Guardian Druid Best Covenants, Soulbinds, and Conduits — Shadowlands 9.0.2

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.

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.

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.

1. Unchecked Aggression
2. Savage Combatant
3. Conflux of Elements

1. Tough as Bark
2. Layered Mane
3. Well-Honed Instincts
4. Innate Resolve
5. Ursine Vigor

1. Born of the Wilds
2. Front of the Pack

The Conduits mentioned under each sub-section are ranked from best to worst.

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.

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.

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.

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.

1. Night Fae is an amazing all round choice, a very flexible and fun Covenant that excels in all content.
2. Kyrian is a great Raiding and Mythic+ choice.
3. Necrolord is an excellent all-round option, excelling in single-target and raid encounters.
4. Venthyr is an AoE-damage oriented Covenant, which is great for Mythic+.

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.

All 3 of the Night Fae Soulbinds are great choices, each providing different strengths in different situations.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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+.

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.