State of Guardian Druid in Dragonflight 10.0.5 - Feedback, Issues, and Wishlist

Live Posted 2023/02/15 at 12:12 PM by Pumps

PumpsHonestlyDreamgrove discordMythic Dungeon InternationalTwitchThoughts on Guardian Druid in Dragonflight 10.0.5Tooth and ClawAfter the WildfireRaze6 whole years agoThe Bear Necessities

Magic damage taken

Initial damage taken on pulls

A unique niche/value in raid

Too many weak talents in both trees

IronfurLunar Beam1. Magic Damage TakenSpell ReflectionIronfuractive2. Initial Damage TakenIronfurMoonfireArchitect's DesignThe Natural Order's WillExploding KegWild Charge3. Unique Niche Rallying CryenoughStampeding RoarIronfurShield Block8-10IronfurAfter the WildfiremoresomethingGorefiend's GraspBlessing of SpellwardingDemonic GatewayRallying Cryactively4. Weak Talent Points

Renewal vs Impending Victory - 25s CD that resets on kill vs 1.5min cd.

Skull Bash vs Baseline Interrupt.

Moonkin Form? vs Spell Reflection - There is nothing remotely close in our tree to how strong spell reflect currently is. But we can turn into a chicken.

Stampeding Roar vs Rallying Cry - 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.

Mighty Bash vs Storm Bolt - A single target CC, which we are severely lacking for m+ as Mighty Bash shares a choice node with our only AoE CC (Incapacitating Roar). The return of Bear Hug (A single target stun with a damage effect) or an AoE stun would be great CC utility.

Heart of the Wild vs Avatar - A cooldown better than capstones in our spec tree. Avatar is 20% damage on a 1.5min CD whilst Heart of the Wild is 30% Moonfire and auto attack damage only on a 5 minute cooldown. The disparity in strength is absurd.

Sunfire vs Thunderous Roar - 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.

Lycara's Teachings vs One-Handed Weapon Specialization - 5% Damage and leech for a single point vs one of the only 3 point talents left in the game.

? vs Seismic Reverberation - 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 Improved Rejuvenation, Tireless Pursuit, Primal Fury and Cyclone.

7 timesvastly Improved RejuvenationIronfurPrimal FuryDescending the Spec Tree

Dream of Cenarius/Blood Frenzy/Thorns of Iron/Soul of the Forest 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.

Front of the Pack 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 Displacer Beast or more recently Soulshape.

Likewise Ursoc's Endurance is completely negligible realistically, most of the time we have a ton of rage and the 2 seconds of Barkskin/Ironfur just aren't appealing enough. More ≠ better with a lot of these similar talents that give more Ironfur, 1-2 stacks is more than enough for most content.

Improved Survival Instincts would be really nice to be baseline again and the talent could be changed to some sort of cooldown reduction for SI.

Infected Wounds with the addition of Raze 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 Mangle and Innate Resolve. These were already baseline perks for us that got removed and made into talents, none of these deserve to be talents.

Brambles 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.

Bristling Fur definitely needs to be off the GCD again.

Dream of Cenarius/Blood Frenzy/Thorns of Iron/Pulverize/Ursoc's Fury/Circle of Life and Death/Elune's Favored any of these would be incredibly nice to have easier access to.

Recent buffs to Reinforced Fur and Layered Mane have made them ever so slightly better but still not good enough to pick up in any build outside of a Thorns of Iron meme build. Again, more Ironfur does not equal better. Having RNG resets on Frenzied 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.

Guardian of 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 After the Wildfire makes it even worse.

Merging some of these weak Ironfur talents such as Reinforced Fur, Layered Mane, Guardian of Elune, Ursoc's Endurance and Thorns of Iron could be a simple solution, as on their own they are weak but together they would have much more value.

So this

Galactic Guardian being gated behind 2 point Scintillating Moonlight 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 Scintillating Moonlight and Twin Moonfire, making Scintillating Moonlight an opt in choice node for more damage reduction would be a great start at increasing flexibility within the tree.

Dream of 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.

Convoke the Spirits 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 (Guardian Druid) 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 Cat Form or Moonkin Form 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.

Raze 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 Maul as it replaces it.

Lunar Beam has the potential to become some real CC utility if the damage is to remain lacking. If it added the Solar Beam effect while mobs were inside, similar to DH Sigil of Silence. Currently the damage it deals is extremely under-tuned, especially for a capstone, it does roughly the same damage as a single unbuffed Maul on a 1 minute cooldown.

Thorns of Iron is an absolutely cursed talent. It is currently in the highest single target damage Guardian build and you purely generate rage and spam Ironfur as much as possible for damage. So much so that people are having to bind Ironfur 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 Ironfur) 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 Ironfur for the highest damage possible is just bad gameplay.

Wishlist

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 - Maul/Mangle feel like they are in a great place and both feel good to press, Swipe 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 Devastator where Swipe becomes a passive that procs from auto attacks or something similar would be an awesome addition and solve that problem. Moonfire supplements fantastically as a rotational filler spell so that we never have empty gcds.

Berserks - I've always been a critic of Berserk being split into 3 points and with the change to Berserk: Unchecked 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. Berserk: Persistence being the worst offender by far as not only is it generally the weakest of the 3, it also gates off Galactic Guardian, 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 Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc gets consistently worse.
Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc being central in the tree instead of Galactic Guardian/Twin Moonfire 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.

Mastery: Nature's Guardian 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.

Frenzied Regeneration off GCD - This has to be one of the most requested changes I've consistently heard echoed throughout the bear community. Frenzied Regeneration is such a mediocre self heal, being on the GCD is far too punishing for no reason.

ConclusionRazeTooth and Clawstillstillstill

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Comment by SwertoI would also state that the shared tree needs some shifting around not just for guardian, but druids in general.

I would like to see skullbash autoshift to bear/cat form based on spec (bear for guardian, cat for the others) and be moved to where wild charge is currently, with wild charge being moved one row up and getting connections to the two talents above it.Comment by onefishbluefishBring back Ursoc.

Merc the heifer.Comment by FundetectedIncredible write-up with lots of excellent feedback! I'd love to see some more changes to help our furry bear buddies continue to rise, after all who doesn't like seeing a strong stoic bear out in the wild!Comment by shadelineheartWahhhhhhh. We aren't as good as SL where druids were unkillable and could kill in .5 seconds on a GCD. Wahhhhhh.
No, druids dont get to complain.Comment by AnaideNo, no, pls no weaving, never ever. Bury it and let it rot and be forgotten. The most valuable recipe of lasting success of any spec is having a strong and simple core gameplay + basic tools + valuable niche. Deviate from it and the very next major game rework will drop you in the abyss.Comment by AwooThanks for writing this. I love my bear tank but it is absolutely in a sorry place right now. The comparison of talent section of this made me laugh when you took heart of the wild and put it next to Avatar. Yikes.

As much as I love my bear, the truth is it’s only fun to play until about 21 key level. Anything past that and I feel like I’m trolling the group. My pally tank at 20 ilvl lower is more sustainable, has more utility, and I feel wayyy more comfy going into a higher key at 400 ilvl on pally tank than I do on my nearly maxed out 418 bear with mythic incarnate, mythic decoration of flame, etc etc. It is sad, bear needs help.Comment by Jinokunbased.Comment by Dtrain592Wahhhhhhh. We aren't as good as SL where druids were unkillable and could kill in .5 seconds on a GCD. Wahhhhhh.
No, druids dont get to complain.Comment by dokeefe1986Great write up and I agree. Another thing they could do is bring back the big hp scaling that we had back in tbc and wotlk. That would provide some buffer for healers to bring us back up on big trash packs. Also frenzied regen heals for a ton. But it's mostly overhealing unless you're group is all dead, or you are rubber banding hp. A large hp increase would help with this interaction as well imo. Let frenzied regen actually effectively heal instead of just being an oh crap my healer or group is dead button. Also take it off the gcd, for sure.Comment by SakaraFinally one of the big bears can say it! Blizzard needs to change something, it's more than frustrating. I've been playing Bear since Legion and have always been true to the class, but Dragonflight is more than difficult to play high keys. The talent tree is really a joke, even Blizzard's rework brought next to nothing! Except that the talents that were newly brought in had to be fixed or buffed! I was already thinking about rerolling on Krieger, but I don't want to simply give up the advance I have with the bear... At the moment it's more frustration than pleasure! I don't even want to log in anymore, honestly nowComment by AgentkillerleeWahhhhhhh. We aren't as good as SL where druids were unkillable and could kill in .5 seconds on a GCD. Wahhhhhh.
No, druids dont get to complain.Comment by EversionWahhhhhhh. We aren't as good as SL where druids were unkillable and could kill in .5 seconds on a GCD. Wahhhhhh.
No, druids dont get to complain.Comment by PeacemoonGuardian Druids have had so many cool things added and then taken away.

I agree with the article that our mastery should be more powerful. Bears we’re always about BIG HP, and BIG +HEALING. Why does our mastery only increase our hp by 5-10% now adays?

The Druid Tree is completely lacklustre because the majority of the tree is just choosing your off spec affinity, with very little that can be useful to your main spec.
As a guardian Druid most of the talents can’t be used if you are in bear form. Why? Why do I have to pick up cat abilities or moonkin abilities in order to get to something useful? It’s crazy. Most of those skills should just be baseline, or simply bring back a multiple choice affinity mode that lets you select a set of off skills like you did before.

The whole Druid shapeshifter mechanic needs a rethink imo. Especially for Guardian.

On the guardian tree, all the good talents are stacked heavily at the bottom. Galactic Guardian, Rage of the Sleeper, Incarnation, Convoke, Raze, Ursoc’s Fury. Even Pulverizd and Blood Frenzy (this used to be a lvl 15 talent.. all it does is give you more rage in AoE!)

I love my Guardian Druid, but it is a shame that my guild would be better off if I was anything else.Comment by XimuWahhhhhhh. We aren't as good as SL where druids were unkillable and could kill in .5 seconds on a GCD. Wahhhhhh.
No, druids dont get to complain.Comment by Flam3crashImagine if Mark of Ursol get back ... but noo too stronk :D
Also if you want to buff ironfur and promote that spamy gameplay maybe give additional damage reduction per ironfur stack .Comment by gjoeyjoePlease. My spec. She's very sick.Comment by MazerRackhemAgree with almost everything said. My recommendation for an "easy quick fix" while larger changes are thought out/tested is:

Combine bottom two beserk nodes into the top node at 50% effectiveness. Incarnation now also doubles the effectiveness of all beserk effects.

Galactic Guardian and Ursocs Fury move up to replace the removed beserk nodes in the tree.

Mastery's effect buffed by 75-125% depending on balancing. (Sounds like a lot until you realize my 408 ilvl bear gets just 7% extra HP from mastery)

These changes wouldn't turn bears into gods or even dislodge Warriors from the top of the tree, but I think it would put bear in soild contention with DH, Monk, and Prot Pally, which would be a nice place to sit until everything else gets figured out.

My biggest fear is that the Dev team is now taking the view "we already gave bears their huge rework. Yeah it didn't work out and arguably made them universally weaker, but after 6 years at the bottom the community is dying out anyway. We've got to spend all our time on Ret Pally now, and by extension Prot and Holy since we're changing the class tree. We can get back to bears in 10.2 if there are any left."

What I propose is a very easy, very simple fix that wouldn't take a lot of time to sim and test. I'd be much happier with that fix today than hope of a real rework that really fixes the problems at some infinitely future date that the current PTR shows no signs of ever arriving.Comment by PulpymGreat post man, its good to see that there are people out there caring about the spec, taking the time to compare analyze n stuff.
An idea that came to my head when u said that we need Raid utility and the HP pool suggestion is maybe they can take that PvP talent (Den Mother i think it is), and let it affects us too, having 15% higher HP on melee group should be a nice addition to some raid compositions and/or boss encounters.

They SHOULD buff the $%^& out of our HP pool, it would solve a lot of problems and give us back the identity of being the biggest sponge tank. Right now we dont have an identity like Warrior (Inmune to damage), DK (Unkillable if played correctly), Paladin (Lord of Utility), Monk (Historical best raid tank), DH (Historical M+ Tank). I know Druids have the identity to be "Versatile" but half of the specs are versatile rn and they have their strongest point.

Having 15% HP on melees + After the Wildfire could give us some kind of protector of melee title or some !@#$ like that. If not, make us the highest dps tank without the risk of being fked by the average tankbuster. We may not have utility but at least give us consistency, give us something to differentiate us from the other tanks.

Personal Wishlist in order of importance:
1.HP/Mastery Buff
2. FRegen out of GCD
3. Fuse Berserk Persistance with Base Berserk
4. Weaving (Should be a minor dps increase so that people aren't "forced" to play that way, keep bear dmg as it is rn, but let us gain something if we decide to put some rake n rips)
5. HP/Mastery Buff, $%^& its really a good and simple solution hotfix it rn.Comment by Swalshy4Give me symbiosis please. And a huge hp pool. And no global for thrash during incarnComment by Robbiex0xNah keep bears like they are. You might not recall how brokenly OP your class was. But I'm sure you might recall how Honestly got Blueprynt is CE on KJ, you seem to have had to 3 tank the fight for him. remember how strong mark of Ursol was on Krosus, do you recall Sco swapping from his BrM for mobility in ToV to his Bear for Guarm because bear could solo tank that fight to his pala on Helya for offhealing. What about CoEN where bear was the only tank with enough HP to survive Thrashbite the Scornful. Lets not talk about the mage tower were bears would skull bash out of stealth at the start of the fight and remove the void zone. Lets not recall the fact that the prot pally mage tower had more than twice the hp of the bear magetower but you yourself kept up with Blueprynts ST dps on Mythic Krosus. How many bears got their skin before the main tank from FatSharkYes got the prot paladin Magetower skin.

Bears in Legion were the most oppressive tank meta, and you were nerfed going into the launch of the game, they should keep the state of guardian druid the way it is, not to mention the other 3 specs perform perfectly fine. very common to see both Feral and Boomkin in the high M+ scene and rdruid is the 2nd best healer, and is only really out-shined be prevoker on Rasz. plus they bring the same utility.

what other class has multiple competitive specs currently I'm sure there are a few classes without as many options given to druid players.

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