5.2 Guardian Druid

DubbsBegins

Legend
Rip now deals 15% more damage.
Rejuvenation now costs approximately 9% less mana.

  • Guardian
    • Thick Hide now reduces critical strike chance from all types of attacks made against the Guardian Druid, instead of just mel
Guardian is very very good now. Screw feral, bear hug = win.
 
no i like being different stop
 
Dubbs I remember when you tried to promote some garbage druid spec pre-mop. I doubt you know what you are talking about. Resto is better than Guardian for FCing.
that was when hpals hit holyshock for 1.3k if i remember correctly.
if you go to that video (or TI thread) youll see that I said the spec is not necessary anymore.
And any healing class is probably better than guardian FCing. I dont FC with guardian you see
I act like a simpler version of feral druid with a stun but with just a little bit decreased DPS.
 
that was when hpals hit holyshock for 1.3k if i remember correctly.
if you go to that video (or TI thread) youll see that I said the spec is not necessary anymore.
And any healing class is probably better than guardian FCing. I dont FC with guardian you see
I act like a simpler version of feral druid with a stun but with just a little bit decreased DPS.

Alot decreased dps you mean.
 
Its not "some garbage druid spec". If you ask why? Well I got now 2.4k hp, almost 50% resilience, almost 60% damage reduction from armor, -12% physical damage, -25% magical damage and -6% crit chance on you (and that good now, coz now all have low crit). I can safely say Guardian is one of toughest flag holders on this level, but you need healer by your side (But thats only when they focus fire you or you got stacks. Just runing past 1-3 players can be easily done with your self healing). But still using it as dps instead of feral is not that good, almost same as playing resto with feral gear (I know it works, but you can do same but better in other spec). Is Resto better than Guardian for FCing? It maybe be right only when you don't have any support from your team. Every spec has its purpose. If you go in BG solo and don't have teammates on witch you can depend on , you better play resto as healer/FC or feral/boomkin as dps. I myself have more fun playing FC as Guardian, even in pugs.
 
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Hopefully I can clear up any confusion between Gdruid FCing and Rdruid FCing.

TL;DR - Guardian Druid FCing will always be best if you have a dedicated healer with you at all times. Otherwise, Resto Druid FCing is the way to go.

Guardian Druids:

Out of all the FCs there are...Guardian Druids have the highest armor, 2nd highest passive stamina increase(pal being 1st), 2nd best passive dmg reduction(war/monk being 1st/tied), the best mobility(tied with monks depending on their talent), and the hardest to kill at 4+ Stacks(due to Wild Charge). You only gain these defensive increases while in bear form. Even though you are the fastest, you are most vulnerable if you are outside of Bear Form.

Guardian Druid FCs should always use Wild Charge. If you ever have a teammate at a different level of area than you(IE: your in Flag room and they are on roof) then you can wild charge up to them every 15 seconds from your flag room to roof. Wild Charge is easily the most overpowered FCing ability if used correctly.

However the idea to Guardian Druid FCing is only viable(in my personal opinion) if you have a dedicated healer with you at all times.
Guardian Druid's Rejuvenation isn't bad at all(especially if you have intellect gear on) however, it is not a spammable ability. Also, every time you use Rejuvenation; you no longer have your defensive stats. It would not be difficult at all to pressure a Guardian Druid FC into making them Heal themselves(if they were by themselves) and hit them with their hardest ability right when they try to rejuv.

That being said, a guardian druid FC should only use rejuv if you are not being focused and only to be used defensively for others > yourself. But while in Bear form, you are quite difficult to kill especially if you are geared correctly. I would never try Guardian Druid FCing unless I knew I had a dedicated healer with me.

A simple example would be:

The other team is trying to kill your healer, but no one is targeting you. Feel free to through a Rejuv for your healer.




Resto Druids:


Resto Druid FCing is definitely viable. You are basically the ultimate toolbox and you can pull anything out of your pocket.

1. Your heals are very strong, you can easily keep yourself alive against a few people combined with your mobility and bis gear. If your team is ever lacking heals, you can offheal while still fcing.
2. If you have a hybrid set(fang gear), you can easily keep your healing stats up but also have the damage output of an average twink. At the cost of your defensive stats of course. But this allows to you 1vs1 anyone if you're by yourself
3. Even though you are a healer, bear form lets you act as a tank. Even though you do not have the defensive abilities of a guardian druid(passive abilities), you can still put a Rej up and sit in bear form. This easily lets you tank quite a bit of damage.
4. The idea of Resto Druid FCing is to basically let your entire team go on offensive and you take care of yourself. For pugging, this is great! If no one has to worry about you needing heals or dps, then everyone can go on the EFC(assuming all 9 of your teammates are playing objective in the pug). This is why Pugging as a Resto Druid FC is really nice; you basically carry your entire team.
5. Since the idea of Resto Druid FCing is to always 'be by yourself' or 'to play in pugs', wild charge would not be the best choice. And in a case where you'd hit 4+ stacks, neither would Feline Swiftness(becomes useless when u hit 4+). That being said, Displacer beast is your next best bet.
6. Displacer Beast allows you to not only gain a teleport(blink) but also to increase your movement speed while in cat form by 50% for 4 seconds every 30 seconds when needed. This would put your movement speed at 175% for 4 seconds + the 20yrd blink. And even at 4+ stacks, this will still benefit you since you have a blink!

I do think it is very possible to pull off Rdruid FCing in a premade. Most premades won't fight a team with any more than 3 healers, even if it's a rdruid FC. In any premade situation, you would always need at least 1 healer with you when you have the flag. And as soon as you hit 10 Stacks, you'll easily get 1shotted unless you have the defensive stats of a Guardian Druid. But then again, any FC is incredibly vulnerable to 1shots @10 stacks.

My personal opinion


If you ever Solo Que or if you are not premading, Resto FCing would be the way to go.
If you are ever queing with a dedicated healer, or if you're premading, I would go Guardian. It's easier for your healers to keep you up, and wild charge is gamebreaking at this level(and at endgame).

If you have any other questions about Druids, feel free to PM me :)
 
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The idea of Resto Druid FCing is to basically let your entire team go on offensive and you take care of yourself. For pugging, this is great! If no one has to worry about you needing heals or dps, then everyone can go on the EFC(assuming all 9 of your teammates are playing objective in the pug). This is why Pugging as a Resto Druid FC is really nice; you basically carry your entire team.

This x 100

This would put your movement speed at 175% for 4 seconds

Unfortunately I found out after logging into 5.2 that it does not quite stack , the 50% speed buff actually overrides the 25% speed buff from cat form and 40% buff from travel form , so you end up going from 100% speed to 150% for 4 seconds regardless of shapeshift form. This is still fantastic as it allows you to keep up kiting speed while being able to cast two instant spells (eg rejuvenation/swiftmend) before going back cat/travel.
If you try pickup tunnel speed boost while you still have displacer beast 50% speed boost active it will also override the tunnel boost wasting it :p
 
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Alot decreased dps you mean.
thats debatable. when feral has savage roar up and tiger's fury with rake, 5pt rip AND have 5 points to FB, yes thats a HUGE difference between guaridan and feral.
but it takes time to do that
before feral can get all that stuff, guardian probably have already killed a target if you interrupt the heal correctly with bear hug. (in 1v1)

all those feral powerups are possible when fighting a class with a healing ability or attacking someone that is getting healed (FC)
because the normal non healing class would die before you can get those powerups up.

so assuming that you are fighting a healing class 1v1

all you do with guardian is you open with rake spam mangle until you get 5 poitns and rip. and spam more mangle (and renew rake somewhere) until the opponent tries to heal. and then you bear hug
thats rake, 5pt rip and bear hug dps on the target (bear hug = stun with 10% of druid's health per second for 3 seconds. That 30% of druid's health in damage in 3 seconds) + bear mangle (you can do that while hugging your target) + ability to change to cat while hugging and another mangle or 2 and 2-5 pt FB that you got from spamming mangle before.
wow thats alot.
and remember none of this requires anything to crit.
alot of times you dont even have a chance to FB at the end because rake rip bear hug dps is great enough to kill the target.

so yes feral overall has more dps than feral but most of the time not by much and guardian's controlled 3 dot dps (3 second period) is on par with feral dps if not, better atleast for that 3 seconds. in fact I can probably argue that those 3 second has one of the highest dps by f2p ever (that is not relying on crits becasue non of this requires ANY crits but if that last 5pt FB crits, wow.. imagine the damage)


EDIT:
I mostly pug only and if i was to FC, i knew that resto was a better choice for FC because no one is around me or there is no one in the pug group that is a legit healing class. But FC is not the funnest thing to do in wsg for me.
Most of the time when i pug, the opponent team is pug too. That means their FC is probably alone (sometimes a legit healing spec but most of the time just prot pal) I can kill a prot FC anyday with guardian spec. With feral, you probably need a major luck for a pally to mess up the healing or have your FB crit for shit ton of dmg. Without stun, you are pretty limited when facing healers.

and thats why guardian is for me :) thank you
 
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