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.
Guardian Druid Video Class Guide
What has changed
Patch 11.2 Guardian Druid Changes
Moving into patch 11.2 Guardian isn’t getting any significant changes to playstyle, however there have been some tuning adjustments as well as a talent change in the druid class tree. Starting with tuning, the Guardian spec as a whole received a flat damage increase, which is much needed given that the M+ build was the lowest performing tank spec in that regard. This has the side effect of making the raid build one of the higher damage tank specs as it was already a strong choice, so this is a nice bonus.
For Druid of the Claw specifically they got a few defensive boosts, making the hero tree a more competitive option in M+. This includes a 5% damage reduction increase to your main Dreadful Wound bleed, a 2% increase to the magic reduction provided by Empowered Shapeshifting, and a massive increase to the healing provided by Strike for the Heart, with Mangle now healing you for 5% of your health per cast.
Other than that, a somewhat problematic talent in Lycara’s Meditation has been removed, and in its place is Lycara’s Inspiration. This changes nothing for Elune’s Chosen as they weren’t playing this talent anyways, but for Druid of the Claw this is a slight throughput loss.
Overall this patch is pretty neutral for Guardian, and they’ll likely be in a similar spot for both raid and M+ as they were in season 2.