So I started a Guardian Druid alt a little over 2 weeks ago. Just hit 616 iLvl and I just feel like doing +9’s and even +8’s I just get trucked! I main a Prot Warrior and have reached 2.8k rating on him. I remember doing +8’s with him at even 600 ilvl extremely comfortably. I always save a CD like barkskin for the start of pulls especially if I don’t have any rage pooled up. I rotate through my defensive CD’s during the pulls not overlapping unless its something like RotS and Lunar Beam and have one in my back pocket if I end up getting trucked. I end up matching or get barely under the healer in total heals, and even preventing bad overhealing from FR. At first I thought it was just the transition of going from a Prot Warr to Druid and not used to have a big health pool or seeing my health yo-yo as much because of ignore pain but even simple pulls are god forbid a pack with some sort of Magic Damage, I have to rotate through almost all of my CD’s for a minor pack. I’m always maintaining 2-3 stacks of Iron Fur at a time, and of course during Incarn I’m always armor capped just spamming IF. That’s fine if that’s how Druid is to be played but even at that I feel like I’m barely scraping by to survive. Have I had just bad luck at healer, or am I just bad? Dps lacking on kicks hurts even more too. For example I just did a NW 9 and it was just hell. None of the DPS or healers had done more than 10 kicks the entire run while I was sitting at 30. Missed kicks always hurt as a tank but I feel like I suffer even more on my Druid. Any tips or ideas?
Well you were 612-613 for your 8s on Warrior with considerably better physical damage mitigation around the same ilvl, and IP reducing damage from group screws ups by a lot makes it feel considerably smoother.
Bears (EC) are more about trickle healing the damage back after its been taken whereas Warriors are mitigating 65% of the damage up front. Damage intake feels smoother on Warriors because it is.
By 8s you should be getting to the point of having Lunar Beam up on nearly every pull (or close to it).
Rage of the Sleeper for your normal pulls
Barkskin + Lunar Beam for bigger pulls (Barkskin increases healing by 20% with Verdant Heart talent)
Incarn for god mode
Survival Instincts for any oi vey moments
Rolling your pulls into one another helps tremendously as well since Rage doesnt deplete in combar. Dropping form out of combat and entering Bear form to hit 25 Rage instead of being at <10 also helps a lot.
In short though, you’ll play yo-yo with a Bear. It wont feel as smooth as a Warrior, but you can bring your healt back up yourself quite a bit and can sustain better that way if/when a healer goes down better than a Warrior
You have to plan out your self heals and other major damage reduction. Also healer will have to babysit you more on encounters that do magic damage or go trough your armor like those 2 adds in mists of tirna maze that just rip trough you at 2 stacks with cd poped. Stack stamina and versatility as much you can it will help.
Maximize versatility.
Learn which pulls are painful, and make sure you have something going into them.
What talents you take is pretty important. DOTC isn’t as viable as laser bear, and unfortunately every rage dump that isn’t just spam more ironfur, is a trap.
As above, make sure you aren’t wasting rage on maul, and don’t take raze. It’s boring, but just spamming ironfur is what you must do as bear until they fix the spec.
Ignore guides when it comes to trinkets and hard target defensive oriented trinkets, and the ring gems. Scarab from the raid is probably our strongest trinket, but even the trinket from stone vault serves as another cooldown.