I’ve been playing an alt druid and going through dungeons as guardian since the wait times for tanks are non-existent, but I’ve noticed that guardian druid feels incredibly sluggish and weak. I’m hoping that there is a buff in the works because if not then what is the point of druids having a tank spec if it just feels so bad to play?
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What makes them feel sluggish or weak? Is there something specific?
For the record, if you’re comparing them to other tanks then yeah one of the specs is going to be at the bottom (just like someone is going to be at the bottom of the DPS meter and the healing meter). I am not saying that it isn’t a valid topic to bring up, but what are your issues specifically with how guardian plays? Lack of health? Lack of mitigation? Are there tools missing that other tank specs have that all tanks should have?
I’ve been playing a 107 druid tank and it’s amazing. So idk what your talking about.
Pop enough cooldowns and you take like 90% reduced damage for a few seconds.
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the main source of consistent dps is its dots which would be fine if they did more damage but at the moment they are meh.
the self healing comes from one ability that is only usable every 30 seconds and only does a small portion of health. The health is really low compared to most other tanks and there is no mitigation for magic damage and just a small amount of armor mitigation that only lasts 6 seconds and requires half your rage bar.
i imagine that druids that have played it longer could point out more problems than what is listed
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I’ve currently been avoiding leveling my Druid thus far since the only spec I’m really interested in is guardian. Feral is an ok second choice but they’re in the gutter too. Resto bores me and balance is… well a caster; not to mention innvervate bot?
I think one of the main problems with bears right now happened when they reduced aoe threat across the board and bears kind of relied on their aoe; their dps output is certainly low AND you can’t take them to dungeons with high amounts of magic damage it just is gonna stress you and your healer out. The only utility they offer is a brez (oh hey dk has one too! And more!) and maybe their roar???
Not sure exactly what they need but they need something, be it more durability or utility
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There’s been a thread that I started since Beta
None of the baseline abilities we had prior to Legion were returned to us after the removal of artifacts. i.e. a DPS cooldown called Berserk that was baseline prior to Legion and a passive slow from Thrash also baseline prior to Legion.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/guardian-druid-feedback/18466/1
It’s called Legion Tax. Just lvl up as bear and forget it exists at max lvl till next xpac
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what tank are you even talking about? 90% reduced dmg isnt even a thing for most tanks (except paladins bubble) let alone for bear druids which dont even have a magical damage reduction ability, only a crappy ability that gives some armor every 6 secs for physical damage reduction
p.s. why is there a thing that makes you wait till more people reply?
Yep and you’re good for about 8 seconds and then what? Once you pop cooldowns you’re completely at the mercy of your healer. I honestly don’t mean to sound snobbish here but come back after you’ve ran some moderately difficult content and tell us how you feel.
I don’t know that just a buff at this point is enough. The mechanics of the spec need to be re-worked. We need better synergy between abilities and a DPS cooldown would be nice.
The spec is just boring as all heck to play.
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I gave up on my guardian. Mobility is weak CC is weak gotta shift forms for roots and it only Lasts for 30 seconds with it being a soft CC at that. Mitigation is fairly strong but doesn’t have the utility that’s other tanks bring to the table.
Theirs a reason it’s ranked dead last in M+. Raiding I’d say it’s competitive with the others.
Also it’s just boring to play. Literally just keep Iron Fur up and play whack a mole with thrash and mangle with swipe as a filler. No interesting choices in the rotation
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Survival instincts reduces by 50%, bark skin does like 15-20% reduced damage, iron fur increases armor for reduced damage.
Do you even play guardian? These are all abilities you should be using.
Unless you are sub 50, in which case DUH you dont have half your skills yet…
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Blizzard gave up on tank balance this expansion. I gave up on it too when the Prot warrior fixes that had to wait until a major patch consisted of taking IP off the GCD.
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Since you are apparently unfamiliar with this topic that has been discussed in a thread with thousands of posts, entirely ignored by blizz, perhaps you should go to the Druid forum rather than demand this poster rewrite all the ideas that were discussed in that thread and regurgitate them in order to spoonfeed you.
No, it is not legitimate that one tank should be so far behind. They can and should be more or less equivalent.
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It’s pretty clear you don’t play guardian.
Survival instincts: 4 min recharge, max 2 charges.
Barkskin: 1.5 minute cd.
Use them early and often and they won’t be there for your oh, crap! moments. Guardians rely on Ironfur for their mitigation.
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He is pretty much right. Guardian is bottom. Lower dps than other tanks and no slow (why does thrash not slow like it once did?). The only way we can cheese any mechanic is to play an alt.
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The OP didn’t post on the druid forums. He posted on GD. I asked him some questions and he obliged by answering. What does that even have to do with you exactly?
I feel like guardian druids are pretty buff as is. Have you seen some of these bears? They’re huge! If your druid isn’t buff, one has to ask the question, “bro, do you even lift!?”
most of those are on 60 sec+ cds and other tanks have the same lvl of mitigation except with smaller cds
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Those that have commented “What’s wrong? It’s amazing” - you do not main the class. And you are not talking about top end content. I off-tanked (because that was all you could do) MC 12 years ago. There was no true spec for us to tank. Feral was completely broken, itemization was absolutely terrible - you had to grind for weeks just for the chance of completing a set that had caster characteristics, but just happened to offer more stamina than the set that was supposed to be for Feral tanking. Then you had to itemize for all the Agility you could stack.
Even given that, the class is in a worse state right now. It was fun and we could get around the broken spec and terrible itemization. Yes, below top level your bear is fun. It does feel like you can take on a lot, but compare it to all the other tanking classes. My Prot Pally absolutely kills it in DPS and survivability. My Prot Warrior … well let’s say the only plus there is survivability. If you have an hour or two, you CAN kill big groups with a Prot Warrior, but why would you bother? And the DK tanking specs both leave Guardian in the dust, survivability or DPS.
Killing anything, especially big groups of anything, on a Guardian bear takes for-ev-er. The DPS is just not there. The rotation and abilities have been simplified or removed to the point that we do not have any burst capability. Our base damage compared to Legion is abysmal. Anything we can do, another tanking class can do better and more often. Our core abilities, part of what we considered the lore of bear tanks, have been decimated. Legion gave us hope, because the devs brought back abilities that had been nerfed or removed earlier. We thought “Woot! They finally figured it out!”. Nope, no such luck.
Here’s a link to a massive discussion by some of the smartest bears you will ever meet - Guardian Feedback Thread
You’ll see that there are a lot more problems than anyone here has talked about, and most of it centers on the removal of utility, survivability, and abilities. We ended up this expansion with the simplest, least effective rotation of any of the classes. Iron Fur is a joke and was added/changed so that it was required to flesh out an already terrible feeling rotation. Maul is so underpowered without it’s multipliers and synergy, it’s ridiculous. Swipe and Thrash were BOTH nerfed compared to Legion, and the devs have given Swipe a tiny buff. Still not enough, and both should be buffed.
Aggro, which we used to be masters of, is now a major problem in several heroic and Mythic+ fights for Guardians. But I cannot lay that on the class devs - lots of tanks are experiencing aggro strangeness and fails, and the consensus is that there are still several buggy encounters that groups have just learned to work around. Most often by not relying on a Guardian.
Read the above link. The posts are from folks that min/max the spec, find all the workarounds for the times that the devs hurt the spec. And right now, this expansion, is what they are most worried about. Not knowing if the devs can or will fix us, and whether or not the next reset of all talents and abilities (ie: expansion) we get to go through the same song and dance again. If so, I am skipping out of subscribing for the first year of the next expansion - something I have never done.
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