Guardian Druid "on pull" Problem

Classes Druid
1

I’ve been playing around the PTR with the different tank specs trying to figure out what I want to play in Shadowlands and I’ve noticed something peculiar with the Guardian Druid.

When you shift in to Bear Form, you’re given 25 rage. You then have to use two GCDs on Mangle and Thrash to generate enough rage to activate Ironfur. Every other tank class is able to activate their active mitigation either before the pull or after one GCD.

  • Death Knight - Marrowrend once in melee for Bone Shield
  • Paladin - Avenger’s Shield from range, then Hammer of the Righteous for Shield of the Righteous
  • Monk - Keg Smash from range for Shuffle -and- Celestial Brew if they want
  • Warrior - Charge and Shield Slam for Shield Block
  • Demon Hunter - Demon Spikes before combat

I think a simple solution to this would be to increase the amount of Rage generated to 35 (currently 25) when shifting in to Bear Form. This could be a new passive available only to Guardian Druids and would allow us to use either Mangle (single target) or Thrash (multi-target) to generate enough rage for Ironfur in one GCD instead of two.

14 Likes
2

There is a legendary that gives defense on switching forms for 4 seconds, but it feels bad to have to take this in order to get something that is baseline.

1 Like
3

I don’t think the effect your describing is a legendary. Pretty sure it’s a conduit named
Ursine Vigor

4

Ya you could be right. Borrowed power fix I guess.

I’m not too sure exactly how all the new systems work yet.

5

What level of content is this an issue?

I would Barkskin on pull if concerned with getting one IF stack… It’s a low enough cooldown that I should have it to fill in. Also, if pulls are happening with enough frequency, I can pool rage between packs.

2 Likes
6

The level of content is irrelevant. It’s an oversight in the design of the spec.

Barkskin is still a 1 minute cooldown in Shadowlands. Not short enough to have available for every pull in a Mythic+, even if you take the Survival of the Fittest talent and make it 40 seconds.

Since you can’t pool rage between pulls, I assume you mean pool it at the tale-end of the previous pull. This doesn’t work if you need to use your rage to keep Ironfur active until everything is dead.

As I said… it’s just a small design flaw that’s easily fixed by giving Guardian Druids 35 rage (instead of 25) when they shift in to Bear Form.

1 Like
7

Except active mitigation was meant to be a choice - not an always on system. Extra rage should be subjective for you to decide whether to Maul or pump more defensive armor (useless against most magic effects).

Further, Ignore Pain is probably closer to Ironfur, not Shield Block. In which case, Warrior has the same delay issue.

Ha! Edit: And you can take Soul of the Forest to have Mangle generate 15 rage and have 40 rage in one GCD after shifting…

8

What you are seeing, is the fundamental flaw of ironfur design. Let’s compare bear passive mitigation, vs warrior passive mitigation:

Armor from gear: at one point, bear form gave more passive armor from leather than warriors got from plate. This was at some point normalized to just be equivalent within tiny tiny margins, like maybe 50 extra armor for bear or warrior at equal ilvl.

Warrior:

Vanguard passive: 80% of strength as armor, all the time, no matter what.

Shield:. Huge chunk of armor, on a slot that bears can’t get armor in.

Now for stamina:

Vanguard gives you 70% more stamina.
Bear gives 45% more stamina.

Bear only pulls ahead in raw health(and just barely) because their mastery, and only at about 14 percent mastery or more, which means sacrificing other secondaries.
Edit:. It occurs to me that the mastery percentage will jump considerably when the neck no longer functions. Our mastery is currently getting more mileage from the huge stamina boost that our neck gives at 80+. There is no equivalent that I’m aware of in shadowlands. So warriors will just straight have more health too, unless we hard stack mastery

Other sources of passive mitigation:

Thick hide passive for bear is I believe 6% right now, from it’s legion high of 10%. Nerfed mid legion to discourage non bears from taking guardian spec as a default, but never reverted.

Warrior has passive shield block, which I’m finding hard to get solid numbers on, but would be willing to bet equates to a much higher mitigation than 6%.

But ironfur makes it all up? Right? No.

Ironfur is 75% of your agi for 7 second. So an afk warrior has MORE than a stack of ironfur up at all times, full stop. Even a second cast of ironfur just barely pulls us ahead of a warrior’s shield. It takes three stacks of ironfur, to actually convincingly exceed a warrior’s passive mitigation against physical damage.

An even more fun exercise is to do a side by side comparison of warrior active mitigation versus druid. The only place we beat them ther, is the shield wall vs SI comparison. Many of their buttons, we don’t even have an equivalent to(even if we used to, like aoe taunt, which they gave back to every tank that had it, BUT druid)

Demo shout:. 30% damage reduction on a 45 second cooldown.
Bark skin:. 20% on a minute long cooldown.

End of day, bear is severely undertuned in comparison to warrior. If you told me that some vindictive warrior was our primary dev, I’d believe you. All of our class power is being consolidated on resto, and guardian is apparently being deleted to “justify” it.

7 Likes
9

Unfortunately with how the classes have been designed since Legion, borrowed power is part of the kit.

We want to compare classes in an apples to apples environment, but it doesn’t exist. Each class has holes in their baseline kit that we as players are meant to slot in a borrowed power system.

I hope that they eventually move back to a design style where the class/spec is complete and Talents(or full trees) are the choice. But it’s not in shadowlands.

Like it or hate it, the system is designed to have holes so that borrowed power is the fix.

1 Like
10

Here’s your problem.

Use Blood frenzy

11

In the first case, you already got chunked, you already lost the health you would not have lost, if we were able to guarantee at least one stack of ironfur before the pull.

In the second, 4 more rage, assuming absolute best case, where you hit them, and the thrash ticks before you get chunked. You’re still going to be short.

I know that you like trolling guardian threads, along with that level 13 troll warrior, but come on. At least stick to not easily torn apart nonsense.

12

Who’s trolling? Blood frenzy is the best option for M+. That’s not debatable. Just check the logs.

Also… 4 rage? Please. If you’re pulling one pack at a time, sure. Is that what this thread is about? Tanking 2+?

Whatever you say Mr. brambles.

13

Even best case, you get ironfur up after the thrash, you STILL took a hit, just to be less tanky than a warrior is by default.

That’s the problem, full stop. One stack of ironfur is LESS armor than an equal ilvl warrior, before even accounting for the shield. That’s how dumb bear scaling is right now.

You need two stacks to be equal to a warrior in mitigation.

1 Like
14

I mean, you likely took more than one hit. probably several. That’s the general theme of tanking. mild shock

But that’s not what’s being debated here.

…And so can bears.
(If you use the correct talents.)

1 Like
15

I see so many threads comparing druids to warriors. Like…if warrior is that great go play a warrior then. As for me I’ll stick with my big boi

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16

The problems people are complaining about, are things you won’t notice until you start doing high keys, or mythic raiding.

Don’t get me wrong, for a LOT of the people playing druid, and knocking out a sub 10 key, they’ll never have significant problems. The deep seated issues with guardian are mostly covered up by the substantial advantages of rented power like corruption and essences, and objectively high ilvls.

I suspect you were not playing bear in early BFA, not before their band-aid numbers pass. Getting rejected from mplus keys because you were guardian was a common thing. But if you play shadowlands, you’ll get to experience that first hand. That’s how behind other tanks we are right now.

1 Like
17

What does this have to do with the alleged “on pull” problem?

I’m not going to say that Guardian doesn’t have its share of problems, but I do not think from my own experience that it has an “on pull” problem.

Lets take Freehold as an example. Outside of Necrotic weeks, we typically pull the first 3 packs of the dungeon together, even on 20+ keys and its never an issue.

If you’re the type of tank that wants to sit on your cooldowns because reasons, then that’s a player issue and not one of the class. There are very rarely times where a Guardian druid needs SI in practice if played appropriately.

3 Likes
18

I’ve never heard of a tank getting declined from mythic +. (with the appropriate i.o score).They are just to valuable. Even if I did, there are 3 other specs to choose from with druid.

3 Likes
19

… that can be rectified with the appropriate talent.

The rest is just hyperbole.

From a healers point of view. I have rarely had any problems with guardians. I’m familiar with their damage intake and I heal accordingly.

What’s you’re saying is complete nonsense.

If we’re going talk about warriors. Then let me remind you that it was warriors who were bottom rung in early BFA. I wouldn’t touch them with a ten foot pole.

9 times out of 10 after healing a guardian… I’m left with a warm feeling inside. I think to myself… “Damn… that was easy!“

It’s players like you who continue the negative stigma that plague this class.

Legion’s “build a bear” artifacts gave pass to too many novice players. Luckily though, Now that the training wheels have been taken off, they are slowly being weeded out. Not quickly enough, unfortunately.

That’s because he made it up.

1 Like
20

I could see tanks getting declined if they are already have their class in the group. Class stacking in most cases doesn’t give you much success.