Guardian Druid: Midnight Expansion Preview

Welcome to our Midnight expansion guide for Guardian Druid. Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about the Guardian Druid spec in the forthcoming the Midnight expansion, including changes, additional Hero Talents, Apex talents, and some light predictions on the state of the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regular changes expected as updates hit the Midnight beta. This is not meant to be a launch guide for Guardian Druid, but instead serves as a resource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Beta, and what you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

Guardian Druid has received a massive specialization talent tree rework, which was sorely needed. The new pathing is significantly improved, several weak/useless talents have been removed, and the overall pacing of the tree fixed in many ways. No tree is ever perfect, but this one should give us a lot more flexibility than the previous version, which remained quite stagnant for the majority of The War Within.

Midnight has major implications for all specs thanks to the updated Hero Talent Tree system, new tier sets, stat squish, Apex talents and overall philosophical design changes.

• Tooth and Claw - While it was a strong and useful talent it allowed us to essentially only spend rage offensively if it was free. Also, one less thing to track with the removal of many Addons/Weakauras.
• Thorns of Iron - The main cause of excessive APM, finally removed.
• Improved Survival Instincts - 2 Charges made baseline.
• Berserk: Persistence - Built into Berserk by default.
• Berserk: Unchecked Aggression - Built into Berserk by default.
• Earthwarden - Possibly too strong defensively? Unsure why this was removed.

Overall, this shifts our rage spending offensively back to basics. Maul/ Raze offensively while maintaining 1 stack of Ironfur, stack more if required defensively. No more spamming Ironfur for damage and having to dump your entire rage bar constantly in an off-GCD ability that does very little damage.

• Persistence - Allows us to safely shapeshift which Wildshape Mastery previously had.
• Memory of Ysera - Health payout for rage spent.
• Ward of the Forest - Could be a good niche pickup but I do not think this will see a lot of use.
• Gift of an Ancient Guardian - Rewarded for maintaining your single stack of Ironfur.
• Red Moon - New single target option.
• Harnessed Rage - Great for consistent rage generation and allows for not rotational downtime.
• Waking Nightmare - Could be interesting as a passive AoE tool.
• Sundering Roar - A semi-useful AoE threat tool on a short cooldown.
• Dream Guide - A passive version of Dream of Cenarius, makes it much easier to use.
• Killing Blow - Better way to spend rage effectively.
• Natural Resilience - An awesome way to effectively increase our maximum HP for big hits and reduce overhealing inefficiency.

The new pathing and new talents really try to hit some of the issues Guardian has been facing for awhile. Hopefully these work well in reality. Massive fan of After the Wildfire being moved to a central point in the tree and buffed to 20 yards. This will be massive utility all bears will bring and something fun to play around in certain situations.

With all the new talents and spec tree pathing the rotation in Midnight for Guardian druids looks to be fairly similar to what it is now, with a bit more emphasis on Mangle and Maul to fill the rage spender gap This is good news for anyone who has been enjoying recent iterations of Guardian and wants to give it a go in Midnight, as you won't be bombarded by a bunch of new things and spec retains the simple playstyle that it is known for.

• Wild Guardian - After Berserk ends gain access to Wild Guardian which buffs the next 2 casts of Ironfur, Frenzied Regeneration and Maul by 50%.
• Wild Guardian - Maul is always empowered now and deals 40% extra damage over 12 seconds.
• Wild Guardian - Grants 2 charges of Dream of Cenarius and now echoes spells twice more over 8 seconds at 100%.

• Star Cascade - Thrash has a 50% chance to launch a Starsurge at a victim at 120% effectiveness.
• Penumbral Swell - Lunar Beam increases your arcane damage by 10% while active.
• Bask in Moonlight - Maul damage increased by 10% and Lunar Beam damage increased by 30% to primary target.

• Limb from Limb - Your auto-attacks are 30% more likely to trigger Ravage.
• Exacerbating Wounds - Your Dreadful Wound increase the damage afflicted enemies take from your bleed damage over time.
• Twin Claw - You have an 18% chance to follow up any single target melee ability or Raze with a Twin Claw, dealing damage and generating 5 rage.

Below are the Tier Set Bonuses for Guardian Druid in Midnight.

• Druid Guardian 12.0 Class Set 2pc — Maul/ Raze/ Ravage and Moonfire damage increased by 10%.
• Druid Guardian 12.0 Class Set 4pc — Maul/ Raze/ Ravage have a 5% chance to activate Galactic Guardian. Periodic damage from Moonfire has a chance to make your next Maul/ Raze/ Ravage strike again at 100% effectiveness.

Both set bonuses are completely passive and are not expected to have any gameplay impact.

The set bonus is numerically very average and fairly passive. It adds little to no defensiveness and doesn't shift our gameplay at all which is alright for a first season tier set.