The intent of my post was simply to offer an opinion other than the “omg Soulshape ded ability I’m not even putting it on my bar” that I have read a lot of lately. Do bears get punished with it more than any other tank class? Yes. Is this surprising when stuff like TD cannons that you cannot interact with when shapeshifted exist and have been complained about for a long time? Not even slightly. This particular opinion isn’t about parity with other classes, or comparing other abilities to Soulshape, but while we are on that topic you can’t compare SS with a talent. Tanks aren’t picking a covenant for the utility ability, it’s just something that’s tacked on when you want to play Convoke, and you aren’t leaving something significantly better on the table like you are if you talent Tiger’s Dash. Soulshape has flaws, but also a lot of uses and is almost certainly going to go live in it’s current state so whether you think it is bad that it sucks more for bears than the rest is irrelevant and there’s no sense propagating that it isn’t even worthy of a keybind because that isn’t true.
I just don’t understand why we have to suffer with this expensive and subpar ability that has a chance to kill us, where everyone else gets this cool escape to play with that only makes them better. Not sure about the DK Night Fae class ability, but Soulshape seems to just hard solve their mobility problem with no cost. Not saying the key won’t be bound, just complaining about the usual bad Bear design.
DKs have to suffer by picking the cutesy faerie aesthetic for their edgy, badass, death lord character 
In all seriousness though you aren’t wrong on the design. Mechanic design has outgrown the shapeshift/form portion of Druids it seems and we are being left behind.
Very true.
@Arceval, this is what I was implying.
If you go back and look at the example the class designers outlined in their blue post where they used Feral as the example spec, Balance works as the blue post explained but Guardian nor Feral work that way at all.
The discussion about using abilities while in soulshape is an entirely different discussion that should also be had, which I disagree with entirely.
Either everyone can use their toolkit OR no-none can; it’s that simple.
You referenced a previous post about Soulshape dropping Bear form. That’s the “correct” design, the bug is that it doesn’t put you back into Bear after expiring. As a shapeshift it replaces Bear form, Moonkin form, etc. I’m not saying that we should be able to use Bear abilities in Soulshape, because no one can do that, what I am saying is we shouldn’t lose our existing Rage, Armor, HP, Ironfur stacks, active Frenzied Regen, active Berserk buff, and any other Bear bonuses while using the ability, because none of the other tanks sacrifice this to use the ability.
Here’s the relevant text from the July 29th update by Kaivax:
“We’ve also fixed a number of issues with how Soulshape interacts with Druid shapeshift forms. For Druids, Soulshape will now behave like a real shapeshift form. If a Druid is in Cat Form and activates Soulshape, their action bar will change to the default bar instead of remaining on the Cat Form bar. Additionally, Soulshape will remember what form the Druid was in when activated, and return them to that form when Soulshape ends (unless the Druid manually activates a different Shapeshift). In this example, when Soulshape expires or is canceled, the Druid would automatically go back to Cat Form.”
Side note, no mention of Bear form. There’s never any mention of Bear form.
I don’t understand why Druids, as masters of forms, have so many ability interactions that are negatively impacted by us having forms, while everyone else doesn’t have these interactions because they don’t have forms intrinsic to their class. I’d love to see one situation where forms are a net positive, so far they just seem like a pain point hampering our class and, more importantly, our spec.
So does being a Dwarf. Both are on multi-minute cooldowns. Not really good for a consistent Raid boss-swap mechanic counter.
Beyond that, if Guardians have it “naturally”, they could have another Covenant ability to use instead.
Another round of blueposts and another round without mention of Guardian.
- Spells added to the list of GCD removal… You hate to see it. (innervate & mana tea)
- Death Knight class changes…
- That’s all folks
At this point I’ll be shocked if they even hint at the possibility of Guardian related changes before things go live.
Edit:
3 hours have since past and I can hold my tongue. At last, Guardian has been mentioned, and a tuning knob has been adjusted!
- No one:
- Blizzard devs: “buff Ironfur 10%”
I don’t think physical damage mitigation has been brought up as an issue once during beta… I’d say a buff is a buff and move along, but this makes it look like you just don’t read your own feedback.
I really want to play Guardian in SL, but with the way things are going I’m prepping my DK now.
They have to be actively avoiding feedback at this point. Not reading the forum threads where they ask for feedback, not logging into the spec that they are ‘designing’, not even looking at the numbers they implemented into the class. No one, literally not a single person anywhere, asked for more armor for Ironfur.
lol legit. Did you see that Soulshape will hold your bear form aura now? 220% armor and 45% stamina, so now it can be used as the melee escape without worrying about getting gibbed. Money makin’ moves!
I’d actually like to see armor taken out of ironfur, and put into bear form as a baseline. It feels terrible just straight gibbing if ironfur ever falls off.
I hate how much of our survivability is tied to a boring maintenance buff.
Ironfur should be one half of a choice between damage and more durability. I’d almost argue that our rage generation should be slower, while costs should be lower.
Maul should be VERY impactful for damage. A steroid effect that increases other incoming damage. Something, anything that makes it a valid trade with ironfur.
Our baseline tankiness, outside of big pulls, or big physical abilities from bosses, should not REQUIRE one stack of ironfur at all times.
You are entirely correct, it is changes like this that make it obvious that they have no idea what is going on, or wrong, with Bear.
Or have it synergize with the different specs. If you chose feral. Give guardian the combo points so you can apply rip in bear form.
Can’t help but to agree. Guardian was supposed to be my saving grace to playing a druid again but jeez is it boring af. 4 button rotation on a tank of all things, it’s like playing a level 58 frost death knight.
How far did the change go? Will you retain pooled rage, ironfur stacks, and will frenzy-regen still tick?
Anyone else notice that Frenzied Regeneration, the Guardian’s self-heal, is not affected by Mastery, which is intended to improve the healing received?
Been that way since a little past mid-Legion. How much would that affect people’s feelings on FR if this was changed back?
No to all of the above, it’s like leaving bear form, but you keep your baseline mitigation. Could still be better, but at least now it’s an escape mechanism that won’t get you gibbed down with no armor making it useful in more situations.
This could actually work then.
Use soulshape with Balance affinity form and equip Fleeting glimpse, then use soulshape 45 seconds into combat to pop out of melee and drop a free starfall, then pop back into bear form before you get fracked.
Feedback thread for the Tooth and Claw talent on the PTR, short version it is noticeably better than Pulverize and allows some skill cap gameplay, but suffer from Maul competing with Ironfur, being single target only, and not really working at all with Affinities:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/guardians-new-talent-tooth-and-claw-feedback/646393