A quote from wowhead talking about M+ changes from the recent 8.2 preview
‘’ * Guardian Buffs, Vengeance Buffs. They are aware vengeance is useless outside demon spikes. They are aware bears don’t have control on their life. Buffs are in the lines of incoming rage and cost reduction to Iron Fur."
May not be alot but higher uptime on IF is helpful, especially with Layered mane
Edit: Updated PTR Notes (Thanks to Talbyy for first posting them below)
Druid
Soothe, Remove Corruption, Moonfire, and Rebirth are no longer castable in Cat or Bear form by default.
Feral Druids now have a visible passive learned at level 22 that allows Remove Corruption and Soothe to be cast in Cat Form.
Guardian Druids now have a visible passive learned at level 10 that allows Soothe, Remove Corruption, Moonfire, and Rebirth to be cast in Bear Form.
Developers’ notes: Guardian Druid is limited in its practical ability to use some utility abilities while tanking, and we’re loosening that restriction by allowing Remove Corruption in Bear Form. We’re also cleaning up Druid shapeshifting rules slightly: the use of magical-themed spells, in Feral forms, is allowed by passive upgrades given to Guardian and Feral specializations specifically. This represents their special mastery of their “home” form that allows for limited spellcasting, and from a gameplay perspective, this allows Feral/Guardian Druids to use spells in form where there is a strong practical need. At the same time, there are situations where there is no fantasy justification or gameplay need, and spellcasting might be more restricted. For example, non-Guardian Druids can no longer cast Moonfire in Bear Form.
Guardian
Ironfur and Maul now cost 40 Rage (was 45).
Mangle now generates 10 Rage (was 8).
Developers’ notes: Ironfur is intended to be maintainable with high uptime, up to 100%, and have some overlaps on top of that. Currently, depending on talent configuration, Druids may only be able to barely maintain full uptime on Ironfur. Making Ironfurs much more available should allow better control over timing and overlaps, as well as improving Guardian mitigation overall.
Shifting to Bear Form now gives 25 Rage (was 20).
Developer’s notes: It should now be much easier to get the first Ironfur activated promptly after engaging an enemy, due to the increased starting Rage and lower cost.
Mangle and Thrash direct damage increased by 15%.
Edit: 4/23 PTR Update Guardian
Frenzied Regeneration (Rank 3) is learned at level 85:
Frenzied Regeneration spends up to 30 additional Rage to immediately heal you for up to 18% additional health.
Note: This spell is affected by Guardian of Elune, but not affected by mastery.
Edit: 4/30 PTR Update
Druid
Guardian
Ironfur now has a maximum of 8 stacks (was 6 stacks).
Frenzied-regeneration, at rank 3, now costs 10-30 rage (was 10-40 rage).
Ironfur has such a high uptime already. This sort of buff is really not what we need. A change to FR or Adaptive Fur is what we need for survivability, but that isn’t what we need for m+.
Yeah the 9s ive done I have IF at ~81% I wish we had a better rage dump as well. Ill take anything at this point. Maybe if ppl know bears got buffed ill get some invites lol
The changes to rage generation / overall IF uptime will be nice
I personally think Guardian utility is decent but when a tank brings nothing but utility they’re not just guaranteed invites or instantly in a great spot forever, like bDK currently.
What I find most confusing/interesting is the apparent contradiction within the quote itself. Higher IF uptime doesn’t have much to do with bears controlling their own life? I predict a change to our spec healing (unsure if that means FR coming off the gcd) or more likely, heart traits being introduced that let us have more control
Guardian doesn’t lack utility, it lacks a reasonable way to access it without putting themselves or their group in jeopardy of death by shape shifting to use it.
We can only hope. In theory this only really leads to:
Being able to maintain more than 1 or 2 Ironfur stacks without using trait gimmicks, which simply means we’ll only take less physical damage.
Being able to possibly use Maul as a part of our rotation in order to push slightly more single-target damage rather than feeling as though we have to decide whether to mitigate or deal damage.
Honestly, the main reason why BDK isn’t the ideal M+ tank has everything to do with the seasonal affix, Reaping and less to do with utility. A protection warrior can simply output insane amounts of damage on those trash packs and do it well.
I think the wording is slightly misleading. I interpreted it to mean that we will be in a position where we’ll generate rage faster that we may be able to maintain more concurrent Ironfur stacks (without Layered Mane), which does mean we will inevitability mitigate more physical damage overall, allowing us to have better control of our health.
But again that only addresses the physical damage side of the equation and does absolutely jack when it comes to the magical / dot mitigation side.
I would like to see our self healing tweaked a bit, but it’s hard to say exactly how that will ultimately happen. I do think having Frenzied Regeneration off the global makes sense and Sloot did mention he conveyed that to the developers.
What I personally find more annoying is the fact its a heal over time. If a healer does not know how FR works or when you as a tank typically use it, you’ll find your FR usage often treads in the over-heal category more than it should given how infrequent we have access to it.
I’d like to see somewhat either the recharge time reduced, number of charges increased, or consider making it more potent up-front with less focus on the healing it does over time.
Can’t agree more. I can’t remember how many time I use a charge at around 55-65% but then being topped off one or two ticks in, and then I weep as I watch our ‘active mitigation’ being converted into the greatest stat of em all overhealing
The idea about increasing the charges/decreasing healing on the forums before, and I would very much like to see it happen. It could also be reduced by haste maybe? Lead to some more varying stat builds.
If Im being completley honest, I just want “GUARDIAN BUFFS” to be the heading of patch notes, and help curve community perception.
Druids are the only tank without a slow and much of their utility can be difficult / impractical to use since you need to switch from bear form to dispel or use entangling roots (at least mass roots is castable if you have the talent). Druid’s hibernate is much more limited in use compared to paralysis / imprison, limited magic mitigation, and no damage cd. They also require a lot more babysitting compared to any other tank except for maybe DH. Meanwhile, DK has ranged interrupt, ranged stun, grip, mass grip, and a targetable aoe slow.
You’re right to say the Druids need numerical improvements, but they also need improvements elsewhere.
This change will mean double ironfur has a higher uptime, which can only be a good thing. Still doesn’t address lack of utility and the issue of bear form itself, which is a huge drawback for things like death skips.
My point is quite simple, you are not fully 100% locked out from using it, so no it is not like not having in the first place.
Nothing prevents you from using something like Typhoon paired with a snare/stun to keep mobs away from you temporarily while you shift out to cast healing spells, cleanse poisons, or what have you before shifting back to bear and moving onward. I do it quite extensively on certain affixes such as Quaking, Bursting, and Grievous.
We have utility, we can use the utility. It’s just that the usage of that utility is very cumbersome and comes with its set of risks that you must weigh.
If I have 90 rage and need to shift out to cast a healing spell or cleanse something, I effectively loose 70 of that rage when I shift back into bear. That’s a risk on its on. If I shift out and don’t shift back soon enough, I could take a melee swing or a major magic spell where my health is drastically lower than if i were in bear.
I wish Blizzard would allow the other mitigations to work better so you don’t have to do things like stack Haste to have better Ironfur uptime. I’m at 25% Dodge and it’s a lot better than 20%, but what’s really nice is when I get all the procs to align so I have 53% Crit and 40% Dodge. It’s also nice when procs give me over 20% Versatility as well.