Introduction
Hey everyone, and welcome to the Guardian Druid Guide! My name is Tactyks, and I’ve been playing bear on and off since Wrath of the Lich King. I currently raid with Consequence on Stormrage NA, and have achieved multiple CEs and M+ titles through Shadowlands and Dragonflight on Guardian Druid as well as other tank specs. I’ve also competed in The Great Push as a tank player and create M+, Raid, and Tank guide content over on my YouTube and Twitch channels, so make sure to stop by and say hi!
Socials:
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/tactyks
- Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/tactyks
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/tactyks
- Druid Discord: https://discord.gg/dreamgrove
Guardian Druids are a shapeshifter with two distinct playstyles, one focused on bleeds and physical damage, while the other focuses on raining down arcane lasers on your enemies, exactly what real bears do out in the wild! They also have a great utility kit that they share with the other druid specs, on top of bringing the extremely powerful Mark of the Wild raid buff.
The main weakness of Guardian is that it lacks unique utility that can’t be brought by other druids, meaning their representation can sometimes be low if the other druid specs are strong, even if the spec itself is performing well.
What has changed
Midnight Pre-Patch Guardian Druid Changes
Going into Midnight Prepatch Guardian is receiving quite a few changes, including a rework and significant talent shuffle in the spec tree, as well as minor adjustments to the class tree. Starting with the class tree, Heart of the Wild has been reworked into a 2min CD that immediately does something of note upon being pressed, where the effect itself is based on what form you use it in, very similar to Convoke the Spirits. Outside of that the only notable change is the removal of Nature’s Vigil, where now you can pick up Gift of the Wild to double the effects of Mark of the Wild on yourself, something you’ll want to always make sure you pick up.
When it comes to the spec tree the changes here are much more impactful, with changes to both existing nodes and new ones being added into the mix. For existing talents some changes include Raze and Lunar Beam moving to the 2nd tier of talents, Berserk being reduced down to a single node, and Ursoc’s Fury being buffed to shield for 40% of damage done instead of 25%. For new nodes there’s some powerful options like Natural Resilience which causes 80% of Frenzied Regeneration’s overhealing to give you an absorb shield, and Harnessed Rage which gives you a 2nd charge of mangle and increases your chance to proc gore on Maul or Raze casts above 80 rage.
To make room for these new nodes there were some losses, some of which will be missed like Rage of the Sleeper, and others that either were never picked like Pulverize, or contributed to a toxic gameplay loop like Thorns of Iron. We’ll discuss all the changes in more detail in later sections, but overall I think these changes push Guardian into a better direction where you are balancing casts of Maul/Raze along with ironfur instead of just spamming the latter, plus they also help to increase the power of Guardian outside of Incarnation which is very welcome.