Guardian Druid Tank Gear and Best in Slot — Shadowlands 9.2

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	Vicious Surge Faceguard	Spires of Ascension
Neck	Azure-Venom Choker	Spires of Ascension
Shoulders	Malodorous Gristle-Sown Spaulders	Plaguefall
Cloak	Blighted Margrave's Cloak	Plaguefall
Chest	Anima-Splattered Hide	Sanguine Depths
Wrists	Radiant Light Binders	Sanguine Depths
Gloves	Gloves of Haunting Fixation	Halls of Atonement
Belt	Shadowhirl Waistwrap	Spires of Ascension
Legs	Abyssal Disharmony Breeches	Spires of Ascension
Boots	Viscera-Stitched Footpads	The Necrotic Wake
Ring #1	Signet of Collapsing Stars	Tazavesh, the Veiled Market
Ring #2	Ritual Commander's Ring	The Necrotic Wake
Trinket #1	Blood-Spattered Scale	De Other Side
Trinket #2	Codex of the First Technique	Tazavesh, the Veiled Market
Weapon	Xav's Pike of Authority	Theater of Pain

Patch 9.0.5 brought the ability to upgrade Mythic+ gear with Valor points.

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	Blood-Spattered Scale	De Other Side
Trinket	Inscrutable Quantum Device	De Other Side
Trinket	Ticking Sack of Terror	Tazavesh, the Veiled Market
Trinket	Phial of Putrefaction	Plaguefall
Weapon	Xav's Pike of Authority	Theater of Pain

The Tazavesh, the Veiled Market mega-dungeon is now available as two separate Mythic+ dungeons and hosts a few particularly strong trinkets for us to farm or look out for in the Great Vault.

1. Codex of the First Technique
2. Ticking Sack of Terror
3. So'leah's Secret Technique
4. Miniscule Mailemental in an Envelope

This section contains the best gear to look for in the Sepulcher of the First Ones raid. 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 and the Guardian Druid 4-Piece tier set bonuses.

Slot	Item	Source
Head	Headpiece of the Fixed Stars	Anduin Wrynn
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	Devourer's Sandblown Hidebinders	Skolex, the Insatiable Ravener
Gloves	Grasps of Abducted Fate	Lords of Dread
Belt	Runecarver's Twisted Ward	The Jailer
Legs	Leggings of the Fixed Stars	Halondrus the Reclaimer
Boots	Treads of Titanic Curiosity	Rygelon
Ring #1	Rygelon's Heraldric Ring	Rygelon
Ring #2	Modified Defense Grid	Vigilant Guardian
Trinket #1	The First Sigil	Prototype Pantheon
Trinket #2	Cache of Acquired Treasures	Artificer Xy'mox
Weapon	Zovastrum, the Unmaking	The Jailer

Within the new Sepulcher of the First Ones raid in Patch 9.2, every class will once again earn pieces of a gear set that is uniquely class-themed with its own two- and four-piece bonuses for every specialization. You can also acquire tier set pieces from the Great Vault in all 3 categories (Raid/M+/PvP). 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 new feature in 9.2 that allows you to convert any Season 3 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.

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 Patch 9.2.

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. Reactive Defense Matrix
2. Shard of Annhylde's Aegis
3. Blood-Spattered Scale
4. Phial of Putrefaction
5. Elegy of the Eternals
6. The First Sigil
7. Pocket Protoforge
8. Inscrutable Quantum Device
9. Ticking Sack of Terror

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.