Introduction to the Guardian Druid
Guardian Druid is a sturdy tank that manages damage intake through having strong passive reductions, a large health pool, increased healing received from Mastery, and a stackable active mitigation. They are an excellent sponge tank and once you have acquired enough gear they are mostly self-sufficient with a unique playstyle unlike any class. They bring good utility to raid and Mythic+ groups as a tank.
Guardian is in a very competitive state in both raids and dungeons. Their defensive power has been boosted quite significantly by the amount of Agility and secondary stats we will be acquiring, increasing Armor gained from Ironfur greatly and raising our dodge to levels above 50% passively, making Druid one of the most stable and fun to play tanks in the game
Below you will find a beginners guide to the Guardian Druid, you can click on highlighted abilities, for a more in depth description of them.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Guardian Druid
Strengths
- Strong passive damage reductions
- High Health pool for stable damage intake
- Stackable, no-cooldown active mitigation in Ironfur
Weaknesses
- Has to sacrifice significant amounts of survivability to be competitive
- Weak self-sustain leads to a heavy reliance on healers
- Poor magic damage mitigation
Talents
Rotation of the Guardian Druid
The basic rotation of the Guardian Druid is as follows:
- Keep Moonfire ticking.
- Use Thrash if your target does not have 3 stacks of the bleed yet
- Use Mangle
- Cast Moonfire with a Galactic Guardian proc, if talented
- Use Maul to dump Rage, if you do not need the Rage for Ironfur or Frenzied Regeneration
- Cast Swipe.
You can use the recommended Addon ConRo for help with your rotation, it can be found in our Addons Guide here
Survival Cooldowns
- Barkskin reduces all damage you take by 20% for 12 seconds, on a 90 second cooldown. Barkskin is usable while stunned, incapacitated, or asleep.
- Survival Instincts reduces all damage you take by 50% for 6 seconds. Survival Instincts has 2 charges and a 4 minute recharge time.
Stat Priority
The stat priority for the Guardian Druid is
- Armor/Agility/Stamina
- Versatility
- Mastery
- Haste
- Critical Strike.
Pro Healer (If I’m tabbed in), otherwise a total Moob