Bears Still Need More Flavor

Don’t freak out. It’s still beta; it’s all a work in progress. Bears in Mists of Pandaria are still like bears in Cataclysm but with the cat half of their toolkit cut out and nothing filled in to replace all that flavor. It’s up to us to keep things from staying the way they are. With the power of <announcer voice> CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM!

To start out, look at the difference between my beta monk’s action bars and my beta druid’s.

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Comparing Brewmasters and Guardians

(With very little information to go on.)

In an attempt to better understand Brewmaster monks, I’ve compared them to Guardian druids. I tried comparing similar abilities side-by-side, but many skills do not have a direct correlation between classes. A couple skills fit into more than one category, so they’re on this list more than once. I probably also missed some skills, so if you find any mistakes, please let me know.

Bears will still be the only offensive tank. That is, Guardians benefit from haste and crit, and will probably have more reasons to cap hit and expertise than other tanks. These stats will increase our rage generation, which leads to more frequent Savage Defenses and Frenzied Regenerations. Brewmaster monks, on the other hand, don’t appear to benefit from these offensive stats. I think they will love dodge, since each dodge gives them a huge amount of Chi (their primary resource). Parry will make their rotation a bit more dynamic and probably increase their damage.

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Team Wafflecast: Bear Roundtable

I was on the latest Team Wafflecast with several talented bear druids. We answer bear-related questions about the current state of the spec, speculate about bears in Mists of Pandaria, and other things.

I pretty much just sit in a corner and answer questions when Arielle makes me, because I’m very shy. D: There were three hardcore 25man tanks so I felt a little lonely, but I learned that 25 man requires many more tanks than 10 man. Three tanks on heroic Spine?! And other things!

Anyways, enjoy!

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How Active Mitigation Might Work for Bears

At the moment, we don’t have very much concrete information. There is a lot we have to assume by looking at other classes (namely, warriors) and piecing together the little hints Blizzard has dropped us. Keep in mind that the current MoP talent calculators are pre-alpha, and the information will change significantly by launch.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s take a look at how active mitigation for Guardian druids looks at the moment.

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Bears: What Exactly Do We Gain or Lose in Mists of Pandaria?

Blizzard released the most up to date talent calculator last night. I plan on writing up a complete analysis later, but for now I wanted to list the spells and passive abilities that we lose or what will be changed. If I missed something, please let me know in the comments. It’s nearly 2am and I went over this pretty quickly.

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The Death of the Bearcat

Hybrid no more.

I’m going to assume everyone is caught up with all of the recent Blizzcon news. If not, read up on it at MMO-Champion.

The biggest event for us bear druids was the separation of the traditional feral spec. Melee dps druids will continue to be called “feral combat,” and tanking druids will become “guardian”. I will miss referring to myself as feral, but guardian has a nice ring to it.

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