Guardian Druid Raid Guide

Welcome to the Guardian Druid raid guide for the World of Warcraft patch 11.1! 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 DruidRaid

Single-Target

Strong

AoE

Strong

Utility

Average

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.
• In Raid Elune's Chosen is easier to play and offers more cooldown usage while Druid of the Claw is more ST damage and reliant on the bleed damage for maximum output.

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 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 of it 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 →

Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Raid boss fights 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 raid boss.

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.
• Improvised Seaforium Pacemaker
  • Passive stat stick that gives you critical strike with close to 50% uptime.
• 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 Alchemical Chaos -- maximum DPS.
  • Flask of Tempered Swiftness -- less DPS but more survivability.
• Food
  • Feast of the Divine Day
  • Feast of the Midnight Masquerade
• Combat Potion
  • Tempered Potion
  • Potion Bomb of Power -- group potion, this is a DPS loss for you.
• 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 Raids, 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 but has limited uses.
  • 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 though 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 survivability abilities are decent in Raiding as a Guardian Druid.
• Night Elf is very good for DPS but doesn't have any other useful benefits in Raid as Guardian Druid.

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

Macro Import Guide Video

Taunt Macros

Taunt Macro --- This macro either casts Growl at your target or your mouseover (very handy to pick up mobs)

#showtooltip Growl
/cast [@mouseover,exists,harm][@target,exists,harm] Growl

Boss 1 Taunt --- Casts Growl on Boss1

/cast [@boss1] Growl

Boss 2 Taunt --- Casts Growl on Boss2

/cast [@boss2] Growl

Mouseover Macros

Mouseover Ursol's Vortex/Mass Entanglement --- Casts Ursol's Vortex at your cursor if talented and Mass Entanglement at your mouseover, if no mouseover is available it instead casts it on your target.

/cast [@cursor] Ursol's Vortex
/cast [@mouseover,exists] [] Mass Entanglement

Mouseover Remove Corruption --- Cast it on target if no mouseover is available, casts it on yourself if no target is available.

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][] Remove Corruption

Mouseover Regrowth --- Casts Regrowth on mouseover or yourself.

#showtooltip Regrowth
/cast [@mouseover,exists][] Regrowth

Mouseover Innervate

/cast  [@mouseover] Innervate

Mouseover Wild Charge --- Casts Wild Charge on mouseover or target.

#showtooltip Wild Charge
/cast [@Mouseover][] Wild Charge

Mouseover Soothe --- Casts Soothe on mouseover or target.

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Soothe

Mouseover Battle Res --- This makes it so you can use Rebirth as mouseover on your frames

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,help,dead][] Rebirth

Focus Macros

Focus Kick --- Casts Skull Bash at your focus target

/cast [@focus] Skull Bash

Mouseover Focus --- This macro sets your mouseover as your focus

/focus [@mouseover]

Utility Macros

Cancelaura BoP --- This cancelaura's Blessing of Protection on you very useful to have when playing with a paladin ever

/cancelaura Blessing of Protection

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 Raids to make your life easier.

Addons

• Shadowed Unit Frames (SUF) -- Full User Interface replacement
  • Addon to replace your Unitframes and other UI Elements with a more clean look. Takes quite some time to configure but there are plenty of pre-done profiles that you can easily import and check out.
• BigWigs -- Generic Boss Mod
  • BigWigs is a boss encounter add-on. It consists of many individual encounter scripts, or boss modules; mini add-ons that are designed to trigger alert messages, timer bars, sounds, and so forth, for one specific raid encounter.
• Weakauras -- Jack of all trades
  • WeakAuras is a powerful and flexible framework that allows the display of highly customizable graphics on World of Warcraft's user interface to indicate buffs, debuffs, and other relevant information. This addon was created to be a lightweight replacement for Power Auras but has since introduced more functionalities while remaining efficient and easy to use.
• Plater -- Advanced Nameplates
  • Plater is a nameplate addon with an extraordinary amount of settings, out of the box debuff tracking, threat coloring, and support for scripting similar to WeakAuras and wago.io + the WeakAuras-Companion for Mod/Script/Profile updates.
• Details -- In-depth Damage Meter
  • Most powerful, reliable, handsome, damage meter for World of Warcraft.
• MRT -- Notes, Raid cooldowns, and more
  • Helpful addon for raiders, especially for raid leaders and officers.
• Echo Raid Tools -- Notes, Raid cooldowns, and more
  • Echo Raid Tools is a World of Warcraft addon designed by Echo Esports to enhance raiding efficiency. It offers "Echo Approved" WeakAuras for each raid boss accessible through an in-game Dungeon Journal interface, allowing easy import and customization.
• Bartender -- Action Bar Changer
  • Bartender4 is a comprehensive action bar replacement addon for World of Warcraft. It allows full customization of action bars, including scaling, alpha settings, and visibility based on macro conditions.

Weakauras

Ironfur Bar

This aura shows the amount of stacks of Ironfur you plus how they are overlapping with each other.

Patch 11.1

Druid

• Many talents have changed position in the talent tree.
• New Talent: Grievous Wounds – Rake, Rip, and Thrash damage increased by 10%.
• New Talent: Gale Winds – Increases Typhoon’s radius by 20% and its range by 5 yards.
• New Talent: Incessant Tempest – Reduces the cooldown of Typhoon by 5 seconds.
• New Talent: Circle of the Wild – Physical damage dealt by your abilities increased by 5% (25% for Restoration Druids).
• New Talent: Circle of the Heavens – Magical damage dealt by your spells increased by 5% (25% for Restoration Druids).
• New Talent: Lycara’s Meditation – You retain Lycara’s Teachings’ bonus from your most recent form for 5 seconds after shifting out of it.
• New Talent: Symbiotic Relationship – Form a bond with an ally. Your self-healing also heals your bonded ally for 10% of the amount healed. Your healing to your bonded ally also heals you for 8% of the amount healed.
• New Talent: Aessina’s Renewal – When a hit deals more than 12% of your maximum health, instantly heal for 10% of your health. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.
• New Talent: Perfectly-Honed Instincts – Well-Honed Instincts can trigger up to once every 90 seconds.
• Ursoc’s Spirit has been updated – Stamina increased by 4%. Stamina in Bear Form is increased by an additional 5%.Developers’ notes: These bonuses multiply together, so Druids’ health in Bear Form remains unchanged.
• Light of the Sun replaces Skull Bash for Balance Druids only – The remaining cooldown of Solar Beam is reduced by 15 seconds when it interrupts its primary target.
• Improved Rejuvenation has been changed to Lingering Healing – Rejuvenation’s duration is increased by 3 seconds. Regrowth’s duration is increased by 3 seconds when cast on yourself.
• Instincts of the Claw is now a 1-point talent (was 2) and has been updated – Ferocious Bite and Maul damage increased by 8%.
• Lore of the Grove is now a 1-point talent (was 2) and has been updated – Moonfire and Sunfire damage increased by 10%.
• Fluid Form has been updated – Skull Bash can now be used in any form and shifts you into Cat Form if necessary.
• Rejuvenation healing increased by 5%.
• Wild Growth healing increased by 5%.
• Rip damage reduced by 9%.
• Shred damage increased by 10%.
• Swipe damage increased by 10%.
• Ferocious Bite damage reduced by 8%.
• Cyclone duration is now 5 seconds (was 6 seconds).
• Disorienting Roar now breaks based on a small damage threshold instead of any damage.
• Rising Light, Falling Night has been removed.
• Moonkin Form has been added to the Class talent tree in Sunfire’s previous position.
  • Developers’ notes: Restoring Moonkin Form to the class talent tree empowers Restoration Druids to use Convoke the Spirits for magic damage, like they can currently use Cat Form for physical damage.
• Sunfire moved to Improved Sunfire’s position. Improved Sunfire’s effect is now included in Sunfire.
• Fluid Form causes Wrath and Starfire to transform you into Moonkin Form at the end of their casts, instead of at their starts.
  • Developers’ notes: It should always take a global cooldown to transform to a shapeshift form, either from a direct transformation or a Fluid Form ability. Starting a Wrath or Starfire cast and cancelling it allowed Druids to transform into Moonkin without a global cooldown.
• Lycara’s Meditation now only retains bonuses from your shapeshift forms. The Haste bonus from humanoid form is not retained.
  • Developers’ notes: Druids can revert to humanoid form instantly and, with Fluid Form, transform back to role forms without losing a GCD. This is only the case for humanoid form – shifting to and from shapeshift forms incurs some cost. We are making this change because it is not intended gameplay for Druids to shift to humanoid form frequently to maintain its Haste bonus from Lycara’s Teachings.

• Druid of the Claw
  • Ravage damage reduced by 8%.

• Elune's Chosen
  • Fury of Elune damage increased by 80%.

Guardian

• New Talent: Ursol’s Warding – Gain magical damage reduction equal to 5/10% of your damage reduction from armor.
• Reinvigoration has been updated – Frenzied Regeneration heals over 1/2 additional seconds, and casts Rejuvenation and Regrowth on you at 100/200% effectiveness.
• Verdant Heart now learned at level 10 (was a talent).
• Mangle damage increased by 10%.
• Maul damage reduced by 8%.
• Raze damage reduced by 8%.
• Raze now replaces Maul.
• Layered Mane has been removed.
• Guardian Druids now learn Verdant Heart in the Class talent tree upon reaching level 10.
• Raze has been updated – Strike with the might of Ursoc, dealing Physical damage to your target and to all other enemies in front of you. Damage reduced beyond multiple targets.
  • Developers’ notes: This change causes Raze to always deal increased damage to the primary target, even if other targets exist.
• All ability damage increased by 5%.
• Moonfire damage increased by 20%.

Q: Why do I randomly get one-shot?

A: You most likely left Bear Form by pressing a button that brings you out of form, most common mistakes are pressing Entangling Roots and Regrowth without a Dream of Cenarius proc.

Credits

Written By: Tief

Reviewed By: Canexx