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State of Guardian Druid in Dragonflight 10.0.5 - Feedback, Issues, and Wishlist
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Geposted
15.02.2023 um 12:12
von
Pumps
Guardian Druids have received significant changes in Patch 10.0.5 as well as numerous hotfixes since the launch of Dragonflight, but were these changes enough to fix the many issues plaguing Bears? Our Guardian Druid Writer, Pumps, breaks down all the issues our Ursid friends face while providing insightful feedback and a wishlist that might take Guardian to the next level.
About the Author
This guide was written by
Pumps
! I raid in the guild
Honestly
on US - Frostmourne.
I am active in the
Dreamgrove discord
and always happy to answer questions i can.
I came 2nd place in the First World of Warcraft
Mythic Dungeon International
event. You can catch me streaming on
Twitch
during progression.
Thoughts on Guardian Druid in Dragonflight 10.0.5
Guardian has recently received a string of talent tree changes, hotfixes and bug fixes that have brought the spec up significantly in power. In this article I would like to deep dive further into some of the issues plaguing Guardian in both raids and mythic+ alike.
Firstly, I would like to start by saying that I appreciate all the bug fixes/talent tree changes that we have been receiving lately, it is clear that tuning is actively happening and that we have not been forgotten. Blizzard has done an awesome job reviving a really enjoyable playstyle of bear with new additions such as
Mit Klauen und Zähnen
,
Nach dem Lauffeuer
and
Plätten
which have all made the spec more fun and interesting as a whole. However, we still have a multitude of issues that could be addressed for a better quality of life for not only Guardian players but Druids in general. This feedback is aimed at trying to dispel any feelings of "I should have swapped class, I'm letting my group down" because another tank is just too far ahead like Warrior and DK currently are. Bear has consistently been one the bottom 2 played tanks every tier since Legion and the social stigma against them has only become stronger over time. The last tier a Guardian was considered in the World First race was Kil'jaeden in Legion,
6 whole years ago
. With that being said, let's jump into current issues and potential ways to solve them.
The Bear Necessities
Guardian primarily suffers from 4 big issues currently;
Magic damage taken
Initial damage taken on pulls
A unique niche/value in raid
Too many weak talents in both trees
The recent talent tree changes aren't large enough to fix any of these so far, mainly because they are targeting the wrong issues. Buffs to spells like
Eisenfell
and
Mondstrahl
are really missing the mark. Physical damage is at the bottom of the list when it comes to threatening damage taken, especially in a Dragonflight world where massive magic damage runs rampant in both raids and mythic+.
1. Magic Damage Taken
The magic damage taken I believe could easily be fixed by a significant health buff (30-50%). This would enable us to become the sponge tank we used to be once again, whilst also giving us some more wiggle room in both initial damage taken and magic damage. Potentially bringing back something like Mark of Ursol (which was a 30% magic damage reduction for 6 seconds at the cost of 45 rage) with a short 10-20 second cooldown like
Zauberreflexion
could be another useful magic tool. Bonus points if it reflected some of the damage done.
In addition to magic damage there is also countless abilities that ignore armor completely, like bleed effects. With
Eisenfell
being our only real
active
mitigation we can often feel helpless to these.
I also think that there is room for our mastery to be reworked into something that aids with this issue, as currently our mastery is completely lackluster, only granting a very negligible amount of health. A stat that was once hailed as fantastic for us has become largely ignored due to multiple nerfs that have left it feeling extremely weak.
2. Initial Damage Taken
It's not uncommon to walk into a pack and die in 2 seconds from all the initial damage before you can get any
Eisenfell
s and
Mondfeuer
s rolling to stabilize.
A tool that better helps us mitigate initial damage taken for a few seconds would be amazing, something similar to the Sepulcher 2P bonus (
Entwurf des Architekten
) or
Wille der natürlichen Ordnung
. These were fantastic for smoothing that initial damage taken and would both make for great talent additions.
Another threat tool would be fantastic as well. Our initial aggro on groups of adds can be a real struggle for the first few GCDs, which leads to less attention that can be spared on our own personal survival. We had AoE taunt (Challenging Roar) in the past, that returning could be very beneficial. A hard hitting AoE ability on a relatively short cooldown (30-60 seconds) similar to Brewmaster's
Explodierendes Fässchen
would also suffice.Potentially some short cooldown charge similar to
Wilde Attacke
that causes us to generate extra threat for a few seconds could be a good option, this would add mobility and help with threat. No matter how well you play currently you will have a hard time with initial aggro and that has made things like tanking Broodkeeper/Rasz adds, which spawn and immediately start attacking people, quite frustrating at times.
3. Unique Niche
Niche is a much tougher challenge to fix but there are multiple things that could be added that make us grant our raid an additional competitive edge. Why would a raid currently bring a bear over warrior when they bring
Anspornender Schrei
whilst taking less damage and dealing similar damage?. We just don't offer our raid
enough
, especially considering all druid specs have easy access to 1 minute
Anstachelndes Gebrüll
now, with that being our main value last expansion.
We don't even fill a defensive niche, as even though
Eisenfell
only mitigates physical damage, the block tanks still reign supreme in physical mitigation. A single critical block from
Schildblock
for example, mitigates roughly the same physical damage as
8-10
stacks of
Eisenfell
(which is where we armor cap).
Nach dem Lauffeuer
had serious niche potential before the target cap, potentially raising that to 10 and increasing the range could be enough but it seems odd to add more power into an already powerful talent.
Something new and unique would be amazing or something old like Symbiosis could be interesting. The potential choices here are endless but we do need something
more
to offer our raid. The goal of a unique niche is the ability to enable our group/raid to do
something
more effectively. Spells like
Blutschattens Griff
/
Segen des Zauberschutzes
/
Dämonisches Tor
/
Anspornender Schrei
all make you feel like you are
actively
aiding in your groups success and can quickly change you from feeling like an AFK meat sponge that just taunts when your debuff expires to an extremely valuable member of your raid.
4. Weak Talent Points
Dysfunctional Class Tree
Far too many talent points in both the Guardian and the Druid tree in general are completely underwhelming or even useless, this is where the difference between tanks really starts to pull ahead. Comparing something like the Warrior general tree to the Druid general tree for example shows an absolute world of difference.
Erneuerung
vs
Bevorstehender Sieg
- 25s CD that resets on kill vs 1.5min cd.
Schädelstoß
vs Baseline Interrupt.
Mondkingestalt
? vs
Zauberreflexion
- There is nothing remotely close in our tree to how strong spell reflect currently is. But we can turn into a chicken.
Anstachelndes Gebrüll
vs
Anspornender Schrei
- Generally in a raid with shamans/druids/evokers there is excessive mobility tools. You can never have too many rallys and it is a significantly stronger cooldown.
Mächtiger Hieb
vs
Sturmblitz
- A single target CC, which we are severely lacking for m+ as
Mächtiger Hieb
shares a choice node with our only AoE CC (
Erschütterndes Gebrüll
). The return of Bear Hug (A single target stun with a damage effect) or an AoE stun would be great CC utility.
Herz der Wildnis
vs
Avatar
- A cooldown better than capstones in our spec tree. Avatar is 20% damage on a 1.5min CD whilst
Herz der Wildnis
is 30%
Mondfeuer
and auto attack damage only on a
5 minute
cooldown. The disparity in strength is absurd.
Sonnenfeuer
vs
Donnerndes Gebrüll
- Massive AoE damage nuke. We have nothing remotely close to this but we can shift out of bear form (potentially die), to cast a DoT that does very little damage if we want to. 2 talent points if you want that DoT to hit multiple targets.
Lycaras Lehren
vs
Einhandwaffenspezialisierung
- 5% Damage and leech for a single point vs one of the only 3 point talents left in the game.
? vs
Seismischer Nachhall
- This was a strong Shadowlands legendary that is now a talent in the warrior base class tree. Hard to even think of a comparison as none of our legendaries made it into the tree but in similar talent positions in our tree we have
Verbesserte Verjüngung
,
Unermüdliche Verfolgung
,
Urfuror
and
Wirbelsturm
.
The list goes on, and that is only the class tree we are talking about here. Now it's quite easy to see how the power differential between these two specs has become so out of control and starts to explain why there is currently
7 times
more Prot warriors than Guardian druids doing mythic raid content.
Our class tree is filled with multiple useless spells for Guardian, as we simply cannot cast them in bear form. Druids having 4
vastly
different specs (Melee/Ranged/Healer/Tank) all having to share the same class tree has severely impacted the potential strength of the tree currently and is something that desperately needs changing. Talents can simply do different things for different specs.
Verbesserte Verjüngung
could increase
Eisenfell
duration as Guardian for example,
Urfuror
could increase rage generated from crits and so on.
Below is a standard raid build for visual reference.
]
Descending the Spec Tree
Top Section
This section really needs another good talent or two to be moved up here:
Traum des Cenarius
/
Blutraserei
/
Eiserne Dornen
/
Seele des Waldes
would be some good choices.
The goal here would be to remove bloat from the bottom/middle sections of the tree and spread out valuable choice more effectively.
Spitze des Rudels
is still incredibly weak and should never be taken, 5% speed and the small radius/duration increase just are not worth the point in almost any scenario currently. This could be changed to a different mobility spell entirely like
Phasenbestie
or more recently
Seelengestalt
.
Likewise
Ursocs Ausdauer
is completely negligible realistically, most of the time we have a ton of rage and the 2 seconds of
Baumrinde
/
Eisenfell
just aren't appealing enough. More ≠ better with a lot of these similar talents that give more
Eisenfell
, 1-2 stacks is more than enough for most content.
Verbesserte Überlebensinstinkte
would be really nice to be baseline again and the talent could be changed to some sort of cooldown reduction for SI.
Infizierte Wunden
with the addition of
Plätten
has become slightly more useful but having to spend a talent point on this feels bad in general and this is something that could easily just be baseline.
Similarly with improved
Zerfleischen
and
Angeborene Entschlossenheit
. These were already baseline perks for us that got removed and made into talents, none of these deserve to be talents.
Dornenranken
is a rather mediocre talent, not really adding any depth to play but often just picked because it adds a small amount of damage which is better than nothing.
Gesträubtes Fell
definitely needs to be off the GCD again.
Mid Section
This also could use another talent or two in here, the 20 point gateway feels like you are always taking multiple weak talents you don't even want just to get to the next section, which isn't a good feeling.
Traum des Cenarius
/
Blutraserei
/
Eiserne Dornen
/
Pulverisieren
/
Ursocs Zorn
/
Kreislauf aus Leben und Tod
/
Elunes Günstling
any of these would be incredibly nice to have easier access to.
Recent buffs to
Verstärktes Fell
and
Verflochtene Mähne
have made them ever so slightly better but still not good enough to pick up in any build outside of a
Eiserne Dornen
meme build. Again, more
Eisenfell
does not equal better. Having RNG resets on
Rasende Regeneration
is often useless and the armor/damage reduction gained from these talents is so insignificant you would not even know if you have them talented or not if you didn't look, even after the buffs.
Wächter von Elune
needs a rework completely, it is an extremely outdated talent that hasn't been used since we had our old active mitigation spell (Savage Defense). Competing on a choice node with
Nach dem Lauffeuer
makes it even worse.
Merging some of these weak
Eisenfell
talents such as
Verstärktes Fell
,
Verflochtene Mähne
,
Wächter von Elune
,
Ursocs Ausdauer
and
Eiserne Dornen
could be a simple solution, as on their own they are weak but together they would have much more value.
Bottom Section & Capstones
So this
is where all the good talents went. There is definitely too many good options here and with only 10 points to spend in this section we are extremely limited, especially with current pathing.
Galaktischer Wächter
being gated behind 2 point
Funkelndes Mondlicht
and positioned so far right in the tree when it is absolutely integral for rage generation and damage makes it very difficult to grab anything on the left side of the tree without sacrificing massively. Swapping the positions of
Funkelndes Mondlicht
and
Zwillingsmondfeuer
, making
Funkelndes Mondlicht
an opt in choice node for more damage reduction would be a great start at increasing flexibility within the tree.
Traum des Cenarius
is a fantastic talent, just not the current version we have. The
20 second ICD (Internal Cooldown)
combined with the chance to proc based off your
Crit chance
on only
non periodic
damage makes it too rare for what it does. I think one of either the crit, non periodic or ICD need to be changed. Also a great QoL to that would be being able to stack up to 2 so you don't feel forced to use the first charge on potentially nothing.
Konvokation der Geister
just isn't good for bear. Most of the power came from Niya mastery which no longer exists. It's value was largely raid healing/burst CD while not actively tanking but current version doesn't do anywhere near enough damage/healing to justify being called a cooldown.
This is in part due to the massive aura buff (
Wächterdruide
) that Guardian has in Dragonflight where none of the spells outside of bear form are affected. This in turn has completely killed off the playstyle of Weaving, which involved swapping into either
Katzengestalt
or
Mondkingestalt
to deal more damage than you normally would in bear. This was a playstyle that many people, myself included, enjoyed thoroughly. Being able to do damage in bear is absolutely a plus in Dragonflight but I believe weaving should have it's place and benefits.
Plätten
is a cool new talent but I don't think it should be a loss on single target. The cost of spending a very late and valuable talent point should be enough to make it at least net neutral single target, ideally even an increase. Potentially adding some sqrt type change, this would make it much more viable in raids. Another potential suggestion would be making it a choice node with
Zermalmen
as it replaces it.
Mondstrahl
has the potential to become some real CC utility if the damage is to remain lacking. If it added the
Sonnenstrahl
effect while mobs were inside, similar to DH
Zeichen der Stille
. Currently the damage it deals is extremely under-tuned, especially for a capstone, it does roughly the same damage as a single unbuffed
Zermalmen
on a 1 minute cooldown.
Eiserne Dornen
is an absolutely cursed talent. It is currently in the highest single target damage Guardian build and you purely generate rage and spam
Eisenfell
as much as possible for damage. So much so that people are having to bind
Eisenfell
to mouse wheel up and down to save their poor hands. The concept of this talent is one that I think is good (adding a damage aspect to
Eisenfell
) but the implementation is horrible. Lower the damage of this, remove the split but add sqrt on 5 or so targets, making it a bit better on AoE and far less on single target. Or just delete it. Spamming
Eisenfell
for the highest damage possible is just bad gameplay.
Wishlist
Some additional changes I am hopeful for in the future.
Weaving
- This was a fun playstyle that was at it's peak in Shadowlands but Guardian has a long history of Catweaving for higher damage and Dragonflight has ignored an extremely thematic aspect of Druid. This could easily become a fun and unique niche if reworked well.
Auto Swipe
-
Zermalmen
/
Zerfleischen
feel like they are in a great place and both feel good to press,
Prankenhieb
is the opposite. We try to avoid that ability like the plague currently and press it as infrequently as possible. I think having a talent similar to
Verwüster
where
Prankenhieb
becomes a passive that procs from auto attacks or something similar would be an awesome addition and solve that problem.
Mondfeuer
supplements fantastically as a rotational filler spell so that we never have empty gcds.
Berserks
- I've always been a critic of
Berserker
being split into 3 points and with the change to
Berserker: Unkontrollierte Aggression
it has only become worse. I really think these need to be merged at some point or at the very least not gate off so much of the tree.
Berserker: Beharrlichkeit
being the worst offender by far as not only is it generally the weakest of the 3, it also gates off
Galaktischer Wächter
, even though they have no relation at all to each other.
The NoCarn playstyle (Skipping as many Berserk talents as possible and moving that power elsewhere in the tree) is rising in popularity as
Inkarnation: Wächter von Ursoc
gets consistently worse.
Inkarnation: Wächter von Ursoc
being central in the tree instead of
Galaktischer Wächter
/
Zwillingsmondfeuer
when the the pathing down the center is all DoT/Arcane damage based doesn't really make sense. The massive divide between the Physical (Left) and Arcane (Right) side of our tree causes massive inflexibility because trying to take something on the opposing side like Pulverize for example means you have to completely change your entire build for a small niche talent. Pathing improvements here would go a long way.
Meisterschaft: Wächter der Natur
Change
- Our mastery just doesn't really do anything. It has received countless nerfs in the past and is now a shell of it's former self. It isn't impactful, you won't notice the difference between 5000 mastery and 0. Easy solution would be to buff how much health it gives us again, the fun solution would be to revamp it into something more interesting.
Rasende Regeneration
off GCD
- This has to be one of the most requested changes I've consistently heard echoed throughout the bear community.
Rasende Regeneration
is such a mediocre self heal, being on the GCD is far too punishing for no reason.
Conclusion
Bear with me a little longer, Guardian is actually starting to get there, we must stay pawsitive!
The bug fixes to
Plätten
and
Mit Klauen und Zähnen
have greatly improved our viability in all content. Our damage output is fantastic, it might even be the highest of all the tanks overall if you look at statistics. But we
still
struggle to survive in the hardest of content, we
still
don't bring enough to our groups and the spec
still
needs more work.
The rate at which we've been receiving positive changes has been fantastic and if we see a few more of those in the near future, Guardian can be a top tank once again in Dragonflight. We are already the coolest and most fun tank, we just need some minor improvements to become more comfortably competitive.
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