Not a 100% reliable one… Sure, it gives you 4 seconds of 80% of the stam and armor you have in bear form… but you are able to be crit cause you’re not in bear form.
EDIT: Scratch that, DoTC doesn’t give you a 4 second grace period. It only applies to when you go from Bear → Cat, not Bear → Caster (which is what happens when you try to use a DoC proc just as it expires).
I thought bears being the “healer helper” tank was a neat niche with AtWF and DoC, but blizzard decided to kill it. 
I can’t imagine anyone at blizzard even cares. Bears bell curve can be 2-3 key levels behind and no one bats an eye cuz it’s unpopular.
You used to be able to macro regrowth so it wouldn’t shift you out of form when used. I had a macro for feral druids that, if I was in combat, it would not unshift me. They disabled that ability though. 
Isn’t that a bit disingenuous though, considering one of the highest rated tanks is a bear tank? Sure, not everyone is able to play a bear at that skill level, but that doesn’t mean that the spec itself is bad.
I thought inability to be crit was from being a tank spec? Like you can’t be dazed a in tank spec even if not in bear
You’re daze-proof regardless of form when you’re guardian spec. You’re only crit-proof [against PvE mobs] when you’re actually in bear form.
EDIT: After some testing, maybe the game still considers you as being in bear form while Wildshape Mastery is active? I tried to see if I could get crit with it active for ~100 hits and none of them crit.
Just standing around in cat form as a druid of the claw does allow you to be crit, though…
That’s why I used the word bell curve. You can more clearly draw comparisons from aggregates than anecdotes.
I know you did, I’m just pointing out that it isn’t really a fair comparison as it doesn’t show class balance, but rather which skill level of tanks it attracts.
If we’re to say somethinf isn’t properly balanced in a certain genre, we ought to look at the top performers when comparing, not the average joe.
Apart from that, I don’t even know where you get the bell curve for which key level each rank resides in, would be nice of you to share so the rest of us can see it too.
Even Squishvegan - an obvious outlier in the data as a world class one trick 150 IO higher than the next player on the list - is a full key level behind Raré, a Fotm reroller playing his DH for the first time this season.
The number 2 guardian Druid one trick is beat out by 111 FotM rerollers. And so on and so on.
All this is available on raiderIO, even if you’ve never played guardian before. Objectively, bears do 25% less damage than DH on aoe and 40% less than warriors in single target. We have more 2 point nodes than any other spec in the game, and our absorb mitigation was never fixed after the HP buff going into this expansion. Paladins WoG was fixed — but not bears UF. So it became useless. Rage gen was never fixed after they nerfed the base kit during the exodia season — which was caused by a synergy with aug evoker (now broken as well) and an OP tier set. They never fix what they break, the damage just piles up. Less rage = less fun. Less passive tank = less offensive button presses = less fun.
As a long, long, loooong time guardian player, I can say with some authority that bears are less developed than the other tanks. Bad enough that one has to consider Hanlon’s razor when contemplating the reason behind it.
What’s funny is my post wasn’t even about performance or theoretical maximums. It was about perception and popularity amongst discerning players. The fact that, in your mind, bears are just as strong as DH and still picked 1% of the time makes it even worse. Even in DF season 2 where we had a few weeks as the “exodia” tanks, bears were still less popular than paladins, DH, and DK. https://raider.io/mythic-plus-rankings/season-df-2/all/world/leaderboards-strict
Bears need a glow up and a PR revitalization.
This would put them at 3rd in aoe damage and slightly increase DotC aoe tanking ability, and give them back their utility niche from DF all without any major reworks. Front page news, barely move the needle, and it gets people to play it. Best case scenario.
Can we just make things up now to strengthen our opinions? Let’s not fall that low, as adults we should be able to respond to what people say, rather than make up claims and respond to those.
There’s no denying Squishvegan is an exceptionally good player, and we all know bears aren’t in the greatest spot. I’m not denying that they could use a lot of work, but considering the best bear tank is able to perform that well it’s not fair to imply it’s as bad as you make it out to be.
Couldn’t get all the way through it? I’m sometimes a little long winded when there’s a bit of nuance involved because I hate being misunderstood and misrepresented.
Just couldn’t be bothered to respond to everything when I noticed you started to make things up.
as opposed to completely misstating my position so you can use your schtick to derail this post? How hypocritical can you be?
I’ll happily own up to my shortcomings, are you capable of owning up to yours?
Me responding to your statement of the average bear tank being 2-3 key levels below all other average tanks (still without any evidence to back that claim up) wasn’t on topic. I should’ve left your off-topic statement to be, as this isn’t the right place to discuss that. Both you and I shouldn’t have expanded on this topic as it derails the thread from what it was originally intended to discuss.
On-topic though:
There’s a talent for that sort of thing, and bears don’t really need to use any abilities that can’t be used in bear form. It would be a nice QoL change if the regrowth proc talent also made you unable to shift out of bear form if you ever attempt to cast regrowth without the proc.
Just admit you lied about bears being so far behind, you look childish at this point.
Why do I even post? You guys just argue with what you wish I’d said instead of what I actually said.
I agree with you.
With the notable Exception, of the druid passive ability, Of being able to shift out of roots & snares. Like ANY other druid in the game. Because if you do, your group is dead. And unlike any other other tank in the game, their movement ability is on a 2min cd, stampeding roar. Because they have movement in cat, which is unusable, unless your AoTC. See the problem.
Being able to cast spells, is part of the druid kit. Why can’t bears use it? Why are they the only ones singled out.
And if this were to happen… I Don’t know??? Maybe something like an internal Cooldown Timer, like their is on EVERY OTHER ABILITY thats similar to it?
Baseline, Guardians have the right to shift forms. So why isn’t baseline that we won’t die the instant we do so, wether its skill or accident. Because if they would be doing it intentionally, there is probrably a reason; like to help out the healer, and toss out regrowths & rejuvinations, like brewmasters, or paladins. To get out of trouble, like on horses, or leaps.
Theres a talent for that
Said talent keeps you from dying because IF transfers over with you and any good Guardian should be having 1-2 stacks of IF as is. So no dying.
Both of whom give up defensive measures/mitigation to do so.
Youve got 4 seconds. I can cover a lot of ground in 3 seconds with Tigers Dash. Also, im struggling to think of times where im actively being rooted enough that this is an issue
I’m not disagreeing that guardian has their issues, I’m just saying that this isn’t one of them.