Guardian Druid Tank Mythic+ Tips — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.3

While Guardian is not necessarily the strongest tank in Mythic+ in Battle for Azeroth, with smart use of the toolkit it can be a competitive choice in most situations. Guardian brings very strong damage mitigation and a wide array of cooldowns, but is lacking in self-sustain.

If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our dedicated Mythic+ page below.

The single target and multi-target rotations do not change in Mythic+ content. For more information about the Guardian Druid rotation, refer to the Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities page.

If you have the essence Conflict selected, you will want to cast Maul to maintain the Sharpened Claws buff, as much as possible. It may not be feasible to maintain 100% uptime depending on how much Rage you generate and how often you need to cast Ironfur, but the higher the better.

• Typhoon is an iconic Guardian Druid spell. It knocks enemies in front of you in the direction you are facing. Use this to put distance between you and enemies, to interrupt spell casts, or to reposition enemies in order to avoid mechanics such as Sanguine.
• Ursol's Vortex conjures a ground zone for 10 seconds that will slow all enemies affected by 50%. It will also pull them to the center after the first time they attempt to leave the circle. It is an extremely powerful tool for kiting, especially during Necrotic weeks. You can pair Ursol's Vortex with Typhoon to group packs on top of each other for better AoE.
• Incapacitating Roar disorients nearby enemies that are not immune to being crowd-controlled. Use this as a mass interrupt, or as a quick crowd control to help you put distance between yourself and the enemy to catch up on healing.
• Remove Corruption removes all harmful curse and poison debuffs from the target. Many dungeons apply these types of effects, and being able to dispel them is a great piece of utility.
• Soothe will remove all enrage effects on a single enemy. In particular, this works against the Raging affix, making it a very powerful tool in Mythic+.
• Entangling Roots can be used to root patrolling enemies to prevent them from entering combat with you, or to skip them entirely. Casting it will cancel Bear Form however, so do not cast it while you are actively tanking.
• Hibernate can be used similarly to Entangling Roots, but it can also be used as a hard crowd control against attacking beasts and dragonkin to prevent them from casting spells or auto attacking nearby players.
• Skull Bash interrupts spell casts, and prevents spells from the same school from being cast again for 4 seconds. Skull Bash has a 13 yard range, and casting it from out of melee range will cause you to charge into melee range to interrupt. Note that although the charge animation has travel time, the interrupt happens as soon as you use the spell.
• Rebirth resurrects dead allies in combat. This costs 30 Rage, but it can be especially useful if your healer dies during an encounter.
• Regrowth is a single target heal. Casting it will cancel Bear Form, but it can be used between pulls to help the healer top people off or get rid of Grievous.
• Stampeding Roar is mainly used for short bursts of movement speed indoors or during combat. It is generally used for kiting or going from one pack to the next, but is also useful for speeding your friends out of dangerous ground mechanics.
• Swiftmend, unlocked through Restoration Affinity, is an instant single target heal. Swiftmend cancels Bear Form when cast, but it can be used while a boss is channeling an ability, or following a Typhoon or Ursol's Vortex, to top yourself or a party member off while you are not actively tanking. This is a very large heal and should be used often along with Wild Growth before shifting back to bear.
• Wild Growth, unlocked through Restoration Affinity, is a group-wide heal over time. Like Swiftmend, Wild Growth cancels Bear Form when cast. Use it to assist your healer between pulls or during periods of heavy group damage, when you are not actively tanking.

Below are the suggested talents for Mythic+. These talents are recommended for all affixes and keystone levels. For more information on particular talents and when to use them, refer to the Builds and Talents page.

Level	Choices
15	✓ Brambles	? Blood Frenzy	? Bristling Fur
30	✗ Tiger Dash	✓ Ursol's Vortex	? Wild Charge
45	? Balance Affinity	✗ Feral Affinity	✓ Restoration Affinity
60	✗ Mighty Bash	✗ Mass Entanglement	✓ Typhoon
75	✗ Soul of the Forest	✓ Galactic Guardian	✓ Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc
90	✓ Earthwarden	? Survival of the Fittest	✗ Guardian of Elune
100	✓ Rend and Tear	? Lunar Beam	✗ Pulverize

In Battle for Azeroth, there are three tiers of affixes, and one seasonal affix. Every keystone will have at least one affix, with new affixes being added at keystone levels 4 and 7, and the season affix being added at level 10.

• Fortified increases the Health pool of all non-boss enemies by 20% and damage dealt by 30%.
• Tyrannical increases the Health pool of boss enemies by 40% and their damage dealt by 15%.

Fortified and Tyrannical are the two affixes every player will see. These affixes shift the focus of Mythic+ from boss to trash depending on the week. Guardian Druids are capable at both affixes, being slightly better at Tyrannical due to their strong mitigation.

• Raging increases the damage dealt by enemies below 30% health by 100% until they die. This buff is dispellable using Soothe. Not all enemies will need to be Soothed, but you should Soothe enemies that deal excessive group-wide damage.
• Teeming adds additional trash mobs to certain packs throughout each dungeon.
• Bolstering causes dying enemies to increase the maximum health and damage of other nearby enemies by 20%. To counter this affix, DPS all mobs down evenly and focus on the highest health pool enemies first.
• Sanguine places a pool of blood on the ground when a mob is slain. This pool will heal remaining enemies who stay inside the zone and also damage players. Guardian Druids should take Typhoon to push enemies away from each Sanguine pool.
• Bursting causes enemies to detonate when slain, afflicting the group with a stacking debuff that causes players to suffer 10% of their maximum health in damage every four seconds. When handling the Bursting affix, make sure your group knows how many stacks the healer can handle at a given point and try to save healing cooldowns for larger pulls, which will cause high Bursting stacks.

• Volcanic spawns volcanic plumes underneath and around players when in combat with any enemy. When damaged by Volcanic, players suffer 50% of their maximum health in damage. The more enemies you are in combat with, the more volcanic plumes will spawn.
• Grievous afflicts players with a stacking damage over time effect when they fall below 90%. Make sure to have your healer quickly remove the debuff with focused healing / cooldowns if needed, or it is likely you will fall behind and deaths will occur. Druids are fantastic against Grievous, lowering your health pool by leaving form after combat in combination with healing spells from Restoration Affinity will speed up your runs greatly.
• Quaking will periodically attempt to interrupt casters by creating a damaging zone around each player. About 3 seconds after the zone forms, it will deal 20% maximum health in damage to each player caught in the zone and interrupt any casts being finished during the shockwave.
• Explosive will occasionally spawn Explosive Orbs that need to be targeted and burned down within a short period of time or they will deal significant damage to the party. Explosive Orbs are not cleavable and the amount of orbs that spawn scales with the amount of enemies pulled.
• Necrotic debuffs the target of enemy melee swings with stacking healing reduction and a minor damage over time effect. Guardian Druids struggle with this affix; the best way to deal with it is to try and run away from enemies in order to let the debuff fall off. Use Typhoon, Dash, Ursol's Vortex, or stuns and slows from your DPS and healer in order to keep enemies at a distance while you drop your stacks.
• Skittish reduces the amount of threat generated by tanks throughout the dungeon. Rogues and Hunters are good for this week.

Awakened is the seasonal affix for Season 4 of Battle for Azeroth. Awakened places Obelisks which contain Rift Lieutenants inside, which are mini bosses with different abilities.

There are the four different types of Rift Lieutenants:

• Voiweaver Mal'thir — Casts Crippling Pestilence and Lingering Doubt, which you will need to cycle through an interrupt order to kick or dispel any debuffs gained from missed kicks.
• Samh'rek, Beckoner of Chaos — Has Cascading Terror. This puts 3 Magic debuffs out on the group all at a different varying length that can be dispelled, if not dispelled you will be feared. He also summons some small adds that do a stacking bleed on the tank.
• Blood of the Corruptor — Grants Defiled Ground, this just spawns puddles that you need to be move out of consistently. He will also spawn Mindrend tentacles that can be interrupted using Incapacitating Roar.
• Urg'oth, Breaker of Heroes — will casts 2 abilities: Spirit Breaker, which currently hits very hard on tanks and will be a good place to cycle cooldowns, and Dark Fury, which is a large purple circle you must avoid.

Here are some of the strong traits for Guardians in Mythic+.

• Twisted Claws has a chance to grant Agility per target hit by Thrash, meaning on multiple targets you can very easily stack up to and maintain maximum stacks. This grants a very consistent DPS boost, which can assist you in keeping threat on enemies, especially on Skittish weeks.
• Wild Fleshrending increases the damage of your Swipe against enemies with Thrash on them. It is equivalent in DPS to Twisted Claws, but provides no defensive benefit.
• Bulwark of the Masses provides a shield when 4 or more enemies are nearby, which is very common in dungeons when you are pulling packs of enemies. The absorb is very strong and very frequent, making it one of the strongest defensive traits you can have in Mythic+.
• Layered Mane provides a way of spending Rage offensively on multiple targets by increasing your Agility when Ironfur is active. Additionally, the bonus stacks of Ironfur make this a very strong defensive trait.
• Heed My Call is a strong DPS trait that deals splash damage to multiple enemies.

Here is the recommended essence setup for Guardians in Mythic+.

• Major: Anima of Death or Vision of Perfection
• Minor 1: Memory of Lucid Dreams or Conflict
• Minor 2: Empowered Null Barrier or Aegis of the Deep
• Minor 3: Endurance or Symbiotic Presence