Guardian Druid Tank Gear and Best in Slot — Shadowlands 9.2.5

The best loot in the game will come from the weekly chest (now the Great Vault), and from Mythic raiding. Prior to the raid being released you can do your daily Covenant quests which can reward some good gear, Mythic 0 dungeons, or even Heroic dungeons to increase your item level early on.

The following is a recommendation for what items might constitute a best in slot list for Guardian Druids with items purely available from dungeons. The majority of your gearing decisions will be based off what items have the best stats on them. To fully understand what stats are the best to prioritize and why, please visit the Stats page linked below.

Slot	Item	Source
Head	Unbound Reality Mask	Upper Karazhan
Neck	Choker of Barbed Reins	Lower Karazhan
Shoulders	Breakbeat Shoulderguards	Tazavesh, the Veiled Market
Cloak	Trashmaster's Mantle	Operation: Mechagon - Workshop
Chest	Leafmender Robes	Iron Docks / Grimrail Depot
Wrists	Wraps of Electrostatic Potential	Operation: Mechagon - Junkyard
Gloves	Galvanized Leather Grips	Operation: Mechagon - Junkyard
Belt	Mad King's Sporran	Operation: Mechagon - Workshop
Legs	Anomalous Starlit Breeches	Tazavesh, the Veiled Market
Boots	Ooey-Gooey Galoshes	Operation: Mechagon - Junkyard
Ring #1	Logic Loop of Recursion	Operation: Mechagon - Junkyard
Ring #2	Overclocking Bit Band	Operation: Mechagon - Workshop
Trinket #1	Toe Knee's Promise	Lower Karazhan
Trinket #2	Deteriorated Construct Core	Upper Karazhan
Weapon	Chasmwrench Docking Hook	Iron Docks

Patch 9.0.5 brought the ability to upgrade Mythic+ gear with Valor points. In Season 4 there is no cap on Valor, allowing us to farm and ugprade as much as we want.

Below is a small list of the some of the best Mythic+ items that can use your Valor points on to upgrade.

Slot	Item	Source
Trinket	Deteriorated Construct Core	Upper Karazhan
Trinket	Toe Knee's Promise	Lower Karazhan
Ring	Logic Loop of Recursion	Operation: Mechagon - Junkyard
Ring	Overclocking Bit Band	Operation: Mechagon - Workshop

Season 4 brings back several old favorite dungeons from previous expansions: Return to Karazhan, Operation: Mechagon, Iron Docks, and Grimrail Depot. These dungeons have a vast loot table and many potentially fantastic item upgrades.

This section contains the best gear to look for in the weekly Fated Raids. It does not include anything from outside sources, so with some drops you have access to you might have better choices. This list prioritizes the highest item level gear possible. Keep in mind, all high item level pieces can be used at the Creation Catalyst in Zereth Mortis to be turned into tier.

Slot	Item	Source
Head	Sadist's Sinister Mask	Sire Denathrius
Neck	Worldkiller Iris	The Jailer
Shoulders	Shoulderpads of the Fixed Stars	Lords of Dread
Cloak	Shroud of the Sire's Chosen	Lords of Dread
Chest	Chestguard of the Fixed Stars	Rygelon
Wrists	Fate-Threaded Bindings	Fatescribe Roh-Kalo
Gloves	Grasps of Abducted Fate	Lords of Dread
Belt	Windrunner's Baldric	Sylvanas Windrunner
Legs	Elite Aranakk Breeches	Kel'Thuzad
Boots	Treads of Titanic Curiosity	Rygelon
Ring #1	Rygelon's Heraldric Ring	Rygelon
Ring #2	Tarnished Insignia of Quel'Thalas	Sylvanas Windrunner
Trinket #1	Reactive Defense Matrix	Guardian of the First Ones
Trinket #2	Cache of Acquired Treasures	Artificer Xy'mox / Puzzling Cartel Dinar
Weapon	Zovastrum, the Unmaking	The Jailer

Every week a different Shadowlands raid will be deemed Fated granting it increased difficulty and rewards. Affixes will be introduced to these Fated raids that have a risk/reward type effect. The gear dropped from Fated raids is extremely high item level (304/311) and should be targeted if you wish to be as strong as possible.

A fantastic new system has been added in Season 4 that allows you to purchase a total of 3 items this season that can be difficult to acquire or exceptionally strong. This is great as it allows you to target those high value items quickly without luck being a big factor. Some of the best items to target are:

1. Gavel of the First Arbiter
2. Cache of Acquired Treasures
3. Reactive Defense Matrix

Currently, Gavel of the First Arbiter is extremely strong for us and is a Strength weapon meaning we are incapable of looting it ourselves; this makes it the best initial Dinar purchase. Meanwhile, Cache of Acquired Treasures has fantastic synergy with Ravenous Frenzy and is overall an incredibly powerful trinket while Reactive Defense Matrix is a great overall passive trinket, benefiting both offense and defense significantly. It should be noted that you can always loot these items and then spend your Dinars on something else. The choice is very flexible overall and you should always prioritize the biggest upgrade for you.

The Creation Catalyst is active from the beginning of Season 4 which you will want to use to turn any high item level pieces into tier to maintain the Guardian Druid 4-Piece tier set bonuses at all times. For Guardian Druids, these set bonuses are:

• Guardian Druid 2-Piece — Casting Barkskin causes you to Berserk for 4 seconds.
• Guardian Druid 4-Piece — While Berserked, you radiate (17.29% of Attack Power) Cosmic damage to nearby enemies and heal yourself for (25.8% of Attack Power) every second.

This tier set bonus is extremely strong for Guardian Druids, largely boosting their AoE DPS and initial threat generation that has been an issue for all of Shadowlands. The ability to spam Thrash for 4-5 seconds after each Barkskin in addition to the pulsating AoE makes picking up mobs much easier. If you would like to know more about how the tier set bonus plays into our rotation, check out the rotation page linked below.

It is important to get the 4-piece bonus in any item slots you can but once you have all 5, the optimal 4 pieces to equip will be Head, Chest, Shoulders and Legs, as there are higher item level gloves from the raid.

The Creation Catalyst is a feature released in 9.2 that allows you to convert any piece into "Tier" while retaining item level, socket and tertiary perks. This can help you to further optimize your gear similar to the old reforging system. This remains active in Season 4 and will be very useful in maintaining our 4P tier set actively.

Whenever you get a new piece of gear, make sure to enchant it or gem it, if possible. In Shadowlands, sockets can come with or be put on: Head, Belt, Wrists, Rings, and Necks. The optimal enchants and gems for Guardian Druids can be found in the page linked below.

Domination Shards no longer work for any content outside of The Maw, Korthia, and Torghast. These are now able to be largely ignored for any relevant content in Season 4.

Shadowlands brings us multiple choices as to which item slot we would like to apply the unique legendary powers to, sometimes this can be quite significant as some item slots have different stat weights applied to them or some can be socketed. Choosing the right item slot to apply your special legendary power to can generally be the piece with the highest stat budget that does not conflict with a Tier set bonus slot. You can check out our guide on Runecarving to learn more about this new feature.

Below is an in-depth guide for all the information you will need to decide which are the best legendary powers for you.

The following is a list of the most noteworthy trinkets available overall, ranked in order of power assuming equivalent item level. If you do not have any of these, your best bet will be to use a stat proc trinket with a reasonably high item level.

1. Cache of Acquired Treasures
2. Reactive Defense Matrix
3. The First Sigil
4. Shard of Annhylde's Aegis
5. Salvaged Fusion Amplifier
6. Dreadfire Vessel
7. Relic of the Frozen Wastes

Offensively, you can refer to the chart below (courtesy of Bloodmallet.com). Note that these are only recommendations based on general sims; for the most accurate results, you should sim yourself.