive capacity.
Most people don’t even achieve the highest potential of any given spec anyway and thus the short comings are usually not what’s holding them back.
This seems oxymoronic to me. Why “purposefully” create discrimination if ill intent is not the goal?
Need I remind you the game is literally not even out yet. I have a hard time believing that bears will be unable to clear keys within a couple of the very top performing tank. The variance won’t be that large and you, like most other players, won’t play it well enough to be able to blame the spec’s limits anyways.