Guardian Druid Tank Spec, Builds, and Talents (Legion 7.3.5)

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. Patch 7.3 Changes
  • 3. Patch 7.2.5 Changes
  • 4. Patch 7.2 Changes
  • 5. Contents
  • 6. ChangeLog
• +Easy Mode
  • 1. The Basics of Guardian Druids
  • 2. Talent Choice for Guardian Druids
  • 3. Stat Choice
  • 4. Basic Rotation for Guardian Druids
  • 5. Active Mitigation Abilities for Guardian Druids
  • 6. Cooldown Usage for Guardian Druids
  • 7. ChangeLog
• +Spell Summary
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Main Resource of Guardian Druids
  • 3. Basic Abilities for Guardian Druids
  • 4. Important Procs for Guardian Druids
  • 5. Active Mitigation for Guardian Druids
  • 6. Cooldowns for Guardian Druids
  • 7. ChangeLog
• ×Builds and Talents
  • 1. Talent Choices
  • 2. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 3. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 4. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 5. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 6. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 7. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 8. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 9. ChangeLog
• +Artifact Traits and Relics
  • 1. Artifact Progression for Guardian Druids
    • 1.1. Shared Path
    • 1.2. Adaptive Fur Versus Gory Fur
    • 1.3. Patch 7.2 Traits for Guardian Druids
  • 2. Relic Choice for Guardian Druids
    • 2.1. Survivability
    • 2.2. Damage Output
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Netherlight Crucible Relic Paths
  • 1. General Optimization Advice for Guardian Druids
  • 2. Tier 2 Upgrade Priority for Guardian Druids
    • 2.1. Survivability
    • 2.2. Damage Output
  • 3. Tier 3 Upgrade Priority for Guardian Druids
    • 3.1. Survivability
    • 3.2. Damage Output
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Single Target Rotation for Guardian Druids
  • 2. Multiple Target Rotation for Guardian Druids
  • 3. Active Mitigation for Guardian Druids
    • 3.1. Ironfur
    • 3.2. Frenzied Regeneration
  • 4. Taunting
  • 5. Cooldowns for Guardian Druids
  • 6. Optional Read: Mastering Your Guardian Druid
    • 6.1. Rage Generation
    • 6.2. Mastery: Nature's Guardian
    • 6.3. Gore Procs
    • 6.4. Detailed Cooldown Usage for Guardian Druids
      • 6.4.1. Survival Instincts
      • 6.4.2. Barkskin
      • 6.4.3. Rage of the Sleeper
      • 6.4.4. Tier 1 Talents
      • 6.4.5. Tier 3 Talents
      • 6.4.6. Tier 5 Talents
      • 6.4.7. Tier 6 Talents
  • 7. ChangeLog
• +Stat Priority
  • 1. Basics
    • 1.1. Survivability
    • 1.2. Damage Output
  • 2. Getting a Better Understanding of Guardian Druid Stats
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
  • 1. Gems for Guardian Druids
  • 2. Enchants for Guardian Druids
  • 3. Consumables for Guardian Druids
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Macros and Addons
  • 1. Macros
    • 1.1. Generic Macros for Druids
      • 1.1.1. Rebirth
      • 1.1.2. Remove Corruption
    • 1.2. Specific Macros for Guardian Druids
      • 1.2.1. Hand of Protection Cancelaura Macro
      • 1.2.2. Useful Mouseover Macros
  • 2. Addons
    • 2.1. Generic Addons for Druids
      • 2.1.1. ElvUI
      • 2.1.2. Boss Mods: Deadly Boss Mods or Bigwigs
      • 2.1.3. GTFO
      • 2.1.4. Parrot or Mik's Scrolling Battle Text
      • 2.1.5. Weak Auras
      • 2.1.6. DroodFocus
      • 2.1.7. Recount / Skada / Details!
      • 2.1.8. Grid and GridClickSets (Optional)
    • 2.2. Specific Addons for Guardian Druids
      • 2.2.1. Omen Threat Meter
      • 2.2.2. Tidy Plates: Threat Plates
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gear, Legendaries, and Best in Slot
  • 1. Best in Slot List for Guardian Druids
  • 2. Trinkets for Guardian Druids
    • 2.1. Non-Raid Trinkets
    • 2.2. Raid Trinkets
  • 3. Tier 21 Set Bonuses for Guardian Druids
  • 4. Legendary Items for Guardian Druids
  • 5. Loot Competition for Guardian Druids
  • 6. ChangeLog

General Information

On this page, we present the viable talent choices for Guardian Druids in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3.5. We detail what each of the talents do and in which situations they should be taken.

The other pages of our Guardian Druid guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Reviewer

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Justwait, a top tank who raids in Method. You can also watch his stream on Twitch and follow him on Twitter.

1. Talent Choices

Level	Choices
15	✘ Brambles	✔ Bristling Fur	? Blood Frenzy
30	✔ Guttural Roars	✘ Intimidating Roar	? Wild Charge
45	✔ Balance Affinity	? Feral Affinity	? Restoration Affinity
60	? Mighty Bash	? Mass Entanglement	? Typhoon
75	✔ Soul of the Forest	? Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc	✔ Galactic Guardian
90	? Earthwarden	✔ Guardian of Elune	? Survival of the Fittest
100	✔ Rend and Tear	✘ Lunar Beam	✔ Pulverize

Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area (such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Tranquil Mind and Codex of the Tranquil Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

2. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents for Guardian Druids

✘ Brambles

✔ Bristling Fur

? Blood Frenzy

• Brambles is a passive effect that causes all attacks made against you to have an amount of their damage absorbed and reflected back to the attacker. Moreover, if you choose Brambles, while Barkskin is active, you pulse a small amount of Nature damage to all nearby enemies every second.
• Bristling Fur is an active ability with a 40-second cooldown. For its 8-second duration, you gain Rage from damage taken.
• Blood Frenzy causes Thrash to generate 2 Rage each time it deals damage.

Bristling Fur is definitely the best talent for Rage generation. This talent should be standard choice for most fights. It excels on encounters where it might be advantageous to have a couple of Ironfur stacks at a given time; assuming you are taking a fair amount of damage beforehand, you will get a lot of Rage to spend on Ironfur and Frenzied Regeneration. Against sustained physical damage, this can be a lot stronger than Barkskin/ Rage of the Sleeper, as it can make you easily keep 3+ stacks up over its duration.

Blood Frenzy is decent for long term cleave/AoE situations. Since the Thrash DoT ticks once every 3 seconds, this effectively gives you 10 Rage per 15-seconds per target or 30 Rage per minute for each target available. Few bosses allow for this talent to very potent, however it can have some use in high Mythic+ content where enemies might live a longer time.

Brambles is passive, making it easy to use but defensively it incredibly useless. It is the only talent in this tier that does not generate Rage, but instead it can be used to do a small amount of extra damage. It can do a bit of damage in AoE situations, as the damage pulses all around you on each target, but we only recommend taking Brambles if you are not concerned with survivability and just want to improve your damage output.

3. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents for Guardian Druids

✔ Guttural Roars

✘ Intimidating Roar

? Wild Charge

This tier provides you with 3 situational talents, and the choice will depend on your playstyle and the requirements of the encounter.

That said, Guttural Roars will be the superior talent in this row in almost every case. The raid utility this talent brings is in many cases strong enough to make Druids the most preferred tank on an encounter, regardless of its other strengths and weaknesses.

Intimidating Roar and Wild Charge suffer from the same issue, which is that neither of them really brings anything new to the table. Incapacitating Roar already disorients targets, and its main use is to interrupt targets that may be stun immune due to diminishing returns, and the only thing Intimidating Roar will do is make sure they are crowd controlled for 3 full seconds instead. And Wild Charge is rarely worth it due to Druids already having a charge in form of Skull Bash; while Wild Charge has a slightly longer range, it would only be preferable if you have to save Skull Bash for something else later on. It can also be used in Travel Form to leap forward 20 yards without having a target, or in caster form to jump to a player's position, but it is still a very weak talent.

4. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents for Guardian Druids

✔ Balance Affinity

? Feral Affinity

? Restoration Affinity

• Balance Affinity grants you the Astral Influence passive ability, which increases the range of all your abilities by 5 yards. Additionally, you gain access to the Balance-spec abilities Moonkin Form, Starsurge, Lunar Strike, Solar Wrath, and Sunfire.
• Feral Affinity grants you the Feline Swiftness passive ability, which increases your movement speed by 15%. Additionally, you gain access to the Feral-spec abilities Shred, Rake, Rip, Ferocious Bite, and your energy regeneration is increased by 35%.
• Restoration Affinity grants you the Ysera's Gift passive ability, which heals you (or a nearby ally, if you are at full health yourself) for 1.5% of your maximum health every 5 seconds. Additionally, you gain access to the Restoration-spec abilities Rejuvenation, Healing Touch, Swiftmend.

For most situations, Balance Affinity is the go-to talent. It is excellent for Mythic+ for the extra range on AoE abilities like Thrash and Swipe, but it works for all abilities including auto-attack, Mangle, and Skull Bash. This talent makes it easy to keep doing your rotation while running around and picking up enemies.

Feral Affinity is an obvious choice if you ever find yourself wanting a little bit more movement speed against a certain encounter. While it gives you the abilities to deal damage in Cat Form, it is realistically never really worth doing so, and you are better off staying in Bear Form and generating Rage.

The heal of Restoration Affinity is, realistically, pretty weak and slow to have much of a meaningful impact, even if it does add up in total over a longer fight; it could see use in places where there is little to no incoming healing on you. While it is most effective when the heal goes on other players as the percentage-based healing is based off of your maximum health and Guardian Druids have a lot of health, it would require you to be at full health right before the heal would come in, which is too unreliable to count on (although it can sometimes happen).

An important note for this talent row is that the legendary Ekowraith, Creator of Worlds increases the effects of all these 3 talents by 75%. Balance Affinity becomes +9 yards, Feral Affinity becomes 26% movement speed, and Restoration Affinity heals you for 5.25% of maximum health every 5 seconds.

5. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents for Guardian Druids

? Mighty Bash

? Mass Entanglement

? Typhoon

• Mighty Bash is an active ability with a 50-second cooldown, which stuns the target for 5 seconds. It is usable in all shapeshift forms.
• Mass Entanglement is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown, which roots the target and all enemies within 15 yards of them in place for 30 seconds. Damage done to rooted targets may break the effect. Mass Entanglement is usable in all shapeshift forms.
• Typhoon is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown. It knocks back all targets within 15-yards in a cone in front of you, dazing them for 6 seconds. It is usable in all shapeshift forms.

The choice between these talents is very situational, as they are all different forms of crowd control.

In most situations, you will get the most use out of Typhoon, since it has a lot of use in Mythic+, where you can interrupt mobs that might have been stunned too many times, and assuming they can be knocked back in the first place, you can use this to interrupt again.

Mass Entanglement is a better version of Entangling Roots, as you can cast it while in Bear Form. It breaks very easily on damage, but can be used to keep certain mobs from reaching you.

Finally, Mighty Bash could be better should single target lockdown be more important.

6. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents for Guardian Druids

✔ Soul of the Forest

? Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc

✔ Galactic Guardian

• Soul of the Forest causes Mangle to generate 5 additional Rage and to deal 25% more damage.
• Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc is an active ability with a 3-minute cooldown. It does not trigger the global cooldown. For its duration, your armor is increased by 15%, the cooldown of all melee abilities and Growl is reduced to 1.5 seconds, and Mangle hits up to 3 targets.
• Galactic Guardian gives your damaging abilities a 7% chance to automatically cast a free Moonfire on the target. When this happens, the next Moonfire you cast (within 15 seconds) generates 8 Rage and deals 300% increased damage.

Against a single target, Soul of the Forest is generally the better talent in terms of Rage generation, especially if you are able to really invest a lot of Rage into Ironfur.

Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc is a strong burst talent, and is particularly good in Mythic+ where you might be doing a big pull every 2-4 minutes; you will be able to not only easily pick everything up because you have no cooldown on Thrash and do a lot of burst damage (this is especially powerful with Luffa Wrappings), but you will also get a small survivability boost. While Mangle also has reduced cooldown and casting nothing but Mangle will make for quite a bit of Rage generation, Thrash generally has a higher priority even on single target due to Pawsitive Outlook procs dealing damage and generating Rage. The damage is basically equal (if not higher with Thrash, depending on the amount of Jagged Claws relics you have).

Galactic Guardian is a really strong option for Rage generation as well, compared to Soul of the Forest, and definitely takes the lead when you consider multiple targets, which gives Galactic Guardian increased chances of proccing. While Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc might be stronger for straight up burst AoE damage, Galactic Guardian becomes a menacing AoE alternative if you have the legendaries Fury of Nature and Lady and the Child. The 8 Rage from casting Moonfire when you have a proc up also applies to Lady and the Child Moonfires if a Galactic Guardian proc is active, meaning that for maximum Rage generation, you actually do not want to consume it (unless it is about to run out), if there is a second target that Moonfire can jump to.

7. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents for Guardian Druids

? Earthwarden

✔ Guardian of Elune

? Survival of the Fittest

• Earthwarden grants you a charge of a buff that reduces the damage of the next attack made against you by 30%, each time you use Thrash. The buff can stack up to 3 times.
• Guardian of Elune causes Mangle to increase the duration of your next Ironfur by 2 seconds, or the healing of your next Frenzied Regeneration by 20%.
• Survival of the Fittest reduces the cooldown of Barkskin and Survival Instincts by 33%.

Guardian of Elune is generally the go-to talent in this row. Mangle increases the duration of your next Ironfur, which makes it a lot easier to always keep one stack active, which means you save quite a bit of Rage to just maintain an Ironfur stack and you are able to more easily keep higher stacks for when damage goes up. This proves really effective against long term high physical damage that is mitigated by Ironfur. It also empowers Frenzied Regeneration by 20%, which is a sizeable increase. When playing with Guardian of Elune, it is recommended you adapt your usage of active Mitigation slightly in order to try to get most of them empowered, but keep in mind that Ironfur is only increased in duration, not strength, meaning if you need multiple stacks up for a big nuke, you should disregard trying to buff them with Guardian of Elune.

Earthwarden generates one stack per target hit by Thrash ( Pawsitive Outlook) procs do NOT grant a stack); this means that this talent scales very well when there are multiple targets that can get hit while they do hit you back, thus consuming the stacks by auto attacking. While Earthwarden only reduces damage against auto-attacks, if you can manage to consistently have stacks up, the damage reduction against auto attacks that it provides will allow you to save Rage (or even cooldowns) to use against special attacks. Because of this, Earthwarden performs very poorly when AoE tanking, and it is probably even inferior to other talents against a single target unless the boss spends a lot of time casting or has a slow attack speed (which would allow you to maintain the stacks).

Survival of the Fittest is a good choice if you find yourself needing Survival Instincts a lot more often; coupled with Dual Determination, you will almost cut its cooldown in half, which can be very strong should the encounter have big nukes you might not be equipped to handle with just active mitigation. It does also reduce the cooldown of Barkskin, so it is a decent talent if you find the general damage intake to be fluctuating a lot, in which case you will have cooldowns a bit more often to help deal with it.

8. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents for Guardian Druids

✔ Rend and Tear

✘ Lunar Beam

✔ Pulverize

• Rend and Tear increases your damage done to targets affected by Thrash, and reduces the damage you take from these same targets, by 2% for each stack of Thrash that is active on them.
• Lunar Beam is an active ability with a 75-second cooldown which summons a beam of light at your location for 8 seconds. Any enemies in the beam take Arcane damage every second, and you are healed every second while in the beam. Note that the beam's location is fixed, and does not follow you as you move.
• Pulverize is an active ability that consumes 2 stacks of Thrash on the target, dealing Physical damage to them in exchange, and reducing all damage you take by 9% for 20 seconds.

Rend and Tear is passive and therefore easy to "use". It works very well with Elize's Everlasting Encasement, as it increases the maximum stack to 5, and its total damage increase and damage reduction caps at 10%, which is pretty solid. Its ease of use and the ability to both reduce damage intake and increase damage output makes it the default talent for most cases.

Lunar Beam has very limited use. While it is fairly strong together with Fury of Nature, it is still weaker for general upkeep than Rend and Tear, but it then works as a cooldown every 75 seconds, which could technically be useful if timers work out perfectly for that, which is however unlikely to happen.

Pulverize is generally the best survivability cooldown, and while Elize's Everlasting Encasement with Rend and Tear allows for 10% instead of 9% damage reduction, it also locks up a legendary slot, which means that with Pulverize you can instead choose another legendary and you should be better off defensively.

9. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 18 Mar. 2018: Completely rewrote all sections.
• 03 Dec. 2017: Added a mention that Typhoon does not trigger Sephuz's Secret.
• 12 Sep. 2017: Updated tier 5 talent discussion.
• 28 Aug. 2017: Changed Blood Frenzy (tier 1) from recommended to situational and updated Mass Entanglement's description.
• 07 Jul. 2017: Clarified that Soul of the Forest is now viable against a single target.
• 12 Jun. 2017: Slight rewrites to account for the removal of Mark of Ursol in patch 7.2.5.
• 22 Apr. 2017: Clarified that Wild Charge when in Travel Form causes you to jump to the location of an ally, and not to fly to them.
• 27 Mar. 2017: Updated Intimidating Roar description to account for changes made to it in Patch 7.2.
• 14 Feb. 2017: Updated description of Restoration Affinity to correctly reflect that it heals for 1.5% of maximum health per 5 seconds.
• 10 Jan. 2017: Updated the description of Soul of the Forest following the official patch note release.
• 09 Jan. 2017: Updated talent descriptions to account for Patch 7.1.5 and improved the tier 2, 5, 6, and 7 discussions.
• 16 Dec. 2016: Revised Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc as a situational (?) talent, and updated the description of Restoration Affinity.
• 25 Oct. 2016: Patch 7.1 changes.
  • Updated the description of Galactic Guardian (causes 10 Rage to be generated, down from 15, and increases the damage of the next Moonfire by 300%).
  • Added a mention that Incarnation is now off the global cooldown.
• 08 Oct. 2016: Slightly updated the discussion of the Guardian of Elune and Lunar Beam talents.
• 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
• 20 Jul. 2016: Revised tier 1 and 5 talent discussions.
• 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.