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saillaw
Premium Member
join:2007-05-08
Dismay

saillaw

Premium Member

The 5.0.4 / MoP / Druid

Per PM requests, I'm going to keep the specs in the same thread.

Again, all of this is thanks to »www.icy-veins.com/:

Feral
said by »www.icy-veins.com/ :

This article is no longer being updated. Please check our Feral Druid guide, which is fully compatible with Mists of Pandaria, and is being fully updated. Thank you.

In preparation for the updates to our guides for Mists of Pandaria Patch 5.0.4, we are releasing articles such as this one, explaining what has changed for a particular class and spec, and what the new rotation is likely to be.

Keep in mind that this is still a work in progress (both from Blizzard's side and from our own) and that this article assumes you are at least somewhat familiar with the Cataclysm version of the Feral Druid rotation and playstyle (such as from reading our guide).

We will first list the most important changes to the Feral Druid Cataclysm abilities, and then we will proceed to explaining the (likely to be) optimal rotation. Keep in mind that we do not document every single change or new ability, only those that impact the rotation.

Finally, we will give you some information about the most useful talents and glyphs you should choose.
New abilities

  • Thrash is an ability that was previously only available when in Bear Form. It deals damage to enemies in a cone in front of you, placing a 15 second bleed on them.
  • Might of Ursoc is a cooldown that increases your current and maximum health by 30% for 20 seconds. Using it will shift you into Bear Form, and leaving Bear Form cancels the effect.
  • Tier 4 talents offer a choice between Soul of the Forest, Incarnation: King of the Jungle, and Force of Nature. We discuss these talents in greater depth in the Talents section.
  • Tier 6 talents offer a choice between Heart of the Wild, Dream of Cenarius, and Nature's Vigil. We discuss these talents in greater depth in the Talents section.
  • Symbiosis is a buff that you can place on one party or raid member. The buff lasts for 1 hour, and grants you an ability belonging to the target's class, depending on what your specialisation is. At the same time, the target receives one of your spells. A full list of all the buffs granted by Symbiosis can be found here. Note that these spells are still likely to change.

Changes to Existing Mechanics
  • Tiger's Fury no longer increases your energy pool.
  • Berserk now lasts 15 seconds, down from 25.
  • Mangle no longer applies a bleed damage increase debuff, and now simply deals damage, adds a combo point, and applies Infected Wounds on the target.

Removed Abilities
Rotation and Spell UsageThe rotation has changed very little from the Cataclysm version (covered in our guide). We will outline it below.
  • Shred is your primary combo point builder. Mangle will only be used to build combo points when you cannot attack the target from behind, and Ravage will only be useful when you are in stealth and behind the target (at the start of the encounter).
  • Keep up Rake on the target (use it once every 15 seconds).
  • Keep up Rip on the target, with 5 combo points.
  • Keep up Savage Roar on yourself, ideally with 5 combo points (to make your rotation easier).

It is important to note that, thanks to Glyph of Savagery (which we deem mandatory, as we explain in the glyphs section), you can apply a 12 second Savage Roar without any combo points. This is useful at the start of the fight, if Savage Roar has dropped off, or if you are going through a period of low combo point generation.

If you have combo points to spare and neither Savage Roar nor Rip need to be refreshed, you should use them on Ferocious Bite.
CooldownsYou have the same two DPS cooldowns that you had in Cataclysm: Tiger's Fury and Berserk. Additionally, depending on your talent choices, you may also gain additional DPS cooldowns.
These new cooldowns are very straightforward and we anticipate that their usage will be based around the "on cooldown" and "as many times as possible during the fight" concepts. The only exception is that you may want to use Incarnation: King of the Jungle when you are unable to attack the target from the front for a short period of time.
Multiple Target RotationWhen facing multiple targets, you will want to keep up the Thrash bleed on the targets, and use Swipe the rest of the time. The combo points you generate in this way will be used to maintain Savage Roar.
TalentsTier 1 talents offer a choice between 3 means of increasing your movement abilities.
  • Feline Swiftness is a passive ability that increases your movement speed by 15% at all times.
  • Displacer Beast is an active ability that teleports you 20 yards forward and activates Cat Form and Prowl.
  • Wild Charge is an active ability that differs based on the shapeshift form you are in, as follows:
    • No shapeshift form: you fly to an ally's location.
    • Bear Form: you charge an enemy, immobilizing them for 4 seconds.
    • Cat Form: you leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 seconds.
    • Travel Form: you leap forwards 20 yards.
    • Aquatic Form: your swim speed is increased by 150% for 5 seconds.

We believe that Feline Swiftness will prove to be most useful in the vast majority of situations. This is because it will grant you its bonus even over very short distances, such as when side-stepping out of a void zone.

Tier 2 talents offer a choice between 3 healing spells.
  • Nature's Swiftness is an active healing cooldown that makes your next Healing Touch, Nourish, or Regrowth instant cast and free of mana cost. Moreover, it increases both the potency of the spell and the spell's duration (in the case of HoTs) by 50%. Nature's Swiftness also affects some utility spells, but this is less important.
  • Renewal is a powerful self-heal with a 2 minute cooldown.
  • Cenarion Ward is a buff that you can place on a friendly player, lasting up to 30 seconds. When the player takes damage, Cenarion Ward activates a powerful 6-second HoT on them, consuming the buff in the process (meaning that it will only trigger one HoT per Cenarion Ward).

In terms of your own survival, Renewal is easily the best choice (it can be used in any form, so it will not interfere with your DPS). We believe this will become the default choice, essentially granting you an additional minor cooldown. Cenarion Ward may also provide a hefty amount of self-healing, but since it is healing over-time, it is less valuable. Nature's Swiftness could possibly be useful in some situations where you wish to help out your raid, though we cannot imagine them presently.

Tier 3 talents offer a choice between 3 crowd control spells.
  • Faerie Swarm is a spell that replaces Faerie Fire, upgrading the latter spell, causing it to also slow the target's movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds.
  • Mass Entanglement is an AoE root, that roots up to 5 targets in place.
  • Typhoon is a spell that affects targets in a cone in front of you, knocking them back and dazing them for 6 seconds.

None of these talents appear to have any real importance in terms of PvE raiding. You will most likely be able to choose which one of them you prefer for personal reasons (or for questing or doing achievements/dungeons). At best, they may be useful for clearing trash.

Tier 4 talents offer a choice between 3 talents that each significantly improve your DPS.
  • Soul of the Forest passively causes your finishing moves to grant you 3 energy for each combo point used.
  • Incarnation: King of the Jungle lasts for 30 seconds and has a 3-minute cooldown. While active, it removes the stealth requirement from all your abilities, and it allows you to use Ravage without being behind the target. Lastly, it allows you to use Prowl while you are in combat.
  • Force of Nature is an active ability that summons 3 treants for 15 seconds. The treants attack enemies and stun them.

Currently, Force of Nature is very underwhelming. Out of the other two talents, your choice will probably be based on encounter requirements and the balancing of these spells. King of the Jungle provides excellent burst, while Soul of the Forest makes the rotation easier to maintain.

Tier 5 talents offer a choice between 3 crowd-control spells.
  • Disorienting Roar is an AoE disorient that lasts for 3 seconds and affects all enemies in a 10 yard radius.
  • Ursol's Vortex is a targeted AoE slow. When enemies first try to leave the slowing area, they are pulled back in.
  • Mighty Bash is a single target 5 second stun.

As with the tier 3 talents, these talents do not have any impact on your gameplay and will most likely be only useful for trash or PvP encounters.

Tier 6 talents offer a choice between 3 talents that can affect your gameplay.
  • Heart of the Wild increases your Stamina, Agility, and Intellect by 6% at all times. Additionally, with a 6-minute cooldown, it allows you to viably perform roles outside of your Feral specialisation, for 45 seconds:
    • allows you to tank in Bear Form, by ensuring that you are not susceptible to critical hits, that you gain Vengeance from damage taken, and that your melee stats and your armor are increased;
    • allows you to DPS as a caster, by increasing your Spell Damage and Hit Chance, and reducing the mana cost of all your damaging spells by 100%;
    • allows you to heal efficiently, by increasing the healing of your spells by 100% and reducing the mana cost of your healing spells by 100%.
  • Dream of Cenarius is a passive ability that grants you a healing bonus each time you deal damage, and a damaging bonus each time you heal.
  • Nature's Vigil is a 3-minute cooldown that increases all healing and damage done by 20% for 30 seconds. While Nature's Vigil is active, all single target healing spells also damage a nearby enemy for 25% of the healing done, and all single target damage spells also heal a nearby ally for 25% of the damage done.

All three talents are very powerful and interesting. Heart of the Wild increases your DPS greatly, thanks to the 6% Agility boost, but it may also turn the tide in a particularly difficult encounter where assuming another role for a short while can be crucial.

The exact usefulness of Dream of Cenarius remains to be determined.

Nature's Vigil is a very straightforward and quite powerful cooldown. It grants you a 20% increase to damage done for 30 seconds, which will compete well with Heart of the Wild.
GlyphsThere are several Major Glyphs that are useful to you as a Feral Druid.
  • Glyph of Savagery allows you to apply Savage Roar with 0 combo points, granting you a 12 second duration. This glyph will undoubtedly be a DPS gain in PvE, at the very least in situations where you are unable to generate combo points. We consider it to be mandatory.
  • Glyph of Shred removes the positional requirement of Shred while Tiger's Fury and Berserk are active. It will only have a minor impact on your gameplay, at best.
  • Glyph of Rebirth remains unchanged from Cataclysm. It resurrects players with full health. This is a useful glyph for raiders, but less so since players are now resurrected with 60% of their health. However, since it now shares a category (Major Glyphs) with other important glyphs, it may be best to only use it when absolutely necessary, namely on encounters where there is a lot of AoE damage that can kill a newly-resurrected player.
  • Glyph of Stampeding Roar increases the radius of Stampeding Roar by 30 yards. This glyph may be useful in certain situations.

Minor Glyphs are purely cosmetic and play no part in your performance.

This concludes our Feral Druid preview for Mists of Pandaria. We hope you have enjoyed reading it and that it proved useful to you. As always, we are looking forward to reading your opinions on the matter!

saillaw

saillaw

Premium Member

Guardian
said by »www.icy-veins.com/ :

This article is no longer being updated. Please check our Guardian Druid guide, which is fully compatible with Mists Pandaria, and is being constantly updated. Thank you.

In preparation for the updates to our guides for Mists of Pandaria (Patch 5.0.4), we are releasing articles such as this one, explaining what has changed for a particular class and spec, and what the new rotation is likely to be.

Keep in mind that this is still a work in progress (both from Blizzard's side and from our own) and that this article assumes you are at least somewhat familiar with the Cataclysm version of the Guardian Druid rotation and playstyle (such as from reading our guide).

We will first list the most important changes to the Guardian Druid Cataclysm abilities, and then we will proceed to explaining the (likely to be) optimal rotation. Keep in mind that we do not document every single change or new ability, only those that impact the rotation.

Finally, we will give you some information about the most useful talents and glyphs you should choose.
New abilities

  • Savage Defense is a new defensive ability. It has nothing in common with the Cataclysm version ( Savage Defense). Savage Defense now costs 60 rage and grants you a buff that gives you 45% chance to dodge for 6 seconds. The ability has no cooldown, instead operating on a charge system: it has a maximum of 3 charges, and a charge regenerates every 9 seconds. Using Savage Defense while your previous buff is already active will simply extend the duration (2 seconds left on the old buff + a new application will result in a new, 8-second buff).
  • Mastery: Nature's Guardian is your new Mastery. It increases your armor.
  • Might of Ursoc is a cooldown that increases your current and maximum health by 30% for 20 seconds.
  • Tier 4 talents offer a choice between Soul of the Forest, Incarnation: Son of Ursoc, and Force of Nature. We discuss these talents in greater depth in the Talents section.
  • Tier 6 talents offer a choice between Heart of the Wild, Dream of Cenarius, and Nature's Vigil. We discuss these talents in greater depth in the Talents section.
  • Symbiosis is a buff that you can place on one party or raid member. The buff lasts for 1 hour, and grants you an ability belonging to the target's class, depending on what your specialisation is. At the same time, the target receives one of your spells. A full list of all the buffs granted by Symbiosis can be found here. Note that these spells are still likely to change.

Changes to Existing Mechanics
Removed Abilities
Rotation and Spell UsageThe Guardian Druid rotation has had two active mitigation abilities introduced, namely Savage Defense and Frenzied Regeneration (we recognize that "mitigation" is a misnomer, since Savage Defenses offers avoidance and Frenzied Regeneration offers self-healing). This, coupled with the removal of some old concerns, has changed the rotation quite a bit from its Cataclysm version.

Despite this, we feel the rotation has been simplified. This is probably intentional on Blizzard's part, in order to allow Guardian Druids to focus on their new active mitigation system.

Since offensive abilities no longer cost rage, and, in the case of Mangle, actually generate it, the purpose of the rotation is clear: generate rage and use it on Savage Defense and Frenzied Regeneration to improve your survivability.

Therefore, we predict that the rotation will be similar to this.
  • Savage Defense should be used only when faced with melee attacks (since it offers avoidance). Ideally, it should be used just as a new series of powerful melee attacks is coming.
  • Frenzied Regeneration should be used to heal yourself after having taken a lot of damage. This will especially be useful to counter magic damage that you have received, or damage which bypasses armor (such as bleeds or Impale-type attacks). This is because Savage Defense and your Mastery do not protect you at all against such types of damage.

While the two cooldowns are not mutually exclusive, they both cost rather large amounts of rage and, as such, you will often have to decide between one or the other.
TalentsTier 1 talents offer a choice between 3 means of increasing your movement abilities.
  • Feline Swiftness is a passive ability that increases your movement speed by 15% at all times.
  • Displacer Beast is an active ability that teleports you 20 yards forward and activates Cat Form and Prowl.
  • Wild Charge is an active ability that differs based on the shapeshift form you are in, as follows:
    • No shapeshift form: you fly to an ally's location.
    • Bear Form: you charge an enemy, immobilizing them for 4 seconds.
    • Cat Form: you leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 seconds.
    • Travel Form: you leap forwards 20 yards.
    • Aquatic Form: your swim speed is increased by 150% for 5 seconds.

We believe that Feline Swiftness will prove to be most useful in the vast majority of situations. This is because it will grant you its bonus even over very short distances, such as when side-stepping out of a void zone. Displacer Beast seems like the worst choice by far, since it will take you out of Bear Form, while Wild Charge's requirement of having an ally in the location you want to move to is quite cumbersome.

Tier 2 talents offer a choice between 3 healing spells.
  • Nature's Swiftness is an active healing cooldown that makes your next Healing Touch, Nourish, or Regrowth instant cast and free of mana cost. Moreover, it increases both the potency of the spell and the spell's duration (in the case of HoTs) by 50%. Nature's Swiftness also affects some utility spells, most importantly Rebirth.
  • Renewal is a powerful self-heal with a 2 minute cooldown.
  • Cenarion Ward is a buff that you can place on a friendly player, lasting up to 30 seconds. When the player takes damage, Cenarion Ward activates a powerful 6-second HoT on them, consuming the buff in the process (meaning that it will only trigger one HoT per Cenarion Ward).

In terms of your own survival, Renewal is easily the best choice (it can be used in any form, so it will not interfere with your tanking). We believe this will become the default choice, essentially granting you an additional minor cooldown.

Cenarion Ward may also provide a hefty amount of self-healing, but since it is healing over-time, it is less valuable.

Nature's Swiftness could possibly be useful in some situations where you wish to help out your raid, especially if you are likely to need to use Rebirth.

Tier 3 talents offer a choice between 3 crowd control spells.
  • Faerie Swarm is a spell that replaces Faerie Fire, upgrading the latter spell, causing it to also slow the target's movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds.
  • Mass Entanglement is an AoE root, that roots up to 5 targets in place.
  • Typhoon is a spell that affects targets in a cone in front of you, knocking them back and dazing them for 6 seconds.

None of these talents appear to have any real importance in terms of PvE raiding. You will most likely be able to choose which one of them you prefer for personal reasons (or for questing or doing achievements/dungeons). At best, they may be useful for clearing trash.

Tier 4 talents offer a choice between 3 talents that each significantly improve your tanking performance (at least in theory).
  • Soul of the Forest passively causes Mangle to always generate an additional 2 rage.
  • Incarnation: Son of Ursoc reduces the cooldown of your offensive abilities and of Growl to 1.5 seconds, for 30 seconds. This ability has a 3-minute cooldown.
  • Force of Nature is an active ability that summons 3 treants for 15 seconds. The treants taunt nearby enemies.

Currently, Force of Nature is very underwhelming. Out of the other two talents, your choice will probably be based on encounter requirements and the balancing of these spells.

Tier 5 talents offer a choice between 3 crowd-control spells.
  • Disorienting Roar is an AoE disorient that lasts for 3 seconds and affects all enemies in a 10 yard radius.
  • Ursol's Vortex is a targeted AoE slow. When enemies first try to leave the slowing area, they are pulled back in.
  • Mighty Bash is a single target 5 second stun.

As with the tier 3 talents, these talents do not have any impact on your gameplay and will most likely be only useful for trash or PvP encounters.

Tier 6 talents offer a choice between 3 talents that can affect your gameplay.
  • Heart of the Wild increases your Stamina, Agility, and Intellect by 6% at all times. Additionally, with a 6-minute cooldown, it allows you to viably perform roles outside of your Guardian specialisation, for 45 seconds:
    • allows you to DPS in Cat Form, by increasing your Agility, Expertise, and Hit Chance;
    • allows you to DPS as a caster, by increasing your Spell Damage and Hit Chance, and reducing the mana cost of all your damaging spells by 100%;
    • allows you to heal efficiently, by increasing the healing of your spells by 100% and reducing the mana cost of your healing spells by 100%.
  • Dream of Cenarius is a passive ability that grants you a healing bonus each time you deal damage, and a damaging bonus each time you heal.
  • Nature's Vigil is a 3-minute cooldown that increases all healing and damage done by 20% for 30 seconds. While Nature's Vigil is active, all single target healing spells also damage a nearby enemy for 25% of the healing done, and all single target damage spells also heal a nearby ally for 25% of the damage done.

All three talents are very powerful and interesting. Heart of the Wild increases your survivability slightly, thanks to the 6% Stamina boost, but more importantly it may turn the tide in a particularly difficult encounter where assuming another role for a short while can be crucial.

Dream of Cenarius is triggered by Frenzied Regeneration, making it quite appealing, although the exact usefulness of this talent remains to be determined.

Nature's Vigil is a very straightforward and quite powerful cooldown. It will not only increase your self-healing while it is active, but it also grants you a threat/DPS boost.

In any case, we believe Heart of the Wild will be the default choice in most situations.
GlyphsThere are several Major Glyphs that are useful to you as a Guardian Druid.
  • Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration changes your Frenzied Regeneration rather drastically. It causes it to cost a fixed 60 rage and not heal you at all. Instead, for 6 seconds after using Frenzied Regeneration, healing done to you is increased by 40%. We are certain that, in some encounters, this glyph will be mandatory.
  • Glyph of Might of Ursoc increases the amount of health gained from Might of Ursoc by 20%, but also increases the cooldown by 2 minutes. This glyph will be useful when you need a lot of health at a specific moment in the encounter, but when you don't need to use Might of Ursoc again for a while.
  • Glyph of Survival Instincts reduces the duration of Survival Instincts by 50% and reduces its cooldown by 60 seconds. This glyph will be useful when you need to use Survival Instincts more frequently but for shorter amounts of time (such as for very specific damage spikes caused by boss abilities).
  • Glyph of Rebirth remains unchanged from Cataclysm. It resurrects players with full health. This is a useful glyph for raiders, although less useful than in Cataclysm, since targets of Rebirth now always come to full health with 60% health. However, since it now shares a category (Major Glyphs) with other important glyphs, it may be best to only use it when absolutely necessary, namely on encounters where there is a lot of AoE damage that can kill a newly-resurrected player.
  • Glyph of Faerie Fire increases the range of Faerie Fire by 10 yards, making it easier to reach adds in some situations.
  • Glyph of Maul causes Maul to also hit a secondary target for 50% of the damage it deals to the primary target. It is useful when you are fighting multiple enemies who are close to each other.
  • Glyph of Stampeding Roar increases the radius of Stampeding Roar by 30 yards. This glyph may be useful in certain situations.

Minor Glyphs are purely cosmetic and play no part in your performance.

This concludes our Guardian Druid preview for Mists of Pandaria. We hope you have enjoyed reading it and that it proved useful to you. As always, we are looking forward to reading your opinions on the matter!


saillaw

saillaw

Premium Member

Balance
said by »www.icy-veins.com/ :

This article is no longer being updated. Please check our Balance Druide guide, which is fully compatible with Mists of Pandaria, and is being constantly updated. Thank you.

In preparation for the updates to our guides for Mists of Pandaria Patch 5.0.4, we are releasing articles such as this one, explaining what has changed for a particular class and spec, and what the new rotation is likely to be.

Keep in mind that this is still a work in progress (both from Blizzard's side and from our own) and that this article assumes you are at least somewhat familiar with the Cataclysm version of the Balance Druid rotation and playstyle (such as from reading our guide).

We will first list the most important changes to the Balance Druid Cataclysm abilities, and then we will proceed to explaining the (likely to be) optimal rotation. Keep in mind that we do not document every single change or new ability, only those that impact the rotation.

Finally, we will give you some information about the most useful talents and glyphs you should choose.
New abilities

  • Astral Communion is an ability that allows you to change your Lunar or Solar power, when outside of combat. It is ideal for setting up an Eclipse for the start of a fight.
  • Celestial Alignment is a powerful DPS cooldown that lasts for 15 seconds. It simultaneously grants you the damage bonuses of both eclipse states (50% increase to both Nature and Arcane damage). Additionally, when you cast Moonfire, Sunfire is automatically applied (both DoTs will be up at the same time). Finally, when you use this cooldown, your Lunar/Solar Energy is reset, and you cannot generate any energy for its 15 second duration.
  • Might of Ursoc is a cooldown that increases your current and maximum health by 30% for 20 seconds. Using it activates Bear Form (and cancelling Bear Form also cancels the effect). It can prove to be a useful cooldown if your own survival is of utmost importance.
  • Tier 4 talents offer a choice between Soul of the Forest, Incarnation: Chosen of Elune, and Force of Nature. We discuss these talents in greater depth in the Talents section.
  • Tier 6 talents offer a choice between Heart of the Wild, Dream of Cenarius, and Nature's Vigil. We discuss these talents in greater depth in the Talents section.
  • Symbiosis is a buff that you can place on one party or raid member. The buff lasts for 1 hour, and grants you an ability belonging to the target's class, depending on what your specialisation is. At the same time, the target receives one of your spells. A full list of all the buffs granted by Symbiosis can be found here. Note that these spells are still likely to change.

Changes to Existing Mechanics
  • Moonfire and Sunfire are no longer mutually exclusive, nor do they depend on your current eclipse state. They are both DoTs that you can keep up at the same time.
  • Eclipse has been slightly changed. Entering an eclipse state grants you 15% spell haste for 15 seconds (previously provided, in a slightly different format, by the now removed Nature's Grace talent) and you also regenerate 35% of your maximum mana.
  • When in a Lunar Eclipse, your Hurricane (which deals Nature damage) is replaced by Astral Storm (which deals Arcane damage). For all intents and purpose, Hurricane and Astral Storm are identical, with the exception of their damage schools.
  • Entering a Lunar Eclipse resets the cooldown of Starfall.
  • You gain Lunar Shower by default as a passive ability. This used to be provided by an optional talent in Cataclysm. The only difference between the Cataclysm version and the Mists of Pandaria version is that Moonfire and Sunfire no longer grant you energy while under the Lunar Shower effect.

Removed Abilities
Rotation and Spell UsageThe basic rotation has remained unchanged from its Cataclysm version (detailed in our guide). A few changes are worth mentioning:
  • You can now, thanks to Astral Communion, choose which eclipse to be in at the start of the fight. This will affect your opening rotation, depending on which eclipse state you choose.
  • You can and should keep both Moonfire and Sunfire up at all times.
  • Starfall can and should be cast more often.

The rotation will likely be along these lines:
  • Apply Moonfire and Sunfire, and refresh them before they expire.
  • Cast Starsurge on cooldown (its cooldown still has a chance to be reset by Shooting Stars).
  • Cast Wrath until you enter a Lunar Eclipse.
  • Cast Starfire until you enter a Solar Eclipse.
  • Cast Starfall each time you enter a Solar Eclipse. You may, of course, want to delay it slightly so that it is timed when a large number of adds need to be bursted down.

Cooldown UsageYou now have several DPS cooldowns (this was not the case in Cataclysm), depending on what talents you choose. Note that Incarnation: Chosen of Elune and Force of Nature are mutually exclusive.
TalentsTier 1 talents offer a choice between 3 means of increasing your movement abilities:
  • Feline Swiftness is a passive ability that increases your movement speed by 15% at all times.
  • Displacer Beast is an active ability that teleports you 20 yards forward and activates Cat Form and Prowl.
  • Wild Charge is an active ability that differs based on the shapeshift form you are in, as follows:
    • No shapeshift form: you fly to an ally's location.
    • Moonkin Form: you leap backwards.
    • Bear Form: you charge an enemy, immobilizing them for 4 seconds.
    • Cat Form: you leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 seconds.
    • Travel Form: you leap forwards 20 yards.
    • Aquatic Form: your swim speed is increased by 150% for 5 seconds.

We believe that Feline Swiftness will prove to be most useful in the vast majority of situations. This is because it will grant you its bonus even over very short distances, such as when side-stepping out of a void zone. Displacer Beast will probably be more problematic to use, since you will have to shift out of Moonkin Form to continue DPSing. Wild Charge may be useful in some situations.

Tier 2 talents offer a choice between 3 healing spells:
  • Nature's Swiftness is an active healing cooldown that makes your next Healing Touch, Nourish, or Regrowth instant cast and free of mana cost. Moreover, it increases both the potency of the spell and the spell's duration (in the case of HoTs) by 50%. Nature's Swiftness also affects some utility spells, but this is less important.
  • Renewal is a powerful self-heal with a 2 minute cooldown.
  • Cenarion Ward is a buff that you can place on a friendly player, lasting up to 30 seconds. When the player takes damage, Cenarion Ward activates a powerful 6-second HoT on them, consuming the buff in the process (meaning that it will only trigger one HoT per Cenarion Ward).

In terms of your own survival, Renewal is the easy choice, as it simply gives you an ability to use when you are low on health. If, however, you wish to contribe more to your raid's survival, one of the other two talents may be suitable in some situations.

Tier 3 talents offer a choice between 3 crowd control spells:
  • Faerie Swarm is a spell that replaces Faerie Fire, upgrading the latter spell, causing it to also slow the target's movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds.
  • Mass Entanglement is an AoE root, that roots up to 5 targets in place.
  • Typhoon is a spell that affects targets in a cone in front of you, knocking them back and dazing them for 6 seconds.

None of these talents appear to have any real importance in terms of PvE raiding. You will most likely be able to choose which one of them you prefer for personal reasons (or for questing or doing achievements/dungeons). At best, they may be useful for clearing trash.

Tier 4 talents offer a choice between 3 talents that each significantly improve your DPS:
  • Soul of the Forest automatically grants you 20 Lunar Energy each time you exit a Solar Eclipse and 20 Solar Energy each time you exit a Lunar Eclipse. In pratice, this will make it easier for you to get from one Eclipse to the other.
  • Incarnation: Chosen of Elune is a DPS cooldown that increases all Nature and Arcane damage by 25% while Eclipse is active, for 30 seconds.
  • Force of Nature is an active ability that summons 3 treants for 15 seconds. The treants deal a moderate amount of damage.

Incarnation: Chosen of Elune will be excellent for fights where you need the abiliity to do burst DPS at certain moments. How it ranks against the other two talents, in terms of DPS increases, must still be determined through further testing.

Tier 5 talents offer a choice between 3 crowd-control spells:
  • Disorienting Roar is an AoE disorient that lasts for 3 seconds and affects all enemies in a 10 yard radius.
  • Ursol's Vortex is a targeted AoE slow. When enemies first try to leave the slowing area, they are pulled back in.
  • Mighty Bash is a single target 5 second stun.

As with the tier 3 talents, these talents do not have any impact on your gameplay and will most likely be only useful for trash or PvP encounters.

Tier 6 talents offer a choice between 3 talents that can affect your gameplay:
  • Heart of the Wild increases your Stamina, Agility, and Intellect by 6% at all times. Additionally, with a 6-minute cooldown, it allows you to viably perform roles outside of your Balance specialisation, for 45 seconds:
    • allows you to tank in Bear Form, by ensuring that you are not susceptible to critical hits, that you gain Vengeance from damage taken, and that your melee stats and your armor are increased;
    • allows you to DPS in Cat Form, by increasing your Agility, Expertise, and Hit Chance;
    • allows you to heal efficiently, by increasing the healing of your spells by 100% and reducing the mana cost of your healing spells by 100%.
  • Dream of Cenarius is a passive ability that grants you a healing bonus each time you deal damage, and a damaging bonus each time you heal.
  • Nature's Vigil is a 3-minute cooldown that increases all healing and damage done by 20% for 30 seconds. While Nature's Vigil is active, all single target healing spells also damage a nearby enemy for 25% of the healing done, and all single target damage spells also heal a nearby ally for 25% of the damage done.

All three talents are very powerful and interesting. Heart of the Wild increases your DPS slightly, thanks to the 6% Intellect boost, but more importantly it may turn the tide in a particularly difficult encounter where assuming another role for a short while can be crucial.

Dream of Cenarius may be useful over the course of the fight, if you are having to resort to playing a hybrid role of DPS-healer. The exact efficiency of this spell must still be determined.

Nature's Vigil is a very straightforward and quite powerful DPS cooldown, that we believe will be the default choice in encounters where you do not need to heal.
GlyphsThere are several Major Glyphs that are useful to you as a Balance Druid, although none affects your DPS performance directly.
  • Glyph of Rebirth remains unchanged from Cataclysm. It resurrects players with full health. This is a near-mandatory glyph for raiders. However, since it now shares a category (Major Glyphs) with other important glyphs, it may be best to only use it when absolutely necessary, namely on encounters where there is a lot of AoE damage that can kill a newly-resurrected player.
  • Glyph of The Moonbeast allows you to cast Rebirth, Tranquility, Healing Touch, and Rejuvenation without canceling Moonkin Form.
  • Glyph of Innervate causes your Innervate to regenerate 10% of your maximum mana when cast on other players, in addition to regenerating their mana. This glyph will be useful when you find yourself regularly casting Innervate on other healers.
  • Glyph of Stampede removes any form requirement from Stampeding Roar. In the event that your assignment is to cast Stampeding Roar, this glyph may prove slightly beneficial to you.
  • Glyph of Stampeding Roar increases the radius of Stampeding Roar by 30 yards. This glyph may be useful in certain situations.

Minor Glyphs are purely cosmetic and play no part in your DPS performance.

This concludes our Balance Druid preview for Mists of Pandaria. We hope you have enjoyed reading it and that it proved useful to you. As always, we are looking forward to reading your opinions on the matter!

saillaw

saillaw

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Restoration
said by »www.icy-veins.com/ :

This article is no longer being updated. Please check our Restoration Druid guide, which is fully compatible with Mists of Pandaria, and is being constantly updated. Thank you.

In preparation for the updates to our guides for Mists of Pandaria Patch 5.0.4, we are releasing articles such as this one, explaining what has changed for a particular class and spec, and what the new rotation is likely to be.

Keep in mind that this is still a work in progress (both from Blizzard's side and from our own) and that this article assumes you are at least somewhat familiar with the Cataclysm version of the Restoration Druid rotation and playstyle (such as from reading our guide).

We will first list the most important changes to the Restoration Druid Cataclysm abilities, and then we will proceed to explaining the (likely to be) optimal rotation. Keep in mind that we do not document every single change or new ability, only those that impact the rotation.

Finally, we will give you some information about the most useful talents and glyphs you should choose.
New Abilities

  • Ironbark is a damage reduction cooldown that can be cast on other players. It is Restoration Druids' only external cooldown, a long-awaited addition. It reduces all damage taken by the target by 20% for 12 seconds.
  • Wild Mushroom: Bloom is an AoE healing spell, based on the Wild Mushroom mechanics that used to be available only to Balance Druids in Cataclysm. It allows you to place up to 5 mushrooms on the floor, at locations of your choice. Afterwards, you can choose when to detonate them, causing them to heal all allies within 8 yards.
  • Might of Ursoc is a cooldown that increases your current and maximum health by 30% for 20 seconds. Using it activates Bear Form (and cancelling Bear Form also cancels the effect). It can prove to be a useful cooldown if your own survival is of utmost importance.
  • Tier 2 talents offer a choice between Nature's Swiftness, Renewal, and Cenarion Ward. We discuss these talents in greater depth in the Talents section.
  • Tier 4 talents offer a choice between Soul of the Forest, Incarnation: Tree of Life, and Force of Nature. We discuss these talents in greater depth in the Talents section.
  • Tier 6 talents offer a choice between Heart of the Wild, Dream of Cenarius, and Nature's Vigil. We discuss these talents in greater depth in the Talents section.
  • Symbiosis is a buff that you can place on one party or raid member. The buff lasts for 1 hour, and grants you an ability belonging to the target's class, depending on what your specialisation is. At the same time, the target receives one of your spells. A full list of all the buffs granted by Symbiosis can be found here. Note that these spells are still likely to change.

Changes to Existing Mechanics
  • The duration of the Mastery: Harmony buff has been increased to 20 seconds (up from 10), making it much easier to keep up this buff.
  • Swiftmend now automatically applies the Efflorescence effect (previously, a talent was required for this to happen).

Removed AbilitiesNone of the abilities that Restoration Druids made frequent use of during Cataclysm have been removed.
Rotation and Spell UsageSince healers do not have a rotation per se, it is hard to briefly list the rotation of Restoration Druids. The detailed explanations that we provide in our Cataclysm guide are beyond the scope of this article. Instead, we will just mention a few things that are interesting or relevant.
  • The playstyle has remained virtually unchanged. Unless specified otherwise above, all spell mechanics and interactions function exactly as they did during Cataclysm. Many of these mechanics were granted by talents, but they are now provided automatically as passive abilities.
  • The only novelty comes from incorporating some of the new abilities into your gameplay. Most of these are high-cooldown abilities (described in the section below), and their usage is either intuitive or heavily reliant on encounter mechanics.

TalentsTier 1 talents offer a choice between 3 means of increasing your movement abilities:
  • Feline Swiftness is a passive ability that increases your movement speed by 15% at all times.
  • Displacer Beast is an active ability that teleports you 20 yards forward and activates Cat Form and Prowl.
  • Wild Charge is an active ability that differs based on the shapeshift form you are in, as follows:
    • No shapeshift form: you fly to an ally's location.
    • Bear Form: you charge an enemy, immobilizing them for 4 seconds.
    • Cat Form: you leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 seconds.
    • Travel Form: you leap forwards 20 yards.
    • Aquatic Form: your swim speed is increased by 150% for 5 seconds.

We believe that Feline Swiftness will prove to be most useful in the vast majority of situations. This is because it will grant you its bonus even over very short distances, such as when side-stepping out of a void zone. Displacer Beast will probably be more problematic to use, since you will have to shift out of Cat Form to continue healing. Wild Charge may be useful in some situations.

Tier 2 talents offer a choice between 3 healing spells:
  • Nature's Swiftness is an active healing cooldown that makes your next Healing Touch, Nourish, or Regrowth instant cast and free of mana cost. Moreover, it increases both the potency of the spell and the spell's duration (in the case of HoTs) by 50%. Nature's Swiftness also affects some utility spells, but this is less important.
  • Renewal is a powerful self-heal with a 2 minute cooldown.
  • Cenarion Ward is a buff that you can place on a friendly player, lasting up to 30 seconds. When the player takes damage, Cenarion Ward activates a powerful 6 second HoT on them, consuming the buff in the process (meaning that it will only trigger one HoT per Cenarion Ward).

We find Renewal to be the least attractive spell to a Restoration Druid.

Which of the other two talents you choose depends on your healing role. Tank healers will probably prefer Cenarion Ward, since the tank is guaranteed to take damage, thus triggering the HoT, while players who have more general healing assignments (such as being a healer in a 10-man raid) will probably prefer Nature's Swiftness.

The choice will also depend on the mechanics of the encounter.

Tier 3 talents offer a choice between 3 crowd control spells:
  • Faerie Swarm is a spell that replaces Faerie Fire, upgrading the latter spell, causing it to also slow the target's movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds.
  • Mass Entanglement is an AoE root, that roots up to 5 targets in place.
  • Typhoon is a spell that affects targets in a cone in front of you, knocking them back and dazing them for 6 seconds.

None of these talents appear to have any real importance in terms of PvE raiding. You will most likely be able to choose which one of them you prefer for personal reasons (or for questing or doing achievements/dungeons). At best, they may be useful for clearing trash.

Tier 4 talents offer a choice between 3 talents that each significantly improve your healing performance:
  • Soul of the Forest is a passive ability that grants you 50% increased haste for the first spell you cast after casting Swiftmend.
  • Incarnation: Tree of Life grants you the Tree of Life healing cooldown. It increases all healing you do by 15% and enhances your Lifebloom (allows it to be up on multiple targets simultaneously), Wild Growth (causes it to affect 2 additional targets), and Regrowth (makes it instant cast) for 30 seconds.
  • Force of Nature is an active ability that summons 3 treants for 15 seconds. The treants heal nearby allies.

Of the three talents, Force of Nature seems to be the most underwhelming. The other two are both excellent choices, and even though Soul of the Forest might provide more overall throughput throughout the fight, Tree of Life could prove to be a more useful cooldown to have during progression.

Tier 5 talents offer a choice between 3 utility spells:
  • Disorienting Roar is an AoE disorient that lasts for 3 seconds and affects all enemies in a 10 yard radius.
  • Ursol's Vortex is a targeted AoE slow. When enemies first try to leave the slowing area, they are pulled back in.
  • Mighty Bash is a single target 5 second stun.

As with the tier 3 talents, these talents do not have any impact on your gameplay and will most likely be only useful for trash or PvP encounters.

Tier 6 talents offer a choice between 3 talents that can affect your gameplay:
  • Heart of the Wild increases your Stamina, Agility, and Intellect by 6% at all times. Additionally, with a 6 minute cooldown, it allows you to viably perform roles outside of your Restoration specialisation, for 45 seconds:
    • allows you to tank in Bear Form, by ensuring that you are not susceptible to critical hits, that you gain Vengeance from damage taken, and that your melee stats and your armor are increased.
    • allows you to DPS in Cat Form, by increasing your Agility, Expertise, and Hit Chance.
    • allows you to DPS as a caster, by increasing your Spell Damage and Hit Chance, and reducing the mana cost of all your damaging spells by 100%
  • Dream of Cenarius is a passive ability that grants you a healing bonus each time you deal damage, and a damaging bonus each time you heal.
  • Nature's Vigil is a 3 minute cooldown that increases all healing and damage done by 20% for 30 seconds. While Nature's Vigil is active, all single target healing spells also damage a nearby enemy for 25% of the healing done, and all single target damage spells also heal a nearby ally for 25% of the damage done.

All three talents are very powerful and interesting. Heart of the Wild increases your healing slightly, thanks to the 6% Intellect boost, but more importantly it may turn the tide in a particularly difficult encounter where assuming another role for a short while can be crucial.

Nature's Vigil may pull ahead for most encounters, since it provides a 20% healing increase for 30 seconds, making it a very useful healing cooldown to have. More tests will have to be conducted, but the choice will probably differ on an encounter-by-encounter basis.
GlyphsNote that we only discuss Major Glyphs here, since Minor Glyphs are purely cosmetic and do not influence your gameplay at all. Unlike other specialisations, Restoration Druids have several glyphs that are clear improvements to their raid performance:
  • Glyph of Healing Touch reduces the remaining cooldown of Swiftmend by 1 second each time you cast Healing Touch. This glyph seems to be beneficial in all situations.
  • Glyph of Lifebloom allows you to retain all the stacks of Lifebloom when you cast it on a new target (while not in Tree of Life form). Without the glyph, casting Lifebloom on a new target will apply it with a single stack, even if the previous target had 3 stacks. This glyph seems excellently suited for fights where tank-switches occur. Again, it seems to be beneficial in all situations.
  • Glyph of Rejuvenation reduces the cast time of Nourish by 30% when you have Rejuvenation active on 3 or more targets. Considering the wide usage of Rejuvenation, this glyph seems like it will be very useful.

Additionally, there are a few glyphs that change the way in which healing spells work, but do not necessarily improve them:
  • Glyph of Blooming causes your Lifebloom to heal for 50% more when it blooms, but it reduces its duration by 5 seconds and no longer allows it to be refreshed by other single target heals on the target. This is probably going to only be useful in PvP, where Lifebloom can often be dispelled.
  • Glyph of Regrowth increases the critical strike chance of Regrowth by 40%, but removes its HoT component. This glyph will probably be useful in situations where healing targets over time (in an emergency) is not needed or useful, allowing you to increase the potency of the initial heal.
  • Glyph of Wild Growth causes Wild Growth to heal an additional target, but increases its cooldown by 2 seconds. Choosing whether or not to take this glyph seems to still be determined in the same way as during Cataclysm.

Finally, there are several utility glyphs:
  • Glyph of Rebirth remains unchanged from Cataclysm. It resurrects players with full health. This is a near-mandatory glyph for raiders. However, since it now shares a category (Major Glyphs) with other important glyphs, it may be best to only use it when absolutely necessary, namely on encounters where there is a lot of AoE damage that can kill a newly-resurrected player.
  • Glyph of Innervate causes your Innervate to regenerate 10% of your maximum mana when cast on other players, in addition to regenerating their mana. This glyph will be useful when you find yourself regularly casting Innervate on other healers.
  • Glyph of Stampede removes any form requirement from Stampeding Roar. In the event that your assignment is to cast Stampeding Roar during a time of heavy damage, this glyph may prove slightly beneficial to you.
  • Glyph of Stampeding Roar increases the radius of Stampeding Roar by 30 yards. This glyph may be useful in certain situations.

This concludes our Restoration Druid preview for Mists of Pandaria. We hope you have enjoyed reading it and that it proved useful to you. As always, we are looking forward to reading your opinions on the matter!


JB9
Stay Gold
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WTB Guardian glyphs that aren't situational...

Eumaeus
join:2009-12-10
Seattle, WA

Eumaeus

Member

Have to agree with this 100%.

Because of the 4pc making Might of Ursoc raidwide, I went ahead and glyped it to be 50% total for the 2 min extra cooldown.

Took maul almost by nostalgic default for now.

Last slot went to the 3s silence on faerie fire, but I don't anticipate keeping that in place.

JB9
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JB9

Premium Member

I think I will pick that silence FF glyph up, after realizing that you take FFF out of your rotation, it's probably a good idea to have this glyph in.

I removed Maul from any trace of my rotation, worthless attack now.

Can't glyph ursoc if you want to live on H Madness.

Eumaeus
join:2009-12-10
Seattle, WA

Eumaeus

Member

Ahh yeah, now that Maul still costs rage it really isn't going to be useful. That glyph will have to come off when I get home.

I wish that I could say H Madness is on my plate, but I missed a lot of later Cata and am just getting back into the swing of things.

The 5min cooldown is pretty harsh. How do you feel about the Survival Instincts glyph? Do you think the 6 sec duration is worth going from 3 min to 2 min?

I wasn't really sure that it'd be worth it, but I suppose 6s would be enough to mitigate a specific attack or two.

JB9
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I'm guessing SI will be mandatory for some fights in MoP. Needing to take 50% of an attack every 2 minutes seems pretty good, the 6 second duration is kind of worry-some, we'll see how they design the fights.

Krisnatharok
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Went back looking for a Druid thread and found this one.

Is anyone playing druids out there? Got my Guardian/feral from 72 to 85 in the past four days and just hit Pandaland.

Immer
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Immer

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It looks like I'm going to have to get serious about leveling my guardian/resto druid (like... maybe take days off work, serious). So I be tinkin' we be making dis tread bizy, mon. (that's the best troll an NE can manage, lol)

Krisnatharok
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Krisnatharok

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I love the gear synergy between Guardian and feral. End-game it will be completely different in terms of reforging/gemming/enchants, but on the way up I can maintain one set of gear and either top the DPS meters or tank (or jump between the two if the tank goes down).

Hoping to hit at least 87 this weekend--been leveling my Druid with Arch's monk.

Immer
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Immer

Premium Member

said by Krisnatharok:

I love the gear synergy between Guardian and feral. End-game it will be completely different in terms of reforging/gemming/enchants, but on the way up I can maintain one set of gear and either top the DPS meters or tank (or jump between the two if the tank goes down).

Hoping to hit at least 87 this weekend--been leveling my Druid with Arch's monk.

I may adopt that approach. Just... my druid has NEVER run without a resto spec.... ever, lol.
Expand your moderator at work

Krisnatharok
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Re: The 5.0.4 / MoP / Druid

What do you guys use as far as addons for feral? I'm looking for something (probably like DotTimer although I've never used it) that will display near the center of the screen the combo points, as well as the duration of rake, rip, and savage roar.

Immer
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Immer

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I actually use TidyPlates to track combo points, bleeds, DoTs on mobs. In the past, I've set up my PowerAruas (now WeakAuras) to show me my combo points and to flash my finish moves icons when I reach 5 combo points (in case there are too many mobs to pay attention to TidyPlates combo points). Venom14 See Profile speaks very highly of RoguePowerBars for tracking all of his bleeds/debuffs across all of his toons... you could check that out, too.

Krisnatharok
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Krisnatharok

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Thanks, I'll have to check those out tonight.

Eumaeus
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Anyone else out there living the Manachicken lifestyle these days? Pretty excited to finally NOT be a bear for a raid tier. Would give so much to have my armored moonkin buff form be permanent.

Krisnatharok
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Pretty happy with my deeps (crushing LFR is like beating Special Olympics, but still).
Krisnatharok

Krisnatharok

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This thread is dead, despite half of our guild rolling druids. Ah man!

Anyways, LFR tonight. Was ilevel 475 when this went down. Picked up ring and back tonight, so I am 477 now.

Eumaeus
join:2009-12-10
Seattle, WA

Eumaeus

Member

Wish I could contribute more to the kitteh side of things, but have been playing balance so far this expac. Though I did re-configure my offspec to feral last night for my LFR's this week since I can't really upgrade my main spec any further in raid finder.
Eumaeus

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Looks like a chain of bad / quitting is going to land me converting from balance to guardian for my guild. Has anyone here been tanking normal/heroic content as a guardian this expac?

Seems things have changed quite a ton from before, with rage generation stats being even more important than straight mitigation stats (dodge/mastery). Icy-veins is even calling crit/expertise > agility for gemming and enchants.

Anyone able to share their experiences?

Feralmordius
join:2011-01-18

Feralmordius

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When Blizz moved to the active mitigation for tanks, tanking really became build resource pool, then choose defense, heal or damage to spend it on.

I have been running Crit/Expertise build and it seems good. However I am also fairly new to the Guardian and still have to think about which defense to use.

Eumaeus
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Tanked 6/6 MSV-10 with the guild last night. I found the mitigation in guardian spec to be very good. I didn't feel too spikey and felt like there was almost always sufficient rage generation to burn through 3 charges of savage defense. I'm also currently stacking crit/exp.

I was ilvl 478 for the run. On a side note, dropping from 488 ilvl Balance to ilvl 467 Guardian made me a sad bear. Had to wave goodbye to a sizeable pile of gold/conquest/valor to get that caught back up before raid.

Krisnatharok
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said by Feralmordius:

and still have to think about which defense to use.

If at full HP, OR if the fight is primarily physical damage, use Savage Defense as damage avoided is better than overhealing.

If below ~60% hp, use Frenzied Regen, OR if the fight is primarily magic damage.

Eumaeus
join:2009-12-10
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Eumaeus

Member

The frenzied regen heal is surprisingly large, too. I saw some last night in the 120-150k range. With crit as high as it is (think I am somewhere in the 43% range atm), I feel like rage gen is high enough to always use savage defense charges and still have enough rage to either frenzied regen or use tooth and claw mauls.

It's also been a huge help when not actively tanking a boss to use empowered mauls as frequently as they're available. Dropping the boss' autoattacks by 23k time after time helps the other tank a ton.

Guardian glyph options are sadface. I think right now I'm using rebirth, savage roar (or whichever the 30yd range granting one is) and... umm... I forget the other. Might've slotted 10 yd faerie fire as a placeholder in a rush before raid.

Krisnatharok
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Krisnatharok

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I was assuming you were using the Frenzied Regen glyph, which increases all healing you receive by 40%, which is way more healing than you could give yourself. Get Renewal or or the HT talent if you need an emergency heal to prevent death--the FR glyph should be mandatory for tanks.

Eumaeus
join:2009-12-10
Seattle, WA

Eumaeus

Member

I considered (am still considering) the FR glyph, though my raid does not have strong HoT healing and we also use a disc priest, whose bubbles I assume wouldn't be covered by the 40% bonus. Because our other heals are more direct than HoT, my thoughts were that much of the 6s healing bonus might be lost to awkward cast timing and that a timed use of my personal heal may come out ahead. That said, last night was the first raid since having to swap to Guardian, so I anticipate some experimentation would be in order.

I'd put a lot more weight on the FR glyph on fight's like Blade Lord (2nd boss HoF - my brain is working this morning, right?) where there's far more expected spam healing on the tank due to steady massive incoming damage.

I'm liking nature's swiftness more than renewal atm due to it's versatility (bear form brez mostly). What're your thoughts on lvl 90 talent?

Krisnatharok
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Krisnatharok

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IIRC disc priests place a bubble on someone for the percentage of what the heal hits for (Spirit Shield notwithstanding as that is a 100% conversion of heal to absorb), so any mechanic that increases healing received (from FH/heal/GH) should also increase the subsequent shield as well.

Eumaeus
join:2009-12-10
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Eumaeus

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Ahh right right! I'll be honest I'm way out of touch with disc atm. Until Monday I hadn't raided with one for ages. (Side note: Disc / spirit shell is absolutely amazing for Force & Verve on Zor'lok in HoF).

I think there are times when both glyphed and non-glyphed would be strong. For example, after phase 2 on Elegon I always go back in first since our other tank has an AoE taunt. The healers are really focusing him since the adds hit like a truck, so I can't rely on them casting as many heals on me for the first little bit while the adds die. The 120k+ self heal from FR was very useful there since I couldn't be sure I'd get enough heals to benefit from the 6s 40% buff.

Another example that comes to mind is Gara'jal. Having one healer in the spirit world would mean I'd only receive heals from one person and they'll also be casting on the other 2 people with the voodoo mask, so I might only get 1 heal during the 6 secs. I think the self heal would outscale the buff in that case also.

I think you're totally right that overall the FR glyph will be better in more fights. I'm just thinking aloud (err, in text) of times that it might be worth swapping the glyph off.