Guardian Druid Tank Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities - The War Within (11.0.2) (2024)

Welcome to our Rotation page for Guardian Druids. On this page, you will beable to find everything that you need to know about playing the spec inRaiding and Mythic+ content.

While it is highly recommended to go over this entire page to understand better how the class plays, you can also quickly browse the Beginnerguide below for a brief rundown of the important basic information.

This page will cover the Rotation in general content, but if you are lookingfor a more in-depth Mythic+-oriented guide, you may want to head over to ourMythic+ page linked below.

Guardian has very few talent choices that actually affect your Rotation.Of the few that do, Raze, Galactic Guardian and Tooth and Claware the biggest ones. Raze gives you an AoE rage spender that you want to use anytimethere is more than 1 target as your highest priority spell for damage. Galactic Guardian gives you a chance to proc a buff that boosts thedamage of your next Moonfire by 300% and causes it to generate an extra8 rage. Tooth and Claw gives you a chance to proc a buff that causes your next Maul or Raze to cost 0 rage and deal extra damage.These 2 procs are important to track with a Weakaura, ideally to ensure you won'tmiss any of these important procs.

• Ensure that you have eaten appropriate Food according toour Consumables page.
• Ensure you have your appropriate Flask buff from ourour Consumables page.
• Ensure your Weapon has its temporary enchant from our our Consumables page.
• Activate your Crystallized Augment Rune, if you can spare the Gold!

As a Guardian Druid, you have one ability that acts as active mitigation: Ironfur. In addition to this, you have a self-heal Frenzied Regeneration. While Frenzied Regeneration is not strictlyconsidered "active mitigation," it is nevertheless a core part of yourrotational toolkit, and you will use it frequently.

Ironfur increases your Armor by 112% of your Agility for 7seconds. Multiple applications of Ironfur may overlap and stack their Armorincreases, but their durations will not stack. For example, if you use Ironfurand then use it again 3 seconds later, you will have 2 applications of Ironfurfor 4 seconds, granting you 224% of your Agility as Armor. After 4 seconds, thefirst application will have expired, leaving you with 112% of your Agility asArmor for 3 more seconds. Agility buffs and procs increase the amount of Armoryou gain from Ironfur.

Armor is extremely effective at reducing Physical damage intake, so having at least 1 stack of Ironfur up as often as possibleis recommended. Additionally, you will occasionally want to pool your Rage toput up multiple stacks of Ironfur for a short period to dealwith a spike in damage. There is a hard limit to how much Armor can reduce yourincoming damage by, at 85%. This is around 7-8 (3-4 with an Aug voker) stacks of Ironfur andcan generally be achieved on 5-10 targets or inside of Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc.

Armor does not normally reduce Bleed damage (typically, this ispresented in-game as a "Physical DoT") or Magic damage. However, there areexceptions to these rules, which appear on a case-by-case basis. When faced withBleed or Magic damage, you will find Ironfur ineffective and shouldinstead use your defensive cooldowns to reduce the damage or a well-timed Frenzied Regeneration to heal yourself. Remember that if you aretanking a boss, you are almost always taking auto-attacks and otherdamage sources. Auto-attacks are Physical, so it is still worthmaintaining Ironfur on most encounters.

Finally, consider your situation carefully before using Ironfur. Since it is proactive, no matter how lowon health you have been brought, using it if there is no new incoming damageis pointless.

Frenzied Regeneration heals you for 20% of your maximum healthin the form of a 3-second HoT. It costs 10 Rage and has a maximum of 2 chargeswith a 36-second recharge time (reduced by Haste). Frenzied Regeneration can be used both proactively and reactively,either to top yourself off in anticipation of incoming damage or in response tobeing brought to low health after a big hit.

A key element of using Frenzied Regeneration effectively isensuring that you do not inadvertently cause overhealing, both for you andyour healers. To do this, you will need to anticipate how much damage you will likely take in the next 3 seconds and compare it to how much healing youwill likely receive. Since self-healing is very limited, using each charge is critical.

Another consideration when using Frenzied Regeneration is therecharge timer. It may be tempting to Frenzied Regeneration whenever you arebrought moderately low, but doing this could leave you without charges for a scary moment later. Try and save at least one charge of FrenziedRegeneration for periods where you may not receive the assistance of yourhealers (if they are busy healing the rest of the raid, for example).

Growl is your taunting ability. Growl forces the target toattack you for 3 seconds. During those 3 seconds, you generate additional Threatagainst that target. Growl has an 8-second cooldown but can be reduced to 1.5seconds during Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc.

Guardians have no additional taunting mechanisms.

As a Guardian Druid, you have two important defensive cooldowns.

• Barkskin reduces all damage you take by 20% for 12 seconds ona 60-second cooldown. Barkskin is usable when stunned, incapacitated, or asleep.This will be your first line of defense against dangerous spike damage and your primary way of reducing magic damage or simply as risk mitigation tosmooth your damage intake for your healers. It has a short cooldown, so use itliberally!
• Survival Instincts reduces all damage you take by 50% for 6seconds. Survival Instincts has 2 charges and a 3-minute recharge time. This isyour major defensive reduction, to be used against lethal spike damage or"tankbuster" mechanics. Its short duration and long cooldown mean it shouldbe used sparingly.

More details about how to best use your cooldowns and about the cooldownsyou can gain from your talents can be found in ourdetailed cooldown section.

Tanking as a Guardian Druid is pretty straightforward; the informationprovided above is sufficient to perform reasonably proficiently.However, there are several more advanced topics that you should understand to master your character fully. Some of these are explained in our SpellSummarylinked below.

Guardian Druid's primary resource is Rage.

The Rage bar has a maximum capacity of 100 and is empty by default. Ragedecays quickly out of combat. In combat, Rage does not decay.

Rage is generated in the following ways:

• Activating Bear Form grants you 25 Rage (leaving Bear Formempties the Rage bar).
• Auto-attacks generate 4 Rage.
• Being auto-attacked generates 3 Rage (can only occur once everysecond).
• Mangle generates 10 Rage (+4 with a Gore proc and+5 with Soul of the Forest).
• Thrash generates 5 Rage.
• Moonfire with a Galactic Guardian proc generates 8Rage.
• Bristling Fur generates 1 Rage per % of max health taken indamage while active.
• Blood Frenzy generates 2 Rage every time a Thrash bleed ticks on any target (Thrash ticks once every3 seconds, reduced by Haste).

Your Mastery is Mastery: Nature's Guardian. It increases your maximumhealth and healing received and your Attack Power. The exact increaseamount depends on how much Mastery you have. For every 1% Mastery, you gain 1%increased health and healing, and 1.33% increased Attack Power. Guardians startwith 4% Mastery baseline.

Notably, the increased healing component of Mastery: Nature's Guardian does not increase the healing from Frenzied Regeneration or Restoration Affinity, althoughit does affect the two spells in that both heal scale with maximum health,which is increased by Mastery.

Your Thrash, Swipe, Maul, and Moonfire have a 15% chance to trigger Gore, which resetsthe cooldown of Mangle, and causes it to generate an additional 4Rage. Making quick use of Gore procs is essential to ensuring theyare not overwritten by new procs and the Rage is not wasted.

Guardian Druid is a primarily proactive tank. You must be prepared withactive mitigation and defensive cooldowns before you take damage. This is incontrast to reactive tanks, which first take the damage and then react to it byhealing themselves up.

As such, preparation plays a large part in tanking effectively. Wise use ofcooldowns and coordination with your healers is critical and can be thedifference between a boss kill and a wipe. The best way to prepare for anencounter is to look at the damage profile of the fight (either from a log orby reading the Dungeon Journal) and plan out what cooldowns you will use,when you will use them, and whether any gaps need to be covered by healerexternal defensives.

You have two baseline defensive cooldowns and a few more that youcan talent into. Unless you are sure you will die otherwise, it isnot advised to overlap your defensive cooldowns, as spending them that way is often overkill andwasteful.

Barkskin is the go-to cooldown when the damage starts ramping up orwhen there is magic damage that you cannot otherwise mitigate, or just as ageneral damage reducer to take some of the burden off of your healers. A 20%damage reduction may sound small, but it lasts for quite a while and is on afairly short cooldown, so be sure to use it frequently. Guardians have a lot ofhealth and passive mitigation. The amount of damage you can prevent withthe liberal use of Barkskin may surprise you. Remember that Barkskin can be usedin most forms of crowd control and shapeshift forms in case youfind yourself caught out of Bear Form or unable to move out of amechanic.

Survival Instincts is best used pre-emptively. Youshould use Survival Instincts before taking a large amount of damage (generallya boss mechanic). Additionally, you can use it to prolong your survival if yourhealers are dead or incapacitated. Unless your strategy requires you to use bothcharges at specific times, you can get away with making frequent use of at least1 charge.

Except for emergencies, do not wait until you are already low on healthto use Survival Instincts, as it is usually too late to save you.

As of Patch 11.0.2, Druid of the Claw has revived Catweavingin the new form called Ripweaving. This is currently a 20-25% DPS increase over notweaving.

Ripweaving is where you gain a buff once you cast Mangle 6 timeswith the Wildpower Surge talent that massively empowers your next Rip and Ferocious Bite and generates max combo points uponentering Cat Form.You shift into Cat Form by using Rake in Bear Form,due to the Fluid Form talent, you will instantly be shifted into Cat.You are then able to apply this empowered Rip and shift straight backinto Bear Form by casting Mangle whilst in Cat Form.This is an extremely safe version of Catweaving and has very little impact on yoursurvivability. You are even able to utilize this while tanking a boss activelydue to the Wildshape Mastery talent that retains Ironfur and 80%of your health and Armor temporarily in Cat.As you are inclined to shapeshift regularly, it also leans naturally intotalenting into Thorns of Iron and spending most of your Rage on the Ironfurdue to it's off GCD nature.

Make sure that you do not shift to Cat too soon after casting Mangleas it can be on cooldown, delaying your ability to shift back to bear quickly.

Catweaving is an advanced topic and significantly complicates the Rotation. It is notrecommended for those who are just picking up Guardian Druid or when you arelearning a new fight. That being said, when done correctly, it is a significantDPS increase over staying in Bear Form single-target, and, withcaution, it can be done with a low-risk factor.