Guardian Druid Tank Nerub-ar Palace Raid Guide — The War Within (Season 1)
On this page, you will find tips, tricks, and strategies tailored to your Guardian Druid for each boss of the following raid: Nerub-ar Palace. All our content is updated for World of Warcraft — The War Within (Season 1).
Introduction
Below, you can find class and spec-specific advice for every fight in Nerub-ar Palace. If you are looking for a general overview of the Raid that is not spec-specific, check out our dedicated Nerub-ar Palace guides.
This page assumes that you already understand most of the mechanics of each encounter. These can be found on the full raid guide, so what is contained here are details specifically tailored toward Guardian Druid and how you can deal with each fight as best as possible.
All recommendations are progression-based tips and will not necessarily be the best for an overall Tank ranking.
Nerub'ar Palace Boss Guides for Guardian Druid
Nerub'ar Palace Raid Builds, Tips, and Tricks for Guardian Druid
Tips for Ulgrax the Devourer for Guardian Druid
Note that it is early days and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- You generally want to cycle a cooldown for each time the boss casts Brutal Crush on you. This is also the taunt swap mechanic on this fight.
Cooldown Usage
- It is not generally worth using CDs on the Add Phase unless you are struggling to get aggro on the adds. Simply use cooldowns on pull and then again when the boss returns.
Mechanical Tips
- You can remove Stalker's Netting by shapeshifting. On Mythic, it is no longer a root and will stun you instead.
- You can utilize Ursol's Vortex to help control adds if required.
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
Tips for Bloodbound Horror for Guardian Druid
Note that it is early days and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- Consider using a defensive if you are at low HP when you are about to go down via Gruesome Disgorge.
Cooldown Usage
- Use offensive cooldowns on cooldown.
Mechanical Tips
- Use Ursol's Vortex to help slow the adds in The Shadow Realm.
- Utilize Stampeding Roar to quickly move away from the beams that rotate around the room or when the boss casts Goresplatter.
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
Tips for Sikran for Guardian Druid
Note that it is early days and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- As a tank, you will take 2 hits of Expose (the second hits 200% harder), so make sure you have a good CD or two for each of these hits. Your co-tank should taunt for the 3rd hit, which is Phase Lunge. You then reverse the order on the next combo with you taunting for the Phase Lunge.
Cooldown Usage
- Use offensive cooldowns on cooldown.
Mechanical Tips
- Utilize Stampeding Roar when the boss casts Shattering Sweep to help your raid quickly run out and back in after the cast finishes.
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
Tips for Rasha'nan for Guardian Druid
Note that it is early days and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- Savage Assault is the main tank hit in this encounter and leaves a Savage Wound on you for a large percentage of the unmitigated damage. This means using multiple defensive cooldowns such as Barkskin and Rage of the Sleeper on the main hit will save you a lot of damage taken from the DoT afterward.
Cooldown Usage
- On cooldown.
Mechanical Tips
- Savage Assault is the tank swap mechanic on this encounter. Taunt after each cast.
- Ensure that the active tank is in melee range, otherwise, the boss will start casting Tacky Burst.
- Stampeding Roar can be very useful when the boss flies away to his new position.
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
Tips for Broodtwister Ovi'nax for Guardian Druid
Note that it is early days and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- Because Volatile Concoction deals increased damage the more HP you are missing, I strongly recommend using a defensive and Frenzied Regeneration before it expires to be as healthy as possible.
Cooldown Usage
- Use offensive cooldowns on cooldown.
- If the adds are not dying fast enough, then try to have your offensive cooldowns available for when the adds spawn. The large spiders in particular can deal massive tank damage and will almost certainly require you to cycle a cooldown.
Mechanical Tips
- Volatile Concoction is the tank swap mechanic on this fight. You will always want to be as close to full HP as possible when it is expiring.
- Ursol's Vortex and Typhoon are both great tools when trying to keep the Blood Parasites under control.
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
Tips for Nexus-Princess Ky'veza for Guardian Druid
Note that it is early days and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- Void Shredders deals a mixture of Physical and Shadow damage and leaves behind a DoT effect. This is also the best place to rotate defensive cooldowns as a tank for each cast.
Cooldown Usage
- On cooldown.
Mechanical Tips
- Void Shredders is the tank swap mechanic on this fight. Swap after each cast.
- If you are in danger of falling below 10% health, be sure to use Frenzied Regeneration or health pot/stone to get yourself back up, otherwise the boss will execute you.
- Stampeding Roar can be useful when the boss casts Assassination to help your raid members quickly run out and drop their portal phantoms. You can also use this when the rifts spawn out of position in an attempt to fight the stronger more dangerous pull effect.
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
Tips for The Silken Court for Guardian Druid
Note that it is early days and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- Piercing Strike is the tank hit. Rotate defensive cooldowns for each of these hits. This stacks up a 100% physical damage taken debuff each time. It may be viable to take multiple of these, but make sure you use very large cooldowns for anything past 1 stack.
Cooldown Usage
- On cooldown.
Mechanical Tips
- Poison Bolt can be dispelled with Remove Corruption to reduce damage taken. This is generally not worth the GCD as the boss will spam the ability repeatedly.
- Stampeding Roar can be utilized when the boss casts Web Vortex to assist your raid in running out and re-positioning quickly.
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
Tips for Queen Ansurek for Guardian Druid
Note that it is early days and that this section will be far more fleshed out as the Season progresses and cool tricks and tips are found.
Defensive Tips
- Make sure to always have a defensive up if you are taking Feast, Liquefy or Gorge.
Cooldown Usage
- On-cooldown.
Mechanical Tips
- If you are the designated Feast tank then I recommend the Elune's Chosen build. This will enable you to have Lunar Beam availabe for each cast of Feast and allow you to easily heal the healing absorb off quickly without the need for help from healers with a few Frenzied Regeneration's.
- Stampeding Roar can be used when the boss is casting Wrest to assist your raid in running out and repositioning quickly. It is also useful when running up the web bridges in phase 2.
- Typhoon and Ursol's Vortex can be very handy tools when trying to stop the Caustic Skitterer adds from meleeing you too often in P2. These can also be used on the p3 Gloom Hatchling adds to stop them from reaching the boss.
Best Talents
Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!
General Defensive Usage Notes
Guardian Druid has several defensive spells that you should plan to use and rotate throughout mechanics. You should opt to use the smaller cooldown spells often as needed with incoming hits and save bigger cooldowns like Survival Instincts for large incoming damage.
- Barkskin
- Rage of the Sleeper
- Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc
- Maul with a proc of Tooth and Claw active.
General Cooldown Usage
Guardian Druid has a few cooldowns to think about using optimally on the fights in Nerub-ar Palace:
- Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc — Our main, 2-3 minute cooldown.
- Rage of the Sleeper — Both an offensive and defensive cooldown, and can be used for either situationally.
- Heart of the Wild — A 5-minute cooldown that increases the damage done by our; auto-attack, Moonfire and feral abilities such as Rip and Rake.
- Stampeding Roar — 1-2 minute cooldown that greatly increases the movement speed of your entire raid. While this is not an offensive or defensive cooldown, this is a massive raid utility that should ideally be assigned to specific points in the encounter to ease dealing with mechanics.
In addition to the general rotation, you want to keep in mind that your goal is to use your cooldowns as often as possible during an encounter. With that in mind, your secondary goal is to use them at the correct time.
I highly suggest using some Addon or WeakAura to track the estimated time to die of your target/boss target. Method Raid Tools has this as an option if you are already using this addon. By tracking time to die, if you know that you can only fit one more cycle of your cooldowns in before the boss dies, you can choose to hold these cooldowns to better line up with Bloodlust, your Potion, or even your other cooldowns, trying to look for opportunities to stack all of them.
Changelog
- 17 Sep. 2024: Updated Boss tips and added Ansurek tips.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Guide added.
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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