I played feral in vanilla…in a pvp guild ^^
I’ve mained druid in almost every expansion…except i had a break during tbc since trying to grind the pvp ranks back in the days gave me a proper burnout 
Most of the time I’ve had to “adjust” spec in order to play content i want. I just am wondering why your hopes are so high, when history clearly tells us to stay realistic ^^
I didn’t see that whole picture, but from what I see now, seems the MF healing is an extra cookie. It’s better than nothing, but you can’t really rely on it. It’s more like a side effect of increasing the MF dmg. As long as you are happy with the extra dmg, you don’t really care how much it can heal.
The short board for bear is still there, too weak when tanking ST. Most of the tools are built for multi-targets tanking, like MF healing and thrash related talents. Also seems lacking of st dmg as well. The biggest problem still that bears rely on different builds heavily(I’m not sure if this would be the same for other tanks in DF), this is not a problem in raid, but a pain in m+. The most I would like to see is that you can change gears/talent in m+.
numbers mean nothing right now in beta, they havent done a single tuning parses so it might as well be zero. Remove the DPS meter and the numbers and think about the core of guardian. We can only get excited about the damage guardian has when DF actually launches and the tuning numbers are set in stone. Other than that this thread should be about the core of guardians tank design
getting excited for Beta pre tuning numbers is a easy way to set yourself up for disappointment.
Fair enough. From a gameplay perspective this is possible in DF:
-MF multi dotting converting to healing
-MF healing + Natures Vigil + Ursoc’s Fury Shields = Strong self sustain + group healing.
-Incarn thrash spam is still great damage plus survivability.
-Incarn CDR bringing the CD down to possibly 2 minutes?
-Bristling Fur in large packs to gen rage every 40 to further push empower Incarn CDR.
-Incap, ursols vortex, rebirth, stampeding roar, possible rejuv swift mend combo as decent utility.
-Possible Maul shield build outside of Icarn windows to help with survivability.
This might not seem game-breaking or OP (though I still think Incarn is the strongest Tank CD in game) but it’s still something.
Honestly outside of warrior being outright busted, and DH doing crazy damage, I think guardian is in an okay spot.
Maul shield and bristling fur is good but i think everything else just comes down to how hard tuning comes down on bear. I have played plenty of betas and some things go from being broken OMG this thing is the strongest thing ever to being mediocre on release.
It really isn’t.
When you look at Anger Management, Warrior is constantly drowning in rage as is, and they get 1 second off for every 10 rage spent, which is 2x that of the CDR talent available to Guardian. It’s really not as huge as you might think, especially when you look at how much CDR the other tanks can get by comparison.
Exactly, the Moonfire healing really won’t show it’s value until you get into higher content where the Ursoc’s Fury shield won’t be as potent and consistent.
I really would just like to see a talent that lets a bear druid shift into cat, resto, or moonkin, and keep the bear stats/ironfur for ~15s or so (maybe on a small CD?) so that a bear could have a way of increasing DPS by catweaving or something. Going moonkin and dropping a big convoke, etc. Maybe even increase the CD a bit more and make it a weird defensive, like moonkin giving you reduced spell dmg taken, cat increasing your dodge, and caster increasing healing taken and hp?
I dunno. Totally throwing random stuff at the wall. Basically, it would be cool to complicate bears playstyle just a little bit more. It would also be cool to free up bears to do a little shifting around safely to increase DPS. And it would be really cool for gameplay if a bear could temporarily give up his ability to react defensively (by not being in bear form) for more DPS.
Cat form has a passive that gives you cat form speed X seconds after leaving cat form, i dont see it being something bear cant have for certain things…
I’ve been messing around with a galactic thrash build that doesn’t utilize incarn. Use convoke on the start of each pull and keep moonfire and thrash up on everyone while mangling for the rage needed for IF. Its a nice consistent build. I know a lot of people prefer the incarn build but that has driven me away from bear tanking for years as I don’t much care for playing around a 3 min CD.
This is the build I used. moonfire + thrash/maul build. Good, solid, and consistent. way more fun than 3 min builds. Even with the CDR, I was barely able to get it to 2:30 with how the mobs are spaced and pulled in most places.
I am exited about getting rid of covenants…so I can swap specs when i want/need to!
Love convoke with galactic laser bear. Having a blast with the bear because I don’t feel the need to chase meta.
They just need to adjust Moonfire so we shoot it out of our bear mouth at targets like Godzilla.
After testing out builds, in sad to say the incarn CDR doesn’t feel as good as I’d hope. It’s not terrible, but I don’t think it’s as impactful as I’d wanted it to be.
I will say though the moonfire plus convoke build is a great deal of fun. I’ve tinkered with it, getting the circle of life talent plus focusing on iron fur stacks, and the damage seems really good also being quite durable.
I did try a convoke, moonfire, maul shield build and while it was okay, it didn’t flow as well as playing without maul. The gcd used on maul procs seemed to throw off the flow. Dmg overall was less, and I can’t say how beneficial the shields were as its was only heroics.
So laser, convoke bear is looking pretty fun so far.
Honestly, I’m pretty bummed. I’ve mained feral since before Guardian existed, and mained Feral/Guardian since.
These trees, though… Feral seems to be improved, but the class tree is hot garbage and the guardian tree is a joke.
This might be the first time my druid isn’t my first one through new content. That really sucks to say. But I just can’t get excited about another expac of endless thrash spam when I look at ProtW and BDK.
Dude prot warrior looks like a god when compared to bear. A god next too a groveling peasant.
I’m in the same boat.
I think the Druid tree needs a total work over. I can live with the spec trees.
I cant bears sucks. Needs a whole entire rework to fix the spec.
And even with the tuning update on warriors bringing them more inline on DPS, its still not a contest.
I spent a bit of timing this weekend really testing out my 4 go to tanks. Warrior, Pally, DK, and Druid. The gap between warrior and druid is just mind numbingly bad.
1) Trees:
The warrior tree is a thing of beauty. Lots of potential builds. I had a blast this weekend tweaking and finetuning abilities to get it to adjust to how I wanted to play. Being able to swap from one side of the tree to another on prot was so nice. Honestly, most trees should be like this.
Then bear. To run moonfire, plus trying to pick up ursoc’s literally requires me to go back to the start of the left side of the tree and work it back up through talents I have no interest in. The class tree is a joke. Having to spend 5 points just to get astral for more range? and the pre-req 3 points I can’t even use while tanking, and have zero impact on bear or tanking outside meme owlweaving, which isn’t outputting much right now. If I want cyclone, I have to spend 3 points for 6% more magic damage?
And then the capstones. of the 6 top row talents, I only use 1. Warrior, I’m using 4-5 because they all rock, and can be adjusted on how I want to play. And I’m still playing with them to see how I want to set up game play.
2) Damage output
For me, the one bright spot for guardian. I can match my DPS between my warrior and druid. Granted I feel part of that is I’m really comfortable on druid and didn’t touch warrior at all during SL.
3) Self Sustain
This is what I really watched between the tanks I tested. I looked not at my self healing (druid rocked that category, right behind BDK), but at how much healing the healer had to dedicate to me as the tank. Druid, was #1 every time. usually 30-35% of the healers total output. Pally was close behind at around 30%, and still #1 on the list. BDK and Prot warrior were almost always #4 or #5 on the healers output list.
4) Active Mitigation vs DPS
For me this is were bear is really struggling. We are still having to choose between Maul and IF with our rage. AM or DPS. Now the issue right now is the tuning on maul is still WAY too low to offset the cost of AM uptime. Maul is only accounting for 5% of my damage, and I’ve taken all the maul DPS increase talents. So for a total of like 4-5 talents points…5% of my damage. That doesn’t improve my mitigation from getting the absorb from it very much. So its back to IF. But I try to drop my attention to maul but I can’t really because I need the talents for Ursoc and Untamed Savergy on that side of the tree (back to #1).
Meanwhile on warrior…my shield shield and revenge, both can keep my IP topped off, and from there its pretty easy to rotated Shield Block as needed, along with impending victory. So my rage can fuel my AM.
5. Flow.
Not much to say here, but Warrior is just flowing so much better now. BDK is flowing better, especially if you pick up the 2 charges of D&D and DG. Even prot pally is flowing better, though it really needs AS to grant HP again. That just fields awkward right now. However, they are all still doing better on fun play style.
I’m not giving up on druid. I’ll at least be healing with Resto. Love where it is right now overall. Such a better spec tree. I’ll still probably tank guardian from time to time. Druid is still my overall favorite class. I like feral and resto. Just looks like Warrior will be my tank for 5man content out of the gate with DF unless druid gets some late beta love.