Guardian Druid Tank Mythic+ Tips — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. Guardian Druid in Mythic+

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.

1.1. Guardian Druid Mythic+ Rotation

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.

1.2. Guardian Druid Utility

• 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.
• 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, so you should only use it if absolutely necessary (or if no one else is able to), but it can be especially useful if your healer dies during a long boss 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 not especially useful in Mythic+, especially in outdoor dungeons which allow mounting, but it can be used for short bursts of movement speed indoors or during combat.
• 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.
• 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.

1.3. Mythic+ Talents for Guardian Druids

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

2. Mythic+ Affixes

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.

2.1. Tier One Affixes

• 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.

2.2. Tier Two Affixes

• 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.

2.3. Tier Three Affixes

• 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.
• 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.

2.4. Seasonal Affix

Reaping is the seasonal affix for Season 2 of Battle for Azeroth. Reaping causes Souls to rise from the dead and attack the party at intervals of 20% completion on the Enemy Forces count. There are three different enemy types to be aware of.

• Risen Soul — They will apply Reap Soul to their current target, dealing 2% maximum health in damage every 3 seconds, per stack. This can be dispelled.
• Tormented Soul — They will cast Grave Bolt, which deals 25% maximum health in damage to the cast target. This cast can be interrupted.
• Lost Soul — They will cast Shadow Smash at their current target, a frontal cone ability that can be sidestepped. If you are hit by this, your maximum health will be reduced by 20% for 1 minute. Additionally, when Lost Souls die they will cast Expel Soul, spawning swirls on the ground that must be dodged. If you are hit by this, your damage and healing done will be reduced by 10% for 30 seconds.

Careful planning is required to deal with Reaping effectively. Be sure you keep track of when and how a Reaping will occur, and try to plan your pulls so that they end just as you hit the 20% interval. Once the Souls spawn, you will want to group them together for maximum AoE and cleave. Make use of ranged interrupts to bring the Tormented Souls in close, and use Ursol's Vortex and Typhoon to group them up even further. If your Reap Soul stacks are getting out of hand, you should start kiting to allow your healer to catch up and dispel you, or let your stacks expire naturally. Be sure to tank the Lost Soul facing away from the group so as not to hit them with Shadow Smash. Stampeding Roar may be useful in helping your party dodge the swirls from Expel Soul.

Note that the Souls enter combat immediately upon spawning, although they can reset if in-combat stealth techniques such as Shadowmeld are used. Any Souls remaining from the previous wave will re-enter combat during the next wave. Like other trash mobs in dungeons, Souls will drop combat once the dungeon completes (all bosses are killed and Enemy Forces is at 100%), so you may want to kill the last boss before finishing off your trash count to avoid the final Reaping wave.

3. Mythic+ Azerite Traits

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.
• 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.

4. Changelog