I’ve decided to give Druid tanking a try and currently sitting at level 32. I had read a lot on the class and was Intrigued by the “dual spec” (affinity) at level 30. So playing with it I know you can weave forms to help damage or off healing. With the balance affinity when is the proper time to use Boomkin? Currently I’m using it before a pull and in a lull moment during boss fights. Maybe this is better for raiding boss fights when other tank has agro?
Resto affinity I haven’t tried but I’d assume it breaks bear form to throw the heals out and if so it has a specific way of using it as well?
Regardless I’m enjoying the spec but I’d like to be able to maximize on the class’s versatility.
The way i do it is i wait for downtime or kiting moments.
A lot of fights in shadowlands dungeons (trash and bosses) and even some fights in the raid offer you at least 5-15 seconds of downtime. If youre kiting mobs in dungeons you have even more time.
If you combine Balance Affinity, or Resto with Heart of the Wild and Night Fae ability you can do some pretty great damage or off healing. Or both!
Just gotta learn the fights and their damage patterns which really isn’t hard.
I’m a Prot Warrior main. Right now doing old content I’ve forgotten makes it tough I guess. Once I get to shadowlands I’m good if that’s how you do it. All shadowlands seems to be is kiting especially in keys.
Thanks for the tips.
Dont, its a useless thing unless your raiding and off tanking a boss. Your a tank, not a dps. You lose rage if you weave and guard is more about banking rage.
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When you’re pulling 8-15 mobs with prideful and some sort of AoE stun or root, why not fire off a quick heart + 2 wrath + convoke and help get it down quicker?
You save a good 20 seconds and there is almost no need to bank rage if nothing is hitting you. When its done you go in bear, get a free 25 rage, 1 trash and like 2 seconds later you have 2 iron furs and a frenzied regen if needed.
For example: DoS Ardenweald wing. You get prideful, grab birds, mooses, the little dudes -> urn. Pop your combo and you hit 15k dps. Trash goes down faster.
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The best Guardian Druids can find/make situations to pop out and get a few casts off, but if you’re thinking that weaving is going to be a regular part of your rotation, it isn’t. The only exception might be raid bosses where the off-tank doesn’t have any other responsibilities.
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Really the only time I ever use my affinity spells while tanking is in a handful of keys there are moments of very little to no tank damage while some big group damage is being channeled. The big red guys in De Other Side for example. When that happens I’ll always try to shift to caster form and fire off a convoke or wild growth just to help the healer keep caught up.
Recently I’ve noticed my co-tank in raid shifting into kitty form and doing DPS while I’ve got the boss, but what I’m noticing is that while his damage is usually higher than mine I personally don’t think its high enough to justify all the lost rage from leaving bear form.
The main thing is: as you’re learning the pulls and bosses you don’t want to be weaving and chance it.
I didn’t start doing it until 13/14s became easy. Then I started doing it in 15s and I usually stay in bear until some bosses on 16s
Weaving: It’s difficult to really do as a guardian, with the exception of serving as offtank and just dpsing.
In theory you should be able to pop out, throw on some hots or a sunfire, then pop back to bear. In practice it doesnt work out that way.
Thats about all its for as guardian. It’s not AS useful as you would think, but knowing tricks like dropping a vortex and running back while popping a rejuv and swiftmend on that demon hunter who decides to facetank the spiteful ghost.
I would mostly suggest you consider the passive bonuses before the active ones. Ysera’s Gift is fantastic. The range increase from balance isn’t really great, nor is the speed buff from feral, although there are places for it to shine (but then you can take tiger dash, we’ve got options, yes it’s viable). Vortex and typhoon are fantastic. Maim is… not.
You can also set yourself up with mass roots or typhoon to gain a moment for offspec action. Soulshape works for that too if you time it right. Warstomp gets you a second so you can pop out of melee and give yourself the distance you need to cast instant spells without getting 1 shot, if you made the correct decision to play a Tauren (always be a tauren).
Even all that being considered though… Your not going to get amazingly far ahead by weaving in and out. You are very much able to pull off a clutch emergency heal to keep the healer or a DPS up, but this is going to be the exception to the rule.
There are quite a few bosses where you can weave though.
PF - first, second, last
HoA - all
DoS - all, especially the images on last
NW - second, third (during fixate), last (comet storm)
SoA - All
SD - 1, 3, 4
ToP- 1 after decap is dead, brawl, lich
Mists - 1, 3
Thats just bosses. You can easily do it on many trash packs as well with any AoE roots (binding shot), shammy elemental, boomy trees.
If you need to heal your group think
Red Boys in DoS, Thrash guys in HoA, ghosts in ToP
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Hard to do in m+ but very nice to weave in raids. I did some practice normal raids where I was tanking but used heart and balance affinity to boomkin weave when not holding the boss and was able to parse 99 on many bosses. I was even above the damage of some of our dps, hitting over 3k single target (which is good for a bear)