Guardian Druid Tank Guide — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.2.5

Guardian Druid is a sturdy tank that manages damage intake through having strong passive reductions, a large health pool, increased healing received from Mastery, and a stackable active mitigation. They are an excellent sponge tank and once you have acquired enough gear they are mostly self-sufficient with a unique playstyle unlike any class. They bring good utility to raid and Mythic+ groups as a tank.

Guardian Druids excel against encounters where a large majority of incoming damage is Physical or Melee damage.

This guide focuses specifically on Guardian Druid. As such, the more general aspects of tanking will not be covered here. If you'd like to learn more about tanking in general, we recommend you read our tanking guide.

Guardian Druids underwent the following changes in Patch 8.2:

• Remove Corruption is now castable in Bear Form.
• Ironfur and Maul Rage cost has been lowered to 40, down from 45.
• Mangle now generates 10 Rage, up from 8.
• Bear Form now starts at 25 Rage, up from 20.
• Direct Damage from Mangle and Thrash has been increased by 15%.
• Frenzied Regeneration now heals for 32% of maximum health over 3 seconds, up from 24%.

In addition, Guardian Druids gained access to the following:

• 11 essences, from the new essence system for the Heart of Azeroth;
• 5 new Azerite traits from Nazjatar, Eternal Palace, and Operation: Mechagon for your Heart of Azeroth;
• new gems, enchants, and consumables;
• new gear from Nazjatar and the Eternal Palace raid.

• Strong passive damage reductions
• Stackable, no-cooldown active mitigation in Ironfur
• Good raid utility in Rebirth and Stampeding Roar
• Able to perform flexible hybrid duties through the affinity talents

• Has to sacrifice significant amounts of survivability to be competitive
• Weak self-sustain leads to a heavy reliance on healers
• Poor magic damage mitigation

After receiving numerous buffs, Guardian is in a very competitive state in both raids and dungeons. Their defensive power has been boosted quite significantly by increasing Rage generation and lowering the cost of Ironfur, resulting in more stacks more often. In terms of damage output, Guardian received a modest buff to Mangle and Thrash, which will help with snap threat generation. The addition of the ability to dispel in Bear Form greatly improves our small group utility. As a result, Guardian looks to be one of the top tanks in Patch 8.2 and will be a first-rate choice for raiding in the Eternal Palace.

Self-sustain is still a weak point for Guardian; even with the significant buff to Frenzied Regeneration's healing capacity, it is still on the global cooldown and therefore difficult to use as an emergency heal.