Guardian Druid Tank Mythic+ Tips in Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.0.1

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Class Overview
  • 2. Patch 8.0.1 Changes for Guardian Druid
    • 2.1. Added/Removed Spells
    • 2.2. Changed Spells
  • 3. Contents
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Easy Mode
  • 1. Foreword
  • 2. The Basics of Guardian Druids
  • 3. Talent Choice for Guardian Druids
  • 4. Stat Choice
  • 5. Basic Rotation for Guardian Druids
  • 6. Active Mitigation Abilities for Guardian Druids
  • 7. Cooldown Usage for Guardian Druids
  • 8. ChangeLog
• +Spell Summary
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Main Resource of Guardian Druids
  • 3. Basic Abilities for Guardian Druids
  • 4. Important Procs for Guardian Druids
  • 5. Active Mitigation for Guardian Druids
  • 6. Cooldowns for Guardian Druids
  • 7. Additional Utility for Guardian Druids
  • 8. ChangeLog
• +Builds and Talents
  • 1. Talent Choices for Guardian Druid
  • 2. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 3. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 4. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 5. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 6. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 7. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 8. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 9. PvP Talents (War Mode)
    • 9.1. PvP Talents for Guardian Druids
      • 9.1.1. General PvP Talents
      • 9.1.2. Guardian Druid PvP Talents
  • 10. ChangeLog
• +Azerite Traits and Armor
  • 1. Disclaimer
  • 2. Azerite Gear for Guardian Druid
    • 2.1. How to Use this List
  • 3. Outer Ring Traits for Guardian Druid
    • 3.1. S Tier
    • 3.2. A Tier
    • 3.3. B Tier
    • 3.4. C Tier
  • 4. Middle Ring Traits for Guardian Druid
    • 4.1. S Tier
    • 4.2. A Tier
    • 4.3. B Tier
    • 4.4. C Tier
  • 5. Inner Ring Traits for Guardian Druid
    • 5.1. S Tier
    • 5.2. A Tier
    • 5.3. B Tier
    • 5.4. C Tier
  • 6. Azerite Traits Details and Rotation Changes for Guardian Druid
    • 6.1. Azerite Traits Rotation Changes
  • 7. Find Azerite Armor By Trait/Power
  • 8. ChangeLog
• +Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities
  • 1. Single Target Rotation for Guardian Druids
  • 2. Multiple Target Rotation for Guardian Druids
  • 3. Active Mitigation for Guardian Druids
    • 3.1. Ironfur
    • 3.2. Frenzied Regeneration
  • 4. Taunting
  • 5. Cooldowns for Guardian Druids
  • 6. Optional Read: Mastering Your Guardian Druid
    • 6.1. Rage Generation
    • 6.2. Mastery: Nature's Guardian
    • 6.3. Gore Procs
    • 6.4. Detailed Cooldown Usage for Guardian Druids
      • 6.4.1. Barkskin
      • 6.4.2. Survival Instincts
    • 6.5. Abilities and Cooldowns from Talents
      • 6.5.1. Tier 1 Talents
      • 6.5.2. Tier 5 Talents
      • 6.5.3. Tier 6 Talents
      • 6.5.4. Tier 7 Talents
    • 6.6. Catweaving
  • 7. ChangeLog
• ×Mythic+ Tips
  • 1. Guardian Druid in Mythic+
    • 1.1. Guardian Druid Mythic+ Rotation
    • 1.2. Guardian Druid Utility
    • 1.3. Mythic+ Talents for Guardian Druids
  • 2. Mythic+ Affixes
    • 2.1. Tier One Affixes
    • 2.2. Tier Two Affixes
    • 2.3. Tier Three Affixes
    • 2.4. Seasonal Affix
  • 3. Mythic+ Azerite Traits
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Common and Worst Mistakes
  • 1. Casting Too Many Swipes
  • 2. Not Casting Enough
  • 3. Facing Away From Enemies
  • 4. Using Defensive Cooldowns Reactively
  • 5. Not Using Cooldowns Enough
  • 6. Using Frenzied Regeneration Inefficiently
  • 7. Thinking Damage Does Not Matter
  • 8. ChangeLog
• +Frequently Asked Questions
  • 1. Frequently Asked Questions
    • 1.1. Should I Play Defensively or Offensively?
    • 1.2. Should I Catweave?
    • 1.3. What Piece is Better, X or Y?
  • 2. How Much of X Stat Should I Have?
  • 3. Can I Sim Myself?
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Boss by Boss Strategies
  • 1. ChangeLog
• +Stat Priority
  • 1. The Basics of Stats for Guardian Druid
    • 1.1. Survivability
    • 1.2. Damage Output
  • 2. Getting a Better Understanding of Guardian Druid Stats
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Gems, Enchants, and Consumables
  • 1. Gems for Guardian Druids
  • 2. Enchants for Guardian Druids
  • 3. Consumables for Guardian Druids
  • 4. ChangeLog
• +Macros and Addons
  • 1. Macros
    • 1.1. Generic Macros for Druids
      • 1.1.1. Rebirth
      • 1.1.2. Remove Corruption
    • 1.2. Specific Macros for Guardian Druids
      • 1.2.1. Blessing of Protection Cancelaura Macro
      • 1.2.2. Useful Mouseover Macros
  • 2. Addons
    • 2.1. Generic Addons for Druids
      • 2.1.1. ElvUI
      • 2.1.2. Boss Mods: Deadly Boss Mods or Bigwigs
      • 2.1.3. GTFO
      • 2.1.4. Parrot or Mik's Scrolling Battle Text
      • 2.1.5. Weak Auras
      • 2.1.6. Details!
      • 2.1.7. Grid and GridClickSets (Optional)
    • 2.2. Specific Addons for Guardian Druids
      • 2.2.1. Omen Threat Meter
      • 2.2.2. Tidy Plates: Threat Plates
• +Gear and Best in Slot
  • 1. Best in Slot List for Guardian Druids
    • 1.1. Azerite Gear
  • 2. Trinkets for Guardian Druids
  • 3. ChangeLog
• +Simulations
  • 1. Simulations for Tanks?
  • 2. Combat Logs
  • 3. ChangeLog

General Information

On this page, you will various tips and pieces of advice for clearing high Mythic+ content with your Guardian Druid.

The other pages of our Guardian Druid guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Author

This guide has been written by Faide, a Guardian Druid theorycrafter, moderator for the Dreamgrove Druid discord, and owner of Dreamgrove.gg, a Druid community website. He raids in Synergy on Bleeding Hollow US. You can follow him on Twitter.

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 damage output and tank-specific group utility such as mass crowd control and kiting potential.

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.
• 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. If you talent into Intimidating Roar, it can be used as a pseudo-stun in order for your group to deal heavy burst damage, although keep in mind that fewer enemies can be interrupted with Intimidating Roar than with Incapacitating Roar.
• 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.

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	? Intimidating Roar	✔ 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, 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

Infested is the seasonal affix for the launch of Battle for Azeroth. Enemies afflicted with the Infested debuff will be scattered throughout each dungeon once you reach key level ten. These mobs will heal enemies around them and, when slain, will spawn two Spawn of G'huun that will attempt to infest remaining enemies.

There are several ways to handle Infested mobs depending on pack size, which mob is infested, and group composition. The first way to handle an Infested enemy is to burn down the infested target and the subsequently spawning Spawn of G'huun while either crowd controlling or ignoring the other mobs in the pack. The second way is to crowd control the Infested mob and burn down all the other enemies. After you kill an infested mob and the Spawns of G'huun spawn, Guardian Druids can use Typhoon to either knock them or the other enemies away.

3. Mythic+ Azerite Traits

There are two Azerite trait that are very strong for Guardian Druids in all scenarios, and one situationally strong trait

• 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+.
• Gory Regeneration is situationally very strong. If you are talented into Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc, Mangle will hit up to 3 targets per cast, meaning you can extend an active Frenzied Regeneration by 3 seconds per cast. Since Incarnation reduces the cooldown of Mangle to 1.5 seconds, you can very easily stack up an extremely long Frenzied Regeneration which will provide a consistent heal over a long period of time. This can only happen once per Incarnation cast, which are 3 minutes apart and may not be worth sacrificing the consistent damage and Rage generation from Galactic Guardian.

4. ChangeLog

• 11 Aug. 2018: Page added.

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