The thing I dislike most about Tooth & Claw is that it used to be a baseline ability. Removing baseline effects and then re-introducing them as talents years later is poop. If it came back baseline and Dream of Cenarius was the replacement for Lunar Beam, that would be cause to celebrate.
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I mean… it’s been Blizzards MO for quite a while now.
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I was really bearish on Tooth and Claw, but upon learning that it stacks and refreshes on a new stack, I’ve warmed up to it for raid tanking. It’d be great to have the empowered Mauls hit more than 1 target so it could be something to consider in M+.
Gotta ask - what is guardian druid’s tank ‘mechanic’? Ironfur boils down to a maintenance buff you sometimes burst extra stacks on. Frenzied Regen is a nice heal but is just that - a heal without much of any sort of mechanic attached to it.
I sometimes feel like just a blob of health, armor, and conflicting design (Blizz’s attempts to shove in some hybridization in there but we can’t use rejuv/Swiftmend/etc because shifting out of form gets you killed most of the time, + Maul’s rage cost that makes it compete with Ironfur).
Buffs are nice, but they don’t seem particularly interested in adding anything more…active.
This has, unfortunately, a simple answer. One You have already hit upon.
Why did you have to do this. You could’ve let me pretend bear was at least a little better than it was a little while longer 
Bring that monk up to 120, farm up the antorus armor that looks bear-like and Pretend your Brewmaster monk is a Badass Guardian Druid with beer, dragon fire breath, and a kickass new form that can dual wield lightsabers.
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Pulverize nerfed again today, now on a 10 second duration with a 45 second cooldown.
Damage reduction increased from 20% to 35% but… why? In case somebody wanted to forgo mitigation for a Second Barkskin to fight that mythical (not mythic - mythicAL!) boss that doesn’t auto attack but does one really big hit every 45 seconds?
I really don’t know what they’re thinking.
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Bear will always be boring. If you haven’t picked up on what Blizz is dropping here the different specs represent…difficulty. Yes, bear has a few buttons because bear is easy tank mode. Look at the difference between destro and affliction as a good example. Destro is easy and Affliction is for people who want to type. Lol. 10 years from now we will be seeing the same posts, Bear is boring…it is that way by design.
Well, there was a buff along with the nerf, but yeah I wouldn’t have chosen pulverize before and I definitely wouldn’t take it now unless there is a very Niche encounter with a rare single huge hit or bursty window to mitigate.
As far as that tier choice goes I think Rend and Tear is the best for aoe and Tooth and Claw is best for ST or PVP which leaves no real place for Pulverize.
There’s a distinct chance at this point that blizzard just has no actual Guardian players on their Dev team.
At least feral got some buffs to damage.
On a per-rage basis you still get more mitigation out of Ironfur than T&C. It’s not that T&C is worse than Rend & Tear, it’s that T&C is a worse use of rage than Ironfur.
Apart from the once-per-expansion magic-only encounter. In Legion it was Star Augur, in BfA it was the Zul trash mob in King’s Rest.
Yeah, in all likelihood I’ll just stick with Rend and Tear outside of the rare raid.
I want tooth and claw to be better.
Barring the survival differences I wonder which comes out ahead in damage once legendaries and conduits come into play. As it stands now with all the corruption and azerite traits benefiting from Rend and Tear its the clear winner, but that meta is about to be shaken pretty heavily.
it also feels super sluggish
I like that it is simple. I have toons for all tanks, and Guardian is the least stressful to play on. It’s the only one I’ll PUG tank on.
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What, you don’t find spamming the very same builder for single or AoE while spending all of your rage into Iron fur a fun mecanic ?
Silly you.
You forgot Night Fae insanity as Bear. You forgot Bearweave as off tank. You forgot stupid off heals as off tank. You forgot the fact that Warrior and Bear have literally the same rotational skillset outside of Warrior shouts.
And most importantly, you forgot that not every button needs to matter in every situation.
TL:DR If you think Guardian is boring, try VDH, PWar, or BRM for that matter.
Every. Tank. Is. Easy.
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I still believe that the Guardian rotation could be a little more engaging, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that just having Berserk back and getting Convoke made Bear tanking a lot more exciting for me.
I don’t mind the simplicity of the rotation, in fact, I see that as a positive. What I don’t like is how lumbering and slow it feels.
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Someone Battle Rezzed the thread!
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I’ve been playing Classic and notice that Bear tanking is almost the same
They need to update Feral and Guardian to be more modernized