Their freedom, especially in the open world (flight/travel form, interacting with objects and shifting snares), DoT based damage and consistent active mitigation. I’ve always enjoyed being an actual bear and literally mangling or thrashing a mob to death.
Bears are typically seen as damage sponges, but in the past they were Dodge tanks.
I had a lot of fun with dodging stack resets in the past but reducing damage with something like Ironfur feels much better overall.
Do you feel there are any major issues with the gameplay?
Frenzied Regeneration being on the GCD feels gross. Not having an interesting DPS cool down makes it much more boring. Our major cool downs are the same, bringing back Might of Ursoc or having another cool down would be nice. Not having my own slow can be crippling, especially if I don’t have a consistent one in the group.
Do any of these issues severely impact your experience?
Not having a slow is horrible.
Do you feel there are any minor issues with gameplay?
Having the same buttons to spam during Incarnation is not particularly interesting. It doesn’t make it feel great to hit compared to Avatar or wings where you are doing burst damage.
What changes do you feel make help with these minor issues?
Have a damage bonus applied to Incarnation or let it proc, ie bonus damage on the next Thrash etc.
What talents interest you the most? Which one’s seem too lackluster?
Galactic Guardian and Brambles are cool. Pulverize is interesting but Rend and Tear is just too strong to take it. Lunar Beam and Soul of the Forest feel very lackluster. Affinities are okay too, it would be cool if Balance Affinity moonkin form was strong enough to be a DPS cool down, especially for solo content.
Are there any talents you feel are too strong, or too weak?
Bristling Fur feels too weak. Lunar Beam has never been good.
Are there any talents you’d like to see added or removed?
Lunar Beam could be removed and replaced with the Balance legendary shoulder set, giving some interesting interactions with Galactic Guardian. Please bring back Rage of the Sleeper.
In terms of real gameplay experiences, do you feel Guardian is easy, average, or hard to play?
Easy to play.
Are mistakes punished? Too little, too much, or fair?
Fair
How does your gameplay change between single-target and multi-target (4-5 enemies)?
I spam one button instead.
* How complicated is it?
It is not complicated
* Is it hard to execute?
It is not hard.
What are some legendary effects you’d like to see?
The Balance legendary shoulders.
How does your experience playing Guardian compare to other tanking specs?
I like it more due to familiarity. The other specs have more interesting buttons.
In terms of tiers when compared to other tanks: {Low/Mid/High} rate the following for Guardian:
Impact of abilities: Low
Hint: Popping a defensive cooldown; how does it feel, look, and perform?
yes, the theme and simplicity of the spec is what I’ve loved since a started tanking in TBC.
I would like to see more of the ‘nature’ druid style come into play, barkskin plays into this a little bit, but I’d like to see things like galactic guardian and lunar beam be changed to nature style moves. Also bears should have some sort of beserk or rage style move baseline, even a cool CD that made you lose control for a second and lash out, showing the wild side.
The lack of mobility and kiting potential while staying in bear form, lack of unique tanking cooldowns that would make them stand out, currently there is no reason not to take a different tank over them.
practically no reason to use maul outside of trivial content.
lunar beam needs to go, it would need to be replaced with something that reduces dmg taken or increases healing received, I would go with something similar to the old insect swarm that would either spread or bee an aoe around the target, dealing dmg and giving targets a chance to miss( or just reduce dmg dealt). Incarnation should just be beserk and baseline, put in something like ironfur charges explode in a aoe around you when they expire.
Easy, its a very simple rotation, which I like, having a brain dead rotation lets me focus on what is happening around me, not being locked into runes or the like gives me the freedom to react, I just wish there were more situational abilities in bear form, or at least let us use some of the ones our class has in bear form.
Unfortunately I will probably be retiring my druid come shadowlands, monk seems to be I want druid to be, simple rotation with lots of unique situational cooldowns.
Yes, always have. Always will regardless of what Blizz does to it because big ol’ Bear om nomming faces.
Being a bear and shaking it off and being able to keep going. The nerf’s to FR suck but they are still workable. I miss a bunch of things from Legion.
I think Blizz has lost this goal/sight with bears. From what I’ve seen most tanks are pretty equal on health anymore. Used to be we had the most health and were definitely damage sponge. Now it’s all tanks have equal health, other tanks have more kit tools to work with and utility. It’s like they really kinda just dont know what they want to do with us. They gave us a magic soak with Mark of Ursol for all of like a patch and took it away. They really should have just re-worked it instead of just getting rid of it all together.
I think they kind of need to sit and think about what they have in mind for bears. Our gameplay is definitely boring and needs work but it feels like they just dont want to spend the time working on it because they think it’s fine where it is.
They really made me hopeful with the whole ‘Hey some things from Legion will be re-worked into talents, etc and will stay’ and then Rage of the Sleeper went into the void never to be seen again.
I havnt had a chance to play Shadowlands to tell if any of these new changes will impact so I cant really make too much of an informed decision on the first one. I’m stubborn and will still play my bear regardless of how little love Blizz gives them.
As for the second one yes, there are changes they could make to make gameplay more fun for us. No I havnt thought of what it could be but just anything to let us know “Hey, yeah. We hear you guys, we’re working on it. We’re not ignoring you.” Would be great.
I’d like to see a change with Lunar Beam - I highly doubt anyone has taken it since Legion and even then I think I was the only nutcase that took it when I got Fury of Nature just to see what it would do.
But for changes for it - Gq has some good thoughts on that. I just know a change needs to be made or it should be replaced. If it moved with us and was changed, it might be fun to take every once in a while but eh for now it’s on the list where no bear will touch it.
But honestly if I had to do anything with Lunar Beam, I’d make it so it’s replaced with a Rage of the Sleeper talent. I held out hope that Blizz would have made this into a talent for us when they said some things would stay from Legion but nope.
Wild Charge needs to be removed, bears just need a charge baseline imo.
The Heart of the Wild one should probably imo be re-worked. Just speaking for myself on this one. I dont do cat weaving, I do dungeons mostly and I’d never take this. It seems like mostly something for Resto imo.
Galactic Guardian, honestly has always felt to me like it should be baked into the spec. Same for EarthWarden. Though I realize that a lot of these baseline/bake ins probably would never happen because people would think it’d make too OP or something. But honestly, they are usually ones you always see bears taking.
J just get rid of Earthwarden, bring back Tooth and Claw Passive except instead of activated by Maul, activate it by Thrash. Your autoattacks in Bear Form have a 40% chance to empower your next Maul for 10 sec. Empowered Maul causes its primary victim’s next autoattack to deal less damage.
You can accumulate up to 2 charges of Tooth and Claw.
I do not like the changes to the Affinities. Dont make us choose between Typhoon and Ursols Vortex. I love having that combo to drop a vortex and knock mobs into it.
To answer this - I feel that it depends on the player. As with most tanks. Sure people might think it’s easy and yeah, it can be if you know what you’re doing.
I’ve seen horrible bears, prot warriors, etc. Mostly because people fail to use defensive or just utilize what they have and utilize it well. So it depends?
I want my MoonBear/Lazer Bear back.
I would loooove to see - Lady and the Child Moonfire deals 20% increased damage and also hits another nearby enemy within 20 yds of the target.
And Fury of Nature - While in Bear Form you deal 30% increased Nature and Arcane damage, and are healed for 30% of all Nature and Arcane damage done.
These two were a bunch of fun. Moonfire up a bunch of things - free healing and a bunch of damage. Not to mention playing with Lunar Beam occasionally for fun was fun to me too (dont judge).
Runners up would be -
Elize’s Everlasting Encasement - Thrash can stack up to 2 more times.
And Luffa Wrappings - Increases the damage and radius of Thrash by 25%.
Yeah I skipped the last section.
I dont have access to Alpha forums but I’ve been compiling a list of things I’d like to see back since they had mentioned unpruning and I didnt really see any for Bear and just some general QoL Changes.
Like Tewa said “The solution is to make the ‘standard’ class-wide spells castable in each spec’s primary form.” (Forgive me it wouldnt let me quote again )
Having to pop out of Bear to cast a Cyclone is dumb. I lose my rage, plus everything else just to pop out of form to cast a CC? No. Giving this back baseline for -all- druid specs should make it usable in their main form.
Can we please get the slow effect Bloody Paws back to our Thrash like we had in Legion?
While on the subject of Legion effects - I’d love to see Adaptive fur come back as a conduit.
Since Stampeding Roar is baseline, let’s make Roar of the Crowd a conduit too.
I dont necessarily want this as a conduit but I really miss this : Scintillating Moonlight the damage reduction baked into Moonfire. That one was really enjoyable to me.
Removed abilites I’d love to see come back - Faerie Fire but with the Fae Silence glyph. A ranged silence and a damage ability, yes please.
Leader of the Pack? Yes, no, maybe so?
Enrage (even though I know that’s probably resounding no)
BEAR HUG! I’m like one of the few that actually really liked using this even if it was for the lolz. I loved that ability. Grabbing someone and squeezing the heck out of them was good times.
The next one is a bit petty of me but since we gave Stampeding Roar to all druids. Innervate both to us and Feral. Make it castable in our main form.
I mean hey, why should it be restricted to Resto and Balance when Stampeding Roar was Feral and Guardian and now it’s all specs?
Thats all I have for now. Sorry for the wall of text. It’s early and I’m bored.
Bear Hug was a cute idea but was pretty worthless in application since it’s (as far as I can think of) the only ability in the game that stunned the player when using it.
It would be easy to fix, though. Just add “While active, any damage dealt to the Druid is dealt to the target, instead.”
Ok. So I’ve taken some time to condsider this green texter post. I’m going to try to be optimistic here and take the perspective that Sigma reached out to Greenie here to post these questions. I imagine Sigma’s probably a bit fearful of the Bear community if he were to actually step into a thread-- not that we’d be unkind, but rather that he’d be tacitly acknowledging that our persistance (and possibly my “Hey Sigma” thread) actually worked. That said, here are some of my thoughts on Bears. (Although I think you should really read all the threads; there is a great deal of excellent feed back in them.)
In the last week or two, I leveled up a Prot Paladin and have been playing it as a possible switch for Shadowlands. While my Prot Pally experience is pretty limited, some of my Bear comments might be based on a comparison between those two specs.
First, one of my personal requests for a long time was the introduction of some type of ranged silence. We had it for a very short wondow with Fae Silence (the talent modified Faerie Fire). I’d love to see that come back. It is in line with the silence effect that Pally has with Avenger’s Shield. I really enjoy the ability to bring a caster into melee range. Fae Silence could fill that role. Alternatively, I’ve suggested a return of Insect Swarm which would put a cloud of insects around the Bear into which enemy casters could not target, drawing them into range.
Second, for a very short window we had an AoE stun. Well, it was a disorient actually, but it was a really nice feature. I likek being able to hit that Roar a second or so after a pull just to help the healer stabilize. At first, the ability made the mobs fear and run away, which of course frequently pulled more mobs, so they changed it to a cower effect. That lasted what, maybe 2 months? Then they broke it again and then just removed it entirely. I really liked that pseudo Shockwave effect. To be fair, my Prot Pally doesn’t have it either, but I’d still like to see it come back to Bears.
Third, I liked the AoE slow from Infected Wounds. Maybe it was a little too easy to apply with a simple passive on an ability we pretty much press on cooldown anyway, but it just seems like we should have it. Maybe add the slow effect to Incap Roar instead of Thrash? I know we have Typhoon, which can be a fun ability, but would having both really make Bears overpowered? This is lower on my priority list, but I did want to mention it.
Fourth, please give us an interesting DPS cooldown. Incarnation is not it. Berserk is not it. I’m really liking Avenging Wrath on my Pally. It’s increased damage AND healing (i.e. self-healing). Also increased Crit (weird they chose Crit, but OK I guess). And also makes the next LotP (Pally’s short CD self heal) automatically Crit. That’s an interesting DPS CD. RotS was similarly interesting, with a increase in damage reduction with a damage reflect effect. I think maybe RotS could also add a small damage buff.
Fifth, please get Frenzied Regen off the GCD. I don’t know anyone who thinks this is a good idea. LotP for Paladin is also on the GCD. It’s annoying there, too. I know there’s debate over the old version (heal back a %age of recent damage taken) versus the new version (flat 25%). But universally, people want it off the GCD. Hitting FR a millisecond too early and have it not go off is a really horrible feeling.
Sixth, Gore is a great passive. I like those things that proc and then light up a graphic and then you react… in this case, pressing Mangle. For Pally it’s a proc of Avenger’s Shield. Those are fun. There should be a proc for Thrash as well. If you could get an occasional extra Thrash press, it might make Pulverize easier to work into the rotation. But please let Pulverize leave a small bleed on the target so we don’t lose the bleed synergy waiting for the Thrash CD (or proc).
Seventh, let us cast more stuff in Bear form. Being able to cast LoH or FoL as a Prot Pally is really cool. Recently, our Healer died on the last fight in Sethalris and I was able to spam FoL to get us over the top at the end. I’ve tried doing that on my Bear and then the mobs come out and I have to switch back or risk getting killed. Brez in Bear form is great, but you gotta give us a little more… a few heals would be really great.
Eighth, Maul still sucks. I’ve never liked it. Even when it was off the GCD and was added to the next Auto Attack, it sucked. Of course that was before the days of Active Mitigation so I just macroed Maul into a few abilities and forgot about it. Now, Maul is on the GCD and the damage isn’t worth the Rage. Some people have even taken to macroing Ironfur into Mangle and just removing Maul from their bars. When Maul offered some bonus defensive effect (I think it reduced damage of the enemy target’s next AA or something), that was interesting.
Ninth, Swipe is fine for filler, but it’s so uninteresting. Prot Pally’s “filler ability” is Hammer of the Righteous, which is damage (with a cleave) plus can proc Grand Crusader. I know Swipe can proc Gore, so maybe that’s the trade off. But Hammer just feels more fun to press than Swipe.
Tenth, make Crit interesting again. Crit=Dodge seems kind of tacked on and it’s such an unreliable stat that nobody cares for it. Give us a small absorb on a Crit. That’ll make it more reliable. Or what if a Crit procs a free Thrash (ref #6 above)? That would make it appealing and interesting AND FUN.
Lastly (and I wanted to keep it to ten but oh well), the graphics. The animations for Bear abilities aren’t all that interesting. It’s all pretty much just a paw waved through the air. The ghosty thing on Maul is ok, but I almost never use Maul. On the Prot Pally, I’ve actually found myself zooming in a little (I normally pay at max camera zoom) just to enjoy the cool animations.
That’s enough for now. But I don’t want to leave without paying a compliment for them fixing up the Artifact Appearances for Shadowlands so we don’t feel our Transmogs have to suffer just to use those cool forms. I just hope the gameplay is also improved so I can enjoy that improved feature. Otherwise, I might be sticking with the Pally.
I hope you can, but I am less optimistic. I was actually hopeful that the dev team was channeling here to some degree. Now I feel like this is still an exercise in futility.
The fantasy of being a shapeshifter; of tanking things with my face; of being big and badass. The option to peform in multiple roles love being able to throw out a meaningful heal, or do meaningful dps in another form.
Currently yes, but there are aspects which make the spec (and to some degree the class) frustrating or simply weaker when compared with other tanks. (ST damage, FR, rage use options, weak (read unusable) talents).
very happy with IF; do not want to go back to dodge; fine with Mastery being a strong early xpac stat and eventually losing to Vers. (but i feel this does impact negativity on our damage). Crit needs to have a defensive value beyond the diminishing returns on dodge - the rage gain it used to have would be welcome and as a tank would make me excited to see crits.
FR - on the GCD feels horrible and certainly impacts my enjoyment.
FR- I think another problem is the method of delivery and lack of scaling. I like that its a HoT as it fits with druid style, but allow the HoT to be faster at low health and slower at high health to increase efficiency and reduce the chance of sniping and actually feel useful. I still avoid using it in melee range in raid because I fear the rage loss leads to overall more damage taken.
I really miss the cc immunity, Damage and leech increase from RoTS (the DR was overkill).
The huge tax implicit in shapeshifting for a bear - loss of rage, loss of IF stacks plus GCD cost just means you always trying to fit in more within less time.
The worst thing is having no ability to mitigate damage at the start of a pull without using a CD. just make sharp-shifting bear active IF and remove the rage gain (or bump the gain upto 40 so we can cast IF).
For me lack of a slow for kiting is a minor that can become a major depending on encounter design. Maul should hit harder, cleave and be more effective on bleeding targets. Mangle should hit harder (its our main rage gen and has a 6 sec c/d) and have the bleed damage buff baked to the base damage. The return of scintillating moonfire would be great as its pretty dull having a filler that is essentially refreshing a DoT. or it could hit harder on targets already affected by moonfire (to beef up our ST).
Row 15 - great row, like them all
Row 25 - Replace Tiger dash with the Thrash slow - tiger dash will never taken by bears and will not be missed (not even by pvpers who would still use WC); alternative let tigers dash make sprint usable in forms.
Renewal honesty feels like its a bandaid for the problems with FR. If Renewal becomes an emergency option then I guess FR is more about sustain?
Row 30 - love the passives, Balance actives could be more about CC (so typhoon, silence, ursols), feral is fine as long as the damage is truly meaningful, Resto should be castable from forms (because shifting in most cases is a death sentence).
Row 40 - Fine apart from the fact that incarnation (active) should in most cases out dps the others
Row 45 - GW as a passive is a little strong. GoE could be buffed - activating FR also applies adaptive fur for X seconds?
Row 50 - New pulverize is horrible a 20% DR for 1/3rd of the time??? Old Pulverize did bring some interest into our rotation, buff needs to be a DR all of the time and a better value choice than rend and tear.
Lunar beam - another dead talent that at minimum needs to move with the bear and possibly leech health off of active moonfires (its a currently a choice between constant 6% DR/dps vs a 1.25 minute burst)
Easy, mistakes are punished fairly. Defensively currently Gameplay does not noticeably change between ST and MT. Offensivey MT very quickly devolves into thrash/swipe spam (due to use of VoP in Neck and BF, EW and RnT synergy). some order, not complicated and not hard to execute to a high level. Overall it feels like a lack of choices.
Pawsitive outlook, Twin moons, RoTS - likely this is now outdated given recent annoucements
limited experience playing other tank classes, only really played DK (alt last expac) and Warrior (low level).
Thanks for the effort Cyouskin - I would love to see evidence that our collective (and now long outstanding) concerns with the Spec do actually get noticed.
Thematics, high health, general attachment to the character, and just general bearness. MOST importantly though, there’s always something to press
3.Sooo… it should be noted that I don’t play bear like most people. Despite my current set up, I run a high crit and dodge build, that pushes 57-58 chance to dodge fully procced, and I’m pretty beefy at the same time. I don’t have the raw mitigation a vers stackers, but I also tend to run sub 17 keys.
I like dodge tank AND beef wall, and my healers seem to like the mix over vers stacking.
Yes. The issues with bear tanking are aplenty. Lack of reliable control, squish at the start of a fight, FR is frustrating to use on the GCD, overly simplistic rotation based on a lack of synergy and ability interaction. Rage, as a result, feels like a useless spender, and it’s just… Button spam. This is… good and bad. I can focus more and don’t miss interupts as much, or am more aware of what’s going on. But it feels a little stale.
Minor issues? Just in general, it’s very annoying that without haste, the bear is super slow. I get haste is important as a stat, but there’s a difference between slow and not fun. Low haste is just not fun.
6-7 and 8
Lunar beam needs to die. Affinities are an interesting concept, but they should enhance your current roll. Give an active ability. A bear focused on balance can use a unique spell that’s a mix of both. So… actually… Lunar beam becomes a spell balance affinity gives to bears, as an obvious example. Giving us more spells we can’t cast in bear form just makes it a boring passive.
Gameplay is punishing if you mess up, but not overly so. Single vs multi target is just less buttons and a matter of positioning.
There’s no real order for AoE. Barely one that matters for ST, within reason. Cast rage gens on CD, don’t overcap.
I’m not really unhappy with our leggos.
They are just boring. Thrash galore. But Its not terrible. The simple rotation and poor synergy with basic defensives mean there’s no choice
I love the bears. I have a tank of each class, raided heroic on 3 or 4 of them. Druid I like the most. But gear probably plays a roll.
I personally find lots of value in WC - its especially been useful in dungeons. It’s a nice way to get back into melee with the Tank Buster Pylon add to avoid him moving out of your caster’s AoE; its a great tool to close the gap to a pack of trash that you want to get snap aggro on before the rest of your group, etc.
Personally I would like to see Wild Charge baseline because i think that it fits more into the bear fantasy where we charge into battle fearlessly and begin mauling things.
I will second this, I too think Wild Charge should be baseline for Bear/Cat. Too iconic not to have and why does Bear have to talent into their charge . . . .Just another example of Warrior knockoff just Feral is a Rogue knockoff
I almost feel like the only bear who doesn’t use WC and doesn’t miss it. I use Skullbash as a ghetto and ofc I am highmountain Tauren so I have Bull rush. The only time I really used WC was in Warlords on Mannoroth (& I think Mythrax in Uldir) or for when I am trying to get high dps ranks.
I would prefer that Tigers dash is usable rather that moving WC and coming up with something new. If WC goes baseline then Tigers dash is still only usable in flag running PvP and even then its not great (regular sprint on a 2min c/d is fine for that purpose).
We can theorize the “what ifs”, but at this stage of the testing I doubt any more changes are going to be made solely based on their continuous lack of communication toward the community’s feedback since BFA testing.
I don’t care if Blizzard wants to play the, “everythings fine” card, but based on the feedback thread that accumulated over 1000 posts it’s obviously not fine and Guardian will experience yet another expansion where we’re only able to play due to gimmicks and enhancements instead of our baseline abilities.
Well, there you go. And the great thing is, we don’t HAVE to fight for improvements to Brewmaster. The sun will always shine gloriously out of our butts because that’s the way Blizzard wants it. Enjoy easy street, and maybe some day somebody at Blizzard will fix bears, and we can switch back.
Funny enough I enjoyed playing Blood DK more than Monk. Something about utilizing ox statue and targetting it to taunt made me rip my hair out because of how micro-managed it is.
While Blizzard will listen to whatever they want to listen to (and not), I was asking for feedback from the community here on how effective such changes would be.
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