Guardian Druid Guide for The War Within (2024)

Last updated on Jun 18, 2024 at 10:00by Pumps37 comments

Welcome to our War Within expansion guide for Guardian Druid.Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about theGuardian Druid spec in the forthcoming The War Within expansion,including changes, Hero Talent Trees, and some light predictions on the stateof the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regularchanges expected as updates hit the War Within beta. This is not meant to bea launch guide for Guardian Druid, but instead serves as aresource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Beta, andwhat you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

Guardian Druid has received very minor changes to theDruid Class tree but no changes to the spec tree. The class tree changes allowus to more easily acquire Remove Corruption and Feline Swiftnesswhich is a nice bonus. There is also the new addition of Fluid Formwhich can potentially enable Catweaving in the future. The downsides of the newtree is Astral Influence has had its bonus range on melee and abilitiesremoved completely making it now a useless talent for bear. Also Stampeding Roaris a bit more awkward to acquire with now sacrificing power elsewhere.

The War Within has major implications for all specs thanks to the HeroTalent Tree system, new tier sets, and the natural reduction in secondarystats when entering a new expansion.

Guardian Druid gets to choose between the Elune's Chosenand Druid of the Claw Hero Talent Trees. In sections below, we will talk moredeeply about the implications of these Hero Talent Trees for the spec, and somethoughts on what looks strong and weak ahead of launch.

The Elune's Chosen Hero Tree Talents are primarily based on arcane damageinteractions such as Lunar Beam and Moonfire.

Gameplay-wise, expect a mostly passive kit that can lower the cooldown of Lunar Beam significantly or turn your Thrash intoan arcane ability. This tree can also generate quite a significant amount ofrage for us and also brings a small 30% slow to targets affected by Moonfire.

Power-wise, expect a solid all-rounder that amplifies our arcane kit slightly.Elune's Chosen looks especially strong in AoE/M+ scenarios, thanks to the massivemastery boost currently granted by Lunar Beam.

Defensively, Elune's Chosen is fairly average. Between Moon Guardianand The Light of Elune you generate a significant amount of bonus ragecompared to usual. This can translate well into more spenders overall.

The Druid of the Claw Hero Tree Talents are primarily based on its core proc ability, Ravage.

Gameplay-wise, expect a mostly passive kit from Druid of the Claw thatoccasionally gives you procs of Ravage alongside small boosts to our Maul/ Raze and Frenzied Regeneration. There issome shared Cat perks that lean into the old Catweaving playstyle where youtemporarily shift into Cat Form to apply bleeds/ Ferocious Bitefor a bit of bonus damage but the impact of this will largely be dependant onwhether or not the +50% Bear Aura gets changed to include cat spells. If not, itwill likely only have minimal to no value and potentially be ignored completely.

Power-wise, Druid of the Claw does not look very exciting on its surface. Itentirely revolves around Ravage which is essentially just Tooth and Claw.A random proc that changes your damage-dealing spender to a slightly better one.You were already going to press that spender regardless, now it just does a littlemore, so rotationally and talent wise exactly the same as Dragonflight sadly.

Defensively, it is minorly worse than the Elune's Chosen counterpart as manyof the defensive aspects require shifting from Cat to Bear which in a wayhas it's own significant downsides. As anyone who has played Guardian knows, shiftinginto cat is relatively dangerous, lessened by some of the new talents that let youretain 80% of armor and health now, but still at risk of crits.

Below are the Tier Set Bonuses for Guardian Druid in The WarWithin. After the wording of the bonus, you will find a brief note/commentarythat is italicized.

• Druid Guardian Season 1 2pc — Thrash and Moonfireincrease your damage done and reduce damage you take by 1% for 8 secondsstacking 3 times. The 3% damage increase on this is deceptive as it does notwork on many things like cantrip effects/trinkets, spells not on the aura etc.Roughly equates to about a 2% damage increase depending on build.The damage reduction is also so small it is completely negligible.
• Druid Guardian Season 1 4pc — Arcane damage you deal is increasedby 5% and bleed damage you deal is increased by 5%. Basically translates toanother passive 2-2.5% damage increase depending on build.

Both set bonuses are completely passive and are not expected to have anygameplay impact.

The set bonus is numerically very weak, completely passive and extremely boring.Less than 5% damage increase for both bonuses combined with a minor damage reductionbonus on top. You would truly never notice whether you actually had this tierset equipped or just got different RNG pull to pull on a boss.