Yuuuup. 
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Making an organized list for easier reading. If someone could amplify this on the Alpha forums that’d be generous 
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Adding new form of Berserk(the main difference being changed to a more defensive ability, compared to an offensive-mixed with 3 target mangle)
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Renewal also returns as a Talent choice, instantly healing the Guardian Druid for a fair bit of their maximum health.
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Pulverize nerf ( On live it’s 30 sec CD with 20-sec duration) to 30 sec CD with 10-sec duration
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Changes to CC in bear form ( Typhoon being moved to balance, Ursol’s to Resto). Supplemented by adding Cyclone not castable in Bear form?
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No form of slow tied to a damaging ability (Infected wounds)
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No ranged interrupt (Faerie fire)
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No adaptive fur (Some form of magical resistance)
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Use to be the HP-Tank, but got pushed out of that spot
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Swiftmend nerfed
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Frenzied Regen on GCD, nothing to lower cd via tier-set, ability interaction
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Gore (Mangle proc) is our only baseline synergy between abilities
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Lunar Beam (Lunar Meme) is still an unpopular talent and is outpaced by it’s counter-part talents.
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Stampeding roar is now druid baseline, making feral/guardian’s specialty more homogenized.
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Soulshape pops us out of Bear form (need a source on this)
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Is Heart of the Wild designed for tanking? We can’t really pop out of bear form while tanking the boss to use this ability.
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Still no DPS CD (as mentioned above, Berserk use to have an offensive nature by enhancing mangle to act as Death and Decay does for DK’s Heart Strike)
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Only tanking class without a baseline stun.
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This is one I hadn’t thought of. But it’s a really important tool for a tank. It should be baseline. A talent choice should enhance the baseline ability, not provide it.
We also should have an opportunity for some effective AoE cc. For a while we had a talent to upgrade our Incap Roar to turn it into a Fear. When it was brought to the development team’s attention that this actually makes the ability worse because it potentially puts the group in MORE danger by scattering enemies which aggro other packs, the development team responded by changing the fear to a cower effect. That was an excellent ability and fun to use. Unfortuantely, they made the cower effect break on damage and it took a mass posing campaign for them to finally acknowledge the error and fix it. But the ability is gone now. It would be nice to get that back.
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No. It’s designed for Resto. At least that’s my honest opinion. Maybe a little for the other specs but mostly Resto.
Seeing this list just gives me a big sad.
We’re the red headed step children of WoW’s tanking roster and it feels like we’re screaming into the void and not even getting a head pat and being told everything’s fine.
Sure we get the comment from other players “You dont like it play something else…” Yeah…well we -do like it- we just dont like how we’re being ignored and treated.
I adore my bear. I just want better for the spec and I dont want us to get just a bandaid borrowed power temporary no effort put into it fix.
We’re just being flat out ignored and expected to re-roll into something else.
It’s not hard to ask that we get a few buffs/changes to make us at least on par with other tanks. We’re not asking to be the dominant top tank, just even the playing field a bit.
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Well, people have been screaming for Classic for a long time now. Unfortunately, I don’t see the need for Guardians to go back to being their Classic Feral versions…
Ah okay, thanks I figured HotW was designed specifically for one spec but I wasn’t sure. Not like it matters; i probably won’t get beta to try it.
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Whose screaming for that?
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Yeah, If I get it - I’ll try it. I could see where it’d help if you take Ursol’s Vortex in dungeons, drop that, run back pop out and use it to pop some heals off. But Even then - changing form, dropping heals, making sure you pop back and are ready in time to take on mobs… eh…
Otherwise mostly a raid talent for when you OT and you can pop out of form to do catweaving or off load some heals.
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All the furor before Classic was released? Those who considered Vanilla to be the perfect game?
Unfortunately, the developers seem to be back-pedaling with Druids so much that “Druids are healers” seems to be the only consideration.
A better version of HOTW:
The legendary General Druid Runecarve 1: Increase effect by 75% on Thick Hide, Ysera’s Gift, Feline Swiftness, Atral Influence. (like a legion legendary)
AND: When changing to affinity form you gain HOTW for 10 sec, 1min cd.
10 sec means you can spam heals until oom, unlike a 45sec duration that is worthless since you’ll run oom after tops 15 sec.
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I wonder if any of this feedback mattered.
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Chiming in. Thank you for the contributions!
I’m letting the thread develop without my input, interesting to see where the conversations go. I’m reading everything. Past few days were a bit busy, but I’m caught up.
One of the pain points of the “class-wide” legendary effects is how much Resto can benefit from them. It’s been a hot topic in a lot of theorycrafting circles. For now, don’t worry about other specs.
The goal is to see what bears think about whatever may be brought up.
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I think it’s pretty clear where the problems lie. They’ve done everything to make Resto great and make Guardians worse.
I notice you aren’t using the green text. Did they remove it because you were trying to help present feedback directly to the development team (bypassing the seemingly non-existent community managers)?
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I’ll be honest, I’m on the fence about the legendary effects.
The only one that stood out to me was the Barkskin legendary when activated would give iron fur + frenzied regen at the start AND at the end.
However during a new build for legendaries, I saw that it got changed to at start OR at the end of Barkskin. The randomness of it makes it less appealing.
Source:
Otherwise, the Legacy of the Sleeper is just a reduced version of RotS that’s tied to a longer CD with reduced leech. Not exactly perfect, but I “guess” it’ll be accepted by people who wanted the artifact ability.
Then you have the luffa’s, which is probably going to be the biggest improvement. Dmg %, Radius %, and an extra stack which combined with rend and tear is an increase to multi-target DR.
And finally, the pawsitive outlook legendary, which by itself is probably the worst one because in Legion you had Legacy, Pawsitive + Rage all together in one power source. By itself, it’s not as impressive at all.
I’m adding a note from a guildmate who tried Guardian druid on Beta; he said that the Barkskin legendary might be bugged because it didn’t give Frenzied Regen.
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Once more, it seems that we are going to have to rely on the new system(s) being implemented in an expansion as opposed to the spec being addressed at the base.
Why do we have to wait half an expansion or more to be a solid spec? I’m not saying we should be perfect, but there are some glaring issues with Guardian Druid that really ought to be addressed - and a new system(s) is not be the solution. A new system(s) should augment a solid class/spec, not just bring it up to par. I want my spec to be good before legendaries, not after legendaries. I don’t want to have to rely on legendaries to prop up the spec. Is that really so much to ask?
Honestly, a few changes even would go a long way to making this a reality. For instance:
We need a slow. Not that hard to implement, and it certainly wouldn’t be a game-breaking change, seeing as we had one before.
Something has to be done about our casting. Most of the cast-able Druid spells we’re given we won’t bother to cast because it’s just too risky to even bother with. Think about it: to cast a spell we have shift into our weakest form, causing us to drop a significant amount of armor, hp, and rage - when we’re playing a tank. We literally fall into one-shot territory every time. Some say, “It’s risk versus reward.” Is it? Is it ever really worth it? The spells aren’t even that good! I mean it’s not like I’m dropping form and risking death to cast a Holy Priest’s Greater Heal or something.
Cyclone is a perfect example, seeing as we’re getting access to it come SL: when is this spell ever going to be used? What Guardian Druid is going to shift into his weakest form to try and cast a Cyclone? It all looks good on paper, it is an extra spell - another button to press, but the reality is that most of time, this spell will not be cast; in other words: Guardian Druids are getting nothing.
Would it really hurt to let Guardian Druids cast a handful of Druid spells in-form - not least of all the ones we talent into via affinities? Or remove the cast times, make them instant cast on short CDs! Anything, so long as we can stay in-form as tanks. Another interesting possibility might be to include some sort of procc effect, like Gore - or even just modify Gore, allowing us to instantly cast a free Regrowth or Rejuvenation, or something, in-form - somewhat like Ferals. Give us a choice between that free Mangle or another cast-able Druid spell.
We need some form of magic damage mitigation. Many people have suggested a talent allowing Ironfur stacks to provide some % magic damage mitigation as well as the usual armor bonus. It doesn’t have to be ridiculous, seeing as Ironfur is our main form of mitigation, but something is certainly better than nothing at all.
Note: this list is by no means exhaustive.
If even these three things alone were addressed, Guardian Druids would be in a much better place come SL; however, they must be addressed at the base - and not in the form of a new system(s) granting rental power earned half way through the expansion. The base spec should be good before the implementation of a new system(s). Everything else should be gravy.
But what do I know? I’m just a filthy casual who happens to main a Guardian Druid. I’ve never seen a Heroic or Mythic raid, or any Mythic+ dungeon higher than a +12; I’ve never been higher than ~1650 in RBGs and Arenas. I just play the game to have fun - but even I can tell something is up with Guardian Druid. The effects can be felt at all levels of the game, and in every aspect of the game - not just on the choking heights of “Mount Arrogance.” If the members of the so-called, “99%” are also feeling the effects of poor spec design, then perhaps there is a problem after all?
Guardian Druid was horrible at the start of BFA - even for a filthy casual like me. It was horrible because it lost all of its rental power built into the Legion systems: the artifact, legendaries, and relic systems. It was horrible because the base spec is not solid - and that became painfully obvious, even to me. It has taken the whole expansion, and all the rental power it affords - rental power that everyone gets mind you, to make Guardian Druids at least somewhat viable. I really don’t want the same thing to happen come SL. If that’s how it will be, I’m not choosing a new main - I’m withholding my hard-earned money until Blizzard fixes the spec I love. So far, I must admit that it doesn’t look too good: Blizzard seems to be all but ignoring Guardian Druid feedback.
Sad thing is this is so easy to fix, if Blizzard really cared to. A few tweaks here and there - at the base - would revive the spec, would breath new life into it. It wouldn’t take much work to address the biggest problems with the spec. Blizzard needs to stop trying to effectively patch up Guardian Druids with a new system(s), with more rental power. We shouldn’t be reliant upon the system(s) to be good.
Thanks for your time,
Barespanks
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Cyouskin, how do you feel about Guardian Druid as someone who use to be a theorycrafter for the community?
I watched Metrohaha’s video in the other Guardian druid topic and he brings up his thoughts on bears a few times when comparing tanks.
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I made a post explaining it. Mostly new job means I cannot have MVP. Anytime you see me with green text is a bug. https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/gd-lounge-reforgedinsanity/440796/10570
It’s easier to be a hybrid as Resto. And I looks like they are trying to give other specs a chance too. Class-wide effects are incredibly difficult to make for druids, yet alone make it so Resto doesn’t come out the winner every time.
Very bland. Once they removed Mark of Ursol, they kinda just became bots. They do the same thing over and over. It’s not that they aren’t good or bad, I didn’t have fun pressing buttons.
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I see. I’m glad it wasn’t retaliatory from a Blizz CM.
By other specs, you mean Balance, right? Because we still can’t cast healing spells without losing all our defenses and rage.
Well, that’s part of it. When do bears stop tanking? As a DPS main, I know that I should (almost) always being doing damage. On the rare chance I need to heal, I have that available. (Same with Feral.)
Ideally, you’d be able to swap to Cat Form (or Moonkin) and deal heavy damage while you’re not tanking, but it’s just not that simple when you dive into those discussions.
I don’t think casting healing spells in Bear or Cat Form actually fits the theme of Guardian and Feral. I think it’d pretty interesting if Guardians had an effect that applied Rejuvenation to their group if they pressed Frenzied Regeneration. (Not a legendary, but a Finesse Conduit, maybe.)
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Two things @Cyouskin:
Personally, I really like the simplicity of Guardian Druid. It allows me to pay more attention to my current situation and less attention to maintaining a rotation. The Guardian Druid’s rotation may not be flashy, exciting, or complicated but it’s relatively effective all the same, outside of certain glaring issues - i.e.: lack of a slow, casting issues, etc. I for one sincerely hope that Guardian Druid never loses its humble simplicity. Simplicity is one of it’s charms.
Should Blizzard seek to address anything with Guardian Druids, I really do think that they ought to address real, tangible problems first before addressing “How it feels.” A simple, and so, “Boring” play-style are the least of the specs problems in my humble opinion, as this is a relatively subjective POV. I personally don’t want Guardian Druids to become more complicated for the sake of complexity alone. I honestly don’t think that’s what they need to become a better spec.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding you; if so, please feel free to clarify.
Well, if they get rid of the ability of Guardian Druids to cast healing spells, then we wind up with a new problem: what replaces this? Regrowth, Rejuvenation, Swiftmend, Wild Growth, and even Renewal, when talented into, would have to be reconsidered.
Frankly speaking, I personally don’t mind the idea of Guardian Druids being able to cast a few healing spells here and there - keeping with the whole nature-esque Druid theme; however, the way it works right now is incredibly clunky. I wouldn’t mind them changing it, insofar as we are still getting some sort of self-healing and not just losing a lot of potential self-healing. Then we’re just back to pruning - and I think you’d agree that this is the last thing Guardian Druids need.
Thanks for your time,
Barespanks
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