Guardian Druid Tank Gear and Best in Slot — Shadowlands 9.2
On this page, you will find the best gear and best in slot items for your Guardian Druid in World of Warcraft Shadowlands 9.2.
If you were looking for TBC Classic content, please refer to our TBC Classic Feral Tank Druid gear and best in slot.
Gearing Early in Shadowlands
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.
Dungeon Gear Recommendations for Guardian Druids
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.
Best Mythic+ Pieces to Upgrade with Valor
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 | ![]() |
De Other Side |
Trinket | ![]() |
De Other Side |
Trinket | ![]() |
Tazavesh, the Veiled Market |
Trinket | ![]() |
Plaguefall |
Weapon | ![]() |
Theater of Pain |
Tazavesh Items in Patch 9.2
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.
Codex of the First Technique
Ticking Sack of Terror
So'leah's Secret Technique
Miniscule Mailemental in an Envelope
Recommended Sepulcher of the First Ones Gear for Guardian Druid
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 | ![]() |
Anduin Wrynn |
Neck | ![]() |
The Jailer |
Shoulders | ![]() |
Lords of Dread |
Cloak | ![]() |
Lords of Dread |
Chest | ![]() |
Rygelon |
Wrists | ![]() |
Skolex, the Insatiable Ravener |
Gloves | ![]() |
Lords of Dread |
Belt | ![]() |
The Jailer |
Legs | ![]() |
Halondrus the Reclaimer |
Boots | ![]() |
Rygelon |
Ring #1 | ![]() |
Rygelon |
Ring #2 | ![]() |
Vigilant Guardian |
Trinket #1 | ![]() |
Prototype Pantheon |
Trinket #2 | ![]() |
Artificer Xy'mox |
Weapon | ![]() |
The Jailer |
Guardian Druid Tier Set in Patch 9.2
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.
Creation Catalyst
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.
Enchants and Gems
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 Sockets
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.
Legendary Powers Guardian Druids
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.
Trinkets for Guardian Druids
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.
Reactive Defense Matrix
Shard of Annhylde's Aegis
Blood-Spattered Scale
Phial of Putrefaction
Elegy of the Eternals
The First Sigil
Pocket Protoforge
Inscrutable Quantum Device
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.
Changelog
- 21 Feb. 2022: Page reviewed and approved for the launch of Patch 9.2.
- 01 Nov. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.5.
- 28 Jun. 2021: Added Domination Shards and sockets.
- 09 Mar. 2021: Added Valor upgrade suggestions.
- 31 Dec. 2020: Added Raid BiS and updated Trinkets.
- 23 Nov. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
- 20 Nov. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands, added trinkets and gear from dungeons.
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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