[Druid] Guardian Guide Patch 7.3.5

Fiury · Last edited by Fiury on 27-08-2020, 23:55:25; edited 139 times in total

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 very good utility to raid and Mythic+ groups as a tank.
Guardian Druids excel against encounters where a large majority of incoming damage is Physical or Melee hits.

Alliance:

Night Elf:

Nature Resistance: Reduces Nature damage taken by 1%.
Quickness: Increases your chance to dodge melee and ranged attacks by 2%, and your movement speed by 2%.
Shadowmeld: Activate to slip into the shadows, reducing the chance for enemies to detect your presence. Lasts until cancelled or upon moving. Any threat is restored versus enemies still in combat upon cancellation of this effect.
Touch of elune: Increases your Haste by 1% during the night. Increases your Critical Strike by 1% during the day.

Worgen:

Aberration: Reduces Shadow and Nature damage taken by 1%.
Viciousness: Increases critical strike chance by 1%.

Horde:

Tauren:

Brawn: Critical strike damage and healing increased by 2%.
Nature Resistance: Reduces Nature damage taken by 1%.
War Stomp: Stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yds for 2 seconds.
Endurance: Increases your Stamina by 1283(level110) (scales with level).

Troll:

Regeneration: Health regeneration rate increased by 10%. 10% of total Health regeneration may continue during combat.
Da Voodoo Shuffle: Reduces the duration of all movement impairing effects by 20%. Trolls be flippin' out mon!
Berserking: Increases your haste by 15% for 10 seconds.

Highmountain Tauren:

Bull Rush: Charge forward for 1 second, knocking enemies down for 1 second.
Mountaineer: Increases your Versatility by 1%.
Rugged Tenacity: Reduces damage taken by (Stamina * 0.0003 * 20).

Down here i will explain what race is the best for guardian druid depending on some factors
If you want to play on

Alliance
Main spec: Obviously you need to create a Night Elf for the 2% dodge.
Off spec: You can choose between Night Elf :You can use your potions 2 times in one fight or Worgen for the 1% Crit from Viciousness. Its only your chose.

If you want to play on

Horde:
Main spec: Obviously you need to create a Tauren for all his passives that are very useful in raids and dungeons.
Off spec: Troll will be most useful because of his Berserking that helps you on all other 3 specs.

If the faction isn't important, i would recommend Tauren.

The stats priority is:

Stamina>Versatillity>Mastery

Also, in a range of 40 item levels, items with avoidance are better than the ones without.
Items with avoidance are better even if they lower your versatillity and mastery.

Critical Strike: 20%-24%
Haste:10%-12%
Mastery: 15%-20%
Versatillity: 25%+

The stats for donated druid guardian are:
Critical strike: 25%
Haste: 15%
Mastery: 20%+
Versatillity: 30%+

There are few play styles, depending on your preferences and your item level. Lets talk about every talent on the talent tree.

Level 15: Brambles , Bristling Fur and Blood Frenzy

Brambles - Increases your dps and provides a small absorb on each hit you take.
Bristling Fur - This talent is good for fast rage generation.
Blood Frenzy - Higly recommended for constant rage generation.

Level 30: Guttural Roars , Intimidating Roar and Wild Charge

Guttural Roars - Decreases your Stampeding Roar cooldown and also increases the range of Stampeding Roar and Incapacitating roar .
Intimidating Roar - Replaces your Incapacitating Roar and now the fear persists even after you deal damage to the targets.
Wild Charge - in bear form, this talent grants you an extra charge that roots the target for 4 seconds.

Level 45: Balance Affinity , Feral Affinity and Restoration Affinity

Balance Affinity - Increases the range of your abilities.
Feral Affinity - Increases your movement speed.
Restoration Affinity - Grants Ysera's Gift passive.

Level 60: Mighty Bash, Mass Entanglement and Typhoon

Mighty Bash - Stuns the target for 5 seconds.
Mass Entanglement - Roots all enemies within 15 yards of your target.
Typhoon - Knock back all targets within a 15 yards con in front of you.

Level 75: Soul of the forest , Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc and Galactic Guardian

Soul of the Forest - Mangle generates 5 more range and deals more damage .
Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc - Increases your armor and now your damaging abilities don't have cooldown.
Galactic Guardian - Now when you deal damage to an enemy there is a chance to trigger a free Moonfire on targets you attack.

Level 90: Earthwarden, Guardian of Elune and Survival of the fittest

Earthwarden - Reduces the damage of the next auto attack you take by 30%.
Guardian of Elune - Mangle increases the duration of Ironfur or the healing received from Frenzied Regeneration.
Survival of the Fittest - Reduces the cooldown of Barkskin and Survival Instincts by 33%.

Level 100: Rend and Tear, Lunar Beam and Pulverize

Rend and Tear - Increases the damage done by 2% and decreases the damage taken by 2% per stack of Thash applied on target.
Lunar Beam - Summons a beam at your position that deals Arcane damage.
Pulverize - Consumes 2 stacks of Thrash, deals a good amount of damage and decreases your damage taken by 9%.

These are a few of the most played builds:

1st Build: Skysec's Hold build.

This is the build I use most, this build is based on Skysec's Hold with Archimonde's hatred reborn, Dual Determination, Prydaz, Xavaric's Magnum Opus or Ekowraith, Creator of Worlds as 2nd legendary depending on the fight. Its great on both solo target and AoE fights.
It focuses on surviving hard hits and regenerating after receiving them.
This is the talent tree I use for this build

Note: If you use Dual Determination, then use Survival of the Fittest instead of Guardian of Elune

2nd Build: Galactic Guardian build.

This build is based on healing from the Nature and Arcane damage abilities and talents by using Lady and the Child and Fury of nature.
Its great for AoE fights and its most used in keys, but its hard to complete because the shoulders are from Balance spec.

This is the talent tree I use for this build

3rd Build: Luffa Wrappings and Elize's Everlasting Encasement

While Galactic Guardian build is based on healing from arcane and nature damage, this one is focused on pure dps.
You can use this build on long AoE fights where there is no need for a lot of healing.

This is the talent tree I use for this build

Note: You go for this build only if you will focus on doing dps, not surviving, take Restoration Affinity or Feral Affinity if you think that Balance Affinity isn't useful for the majority of the encounter.

Bears have currently quite a simple rotation offensively.

1. Moonfire 100% uptime
2. Mangle off CD
3. Thrash 100% uptime and use off CD
4. Moonfire with GG proc > Swipe if 2 targets or less.
5. Maul
6. Swipe as filler, Swipe > Mangle if 3+ Targets.

General single target opener is something like Moonfire while running in > Mangle > Thrash > Swipe

You are of course a tank, but active mit is quite straightforward atm:
1. Keep 2 stacks of Ironfur up at all times.
2. CDs as you see fit, Rots/Skin/SI

Most intricacies are fight dependant eg; when to use active mit or cds appropriately like RotS/Incarnation.
General tank rule of thumb is use everything at your disposal to stay alive even if it means not having a CD later on in the fight that you think you need, you will be surprised how often you get through things with less CD's than expected. If you die while still having things up that could've saved you then you are playing sub optimally for your raid.

Thrash, Mangle relics offensively and Scintillating Moonlight, Ursoc's Endurance relics defensively, the best by far.

Offensive Type:

Tier 1- Torment the Weak > Secure in the Light > Shadowbind.
Tier 2 -Infusion of Light > Murderous Intent > Chaotic Darkness
Tier 3 -Shocklight > Master of Shadows > Light Speed
Tier 4 - The rest

Deffensive Type:

Tier 1 - Master of Shadows > Refractive Shell > Murderous Intent
Tier 2 - Secure in the Light > Light's Embrace > Shadowbind
Tier 3 - Chaotic Darkness > Infusion of Light > Shocklight = Light Speed
Tier 4 - The rest

Enchants:

Cloak - +200 Agility
Ring - +200 Vers
Neck - Currently the only enchant with a choice.
Mark of the Trained Soldier - +600 Flat mastery, no proc.
Mark of the Heavy Hide - Chance to proc 3000 armor for 10 seconds.

Potions:

Potion of the Old War- Use: Summons a pair of ghostly fallen warriors that will echo your melee attacks and abilities.
- Highest DPS potion for bear at the moment if used optimally.

Potion of Prolonged Power - Use: Increase Agi + Stam by 2500 for 60 seconds. 60s CD. Great pot for 5 mans and AoE currently due to insane uptime.
Unbending Potion - Use: Increases your bonus armor by 3500 for 25 sec.
Quite solid defensively, but no longer has any Offensive benefit eg pre potting at the start of a fight.

Discord: Fiury#4432

Rdtym · Posted: 28-08-2020, 20:46:49 | Translate post to: ... (Click for more languages)

Congrats for the guide, it's nice for beginners. You could've included the pulverize build, which is arguably better, and went more in depth with the stats, but I understand you want to avoid overwhelming people. Keep up the good work

.

damafiakingz · Last edited by damafiakingz on 08-09-2020, 17:21:38; edited 2 times in total

Really nice guide

I would like to add why I suppose druid tank is best for tank for raiding:

I totally agree druid is very strong tank, there is a reason why they were rank number 1 progressing tank in most of legion on retail. Druids were used at KJ at Gul'Dan a lot, even at ABT there were top tanks.

Druid basically has it all, first of all we'll start with their great utility and roughly would say the best for raids is stampeding roar, this ability with the Guttural Roars will do wonders, it's very strong ability in raids in my opinion because raids has a lot about moving around and dodging, this ability will save lives, make the encounter faster, as the faster you get to the positions or switches the better, for example on Imonar bridge it's just purely amazing, and I can think of many situations where it's just so good, no other class will offer a stampeding roar every 1 minute, as feral has it on a 2min CD which roughly isn't that good as one which is on 1 minute.

Their CC and mobility are also very good, the entangling root is amazing for coven.

Utility rank: 5/5

Now speaking about defensives: IRONFUR their main physical dmg reduction which has a 100% uptime, ranging from 70-85% dmg reduction which 85 is cap, this is very high guardian druids are on top at mitigating physical damage with monks, not only this is 100% uptime and really easy to maintain it's also very strong. Literally no IQ to do this. Add versality on top of this and you are immortal.

Barskin - 20% dmg reduction with LOW CD ranging from 1.3minutes-40 seconds depending on talent/and set bonus. This ability is really good to use in general when you are soaking something, or use it when a magic attack will happen, I mostly save this for moments as these, as this will be one of your main magic attack defensive.

Survival Instinct - 63% dmg reduction 2 stacks/3 with leggo, CD between 4 minutes - 2minutes, depending on ITEMS + Talents. This ability is your main defensive, this ability will make you immortal pretty much, I save these 2 CD's when I'm getting hit hard or extreme situations. For me this survival instinct acts nearly as a bubble, I'd actually say this better than a bubble, because realistically while using this for any big damage coming from anywhere while having survival instinct it won't kill you, but you have 2 charges maybe 3 with leggo, so you got 3 death cheats.

Rage of sleeper - 1.5m CD offering 25% leech, 25% ALL DMG Reduction, Reflects dmg back + IMMUNE TO FEARS/STUNS Knockback( THIS IS CURRENTLY BUGGED AND DOESN T WORK). This is by far my favourite ability offensively and defensively, I mostly will use this while needing a bit of defensives or just to burst.

Frenzied regeneration - will heal 50% of dmg taken in last 5 secs, 3 charges, with TOS SET this is OVERPOWERED. I take this as mean magic dmg mitigation too, get hit 5m by magic hit? heal back 2.5m + mastery+ versa you heal even more than that, so roughly you'll get 3mil back heal. This mitigates 50%+ dmg

Passive defensives:
Moonfire - 4% dmg reduction if kept on target.
Rend and tear - 6% or 10% with leggo
Pulverize - 9% ( can't have with Rend and tear)
Thick Hide - 6% (11% with chest leggo)

Magical dmg mitigation: I see many people from this server complain about how Guardian Druid Sucks because they don't got magic mitigation. The people who say this they simple sheep's who don't know anything about the game.
It's true in 7.2.5 they removed a spell called mark of ursol which gave 30%, this nerfed BARELY did any dmg to the druid, and you are asking why?

First of all having that magic mitigation was too overpowered, that mean druid had no weakness, but now they seem to have right? Well the answer is no:
Here is why:

My character is build this way:
36% Versality, 20% Crit, 15% haste, 17-19 mastery , 13% leech, 14% avoidance, 20 % speed, 35% dodge.

36 Versality means by default I have 18% DMG REDUCTION because versa adds dmg reduction 1/2 of it. So if you got 100 versa, you got 50% dmg reduction on all types of dmg income.
So lets do the math: 18 Dmg reduction from versality, 6 from Thick Hide, 9% from pulvireze, 4% from moonfire. = 18+6+9+4 = 37% MAGICAL DMG REDUCTION
So by default I have a 37% dmg reduction which is BIG enough, oh add barskin to it? 37% default dmg reduction + barskin, oh there is a big ability hit coming? once again 37%+rage of sleeper(25 dmg reduction from magic spells). You can already do the maths, you can also had trinkets which increase this.
Example dinnerbell with versa = 10% dmg reduction+ 1mil(stamina) at 985 ilvl every 1.5minute. This trinket IS OP For druid not only gives you a defensive for 15 seconds but also HP
Lets not mention when artifact legion procs ranging from 6k-16k versa more, for me at 91T i get 40 more versa roughly and it procs often that means, 36+40=76+dinner bell = 88% versa which means 88% more dmg 88% more heal 44 DMG REDUCTION, add shivermaw to it too when having 5 Adds around you, and you have 100 Versality.

for short I got always a 50%-80% magic dmg reduction whenever a magic spell will hit me, so that nerf didn't do nothing.

with 18million HP and 36% versa and with all those mitigations the result is simple. (This applies for donor bear only, for a non donor the stats will be obviously lower, but a non donor bear can get to 30% versa easily without ruing mastery/haste/crit.
5/5 on defensives.
Lets not forget to mention, how antorus is 69% Physical dmg only.

Garothi
70% Physical
65% auto attack
5% special
30% Magic (Fire)

Dogs:
50% Physical All auto attack
50% Magic (Shadow) If tanking Shatug
50% Magic (Fire) F'harg

Antoron High Command:
80% Physical 70% auto attack
20% Magic (Fire) AOE

Portal Keeper

85% Physical 35% auto attack 50% DoT
5% Magic (Shadow)
5% Magic (Fire)
5% Magic (Nature)

Eonar
55% Physical
45% Magic (Fire)

Imonar
90% Physical 50% auto attack 25% DoT 15% other
5% Magic (Fire)
5% Magic (Nature)

Kin'Gorath
70% Physical
50% auto attack
20% forging You can pop AMS and run through ruiner if required (the AMS will break quickly so dont spend too long in it)
20% Magic (Fire)
10% Magic (Shadow)

Vari:
60% Physical All auto attack
20% Magic (Shadow)
Warrior Tanking Stuff

Coven:
25% Physical All auto attack Tightening Grasp (L75 Talent) works to slow the adds, mass grip works on the adds - Norgannon intermission
15% Magic (Frost) | This damage is based on which boss is active Warrior Tanking Stuff
15% Magic (Shadow)
<---| Recommended Talents:
25% Magic (Fire) | Fiery Strike can be reflected (however is not consistent)
15% Magic (Arcane) <--- Aman'thul
5% Magic (Nature) <--- Golganneth

Aggramar

85% Physical
75% auto attack 10% conal
10% conal
15% Magic (Fire)

ARGUS:
90% PYSHICAL
10% Magic

Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1K6lD6DHhbShyFcfqxTzO1Gh3ycy1e0VjDwtWxYOYRWQ/preview#gid=852090769

As you see guardian druid won't struggle at all with magic dmg with 50% dmg reduction + 15mil HP +, with a lot of healing too..