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.
1 Like
Yes
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.
2 Likes
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Yes, I enjoy bear druid.
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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.
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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.
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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.
2 Likes
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.
2 Likes
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 
3 Likes
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).
I said this in another post, but I think it would bear repeating (pun not intended):
What if Tiger’s Rush just added a Blink in form?
What if Feral Charge was standard, and Wild Charge upgraded it’s affect on what you charged, like a Stun?
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.
6 Likes
Have you tried a Monk, cafe? Give it a spin.
I know it’s a bitter pill to swallow, believe me, but you won’t feel so hopeless if you do.
1 Like
My only other lvl 120 is my monk, lol. Albeit, not worth playing right now because of how late it is.
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.
That’s what I did at the beginning of BfA, because it was the tank spec that felt like it got hit the least by the GCD changes.
1 Like
I didn’tr mean any disrespect, but these “what if” scenarios have been talked about since BFA alpha/beta.
People asked for wild charge to be baseline, for a dps cooldown, for reliable CC that isn’t dependent on talents to fix those baseline abilities we had BEFORE Legion.
I guess it’s the feedback thread from BFA that had over 1000 posts without any blizzard response is what killed any “hype” I have for Guardian.
6 Likes
- With azerite powers/essences/corruptions yes I do have fun playing Guardian.
- I like the feeling of being a ferocious bear!
- One issue I have with Guardian (and Feral, for that matter) is that the affinity talent row is mostly only taken for the passive bonuses. As a Guardian you arn’t going to be switching to cat form/moonkin to dps and as Feral you are rarely going to change to moonkin/bear to do stuff. So other than slight passive bonuses the talent row is largely useless.
Pulverize.
- 7th talent row - Rend and Tear is boring. Lunar Beam has been garbage numbers-wise for the entire expac.
- 6th talent row - All of the options here are passive so no new buttons to press.
- 2nd talent row - Why do we still have to talent for a simple gap closer? (Wild Charge) Monks don’t have to talent for their rolls. Warriors don’t have to talent for their charge, etc.
- Probably one of the easiest tanks in the game to play.
- This is a big issue for me. Gameplay hardly changes between multi-target and single target.
- Not nearly as cool as a warriors abilities to be honest. They have shouts and Avatar which makes their character grow in size. Heck, even a regular ability Thunderclap does this: The warrior slams his foot down (or something) and you see cracks in the ground.
Barkskin is cool. Nice damage reduction and it looks cool as well. Survival Instincts…is good…but…is a druid symbol circling your character really the best they could come up with? In the same vein, instead of some random circling red orb for Ironfur, It’d be nice if your fur actually changed color or something. - Guardians are the only tank where part of their self heals are kind of locked away in that you have to swap out of form to use them. This means that you have to use Typhoon and shoot all the mobs away, or Ursol’s Vortex and pseudo-run away until you’re clear before you can use the spell. It’s frustrating when you see other tanks just keep on trucking with their self heals when Guardian has to basically dance on egg shells to do the same thing.
4 Likes
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More feedback from over 2 years ago:
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Bears need a significant damage boost (coming in 8.1 but probably not enough) -
Bears are the only tank without a slow, which makes kiting difficult and frustrating (Give us back our Thrash slow please) -
Lunar Beam is a dead talent and needs an immediate replacement (some talk of bringing over Twin Moons from Balance to ressurect the Laserbear) -
Bears having most of our utility locked to caster form is miserable (Ursol’s Vortex and Soothe are nice but nowhere near enough, let us Remove Corruption too) -
Pretty much the only baseline synergy we have in our rotation is Gore Procs. Outside of Gore (and talents) our abilities don’t interact at all. (Some interaction with Thrash would be greatly welcomed) -
Our abilities are extremely boring from both a visual and auditory standpoint (bear swipes, paper-tear sound) -
Our transmog system is STILL broken (being forced to always use the Claws of Ursoc fist weapons if we want to use any Legion Bear forms) -
We don’t have a tanking specialty/niche. (Seriously, can someone name anything Bears do best out of all the tanks anymore?) -
The Affinity Row needs a serious re-work because for the most part we can’t use the active abilities they grant (outside cat-weaving) -
Frenzied Regen feels miserable to press in BFA. (Specifically it being on the GCD and no longer having it related to damage taken. I really miss that feeling of pressing FR at the perfect time and getting rewarded for it) -
Not having a secondary resource (Runes/RP, Pain/Souls etc) is very boring. Can we do more stuff with Thrash-Stacks as a resource? -
- Bears need a significant damage boost (coming in 8.1 but probably not enough)
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- Bears are the only tank without a slow, which makes kiting difficult and frustrating (Give us back our Thrash slow please)
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- Lunar Beam is a dead talent and needs an immediate replacement (some talk of bringing over Twin Moons from Balance to ressurect the Laserbear)
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- Bears having most of our utility locked to caster form is miserable (Ursol’s Vortex and Soothe are nice but nowhere near enough, let us Remove Corruption too)
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- Pretty much the only baseline synergy we have in our rotation is Gore Procs. Outside of Gore (and talents) our abilities don’t interact at all. (Some interaction with Thrash would be greatly welcomed)
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- Our abilities are extremely boring from both a visual and auditory standpoint (bear swipes, paper-tear sound)
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- Our transmog system is STILL broken (being forced to always use the Claws of Ursoc fist weapons if we want to use any Legion Bear forms)
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- We don’t have a tanking specialty/niche. (Seriously, can someone name anything Bears do best out of all the tanks anymore?)
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- The Affinity Row needs a serious re-work because for the most part we can’t use the active abilities they grant (outside cat-weaving)
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- Frenzied Regen feels miserable to press in BFA. (Specifically it being on the GCD and no longer having it related to damage taken. I really miss that feeling of pressing FR at the perfect time and getting rewarded for it)
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- Not having a secondary resource (Runes/RP, Pain/Souls etc) is very boring. Can we do more stuff with Thrash-Stacks as a resource?
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- I had this in the tanking thread, I guess I should post it here. Regarding 5-man utility.
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Druids are rock bottom in 5-mans in Legion and it’s only going to get worse in BfA unless Blizzard makes some big changes. Looking a raider io scores(the only source we have, really), there are NO Druids in the top 200 tanks for M+. Monks and Warriors are scarce, to be sure, but there are no Druids at all.
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This is because of Druids’ lack of utility. It’s something we’ve been complaining about for years, and in BfA it’s even worse:
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*Druids won’t be able to kite. Which means we will have no way to deal with Necrotic, for example. Our only effect to slow monsters was an Artifact Weapon trait, which is going away and not being replaced. Other classes can kite or escape, but we won’t be able to anymore. We can’t kite because we have nothing that slows monsters. All other tanks have some form of AoE slow, but Druids won’t. Our only escape method would be Cat Form, and going Cat with a massive DoT ticking on you is a bad idea, especially since the enemies will be punching you from behind as you run away.
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*Druids have no way to deal with a caster down the hall, except by running around a corner. Assuming there is a corner. Our ranged silence used to be a glyph; we lost that when glyphs were removed, and haven’t received anything in return. We can Moonfire and run around the corner, which is okay for targeted casting but does nothing against healers, for example, unless we can get their entire pack of friends to follow us. Monks and Warriors have similar problems (and aren’t popular in M+ either – note the pattern).
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*Our only stun is a single-target stun. On a minute cooldown. That we have to talent into.
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*Our vaunted Stampeding Roar (our only valuable utility) is having its radius halved and cooldown doubled in BfA.
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*With the removal of Rage of the Sleeper, we have no fear break or other resistance to loss-of-control. We’re sitting ducks for anything the enemy wants to throw at us.
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In a raid setting, with multiple healers and DPS available to cover somewhat for these shortcomings, it’s not an issue. But in Mythic+, tank utility is critical.
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And Druid tank utility is atrocious.
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*Yeah the biggest glaring issues are as you pointed out the talents we lost from the Artifact weapon.
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- no slow
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- no snap (aoe) aggro
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- no comparable aggro against other tanks (is an issue in raids)
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- no offensive cooldown
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- no adaptive fur (-> no magic damage reduce)
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- no utility for M+ and the utility we have (removing poisons can’t be used because it can’t be cast in bear form, and can’t safely leave bear form without slow)
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- very weak self heal
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- very boring “rotation” where you are waiting for mangle proc or mangle/thrash coming off cd.
Apologies, it’s a b*%#@ to copy and paste these quotes and keep it neat. Hate doing Blizzard’s job but want to keep the feedback alive. 
11 Likes
Wow… in that long list it looks like two items were addressed. They allow Remove Corruption to be cast in Bear form and in SL they are cleaning up the Transmog/Artifact issue. The rest of that very old feedback is in exactly the same state… actually, it’s getting worse.
6 Likes
Yeah sorry, I wish I was better at organizing it 
I’m positive that there is more unique input, yet I’m a lazy bear and just copy+paste summaries.
I honestly doubt I plan on playing in Shadowlands because I just can’t care to play another swiss cheese spec where legendaries, soulbinds, or whatever have to be used to fill in the holes that we’re missing.
I know Tewa’s probably heard me say this before since BFA
5 Likes
I can completely agree. I’m so tired of oh well there’s so and so coming that will help.
I dont want things that will help and put a bandaid over stuff that’s clearly wrong and that we’ve all brought up several times over several years.
Oh well getting a legendary will help! Ok…well what about until you get that legendary? When they take it away down the line? Back to square 1 with no changes having been made until they throw the next borrowed power/bandaid out there.
Fix the core of the class.
Soulbinds, legendaries, conduits, etc - should all really imo feel like a bonus not something you need to make your spec feel viable.
7 Likes