Guardian Druid Best Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits — Shadowlands 9.0.2
Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits are the most important character customization options in Shadowlands. They have a substantial impact on your toolkit and performance as Guardian Druid. This page's purpose is to help you pick the right options according to the content you intend to do in Shadowlands.
Introduction: Prerequisites
This page assumes that you are already familiar with Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits. If that is not the case, we have a number of pages that can help you get up to speed:
- Covenants Guide, which explains what Covenants are, what perks they bring, and how you can join one;
- Druid Covenant Abilities, which lists all the abilities that Druids gain by joining each Covenant;
- How To Change Covenant?, which tells you how you can switch Covenant (rejoining a former Covenant will require you to perform a number of tasks to regain their trusts);
- General Soulbind Guide, which explains what Soulbinds are and how you can pledge yourself to them to open up their Soulbind tree;
- Druid Conduits, which lists all of the Conduits available to Druids.
Summary of the Best Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits
We advise this general purpose Niya (Night Fae) tree for Raiding and Mythic+ as Guardian Druid. For more in-depth information about Soulbinds and Covenants as a Guardian Druid, please continue to the Choosing the Right Covenant section below.
Best Conduits for Guardian Druid
Conduits are shared between all Covenants. There is one exception to this and these are the Potency Conduits that boost your specific Covenant class abilities. If the Conduit you are looking for is not mentioned here, then read below to find out why.
Best Potency Conduits for Guardian Druid
Best Endurance Conduits for Guardian Druid
Best Finesse Conduits for Guardian Druid
Conduits for Guardian Druids
The Conduits mentioned under each sub-section are ranked from best to worst.
Guardian Druid Potency Conduits
Unchecked Aggression is an incredibly powerful shared Conduit
which we seek to take in almost every Soulbind tree.
It provides us with a huge amount of Haste inside of our biggest cooldown, allowing
us to get even more powerful GCDs during that cooldown-buffed period.
Evolved Swarm, the Necrolord-specific Conduit, increases our damage
over time effects by a little bit more when the target is affected by
Adaptive Swarm. It is definitely worth taking for most types of content, as the
majority of our damage breakdown comes from damage over time effects.
Conflux of Elements, the Night Fae-specific Conduit, increases the
damage we deal while casting
Convoke the Spirits by a significant amount.
It is quite a large damage boost for Night Fae players and a worthwhile second Potency
slot for most Soulbind trees.
Endless Thirst,the Venthyr-specific Conduit, increases our critical
strike chance per stack of
Ravenous Frenzy. It makes a powerful cooldown
even stronger.
Deep Allegiance, the Kyrian-specific Conduit, can be a bit
hit or miss, as it actually makes you lose mastery from
Let Go of the Past
as it reduces the Kyrian ability
Kindred Spirits to below 1 minute;
despite this, the Kyrian ability is generally so powerful that it is worth the Mastery
loss for the reduced cooldown of such a powerful ability, especially defensively.
Savage Combatant provides us with some more damage on
Maul
after casting
Mangle which adds up to quite a lot of damage if we can
comfortably use
Maul. If you are finding that you would rather spend
majority of your rage on
Ironfur then skip this Conduit for a Covenant
specific one.
Guardian Druid Endurance Conduits
Tough as Bark reduces the cooldown of
Barkskin by a
significant amount and works exceptionally well with our best legendary,
The Natural Order's Will, which makes
Barkskin an immensely powerful
defensive cooldown.
Layered Mane grants a chance to gain 2 stacks of
Ironfur instead of 1.
This provides a great amount of extra armor over the course of a fight or
dungeon.
Well-Honed Instincts causes you to instantly cast
Frenzied Regeneration
when you drop below 40% health. This Conduit scales really well in the later
ranks and is always a great pick up.
Innate Resolve causes
Regrowth and
Frenzied Regeneration
to have increased healing on yourself. It is quite a nice little bonus healing, however
generally weaker than the other Endurance Conduit options. It could see some value
in 3 Endurance Soulbind setups.
Ursine Vigor increases your health and armor for 4 seconds after
shifting into
Bear Form. This could be a unique option for some raid
encounters, especially in combination with the catweaving rotation, where you
shift out and then back into
Bear Form just before a hard hitting
magical attack.
Guardian Druid Finesse Conduits
Born of the Wilds is a fantastic Conduit slot and our best Finesse
by far, reducing the cooldown of
Heart of the Wild by a huge amount and
potentially leading to getting an extra use over the course of a fight.
Front of the Pack is a great buff to our raid utility by increasing the
radius and duration of
Stampeding Roar.
Born Anew is a small food buff and speed boost to players who are
resurrected by our
Rebirth. This is definitely not an ideal use of a Finesse
slot, as others provide much more value and utility.
Tireless Pursuit is a small movement speed increase when shifting
out of
Cat Form or
Travel Form. Very minor value from this one,
as mobility is generally good but having us shift out of bear to gain value is not
ideal.
Choosing the Right Covenant
Before going more in-depth about Covenants, it is important to note that all 4 of the Covenants are great choices for us as Guardian Druids and each of them have their unique strengths and weaknesses in different types of content.
While all of the Covenants are definitely usable, there are some that shine slightly brighter than others. Night Fae, Kyrian and Necrolord are the three that stand out the most for Guardian Druids, due to their powerful class abilities and Soulbinds.
- Night Fae is an amazing all round choice, a very flexible and fun Covenant that excels in all content.
- Kyrian is a great Raiding and Mythic+ choice.
- Necrolord is an excellent all-round option, excelling in single-target and raid encounters.
- Venthyr is an AoE-damage oriented Covenant, which is great for Mythic+.
Night Fae Guardian Druid
Night Fae is an amazing option for Guardian Druids. Night Fae provides us with a powerful ability on a 2-minute cooldown that can give us both a strong offensive and defensive boost in scary situations.
Convoke the Spirits rapidly casts 16 random Druid spells over 4 seconds on a
2-minute cooldown. This is an immensely powerful and flexible spell, in Bear Form
generally you will get a few stacks of
Ironfur, both
Rejuvenation and
Regrowth,
and a few casts of
Thrash, so a nice mix of defense and offense.
However in
Moonkin Form you will get a massive amount of burst and AoE-damage
damage with spells like
Starsurge and
Starfall.
You can also shift out to human form and use
Convoke the Spirits as a
massive raid/group healing cooldown which can be incredibly handy.
Soulshape is the second ability Night Fae provides. This is a small
teleport and mobility is generally a great thing, however because it is a shapeshift,
it removes us from
Bear Form, which generally does more harm than good.
Night Fae Soulbinds
Niya is a great choice starting with Grove Invigoration and
ending with
Niya's Tools: Burrs, picking up that first Endurance or Potency
node and the early Finesse slot a long the way.
The mastery increase alone is a huge defensive/offensive increase and is
very noticable while playing.
Dreamweaver is also great choice with Podtender,
Social Butterfly, and
Field of Blossoms being very solid options.
This also has an early Endurance slot, which the other 2 Soulbind paths do not.
Another great option would be to go for Korayn as Wild Hunt Tactics,
Face Your Foes, or
Hold the Line can be incredibly powerful in
certain situations.
First Strike could also be
great in Mythic+, as the extra crit should be active at the start of each pack, as
long as you damage the enemies first, thereby allowing you to boost your initial threat
generation. All of these, however, require quite high Renown level to come into
their full strengths.
Kyrian Guardian Druid
Kyrian is one of the best options for Guardian Druids. It provides us with a powerful ability on an extremely short cooldown which helps us cycle through defensives and cooldowns with ease.
Kindred Spirits is quite a unique ability with 4 different uses
depending who you choose to use it on, whether they are a DPS/Healer/Tank or just
yourself. Firstly, you cast the bond on someone and then you can empower the bond
every 1 minute to gain the following effects.
- If we bond with a Healer or a DPS, we grant them a 40% damage reduction buff and the damage they take is redirected to us.
- When bonding with a DPS, we also gain 20% of their damage as
damage/healing/absorption for 10 seconds. The absorb is similar to
Ignore Pain.
- When bonding with a Healer, we also receive 30% of their healing replicated onto us for 10 seconds.
- When bonding with a Tank, we redirect 40% of damage we take to them for 10 seconds.
- When we bond to ourselves, we take 10% less damage for 10 seconds.
This ability will have numerous uses and using it optimally will be unique to each situation and even unique to the specific players in your raid/group.
Summon Steward summons a servant to provide you with various
services, but the strongest of them is the
Phial of Serenity. This
restores 20% of your health and most importantly removes all diseases, poisons,
curses, and bleeds affecting you. Being able
to remove some of these quite deadly abilities on-demand is incredibly powerful.
Kyrian Soulbinds
While Pelagos, Kleia, and Forgelite Prime Mikanikos all provide
their own strengths, Pelagos is a great starting choice with strong early traits,
such as Focusing Mantra,
Let Go of the Past, and
Combat Meditation.
Kleia is a great alternate choice, with Valiant Strikes,
Mentorship,
Cleansing Rites, and
Pointed Courage.
Kleia does, however, require a higher Renown level to unlock some of the more
valuable Conduit slots.
Necrolord Guardian Druid
Necrolord is an amazing option for Guardian Druids, providing one of the best single target Covenant abilities, and multiple great Soulbind trees.
Adaptive Swarm is a 12-second damage over time effect on a 25-second
cooldown which bounces from foe to friend, meaning it can have around
70% uptime if used optimally, as the ability can pandemic itself and stack up to
5 times. Ideally, cast this as it is about to expire with 2 stacks left.
Adaptive Swarm increases the effectiveness of our periodic effects,
such as
Thrash and
Moonfire, on any target it is active on.
This is one of our highest DPS Covenants, especially on low-target or single-target
fights and when used in conjunction with our catweaving rotation.
Fleshcraft provides us with a shield every 2 minutes, which gets
stronger if channeled near dead enemies. This provides a decent shield, but it
generally gets absorbed quite quickly. Most of the Soulbind trees have some
way to interact with this ability to boost its power up a little more.
Necrolord Soulbinds
Plague Deviser Marileth provides a strong early tree with Ooz's Frictionless Coating
granting a large amount of absorption over time, as well as the early-attainable Endurance and
Potency Conduit slots, which make him an excellent low Renown choice.
Emeni's main value is in Lead by Example, which gives us a
very large amount of primary stat that helps scale our
Ironfur.
Gnashing Chompers can also be quite good in Mythic+, however, generally it has low
value in a raiding environment.
Bonesmith Heirmir opens up a rather high damage and unique triple Endurance
Conduit Soulbind tree. The high damage comes from Serrated Spaulders,
which can do upwards of 10% of our damage breakdown in all content, and
Heirmir's Arsenal: Marrowed Gemstone, which provides a large amount of critical
strike chance.
Venthyr Guardian Druid
Venthyr is a great option for Guardian Druids. Primarily a Mythic+
option, it also performs well in Torghast, due to the huge percentage-based
increase in damage output we gain while Ravenous Frenzy is active. The
main weakness of this ability is the long cooldown.
Ravenous Frenzy is an extremely powerful ability on a 3-minute
cooldown, increasing our
damage/healing and Haste while it is active, stacking with each spell we cast.
This, in combination with
Berserk/
Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc,
along with any other on-use effects, makes us an unstoppable fighting machine,
greatly increasing both our offensive and defensive capabilities. This is
best used for dangerous portions of raid encounters or very large pulls in
Mythic+.
Door of Shadows is a targeted teleport with a short cast time. It is
a very solid mobility tool that will have value in almost all content and, due
to it having long range, it can potentially also be used to skip some packs
in Mythic+.
Venthyr Soulbinds
All three of the Venthyr Soulbind trees are excellent and have varying strengths, depending on your current Renown level.
Nadjia the Mistblade provides us with Thrill Seeker and
Exacting Preparation,
which are both decently strong, however her first Endurance Conduit is rather
late in the tree.
General Draven, on the other hand, enables us to pick up both an early Endurance
and Potency Conduit slot, while also providing Service In Stone and
Hold Your Ground.
These two choices make him an excellent all-round option for us as tanks.
Draven gives us everything we could want in a Soulbind tree and has one of the
best trees out of all Covenant choices.
Theotar the Mad Duke is a solid middle ground between Nadija and Draven.
Soothing Shade, plus early Endurance and Potency slots, make him a
fantastic early choice.
Changelog
- 31 Dec. 2020: Added Night Fae Niya tree and updated covenant rankings.
- 20 Nov. 2020: Updated for Night Fae buffs.
- 19 Nov. 2020: Page created.
More Druid Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Pumps who has played since Vanilla and has tanked in Honestly, the #1 Oceanic raiding guild, since Mists of Pandaria. He also played in the first MDI Mythic+ Dungeon Tournament, where his team placed second. His mindset on tanking has always been taking the utility and damage one can bring to the raid to the next level. He was the #1 Rank DPS Guardian Druid for 5 tiers in a row and top the 1-6 for the last 12 tiers, playing Guardian Druid, Brewmaster Monk and Protection Warrior mainly based on what is the strongest for progression at the time. You can find him on discord — Pumps#0734 — and on Twitch.
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