Guardian Druid Tank Gear and Best in Slot - The War Within (11.0.2) (2024)

Last updated on Aug 21, 2024 at 18:20by Pumps37 comments

Welcome to our Gear and BiS Page for Guardian Druid forthe War Within Patch 11.0.2. Check this page to learn everythingyou need to know about gearing a Guardian Druid, including theBiS Gear from allsources, Raiding, and Mythic+, information on the best Trinkets, Tier Sets, andmuch more.

For discussion and information on Stats specifically, check out our Stats page below.

Throughout this page, we regularly refer to the importance of simmingyourself on Raidbots, as it is an indispensable aspect of optimizing your character.

While we do offer generic sim charts for Trinkets, this should not be areplacement for simming yourself, at least not if you want to minmax sub-1%!

If you are new to simming and Raidbots, check out our detailed guide below.

3.

Best-in-Slot (BiS) Gear for Guardian Druids

Pre-Season 1 BiS ListOverall Season 1 BiS List

4.

Pre-Season 1 War Within BiS List for Guardian Druids

This list contains the Best in Slot Gear prior to Season 1 of The War Within. If youwant to ensure that your character is as strong as it can be come the launch ofSeason 1, check out this list!

Slot	Item	Source
Head	Whispering Mask	Ara-Kara, City of Echoes
Neck	Elder's Hemolymphal Periapt	City of Threads
Shoulders	Fireproof Cinderbee Perch	Cinderbrew Meadery
Cloak	Swarmcaller's Shroud	Ara-Kara, City of Echoes
Chest	Seraphic Wraps of the Ordained	Priory of the Sacred Flame
Wrists	Unbreakable Beetlebane Bindings	Ara-Kara, City of Echoes
Gloves	Shimmering Glimclaws	Darkflame Cleft
Belt	Brewery Toiler's Waistband	Cinderbrew Meadery
Legs	Squallrider's Kilt	The Rookery
Boots	Stalwart Guardian's Boots	Priory of the Sacred Flame
Ring 1	Wick's Golden Loop	Darkflame Cleft
Ring 2	Experiment 08752's Band	City of Threads
Weapon	Harvester's Interdiction	Ara-Kara, City of Echoes
Trinket #1	Ara-Kara Sacbrood (580)	Ara-Kara, City of Echoes
Trinket #2	Empowering Crystal of Anub'ikkaj (580)	The Dawnbreaker

4.

Season 1 Overall BiS List for Guardian Druid

This list contains the Best in Slot Gear for Season 1 of The War Within.

Slot	Item	Source/Note
Weapon	Harvester's Interdiction (639)	Ara-Kara, City of Echoes, or Great Vault
Helm	Beyond's Dark Visage (639)	The Bloodbound Horror in Nerub-ar Palace
Neck	Sureki Zealot's Insignia	Sikran in Nerub-ar Palace
Shoulder	Maw of the Greatlynx (639)	Rasha'nan/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Cloak	Wings of Shattered Sorrow (639)	Rasha'nan in Nerub-ar Palace
Chest	Hide of the Greatlynx (639)	Broodtwister Ovi'nax/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Bracers	Sanguine Experiment's Bandages (639)	Broodtwister Ovi'nax in Nerub-ar Palace
Gloves	Eviscerators of the Greatlynx (639)	Sikran/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Belt	Devourer's Taut Innards (639)	Ulgrax the Devourer in Nerub-ar Palace
Legs	Leggings of the Greatlynx (639)	Nexus Princess Ky'veza/Matrix Catalyst/Great Vault
Boots	Fleeting Massacre Footpads (639)	Nexus Princess Ky'veza in Nerub-ar Palace
Ring #1	Seal of the Poisoned Pact (639)	Queen Ansurek in Nerub-ar Palace
Ring #2	Key to the Unseeming (639)	The Bloodbound Horror in Nerub-ar Palace
Trinket #1	Ara-Kara Sacbrood (639)	Ara-Kara, City of Echoes (626), or Great Vault
Trinket #2	Mad Queen's Mandate (639)	Queen Ansurek in Nerub-ar Palace

The Tier Set is comprised of 5 items, all carrying the of the Greatlynx name.Unique DPS bonuses are unlocked when wearing 2 or 4 pieces from the set:

• Druid Guardian Season 1 2pc — Thrash and Moonfire increase your damage done and reduce your damage taken by 1%,stacking 3 times. A passive 3% damage taken and reduction for doing yourstandard rotation.
• Druid Guardian Season 1 4pc — Arcane damage you deal is increased by 5%and bleed damage you deal is increased by 8%. Another passive effectthat you don't need to track or play around.

The Tier Set Bonus is absolutely mandatory for competitive play, and youshould prioritize obtaining it. You can use theMatrix Catalyst to convert regular items (from Mythic+, forexample) into Tier Items.

You only need 4 pieces out of 5 to get both set bonuses. We recommend youget all items except for the Head, due to their high Crit. Check out the BiS List for more information.

You will be able to upgrade your items via Crests, such as Gilded Harbinger Crest. Once you have upgraded a slot to a certain itemlevel, upgrading other items of that slot to that item level is free.

When you upgrade with Crests, you should think of it as upgrading slots and not items.

Additionally, since Crests are a limited resource, you will want to obtainthe highest item-level possible before upgrading a given slot,as this means you will spend fewer Crests on that slot in total. If you are atall capable of doing a +9 Dungeon, for example, it would be a VERY bad idea toupgrade an item from a +8 Dungeon, as those are wasted Crests you may not get back for a very long time.

We see a ton of players, even at a high level, mess up their upgrade priorities, and upgrading prematurely.Getting this right will put you far ahead of most players.

Below is the slot priority you should upgrade your items in. If you ever want to deviate from this, you should have a very good reason.

1. Weapons
2. Trinkets
3. Helm/Chest/Legs
4. Shoulders/Gloves/Belt/Boots
5. Rings and Necks
6. Cloaks and Bracers

You may only have 2 embellishments, present on equipped crafted gear at a time.

Guardian generally prefers to craft low stat budget, flexible items that caneasily be swapped to another embellishment at will.

• Flexible armor slots — such as Rune-Branded Armbands and Rune-Branded Kickers — These can be incredibly useful as they aregreat items on their own that can have a multitude of embellishments applied tothem, allowing you to swap and try things out frequently. Applying a simple proc embellishmentlike Elemental Focusing Lens to these makes them quite competitive.
• Adrenal Surge Clasp — crafted by Leatherworkers,the Adrenal Surge Clasp is a tank belt with primary stat proc from damage taken.This effect can be doubled with the Writhing Armor Banding, consuming bothof your embellishment slots.
• Concealed Chaos Module — Can be a great option for M+ damage.

The Matrix Catalyst is a feature that allows you toconvert any piece into "Tier" while retaining item level, socket, and tertiaryperks. This can help you to optimize your gear further, similar to the oldreforging system.

Whenever you get a new piece of gear, enchant it or gem it, ifpossible. In The War Within, sockets can come with or be put on: Head, Belt,Wrists, Rings, and Necks. The optimal enchants and gems for Guardian Druids are on the page linked below.

The following is a list of the most noteworthy trinketsavailable overall, ranked in order of power assuming equivalent item level. Ifyou donot have any of these, your best bet will be to use a stat proc trinket with areasonably high item level. This list only has our most powerful trinkets,any trinket not listed here is considerably weaker.

1. Mad Queen's Mandate
2. Void Reaper's Contract
3. Foul Behemoth's Chelicera
4. Bottled Flayedwing Toxin
5. Ara-Kara Sacbrood
6. Dead-Eye Spyglass
7. Empowering Crystal of Anub'ikkaj.
8. Ovi'nax's Mercurial Egg

Offensively, you can refer to the chart below (courtesy of Bloodmallet.com). Note that these are onlyrecommendations based on general sims; you should sim yourself for the most accurate results.

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For the complete simulation results, check out Bloodmallet.com