Hi Folks,
With the recent Guardian druid changes I’ve been looking at ways to track my performance as a tank. Savage Defense uptime will be a key metric, but there are also several other concerns.
Druid tanking is now much more like Death Knight tanking than it was in the previous expansion, specifically with the active mitigation changes of Savage Defense and Frenzied Regeneration and the addition of more damage reducing cool-downs.
Those cool-downs are:
- Nature’s Swiftness (if used for a self heal), Renewal or Cenarion Ward
- Barkskin
- Incarnation or Force of Nature
- Might of Ursoc
- Berserk
- Survival Instincts
- Enrage
- Symbiosis (when we get it at 87) can grant additional tanking cool-downs.
Just maintaining a high Savage Defense uptime is not going to be good enough for Guardians. I had an unpleasant experience tanking Arcurion the other night because I was worrying about Savage Defense, and almost all the damage this boss does is magical – Savage Defense did nothing. I should have been using my rage on Frenzied Regeneration instead. A quick Renewal got me out of trouble, but it was a lesson that I won’t forget in a hurry.
I’ve run some more heroics since then and not had magic damage be such a significant issue, but it pays to watch in case you are taking more damage than expected. Switching to Frenzied Regeneration at that point should make a difference.
This morning I was looking for addons to track the uptime of my buffs and debuffs on a target. Not while I’m in a fight (I use NeedToKnow for that), but afterwards so I can look to see if there are things I can improve about my game. I ended up installing Skada, which has some neat features that gave me exactly what I was looking for.
A quick test on the target dummy shows all my tanking cool-down use and how long I maintained debuffs on a target. I couldn’t easily get this information from Recount, so I’ll be making the switch for a while and see how I go.
I have been doing some tanking on live and have found that I am going to have to track Savage Defense. I was hoping the new version of Bad Kitty would do it for bears but it doesn’t appear to.
How highly do you rate the NeedToKnow add on? I was looking at trying that out or using power auras. Do you have any other suggestions?
~Elamari
NeedToKnow is awesome. I use it for tanking and cat dps. Here’s my current setup for tanking on live: http://eaoexcursions.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/guardian-needtoknow.png
I prefer it over PowerAuras because I need to see the movement of the bar to the left, rather than having to read a number for a countdown timer. I find the movement easier to recognize.
Nice. I really like the look of those bars. Is that the add on or is it a UI theme you are running?
That’s the addon. You can get it to display icons on the left and a few other things as well, but I run it in a minimalistic way.