Speaking about the next patch is it worth going guardian for higher keys or will I be turned down for being a guardian?
Everyone wants a tank that has relevant experience. If a bear and warrior both queue up, and both are of equal skill, the warrior will get the invite every time, but that doesn’t happen. Most pugs are just glad to see anyone willing to take on the responsibility of a tank provided they are geared appropriately and have an appropriate resume.
Unless you’re at the highest levels of play, or queuing for content you have no business being in, you’ll get invited.
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For tanks, it is more about their raider io score than their class, so you shouldn’t have problems finding groups as long as you’re within the range expected.
Granted, people might prefer to take a Monk, a Warrior or even a Paladin for certain comps/affixes, but considering the low number of tanks available, you should be able to get in 2 out of 3 groups.
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I have no issues currently doing my 10 key for the week on my druid and I have a horrid I.O. as I only tend to do Atal and Under as they are fast to get done and not a fan of Mplus in general. the base lines being a 10 or 15 it tends to not matter on class as long as you have the gear appropriate level you will be fine only when you start looking at 16 plus does class demand really factor in
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I still get insta-invites at 12-13 key range. Just don’t really trust PuGs to apply to a 15 yet. I’m sorry but if you’re in a 12 key and you refresh Bursting stacks with a second left and up it to 8…I die a little inside. And a little on screen
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Bears are fine for 15s and above. Do yourself a favor though and find a regular group to play with. Bias will be less of an issue and you’ll have more fun.
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Bears make great tanks if you have the right stats (verse>haste) and the right essences.
Typically you’ll want Visions major, aegis and conflict minors, or you can sub in full barrier for magic damage heavy dungeons like shrine and WM.
Just thrash on cd, make sure to mangle with gore procs and dump rage on iron fur stacks or maul for dps. You have access to 100% uptime on mitigation and you have barkskin on a short cd aswell as 2 charges of Survival instincts for oh sheet moments or large pulls.
It’s a very effective tank, and does great dps to boot. I main resto, but I’ve run as high as 18 as bear and all healers say they dont even look at my healthbar
Why in the world would you run Visions major??? Maybe a minor, but why in the world a major?
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Because it synergizes very well with Earthwarden and it is a good dps cd and defensive cd on a 1 ppm.
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The issue with vision major is its proc based. And unlike other specs like Prot, the cd it grants has such a long cool down that it doesn’t help us achieve high uptime, as the minor and major affect different cds for Bear.
I like it as a minor sometimes so I can get SI to a 2 min cd in magic dungeons like shrine.
The major is useable, but not optimal. Most common majors are Anima and to a lesser extent Lucid/Crucible.
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Cause is very strong, both as a damage and defensive proc (through Earthwarden).
Personally I find it fun to have. The proc activates on nearly every pull, so it helps a lot with damage, control, and mitigation. Plus it’s one less button to worry about, and you also don’t need to equip Incarnation if you don’t want it, and you’ll still get the procs.
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Major is BIS actually.
VOP is our absolute best major. It synergies with earthwarden and also allows you to spam thrash and mangles for rage and IF stacks. Sometimes the procs happen at crap times but that’s the price you pay.
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Tried looking into VoP in game and didn’t see anything that would point at synergy with Earthwarden.
Care to elaborate for me? I haven’t bothered stepping foot into Operation Mech to get it
Whenever you do direct damage with Thrash, you gain a stack of Earthwarden. Since VOP procs Incarnation, and Incarnation removes the cooldown from Thrash, you can effectively spam it for the duration of the proc, giving you several charges of Earthwarden.
Then there’s also Thrash’s interaction with Twisted Claws, which increases its value even further.
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Can you please cite where this information is coming from? I could potentially see it being viable in Freehold and the start of TD if it procs on large pulls but I don’t see how it’s bis on paper.
I use it and I can’t see myself using anything else anymore. It’s a little random but when it hits it hits
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I can’t speak to absolute BiS, but after reading VoP Major I started digging in some top bear logs.
There’s alot of VoP major runs in the 20+. Also in the running are Anima and Crucible. With the 12% proc rate boost in 8.3 it might be even nicer for the 15% armor and endless Earthwarden blocking. My greatest skepticism of the switch is the RNG.
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Earthwarden ends up often being my largest source of “healing” with Vision, and there’s no defensive benefit sacrifice to taking it as major while getting really solid damage out of it (as opposed to C&S major). It also just makes the spec a lot more fun.
I pugged all 15s or 16s as guardian druid. I also played pally tank pretty high. Druid seems harder than pally and people told me pally is crap lol.
That being said, the more I play druid tank the better I get. Gonna be aiming for 20s next season.
I can’t help but chuckle when reading this.
Reminds me back when Tewa refered to resto affinity/trait as “basal” despite it making up the majority of heals and being used by all the top ranked.
Here we are 6 months later talking about the same thing, but this time around it’s earthwarden/vop.
I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for him to explain why all the top ranked guardians are wrong this time!
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