we all have our thoughts on it and as a guardian who played both… S3 is more secure than S2 imo and i feel its a better for the health of the spec to not rely on a set for rage which isn’t a problem in s3… numbers will also get balanced so it was a vote more about playstyle than everyone wanting the god set back which won’t be happening
Ursocs Fury is not completely raged dependent. Thrash is a CD ability. It does benefit from Raze/Maul which could benefit from rage generation (or via a proc), depending if you wanted the absorb versus the physical mitigation (choosing IF vs Maul/Raze). During the incarn windows, along with the S2 set, made bears crazy, but flat outside. Enter Exodia comp that was centered around bears being able to get incarn to 2 minutes, and to align with PI from a priest, mage DPS CDs, and even Blessing of Autumn from a holy pally to reduce CD time.
It was a perfect storm that combined with dungeon season composition focused more on melee damage that catapulted bear to the top. Honestly, when I healed FOTM bears (if I needed a tanking break), 90% of them were absolute trash to heal. Good bears were great, mediocre bears were painful. Now S3 has provided a bit more balanced damage intake providing some magic damage mitigation. Sure, overall I might not be able to do giga-chad-bear mode every 2 minutes, but I feel I can deal with a wider variety of damage more effectively now.
1 Like
I wonder, If Aug never came into the picture, would any of those nerfs even have been needed? with Aug now in questionable territory the combination effect is no longer in play which means bear is prob under powered compared to what it should be.
but in any case, as far the tier set goes, there is prob no question that S2 is the only real Viable Bear option.
if S3 shield thing didnt waste much of its effect it might be decent but atm all i have seen is it messes with my effective shield tracking, so idk if i have enough effective hp for a given hit, so over use of defensives or under use of them happens.
and im almost certain its actually gotten me killed in a pvp encounter with reflections into reflection damage. (thorns into another bear’s brambles resulting in a 3k number of hits in a few seconds, basically the entirety of a full health bar.) maybe a fluke but thats what i gather from looking over the death event.
S3 feels like a liability rather than a bonus. 
2 Likes
If your shield isn’t being fully depleted each application then you’re running pretty low content that could be done with 0 points in the talent tree. And if you’re doing faceroll content where your shield ISN’T depleted. Then congrats you just received full defensive value for its entire duration
Or theyre firing Rage off way too late into a/the pull
no. i got 1 shot by the tier set bonus in pvp (okay 3k shot inside a second or so)
no, i died with it up because its not a full shield. its DR which means i couldn’t tell how much REAL shield i had.
for arguments sake, its impossible to even equip 0 talent points, in which case all you have is auto attack as all the abilities are talents.
content difficulty is relative to ilvl of not only yourself but your party members.
I just track the buff. If its up, I know I have an additional 20% DR active. I then usually keep Barkskin ready for when the shield is gone to cover the gap until rage is ready to go again. Treat the shield as a DR, not an absorb.
I begin just about every pull with Rage, macrod with bristling fur to increase my rage generation during the build window.
Honestly I love having a 20% DR on top of nearly 20%DR from vers, with new 100% uptime, with SI and BS as backups for gaps based on content. Much better for magic damage than was S2 was. Is it perfect, no. But for how I like to tank, which is trying to be a beefy tank that doesn’t require much effort from the healer, it works.
Now PVP, sure sounds like you got a fluke.
Ah the pvp tank.
Getting one shot.
Malding on forums.
Can’t make this stuff up.
Huh. Usually you don’t see that outside of an infinite damage loop like the good old brambles → holy shield → brambles → holy shield loop that caused guardian druids and prot paladins to explode each other into messy chunks whenever they met in a BG.
As season 4 Awakens sooner and sooner, zzzzz 
I’m extra curious as to how they will update Season 2 tier bonus?
Just buff the damage? extra healing? or increasing the health bonus?
As season 3 comes to an end I kinda of regret not voting for tier 3. Its a very comfy bonus that surprisingly deals good damage and scales well. Gonna be hard losing all that damage absorb infavor of ironfur spam again.
Hopefully they reveal them soon as seeing the DF M+ dungeons are back
So theres not much to change. It doesnt really need a lot of tuning either since it scales with us.
Theyve already released some of the tuning needed for tier sets. Can find them in tuesdays patch notes
Guardian was not amongst them. Yet
Season 2
- (2) Set Bonus: When you take damage, Mangle and Thrash damage and Rage generation are increased by 15% for 8 sec and you heal for 6% of damage taken over 8 sec.
- (4) Set Bonus: Raze/Maul damage increased by 20% and casting Ironfur or Raze/Maul increases your maximum health by 3% for 12 sec, stacking 5 times.
So probably will just buff Maul/Raze’s damage to 30% bonus then. Thanks
And how exactly did we jump to this?