Now try that again when borrowed power goes away.
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I think there can be some confusion as to what is being said, I think this is greatly due to the hyperbole of many of the posters on this forum.
Bears have been the worst tank by representation this whole expansion. In 8.4 bears have had slightly better representation and that pushed them above Paladins, Dk’s and Dh’s at the very top end of mythic+. But most of that is 1 very high performing bear.
Bears are one of the simplest tanks and their normal rotation is just hitting the same 2-3 abilities on CD.
CE players feel unrewarded for playing bear. Bears are probably the worst tank for The Nzoth fight, which happens to be the hardest fight of Ny’alotha.
All of that said, bears being bad is grossly exaggerated based on comparison. They can and have done all of the hardest content in the game. Even though bears came up in 8.4 mythic+, they didn’t rise very far and are still not Considered a desired tank in most situations where you have a choice.
For most players this doesn’t remotely matter. How much the difference between classes matters decreases significantly as you drop away from the top 1%. For most players the problem with bears is a problem of perception. Bears are not perceived well and are not popular because of it.
Going into Shadowlands it’s easy to see why a lot of bears are very upset. Bears have essentially been on the bottom of the tanking tree for all of BFA and are not getting buffed compared to other tanks in Shadowlands.
People saying bears cannot perform are just wrong in most scenarios.
As per your specific example, there is a synergy between stacking bears and a certain essence and certain corruption. Resto affinity comes with a % based heal and stacking tanks increases your health pool, also certain corruption increases in damage based on health pool. It’s more of a gimmick but it totally works right now.
If I had to guess why bears aren’t getting buffed or worked on more in Shadowlands I would have to say it is probably tied more to Druid representation than bears specifically. Probably they are looking at whether Druids are underrepresented and whether each spec can perform its role. Based on that bears can perform their role in all content, and Druids aren’t necessarily underrepresented as a whole.
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The last point is probably the main reason for the frustration among druids, or “hyperbole” as some people like to call it to avoid actually having a sensible discussion. There is loads and loads of restoration druids. To the point where druids as a class are a bit overrepresented atm. Thats why its very frustrationg that resto druids are getting even more tools now. It will mean that some parts of the druids class will have to be held back in order to avoid overrepresentation. I really do not want to play a healer…while I only started playing WoW back in vanilla due to feral druids. So I am frustrated at this approach.
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And I think the point we both agree on is that this design is flawed when approaching the Druid. The case I presented was in Warlords of Draenor, aka pre-Legion. The case you presented was fairly recent. Druids have gone through a lot of trimming down of who they were since then, and the only people who believe that it is a good design paradigm were the ones that put them in to play.
Not really. It requires the right people in the right place with a will to make those changes. Right now I think they just don’t have anyone who is invested in playing Guardian or even cares about the class at all.
The first run on Nya’Lotha with my Community, I was one of 3 Druids present. We were all healing because we were literally the only healing class with gear present at the start, and there were only 2 other tanking classes present. (There was a DPS Monk, but he literally had only Windwalker gear at the time.)
In Raids, while the tanking job is important, the number of tanks needed is actually quite small in proportion. Most encounters will only need 2 Tanks, with some other ones finding a third helpful. However, one usually wants about a healer per 5-7 people to get through, so the number of healers has higher avilability. Tanking also generally requires more leadership in a fight, so people shy away from it. (edit: replaced “is in higher demand” with “has higher availability”.)
Add on to the fact that while only one healing class has been added to the game since Vanilla’s launch, 3 tanking classes have been added, with Paladins and Druids being brought up to speed since BC. The original Healing classes have always been good healing classes, though, and could find a niche (if not their primary niche) in the Healing Role. So I guess there is more than a little bit of reversion to that type when it comes to Druids, for some reason.
As a side note, gearing is also an issue. Admittedly, this has always been the case, even since launch, but instead of it being about which primary stats to improve, it is now the secondary stats which are of a concern (to say nothing about the borrowed power in our gear). Why is it that the priority of secondary stats are so different between the Specializations? The reason I bring this up is because while Azerite Armor is a present concern, the secondary stats have been with us, and will always be so. If Druids are to have their capacity, it would be more practical if all of our Specializations had the same secondary stat priority (along with Monk and Paladin, of course).
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I am certain this is not a design principle at Blizzard.
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I don’t think anyone is saying bears are bad right this second. With high ilvl and corruptions bears are actually great. The problem we have is that when you strip away mainly corruptions but also essences/Azerite it is an incomplete and busted spec which isn’t being adjusted at all in SL.
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Ah for the days when player skill meant more than the many steps of borrowed power. It was much easier to tune classes back then.
No.
No. We are bears, we should be attacking with bear abilities. I’m sick of this ridiculous homogenization of our forms. I agree we should get Faerie Fire back to have some kind of ranged attack. If you want another dot and another ranged ability, talent into GG.
See above. I’d rather get something like Intimidating Roar or Demoralizing Roar baseline. Give it a talent if you want to spice it up with some utility like warriors get talents for their shouts. The devs need to get off their rears and actually come up with something interesting and lore appropriate. Lord knows we’ve given them so many suggestions.
I’m fine with this. If they don’t, I’ve gotten used to it but it would be welcome.
Yeah, I don’t get why we don’t get Infected Wounds like cat form has. It’s idiotic.
Good idea. I like how they tried to bake some utility into the trait Guardian’s Wrath but it’s just so outclassed by Layered and Tw. claws. It needs to be something more than just a terrible rage dump.
Yep. I’m all for whatever systems they want to layer on IF the base class design is complete.
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What has led you to this conclusion? Because the evidence suggests quite the opposite. Resto Druids are highly represented and have been highly sought out throughout the expansion. Yet they are getting attention. Balance, while not great in this expansion, are a “capable” DPS and are getting a ton of attention. Guardians, on the other hand, are getting zero attention. Your logic doesn’t seem to track here.
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Unless they are only going after low-hanging fruit at the beginning of the expansion because they don’t have anyone who wants to/can work on Druid melee. It took them how long to work on Shadow Priests?
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No it actually doesn’t. But I expect you would think so with such reasoning.
Consider a class that is not underrepresented. Consider a spec of that class that is capable yet not desirable and is underrepresented.
Now consider a developer that is going to make changes in order to sell the expansion. They want to do less work and therefore will choose to focus on only part of the class. By choosing to focus on the most played spec or specs they can have the largest effect across the playerbase with the least amount of effort.
It is precisely because they decided to work on Balance and somewhat on Resto that feral and more so Guardian are getting pseudo shafted.
They don’t want/need to draw more people to play Druids. Most Druids are playing resto/balance for raiding. By focusing on what most Druids are playing they are getting the most bang for their buck.
For mythic Ny’alotha parses:
Boomkin: 50k
Resto: 35.7k
Guardian: 10.6k
Feral: 9.6k
For heroic:
Boomkin: 73k
Resto: 89.7k
Guardian: 32k
Feral: 24k
I don’t know why feral has gotten more attention than Guardian. But by numbers it’s obvious why a company would choose to focus on the larger group.
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This doesn’t mean there isn’t an exception somewhere, where a really dedicated developer who loved a spec decided to try and fix it. It just is rational to see why feral or guardian may not get more attention.
Numbers also could change on what is used in content if some unpruning attention was given to Guardian.
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But you can still Moonfire without it. GG just procs for rage generation on the next cast. I think your direction is more in line with “spec fantasy” and not “class fantasy”… Which in Legion was cool, but the conclusion of that would be to just get rid of classes entirely.
Finally! The discussion on why just being “Bear” is the source of “Boring”!
If you want furry warrior, Vulpera and Worgen are available. Druid, being druid, should have access to Druid abilities. That’s not excluding things like Maul and Bear Hug (I miss you 
), but that is inclusive of Druid things - like interplay between forms or incorporating healing elements for self-sustain to the Bear kit.
I agree that enhancing the specific elements of interplay (e.g. Galactic Guardian) is better slotted in the talent framework; however, broad scale interactivity should be brought up. It’s not homogenizing it Across All Classes (which is what bringing it in line with just being “bear” would result - homogenizing the spec across all tanks), but rather incorporating the fantasy and theme into the kit.
That said, space magic for druids… I hate it. But no going back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean
- Give the highest group attention.
- Correct the lowest group.
- Assume the center is good enough.
Just my working hypothesis.
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As much as I would love for them to overhaul Bears into something that makes all our jaws drop in excitement and awe, I would honestly take the simplest of changes right now. Just to prove their is someone at Blizzard who actually mains the- hahaha that is being way too greedy, plays the spec and doesn’t just regard it as something for Restos and Boomkins to hop into in a pinch.
Other, much better and smarter, but not as handsome, Guardian players have laid out many simple changes, but I am going to shamelessly add my voice to it as well.
FR off the GCD.
A slow for necrotic stacks like every other tank has. If your target has 3 applications of Thrash they are slowed by X or something. You can make it not even work in PvP if they are that scarred of Bear dominance (lol).
Let us cast ALL of our utility spells in Bear form.
CHARGEBASELINE Cmon now, there is no reason for this to be a talent in 2020.
Lunar Beam follows us (or go crazy and make the damn thing baseline) and give it a tuning pass.
The first Ironfur cast in X time is free (doesnt work in combat), so we dont get gibbed
Do something with Maul. We can even put a pin in this one and return to it later. It would just be nice.
This list is far from comprehensive, but enough to get us moving forward while other tank and dps specs are already a couple miles ahead of us (in terms of gameplay, not talking about power here).
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Hello Bear Family,
We need to keep making noise and posting our concerns for the class spec. Time is of the essence! Most likely large changes won’t come out for the Bear, but if we make enough noise i believe we may at least get the quality of life changes (FR off GCD / Slow incorporated into Thrash somehow). Let Blizzard continue to hear our voice.
#GuardianDruidsUnite
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It would be great if people with Beta access post at least once in druid feedback thread.
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You know what’s funny about this, is that whenever I run into super-casual Druid players saying everything is fine, I’m always reminded of this video.
Give it a view (don’t just listen). I think it applies to bears, too. There are the more serious bears doing challenging content, who see the huge flaws with the spec, and then there are the “kitty kitty meow meow meow” Druids who are just doing trivial content and don’t see the fuss.
I remember back in classic/BC era, Blizzard had summaries of the classes on their web page, and one of the bullet points for playing a druid was “animal forms add comic relief to the group”. 
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