If you play other tanks, Guardian’s kit does feel basic and simplistic in comparison and not because it’s supposed to be the simple easy tank, but more like devs have avoided developing the spec further to save time.
Sharing a class tree with a melee dps, ranged dps, and healer based partially on shapeshift forms lessens the value Guardian acquires from it. If the class tree is to remain roughly the same, Guardian needs more value from the spec tree by combining some of the talents or having more baseline. I don’t think anyone thinks Berserk split into 3 nodes is good except contrarians. The talents in the final tier is full of things that feel more like they should be in the middle section of the tree and not capstones.
The class tree could benefit by going back to the old affinity talents where 1 node gave you multiple form abilities where you could only acquire 1 or maybe 2 effectively or by making more things baseline. Some of the Moonfire buff talents could be moved to the class tree. Class tree capstone sections feel mostly lame when you’re comparing them to Abom Limb, Emp Rune Weapon, Avatar, Spear, etc.
Distillated down, when I’m comparing across classes, Guardian gains less value from class tree, and is spread too thin on the spec tree that is lacking in interesting design. Guardian is like driving a base model, other tanks are like driving a fully loaded. 2cents.
I think Guardian needs a Dire Bear form, that can only be used in guardian spec. Let this form increase our HP please to offset some of our lacking mitigation
PS the definition of viable doesn’t change based on the content you do.
Of 20. Top end is 20. They’re not gonna see Prot Warriors doing 33s and a bear at 29 and be like “yeah this the problem. We need to change everything based on things we never cared about balancing around”.
If Bears struggled to clear 20s at 410 ilvl you’d see more of a knee jerk reaction from blizzard to fix that problem. But they are 100% viable and capable of doing such.
Different tanks have different ceilings. And all those ceilings go beyond their balance points.
Eeeyup and thats why if they dont do something about it tomorrow im done with bear entirely, i had already kinda stopped playing it for the most part since about week 3ish. Already been playing other tanks and they feel significantly better.
this might be the silliest thing ive heard in awhile how does a tank go beyond its balance point. quick answer it doesnt. there will always be an outlier aka the meta tank but to say they are performing outside there balance point is silly. the only time they are outside there balance point is if they cannot complete content. so bears not being in the top end while every other tank has some representation there shows that they need help in m+ at least.
I have mained bear more or less since vanilla, and this is probably the weakest they’ve ever been. I don’t feel tanky when I run 16+ keys. I feel like I’m one GCD away from dying, and must do small pulls lest I get globaled.
Worse, is that before the patch, I felt stronger than now. Still unacceptably squishy, but manageable. Bear gets nerfed, while warrior still up in the stratosphere.
Going to stubbornly keep playing it, unless I get frustrated enough to stop playing retail entirely. But does not feel good at all.
Side note, feeding the obvious trolls in guardian threads just keeps them coming back for dopamine hits. There are three low effort ones of the top of my head that show up in nearly every guardian thread.
My personal experience doesn’t stop tanks from being viable. There’s data out there showing you that they are more than capable. YOU may not be capable, but that doesn’t mean the class is not. Big difference.
PS - I also started the expansion 6 weeks behind everyone else. I’ll be doing 16s this week and hopefully pushing 18s next week. I’m slightly ahead of the curve here.
What keys are this happening in? Because there’s bears clearing 23s meaning they’re not being one shot by these trash mechanics in these lower keys that everyone claims is happening. Is it due to possibly having better cooldown rotation/management?
You completely contradicted yourself. If you did it, you didn’t hold the group back.
It tackles content that the devs don’t balance around (eg keys above 20).
You not understanding balance break points doesn’t make things silly, just makes you ignorant (and I say that in the nicest way possible). The devs have already touched on this with the introduction of m+ back in legion and reiterated it in the beginning of BfA. Just because the game has the formula to scale m+ all the way up to 100 doesn’t mean they’re gonna balance classes for that level range
You haven’t even tanked a 15 on bear yet so you have no clue what you’re oddly feverishly arguing. Bears have major problems with survivability starting at +17 on standard dungeon mobs that other tanks can legitimately ignore.
My bear is ilvl 406 and 2250+ and I’m retiring him this season because my 386 warrior can handle the same mobs without kiting/cheesing/gimping the entire party because the dps and heals literally have to play around bear’s weakness for the entire dungeon.
Getting 1shot by a succubus in CoS or skele in SBG THROUGH mitigation because you accidentally didn’t dodge their magic tankbuster while tanking an entire pack is incredibly frustrating.
Make sure you report back after you’ve tanked a key that’s actually difficult.
I think you are trying to sound smart here but come off as clueless, the definition of viable does change when you use the term to discuss class balance. In fact many words in the English language change meaning pending on the context. Much like any other field, world of warcraft has its own jargon and context, and in this world viable has a different meaning. Read above posts and you will get a general sense of how its being used and then join the conversation with at least a baseline understanding of whats being discussed.
EDIT:Turns out even the dictionary definition of viable would be applicable here. Viable can be defined as having a reasonable chance for success. Right now the chance to succeed high level keys (needing an overgeared group of friends on discord) is not viewed as reasonable to the druid player base, as evidenced by the many threads here on this forum.
P.S. Dont use P.S. unless you are adding new information not relevant to your original message. You’re Welcome
This is the issue in a nutshell, tanks should not be this out of alignment. I KSM a prot war before I played my druid and I didnt even realize half the tankbusters out there until i played on my bear on HIGHER KEYS. Prior to that its not really an issue. Druid tank needs better magic mitigation plain and simple.
Balance point is 20. Their “chance” of success is more than reasonable seeing as bears are pushing past that.
When it’s avoidable damage it is.
No offense, but aren’t you the hunter toting that you got KSM on a Prot Warrior and then using Bears in 10 keys as your justifiable comparison as to why Bears were fine before everyone shut you down in every discussion and now suddenly you’re on a “bears are bad” kick?
Yes, I was the same as you a few days ago. Had not done higher keys, based my decisions and opinions on what I had exp so far, assumed other bear tanks where just being dramatic. I have since attempted a few higher keys on my bear tank and noticed the difference, I suggest you do the same on your bear.
He did what everyone suggested and went into some higher keys from where he was at.
Got nuked because bear mitigation is designed horribly, soo changed his mind on it.
So let me ask this: do my personal limitations reflect the dlaw is class design, or my skill as a player?
If I struggle in 10-11 key range, does that mean the class is broken, or does it mean I need to get better when people are clearing 23-24s as a bear?
And the reason I ask is because everyone wants to start with “in my experience”…well your experience is a bit lacking (and I’m not saying this to spite anyone), but most of these people are about 600-800io behind leading Bears, and wanna talk about a 300io score difference between top Warriors and top Druids.
I think the differences are not gonna show up for most players until higher keys 15+ so for the players not skilled enough or unlucky in PUGS for sub +15 thats on them. I also think the differences are not so great that and exceptional player or a good group cannot overcome them for 15+ but for the average guy PUGing the class deficiencies are going to severely impact progress.
But we’re not saying Joe did poorly so bears are flawed…we’re looking at meta data, such as m+ rankings… Which show that bear is miles below the other tanks. Sure, one person was able to do 23s as bear… But 1) the other tanks have people doing 25s and 2) we need to look at the whole picture. And the whole picture is, bears are not ranking because bear is severely undertuned.