[Archived] Guardian Druid 5.4

[Tarazet 144]

Let me repeat to see if I understand - don't use fairie swarm. For more than 1 mob - use thrash, swipe, mangle, swipe, then thrash, swipe, mangle, swipe, etc.  just punch buttons and dont worry about magle procs.   Hopefully that is what you said. 

 

Now, what is GCD-locked? Whats GCD?  thanks.  Does GCD stand for global cool down?

 

I noticed I am missing a lot of alchemy recipes and I am going back into the old dungeons to get them starting tonight - but it will be a good place to practice this rotation, I think. 

 

I really do appreciate the help.

 

Serendypity (aka Wee Willy, aka Roo the Hunter, aka a bunch of alts)

[Guest WeeWilly]

Yes, GCD stands for "global cooldown." By GCD locked I mean that you will always have an attack ready and "off cooldown," as long as you follow the correct priority list.

 

Let me amend what I said. You can use the Mangle! proc at any time and then do another Swipe after. If Thrash is still on cooldown at that point then you can weave in Faerie Fire. In any case, FF is something you will definitely use on a single target.

 

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Thanks T, I will do this tonight!   Last night, I flew around looking for herbs.  Man, I have so many herbs, I have to start selling them,  and had forgotten to go to old dungeons for alchemy recipes.  Tonight I will try this out in the lvl 90 zone of mists. 

 

-thanks again.

 

UPDATE - Aug 05.  Thank you Tarazet!  Worked like a champ.  Never had I so much fun in wacking Hozen as I did this week-end.  :D 

 

Made Best buds with all the tillers, exhausted (yeah, I know it is exalted) with 3 other factions to boot.  Decided to start doing the old world dungeons and soon Cata to get recipes for alchemy. So thank you again! 

 

Edited August 5, 2013 by WeeWilly

[Guest Yavanna]

Can I suggest adding Glyph of Maul to the possible choices for major glyph. It will increase dps and aggro a little bit when the other glyphs such as Survival instincts and might of ursoc arent necessary for specific boss mechanics.

[Tarazet 144]

Can I suggest adding Glyph of Maul to the possible choices for major glyph. It will increase dps and aggro a little bit when the other glyphs such as Survival instincts and might of ursoc arent necessary for specific boss mechanics.

 

Glyph of Maul does add a (very) small amount of DPS, when you can hit 2 targets. Generally, Maul does so little damage that it's only useful as a Rage dump when neither of the 2 better options are needed, and even with the glyph, that doesn't really change.

[Guest Furgalicious]

I think its noteworthy to amend mining to this. Unlike "Mixology" it is a constant +480 stamina buff without the use of a flask. Allowing for you to flask agility or something else if you want DPS/Dodge buff if you flask agility.

[Arielle 3]

I think its noteworthy to amend mining to this. Unlike "Mixology" it is a constant +480 stamina buff without the use of a flask. Allowing for you to flask agility or something else if you want DPS/Dodge buff if you flask agility.

Eh, not really.  Mining is pretty terrible compared to the other professions, and if you really wanted to the extra Stamina you'd use a trinket, swap some gems around, or take HotW.  It's not really a good reason to "take" mining.

 

Obviously swapping professions is a huge pain, and it doesn't *really* matter what you use.  But no, Mining is not even close to min/maxing.

[Guest Matthew]

So, a question about tier 2 talent : a few pages back (noted those were written a year ago) in this thread I read many arguments how Cenarion Ward is *bad*, and it takes up a GCD and HoT is not good in emergency situations and renewal was the way to go.. but it seems to have changed - now Cenarion Ward is the recommended option here with the highest healing throughput.

Has this changed because of better gear ? Is it considered better to keep HP slowly topped as much as possible rather than to have a bigger self-accessible emergency insta-heal ? But HoTs and keeping tank topped - isn't that what healers are for ?

Its not like emergency situations no longer happen, and how about that point about losing a GCD..

I see good value with both for different situations - but mostly I fear the emergency when health goes down so fast that healer has no time to react or just cant keep up with the dmg - I would think Renewal can save my life more often.

Since when do we as tanks have to worry about our healing throughput ?
 

[Arielle 3]

The point about healing throughput is that it will give you the most healing overall, and a pretty decent amount of healing each time you use it.

 

Nowadays Rage is so plentiful that in almost every situation you have enough Rage for a huge Frenzied Regeneration if you need it.  That plus Renewal's 2 minute CD for less healing than your average FR makes it very superfluous.  It's an extra button that you really won't use much if at all.

 

Ysera's will give you less healing overall but it's completely passive and you'll never need to worry about using it effectively.

 

So in a roundabout way of answering your question, basically the amount of Rage generation we have at this point drastically diminishes the value of Renewal, whereas you can always use CW on someone else.

 

Otherwise take Ysera's if you don't want to micromanage that much.

[Guest Ursnarök]

After you enter heroic level gear, is haste the dominant secondary stat to farm via gems?  I ask this because I have seen a few people running around with haste gems and I myself have started gemming agility/agil-crit gems after reaching 80% crit unbuffed.  If haste is more beneficial to gem then I will more than likely change up my gems.

[Krazyito 521]

If you are at absurdly high amount of crit, the next likely stay to go for, for rage generation at least, is haste.

If you have enough or too much rage generation, you can get mastery for physical damage reductions

[Arielle 3]

After you enter heroic level gear, is haste the dominant secondary stat to farm via gems?  I ask this because I have seen a few people running around with haste gems and I myself have started gemming agility/agil-crit gems after reaching 80% crit unbuffed.  If haste is more beneficial to gem then I will more than likely change up my gems.

For pure RPS Haste is the best stat after reaching 79% Crit.  Gemming Agility is largely a waste of time - especially at that point - unless you're sharing gear with a Feral spec.

[Guest Druitt]

Thanks for a great guide!

 

Guardians are really good for solo questing. They do decent damage for a tank thanks to Thrash and Mangle, and can heal themselves through pretty much anything. They just lack good emergency buttons.

I've historically been very caster-oriented and have run Balance/Resto forever, but I finally got fed up with how poorly my Moonkin leveled and how squishy he felt (especially as compared to my Warlock) and switched to Bear at level 85. Rays of light shined down from the clouds, angels sang, it's glorious. As you say, the damage is decent, and I feel fairly efficient when I run around and gather up a bunch of mobs. I wish I'd switched sooner.

 

I'm at level 89 now and have read through your guide a couple of times, and it's super-helpful!

[Guest WeeWilly]

@guest Druitt

 

if I can add my 2 cents - yup the guide and the posters here helped me out tremendously. 

 

Glad you found the place! 

 

When I think I am going to die, I remember a couple of buttons and all of a sudden I am back at full health, whacking away at the bad guys. 

 

-weewilly "jack of all trades, master of none".

Edited January 7, 2014 by WeeWilly

[Guest Entenei]

If you're poor and have to share armour set with Feral... Do you think stacking mastery would still be viable strat for both guardian and feral?

[Krazyito 521]

If you're poor and have to share armour set with Feral... Do you think stacking mastery would still be viable strat for both guardian and feral?

 

I would say mastery is only a "viable" stat for tanking when it involves ALOT of physical damage.  If you're like off tanking or the 3rd tank in some cases, you can probably get away with it.  but in general mastery is not useful as a guardian.

[Guest Aggró]

Hey,

 

I was reading the guide and I found an inconsistency.

 

In the stats section you recommend crit+ haste. In the best in slot section you tell us to reforge your worst stat to dodge.

 

I suspect this is outdated information that slipped through the mazes.

 

Cheers

[Guest Wumper]

I think the class guide is a little out of date.  I've got 2 bears, currently in early heroic and I have 46 WoL rankings (including heroic ranks) for this expansion so far.

There are two main periods in a fight that you need to really be aware of.  The opening rotation (agil pot, incarnation incarnation and then mangle with FFF and Thrash debuff maintenance) and the on going priority list (mangle>lasc>FFF>thrash) with spare rage dumped into maul.  For most fights the dodgeable damage from bosses is low (sub 40%) and SD uptime becomes a lower priority (focusing on key periods rather than continual).  Saving your second agil pot for another incarnation is good practice unless there is a burn that is not predictable like the mark of arogance on protectors.

There is a little debate at the moment of stam>hit(7.5)>crit>exp(15)>haste verses stam>hit(7.5)>exp(15)>crit>haste but most people won't notice the difference.  Once you're at around 540 ilevel you can soft crit cap (79%) and you should consider it.  Basically it means that every non-glancing white attack will crit.  Every time you crit a white attack you get rage.  If you've been unlucky in drops then you may not have enough crit to be able to do it and keep socket bonuses (and need to default to straight crit gems).  Above soft crit cap haste value improves, but it is debatable as to whether it is greater than crit from that point onwards.

For the current tier I switch in the tier hat with a stam/damage reduction meta and another set piece to get the 4 piece bonus.  I do not do this on most fights.  I only have had to adjust my gear so far for heroic protectors and that is simply because the spike damage is rough on the healers. I've used my second bear to go to pug raids to see what other people are doing, I've yet to see an advantage in using the damage reduction meta for normal content.  Changing my SD uptime is the biggest adjustment I can make.

Defensive cooldown usage is key, barkskin gets used every 30 seconds (unless you're trying to line it up on a boss special) and the other defensives get used as needed.  Might of Ursoc can also be considered an offensive cooldown as it allows for a larger vengence stack.

[Arielle 3]

Hey,

 

I was reading the guide and I found an inconsistency.

 

In the stats section you recommend crit+ haste. In the best in slot section you tell us to reforge your worst stat to dodge.

 

I suspect this is outdated information that slipped through the mazes.

 

Cheers

I'll ask Vlad to fix it.  Thanks for catching that.

 

 

 

 For most fights the dodgeable damage from bosses is low (sub 40%) and SD uptime becomes a lower priority

Yeah, no.  This is 100% incorrect.

 

 

 

There is a little debate at the moment of stam>hit(7.5)>crit>exp(15)>haste verses stam>hit(7.5)>exp(15)>crit>haste

No there isn't.  Not being Hit/Exp capped 100% a bad idea.

 

 

 

Might of Ursoc can also be considered an offensive cooldown as it allows for a larger vengence stack.

No it doesn't.

[Guest Mauls]

This thread is for comments about our Guardian Druid guide.

There a reason that Skinning is not listed as a profession?

[Krazyito 521]

There a reason that Skinning is not listed as a profession?

 

Because gathering professions are not useful for raiding when crafting ones will always give you more stats.

[Guest Ganin]

How do you not even mention Glyph of Barkskin?

http://www.wowhead.com/item=45623

Probably the most useful glyph a Guardian Druid could have.

[Krazyito 521]

How do you not even mention Glyph of Barkskin?

http://www.wowhead.com/item=45623

Probably the most useful glyph a Guardian Druid could have.

For PVE this glyph is useless. You don't need the crit reduction because you are already crit immune because you're a tank.

[Guest Sparrow]

I've only got one real thing to add here; I've noticed it becoming a problem with some newer players using DoC and are casting healing touch and sometimes hitting it and losing bear form for an accidental cast of healing touch - often leading to their death.. I notice there are no macros in the bear specific section, so I'd like to suggest one that prevents Healing Touch being cast in bear form without DoC procced - 
 
#showtooltip Healing Touch
/run if InCombatLockdown() then SetCVar("autounshift",0) end
/cast [target=mouseover,help] Healing Touch; Healing Touch
/console autounshift 1

[Guest Nightness]

You missed some useful glyphs...

 

* Barkskin - Big omission imho. Reduces your critical strike damage.

* Frenzied Regeneration - If you raid with good healers, why not?

* Maul - Increased aggro'in of mobs

* Cat Form - If you need to move somewhere quick, a Dash is more viable.

 

[Krazyito 521]

Barkskin glyph is not useful in pve. That is a pvp glyph. In a raid setting you are already immune to crits as a bear. This was also already mentioned on this same page. 

 

Frienzed regen glyph takes all the control away of being a guardian. If you have a slightly SD heavy fight, I can maybe see it, but otherwise you relinquish yourself to the hands of other people. 

 

Maul glyph is really only for DPS gain. You can easily get agro with trash and swipe. 

 

Cat form glyph is for increased healing while in cat form. I assume you mean dash. If that's the case, sure but what are going to give up? If you're using dash so many times that you want this glyph, it really doesn't matter what you do because you're obviously not tanking for the majority of the fight. 

 

More useful glyphs than dash

• Rebirth -  I find this more useful than running somewhere more often. 
• Survival instincts - when you can time the cooldown in small Windows, this is great. 
• Might of ursoc - great for long cooldown giant soaking. 
• 40yd Stampede - makes sure you hit everyone in the raid when spread. 
• Fae silence -  this hinders your mangle procs, but sometimes you're the only one you can trust to get the interrupts. 

I honestly wonder how you come about suggesting dash for tanks. Have you actually tanked anything this tier? You don't need that much movement. You're for the most part moving between a couple near by points.

 

There is no fight in this instance where you need to dash somewhere, then taunt the boss where you went. And then have to do it again 2min later. 

 

The last fight I can remember even being close to that, was heroic Ragnaros last expansion.