BRING BACK LEGION BEAR
Lets not partake in historical revisionism. Artifacts sure, but legiondaries were just multiple ideas thrown at a wall to see what sticks. The very concept that they'd design specs to need artifacts to feel whole idiotic when you couldn't even get all options for months.What did happen was Blizz gave up on balancing them and just kept the 2-3 most popular ones the top performers and started balancing around the fact that's all anyone would equip. That's why it then hurt immensely when they were removed, but the bandaid HAD to come off at some point(as suggesting it be baked in baseline is like demanding every tier bonus be kept baseline after the tier is over).In the end Blizz messed up big time when they balanced classes around artifacts and legiondaries after the legion reworks rather than balancing those factors. At least with azerite they have avoided this problem for now, as they have kept on tuning the traits rather than tuning the classes for because of trait overperformance.
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yea thats all well and good but that doesn't solve the BORING issue. we lost a few spells from Legion and didnt get replacements. could we get something more to do than stack fur?
Pretty much agreed on all points, I mean I get guardian needed a bit of a nerf as they were probably the strongest tank in wow history in legion, But this feels less like a balance adjustment and more like a punishment for blizzard screwing up. I'm not going to lie and say my main is a guardian, but it feels bad that even someone who's use of bear druid was casual, that I Just feel so much weaker, and incomplete. They really need to do something about this.
*shout from the back of the room*What Faide said! And bring back our armored Incarnation model! Wowhead frontpage is a mean tease!
It is definitely worth pausing for a minute to think about all the things Guardian lost from Legion.The snare on Thrash. Multiple thrash procs. Moonfire reducing damage received. Ablative fur reducing magic damage. Rage of the Sleeper.These are things Guardian needs back and would help bring them up. They been tried and tested and proven to work.I also agree with zither wishlist.Ultimately though Guardian just lost so many perks from Legion it is as if we are playing a low level version of ourselves.
Those legion procs you described make me wish I played Guardian then, sound really fun. Agree completely that we just need some “fun” and engagement back in the spec
I definitively feel that guardian has a issue with mitigation vs self heal. This poses a huge problem not only in raids but also in m+. You take a lot more individual hits in there, and while with a good healer this aint an issue, combine it with a druids inability to kite for, say, necro weeks, makes the self heal absolutely useless. Grieveous weeks as well poses a problem with this 'fix': you are doing a +10 and gets smacked with two-three spells that puts you at 50%hp, but you neef mitigation for the non-spellcasters in the pull. Healer falls behind, youre suddently sitting at four grieveous stacks, and you have to trade mitigation for self heals to not die from the affix. No more rage for mitigation, AND, you gotta wait a whole gcd while the melee adds smack you, which have a good chance of restarting the affix. The points made by the writer are good, and an addition would be to give bears an innate magic dmg reduction. Cuz I've healed a few bears through shrine and KR and certain trash there obliderates the tank cuz dps got, well, a cd on stuns and kicks.
The loss of the Legion Artifact ability, Rage of the Sleeper, is probably my biggest complaint about BFA Guardian. It really just feels like Bears are short a defensive CD when compared to other tank's toolkits with them having just Barkskin and Survival Instincts to lean on. A slow is also notably missing from Guardian. Infected Wounds used to give Guardian their slow, the effects were superseded by the artifact, and then the artifact was removed in BFA. That was a heck of a WTF moment to watch play out. Blizz, you just straight up nicked my slow, bro! What gives?
I fully agree with the article. Guardian is a boring and underpowered spec.
Yes on everything. I am trying to get my +16s/+17s done. No one will take me in as a tank (417 iLVL and 1700 io). As a healer, I get in groups almost instantly. As a tank, not even people with 1500 io will take me in. I don't blame them. Guardian druid is currently the worst tank spec by far. I am not even asking for things that make us just as powerful as other tanks. I am just asking for some things to make us unique, so that people say "oh, how about the Druid tank, so that we can have ...". Battle rez used to be one thing that brought us into groups a lot, but now everyone and their mom can battle rez.Health pools used to be a thing that stuck out. Yesterday I was in a group with a Pally tank who had 10k less health than me in bear form.The Remove Corruption buff is nice and all, but next season reaping will be gone, so it comes in a little late for m+. I don't want to complain about the changes, but they do not solve anything in terms of being accepted into groups as Tanks.
My biggest gripe is holding aggro. Why use high threat generating abilities like Maul when I need the resources for survival. It doesn't make sense.
I'm a bit late to the party here but the only thing I can think of about the thrash slowing again is the sanguine affix being harder to manage which is also why most people refuse to take a frost mage those weeks as well. If it was a separate ability or talent (Ursol's vortex and typhoon) I'd be happy with the change, but seeing as thrash is part of the core aoe rotation and then making sanguine week even worse through something you couldn't control would just kind of suck.