Guardian Druid Tank Stat Priority — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. The Basics of Stats for Guardian Druid

The stat priority for a Guardian Druid differs depending on whether you are aiming for survivability or damage output.

Regardless of what you are prioritizing, an item 10 or more item levels above another will almost always be an upgrade due to the sheer increase in stats.

1.1. Survivability

1. Armor/Agility/Stamina;
2. Mastery;
3. Versatility;
4. Haste;
5. Critical Strike.

Armor, Agility, and Stamina are grouped together because they typically appear together on gear, but any one of the "main" stats will be stronger point-for-point than secondary stats.

1.2. Damage Output

It is important to note that all secondary stats are very close together in value. This is a rough estimation, as your stat order might slightly differ depending on how much of each stat you currently have. Agility is also very important for damage output, and will often make the highest item level piece the best one to choose. If you want a truly accurate evaluation of which stats are best for you, you should sim your character for stat weights.

1. Haste >= Critical Strike >= Versatility >= Mastery.

2. Getting a Better Understanding of Guardian Druid Stats

Agility is your primary stat. It increases your Attack Power, grants you a small amount of Dodge, and converts into Armor due to Ironfur.

Armor reduces the Physical damage you take. Guardians gain increased Armor (and Stamina) from Bear Form. It is important to note that "Bonus Armor" (typically armor granted by trinket effects or enchants/potions) is not increased by Bear Form.

Versatility reduces your damage taken, increases your damage and healing done, and increases the size of your absorbs. Versatility is the most effective stat for pure damage reduction, as well as having benefits to your damage output and boosting your self healing abilities like Frenzied Regeneration.

Mastery ( Mastery: Nature's Guardian) increases your maximum health and your healing received, which effectively functions like a damage reduction in practice (damage reductions increase the amount of damage you can take before you die, just like health increases). It also increases your Attack Power and therefore your damage, but it does not scale as well offensively as the other stats.

Haste does many things for Guardian. It increases your melee attack speed, increases the rate at which Thrash and Moonfire (and Feral Affinity bleeds Rake and Rip) tick, reduces the global cooldown, and reduces the cooldown on Mangle, Thrash, and Frenzied Regeneration. All of this results in increased Rage generation and damage output, making Haste your best stat offensively and also a decent stat defensively.

Critical Strike, while being good for dealing damage, does not do much defensively. It does increase dodge chance, but that dodge chance is subject to heavy diminishing returns, and is generally an unreliable stat for survivability. Other stats increase your survivability far more reliably.

Most encounters have abilities that cannot be mitigated or avoided. Also, you need to have a decent amount of health, in order to give yourself the chance to be healed before a subsequent attack kills you. As such, you need a minimum amount of Stamina. This amount will, in most cases, simply come from the Stamina found innately on your gear. Therefore, item level is the determining factor in keeping your health pool growing.

3. Changelog