Guardian Druid Mythic+ Guide

Welcome to the Guardian Druid Mythic+ guide for the World of Warcraft patch 11.1.5! This guide covers everything you need to know to understand your character! Are you starting out and leveling up from 70? Check out the leveling guide!

Guardian DruidMythic+

Single-Target

Average

AoE

Average

Utility

Excellent

Survivability

Strong

Mobility

Weak

• Druid of the Claw and Elune's Chosen offer 2 different ways on how to play Guardian Druid.
• Elune's Chosen is making use of Lunar Beam as a cooldown buffing your arcane damage while having a higher rage generation and cooldown flexibility.
• Druid of the Claw makes use of the bleed Dreadful Wound as a defensive with lower rage generation while providing the option to pursue 2 different talent and gameplay builds.
  • High ST damage option of playing Wildpower Surge together with Fluid Form, Rake and Rip makes cat-weave a smoother experience.
  • Overall balanced option without any cat-weave focusing on just utilizing the passives offered and Dreadful Wound.
• Elune's Chosen is more stable and flexiable for Mythic+ hence this guide is currently recommending it.

Tier Set

• 2-Set: Each time you take damage you have a chance to activate Luck of the Draw! causing you to cast Survival Instincts for 4 seconds. Your damage done is increased by 15% for 8 seconds after Luck of the Draw! activates.
• 4-Set: After you gain Luck of the Draw! your next 10 Druid abilities cast another Druid ability at 125% effectiveness.

Defensive Cooldowns

• Barkskin
  • This is your go-to defensive with a short cooldown. Activating it when walking into the boss, trash or anything that does damage is never a bad idea and due to the short cooldown, it is the first defensive you press if you need a cooldown.
• Rage of the Sleeper
  • Generally you should keep this on cooldown as much as possible since it also increases your damage. Remember to hold it for the defensive value on encounters where you need the additional cooldown.
• Survival Instincts
  • Your strongest (granting 50% damage reduction) and also the shortest defensive due to having a duration of 6 seconds. Choose wisely when to use this defensive but also don't sit on 2 charges when playing Improved Survival Instincts. Having 1 charge ready for an emergency is always nice but sitting on 2 is a big waste.
• Frenzied Regeneration
  • Your big self-healing button. You can either use it proactively or reactively, the only important part is that you want to use its full potential to the best of your ability. Don't use it when taking some damage only just because it's ready. The Spell has a short cooldown, yes, but if you tend to use it all the time when taking any damage you might run into the situation of not having any charges after taking a big tank hit. Overall using this after any tank mechanic or when gathering mobs is the way to go just because it helps you get your HP up before your other defensives and Ironfur gets rolling.
• Ironfur
  • Your active mitigation and your Rage spender. For more details check out the Deep Dive.

Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc

• Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc or Berserk can have a lot of applications as either be a DPS cooldown or a defensive cooldown. Therefore, you normally use it on cooldown. Holding it is only needed in special cases since it loses you a lot of value.
  1. It is a strong defensive and can carry you through a burst of damage.
  2. Holding it causes the CDR from Ursoc's Guidance to be wasted even more, so make sure to press the button.
  3. The offensive portion should not be underestimated.

Offensive Cooldowns

• Heart of the Wild increases the damage of Moonfire and your auto attacks. So press it on cooldown and gain bonus damage.
• Rage of the Sleeper, generally you should keep this on cooldown as much as possible since it increases your damage done, but in certain scenarios, it should be held for the defensive value.
• Lunar Beam increases your mastery and does damage. Make sure to use it on cooldown.

This Deep Dive explains special mechanics that are important to a Guardian Druid it also goes more in detail when it comes to certain cooldown-windows that you want to min max.

Optimizing Ironfur

Ironfur is your Rage spender and active mitigation. It increases your armor based on your Agility for 7 seconds when pressed. Important to note is that multiple applications of Ironfur overlap and stack together while the duration does not increase, get refreshed or extend.

• 1. Ironfur is pressed at 0 seconds
• 2. Ironfur at 3 seconds
• 3. Ironfur at 5 seconds
  • Now you have 3 Stacks of Ironfur, all 3 with different durations and they expire at different times as shown on the timeline with the icons below.
• After 12 Seconds you are left without any stacks of Ironfur even though you pressed it 3x in the first 5 seconds of the fight.
• It is crucial to understand how Guardian Druid's active mitigation works since your armor value and your associated damage reduction changes all the time with the amount of Ironfur stacks you have active.
• On top of that Ironfur does not heal you or anything. It needs to be used 100% proactively so knowing when you take damage and using it before the damage is crucial.

Here is a picture showing how Ironfur works.

Ironfur Armor

• Ironfur's armor is reducing your physical damage intake which in most cases is only melee swings. Bleeds and magical DoTs are not affected by armor.
• There is a hard cap of 85% on physical damage reduction. This would equal to around 7-8 stacks of Ironfur at a time (around 4 with Blistering Scales) which makes it useless to spam Ironfur after reaching this amount.
• But due to a lot of other factors such as Ursoc's Guidance and Thorns of Iron you do not stop pressing it in huge AoE pulls just because you reached 4 Stacks.
• However, due to how armor scaling works it is more overall defensive value to keep 1 stack of Ironfur rolling all the time than using 3 stacks instantly and then not having any at all after. The more armor you stack, the less effective each new layer becomes.
• Because you have high physical damage reduction, you struggle a lot more with magical damage, bleeds, and other DoTs. For those, it's important to use Frenzied Regeneration correctly.

Frenzied Regeneration

• Frenzied Regeneration is your only self-heal as a Guardian Druid and is very important to stay alive.
• Generally, the cooldown of Frenzied Regeneration is relatively low with 36 seconds (reduced by haste) which makes it very tempting to press any time you take damage. This often leads to problems when you take damage later on that is too big for your healer to cover or you need a fast way to heal up. Keeping an eye on future scenarios is important when using it.
• On top of that, you also need to decide how you use Frenzied Regeneration either proactively to stay topped for any mechanic or reactively after the mechanic to top yourself back up to stay stable. Oftentimes this fully comes down to the amount of damage you take from anything. Knowing what to do comes with playing the game and knowledge of the situation.
• When playing Innate Resolve you have 2 charges of Frenzied Regeneration and it's generally really nice to always keep one ready for the emergency and use the other charge when you need to just so you don't waste the cooldown recovery.
• Noteworthy things with Frenzied Regeneration:
  • Well-Honed Instincts does not consume a charge of your Frenzied Regeneration but it overwrites your current one if you press it right before it procced + If you use Frenzied Regeneration and it procs after your proc overwrites the one you pressed before basically wasting a lot of value.
  • Berserk: Persistence reduces the cooldown of Frenzied Regeneration by 100% making it just have no cooldown at all. When this is talented pressing Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc refunds you both charges of Frenzied Regeneration and makes it useable instantly. Keep this in mind since it can be a lifesaver.

Understanding Mechanics

Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.

• Pandemic
• Spell Queue Window
• Stat Diminishing Returns

← Scroll for more Bosses →

Affixes

The Affix system got changed going into The War Within Season 1 retiring most Affixes as well as introducing new kiss-curse ones while also changing on which key level these appear.

• +4 Affixes -- Rotates on weekly basis
  • Xal'atath's Bargain: Ascendant
  • Xal'atath's Bargain: Voidbound
  • Xal'atath's Bargain: Devour
  • Xal'atath's Bargain: Pulsar
• +7 Affix -- Alternates between each other on a weekly basis
  • Tyrannical
  • Fortified
• +10 Affixes -- Alternates between each other on a weekly basis, is always the opposite of the +7 Affix
  • Tyrannical
  • Fortified
• +12 Affix
  • Xal'atath's Guile -- Replaces the +4 Affix

Following you get some useful tips for handling different Mythic+ Affixes as a Guardian Druid.

• Xal'atath's Bargain: Ascendant
  • Incapacitating Roar as many orbs as possible.
• Xal'atath's Bargain: Voidbound
  • The Void Emissary follows you, keep it close to cleave and target it whenever its up.
• Xal'atath's Bargain: Devour
  • Remove Corruption yourself whenever its applied to yourself.

Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Dungeons as a Guardian Druid. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.

All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!

Tertiary

• Avoidance - Great stat to reduce the damage intake of "Area of Effect" abilities.
• Leech - Provides additional healing through damage dealing.
• Speed - Niche tertiary that can be very useful and has been proven useful in the past. This makes managing certain mechanics a lot easier.

In general, Leech is really strong for tanks, especially in AoE scenarios it can be by far the best stat you can have.
Avoidance is great but most of the time tanks are not struggling to survive the typical Area of Effect abilities.

Trinkets

Below you can find active and passive alternatives to our recommended trinkets. Do note that some trinkets are better than others depending on the mythic+ dungeon.

Active Trinket alternatives

• Ringing Ritual Mud
  • A great alternative to Chromebustible Bomb Suit.
• Signet of the Priory
  • Provides you your highest secondary stat for 20 seconds which can be used in combination with Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc since it shares an almost similar cooldown.

Passive Trinket alternatives

• Cinderbrew Stein
  • A defensive trinket that will passively give you absorb shields, as well as primary stat to you and your allies. Comes with a downside of giving a lot less primary stat in comparison to other trinkets of the same item level.
• Eye of Kezan
  • A good passive trinket that loses a lot of value in mythic+ because its stacks drop of from leaving combat which often occurs in dungeons.
• Tome of Light's Devotion
  • Passive trinket that has its biggest value offensively, make sure to always have the "The 50 Verses of Radiance" buff up.

Embellishments

• Adrenal Surge Clasp
  • Provides good passive Agility for the loss of some Mastery.
• Writhing Armor Banding
  • Empowering your Adrenal Surge Clasp.
  • On Wrists, Boots, Waist or Cloak depending on your available gear.

A good option for early season is crafting a 675 weapon with Darkmoon Sigil: Symbiosis. As soon as you get access to a 678 weapon this option loses value compared to Adrenal Surge Clasp.

• Darkmoon Sigil: Symbiosis
  • Passive secondary stats with almost 100% uptime.
  • Has to be crafted on a weapon.
• Writhing Armor Banding
  • Empowering your Darkmoon Sigil: Symbiosis.
  • On Wrists, Boots, Waist or Cloak depending on your available gear.

Remaining Sparks

• Crafted items are 675 item level and regular items are 678 on max item level, therefore, it's a small loss to equip crafted items outside of your 2x Embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.

Simcraft

To find the best combination of gear available to you or identify the best possible upgrades, visit our Simcraft guide to learn how to utilize Simcraft easily and effectively.

• Phials
  • Flask of Tempered Versatility
• Food
  • Feast of the Divine Day
  • Feast of the Midnight Masquerade
• Combat Potion
  • Tempered Potion
• Health Potion
  • Algari Healing Potion
• Mana Oil
  • Algari Mana Oil
• Augment Rune
  • Crystallized Augment Rune
• Sockets
  • Versatile Emerald
  • Culminating Blasphemite -- Unique, use one of each gem colour to enhance your Blasphemite.
    • Quick Ruby
    • Quick Onyx
    • Quick Sapphire
  • Culminating Blasphemite is the best raw output option but using ‍Elusive Blasphemite can help you maintain uptime and dodge mechanics easier. This is an extremely minor dps gain in exchange for a valuable 10% movement speed.

Enchantments

For min-maxing a Guardian Druid in Mythic+ Dungeons, different racial traits can provide a tremendous benefit to your characters. If this is not your top goal, picking a race that fits your style works just as well.

• Bull Rush -- Highmountain Tauren
  • Bull Rush can be used to stun a pack, even when on stun DR since it counts as a knockdown making it very useful for those cases.
  • Strong passives for survival with Rugged Tenacity and Mountaineer
• Haymaker -- Kul Tirans
  • Haymaker can be moved to knock enemies out of bad positions limited use rate tho
  • Very good defensive passives with Brush It Off and Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
• War Stomp -- Tauren
  • War Stomp can be strong since you don't have any other source to stun enemies. Sadly it only hits up to 5 targets tho so keep that in mind.
  • On top of that, you also get decent passive effects Endurance, Brawn, and Nature Resistance.
• Berserking -- Troll
  • Troll is by far the best for burst damage since you can just use Berserking during incarnation for the extra haste, if you want to survive this is the worst option compared to the others.

Recommendation

• Highmountain Tauren and Kul Tiran aren't the overall best racials in terms of DPS but their abilities have a decent impact on your Mythic+ experience and survivability as a Guardian Druid.
• Night Elf is very good for DPS and can be useful in certain skips during any Mythic+ as a Guardian Druid but doesn't offer too much in the way of survivability benefits.

Discover recommended macros for Guardian Druid for Mythic+ and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.

Macro Import Guide Video

Taunt Macros

Mouseover Macros

Focus Macros

Utility Macros

Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Guardian Druid, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Mythic+ to make your life easier.

Addons

Weakauras

Patch 11.1

Q: Why do I randomly get one-shot?

Credits

Written By: Tief

Reviewed By: Canexx