I’m all for finding ways for the affinity row to “make sense” as I’ve been a strong opponent to it since it was introduced. it’s a waste of talent options that more times than not is always a cookie cutter choice with no thought.
As for your Maul suggestion, the only way it will ever have any real use is when it no longer competes with Ironfur for rage. Our rage generation is abyssal outside of Blood Frenzy and with smaller pulls in SL, rage generation will be even slower than what we traditionally were used to in BFA with larger pulls.
I haven’t seen any comments as of yet but the original blue post used feral as the example and claimed that you should be returned to cat form once the ability ended but the last time I tested it this past weekend, it wasn’t working the way the blue post indicated.
It does however work the way the blue post described for Balance only.
I actually like the fact that, in theory, maul is meant to be used as the offensive rage dump and ironfur as the defensive one which would, also in theory, force the player to make a choice.
Maul is, with very few exceptions, NEVER the correct choice. I guess that’s just another design idea for guardian that makes sense on paper, but not so much in practice.
Just tested this. While in Bear form, using Soulshape will blink you forward and deactivate Bear form. When Soulshape ends, it will leave you in caster form.
Probably bugged because the behavior is not consistent. For example, while in Moonkin form, using Soulshape will blink you forward and deactivate Moonkin. When Soulshape ends, it will revert you back to Moonkin form.
That’s good, but the issue is more that you’ll lose the defensive passives, ironfur stats, and pooled rage when you activate it, opening the possibility of being 1 shot or rage-starved for using it, which kind of throws it into the same pit as your affinity abilities.
At one point there was a mistake on the Wowhead site that said there like a conduit that made guardian run 50% faster when using ironfur. How fun would that be? I’d actually be happy if they cut the cool down of Stampeding Roar down to 30 seconds, and duration down to half as well to compensate.
What I would really like is a charge like Demon hunters have, but maybe with 2 seconds longer cool down and 2 yard less range. But it drags all targets with a giant bear hug to your charge location in front of you. So you can go around collecting mobs, and pooling them in one location to be AOE’d down.
I mean, the problem is that it’s taking us out of form at all. Are other classes locked out of their abilities while using it? Or is it just feral/guardian? I suspect warriors are not taken out of their plate armor, and their shield block/parry probably isn’t blocked.
It’s always so frustrating how easily Blizzard still overlooks interactions with druid shapeshifts.
I don’t have beta, so posting here. +25 bear chiming in.
All I want to say is that I’m highly disappointed in the lack of public recognition given towards the vast array of guardian-related feedback on the beta forums.
It’s just about reached the point, where it would be less frustrating if they just added “you’re not getting anything guardian druids, please go away.” At the end of whatever new change feral/balance/resto gets in the next blue post.
There’s really only two scenarios at this point. They either have a huge guardian patch note that they’re waiting till the absolute last minute to announce and test, or we are literally getting nothing at all.
If they had even a tiny backhand of a change for us, like 5 percent more maul damage or something, I’d half expect at least a “don’t worry guardians, changes on the way” to stall a bit.
The optimist in me keeps trying to convince the pessimist that it’s the former, rather than the latter. I just want them to give us our traditional “Sorry, we ran out of time to work on some of specs. We will get them sorted out later”.
At this point I’m weighing my options as it pertains to Shadowlands. I’d love to main my Guardian druid but as it stands now, 4 out of the 6 tanks are miles better than Guardian and I don’t intend to hold my friends back in SL S1.
Honestly, I’m with @Notascam at this point. I’d rather they be forthcoming and just tell us what the deal is rather than string the community along because I have raid leads and my M+ team asking what my plans are so we can begin to plan what November and beyond holds.
I would love that there is some super good changes for Guardians coming but at the same time I have to be realistic and not psych myself out when I know the likelihood of such an event is about as high as winning the lottery.
I can’t speak for everyone, but at this point, I’d settle for frenzied Regen off gcd, and a hard look at the numbers on bear form as it relates to ironfur. Those are my largest complaints, how squishy we are without at least one stack of ironfur rolling, and how absolutely awful it feels to have our reaction mitigation hard locked by gcd.
I was excited when I saw the tweet of “Spells removed off the GCD” … Then I had nothing but disappointment when I didnt see literally the 1 spell all of us Bears have been asking for on there.
Or even take Bristling Fur back off the GCD, like it was in Legion. It made zero sense putting it on the GCD for BfA in the first place, except as another way to kick bears in the nuts. They didn’t even add a couple seconds to the duration to make up for it.
Oh come on, it’s #2. Is there any doubt, at this point? It’s been obvious for months, since the blue kept posting in the Druid thread and specifically avoided even mentioning Guardian.
I was disappointed as well. Not only is FR still on the GCD, but it was nerfed (less healing and a tiny 3 second window of increased healing received), so it feels even worse on the GCD than ever.
Below is a tentative list of relevant abilities that are being removed from the GCD:
Wait to see the entire list before being disappointed. I personally don’t think it will be on the list because similar abilities like Light of the Protector were not included but I am holding my “outrage” until I see the entire list.
Some of those changes are going to be really good for those classes. Not everyone will be a winner but it is a good change overall.
I completely understand that for Paladin LotP is the equivalent to Guardian’s FR but I personally never found LotP problematic with the GCD. There’s a very big difference with LotP being instant cast versus FR requiring 3 seconds after the ability press to gain its full healing potential.
There are always scenarios where if you fumble and wait too long to use the spell that you’re going to die, I think we can all agree to that.
But there is a massive difference in needing to wait 1 more global and getting the spell off and being instantly healed versus requiring 3 seconds post button press to gain the same effect. In the latter case, if you’re too late those 3 seconds of the HoT may not be sufficient to adequately save you.
I’m not saying that both shouldn’t be off the GCD but I can also argue why I most definitely think FR should be and perhaps abilities like LotP are not.
I wasn’t comparing FR vs LOTP. I was more referring to abilities for tanks that were not listed. Avatar is on there but it is shared by the DPS specs as well.
Ignore Pain came of the GCD and it improved Prot Warrior significantly. Why they didn’t do this across the board for all tanks remains a mystery.