Guardian Druid Gearing Guide

• (2) Set Bonus: Thrash and Moonfire increase your damage done and reduce damage taken by 1% for 8s, stacking 3 times
• (4) Set Bonus: Arcane damage increased by 5%, Bleed damage increased by 8%

In the first season of The War Within, Blizzard has stated that they do not want Tier Bonuses to impact your choice of Hero talents, which explains the relatively low value, passive set that Guardians are getting. There really isn’t much to talk about here as you will get the full benefits of this bonus by just playing the spec correctly.

The tables below aim to give you a general list of gear that is good for Guardian Druid, these lists are not a perfect replacement for simming your character.

• Overall
• Raiding
• Mythic+

Sureki Zealot’s Insignia (Very Rare Neck, Sikran) - A powerful neck that has a chance to give healers mana when they heal you, as well as give both of you some versatility. The uptime on this versatility buff is fairly high, making this the best option for any spec that prefers haste, of which Guardian is one.

Wings of Shattered Sorrow (Very Rare Cloak, Rasha’nan) - This cloak gives a fairly sizeable defensive buff when taking damage greater than 25% of your health, which is something that should happen fairly often as a tank player. That being said there are definitely situations where the proc doesn’t have a ton of value, or where it’s significantly higher value on a DPS player, regardless though this is a nice bonus any player would be happy to have.

Seal of the Poisoned Pact (Very Rare Ring, Queen Ansurek) - Dropping from the last boss of the raid, this crit heavy ring comes with a decent damage proc, though Guardians are unable to take advantage of the bonus from using nature damage. Despite this the ring is still just a bit of free additional damage, but other specs certainly get more out of it.

Foul Behemoth’s Chelicera (Ulgrax the Devourer) - This is a pretty unique trinket that ramps up over the course of an encounter, making it extremely good on longer boss fights that are more dangerous towards the end as it allows you to stack up a significant health increase during the easier portions of the fight. Depending on your timing of the on-use effect, this will give anywhere from 300k-500k bonus health per use, which adds up if you are able to chain 4+ uses without leaving combat. Damage-wise this trinket is fairly competitive with other options, making this a powerful choice in raid content.

Ovi’nax’s Mercurial Egg (Broodtwister Ovi’nax) - This trinket essentially functions as a stat stick, where you can shift the stacks between primary and your highest secondary by moving. Generally this is a bit annoying to optimize (20 stacks of the primary buff, 10 stacks of the secondary buff), so it’s hard to get the maximum value out of it, but it’s a decent option if you are missing out on some of the other top trinkets.

Void Reaper’s Contract (Nexus-Princess Ky’veza) - A passive damage trinket that deals increased damage to low health mobs but has no defensive upside. Probably the best passive pure damage option available to Guardian this season.

Swarmlord’s Authority (The Silken Court) - Currently the best general defensive option, this trinket gives an Ignore Pain like shield on a 1min CD, which increases based on your haste. Since Guardian tends to favour haste in their stats, this increases the bonus of the on-use effect. Some downsides of this trinket is the lack of Primary stat, which is a considerable defensive and offensive loss, in addition to the trinket itself doing almost no damage whatsoever.

Mad Queen’s Mandate (Queen Ansurek) - A powerful offensive trinket, particularly in M+ if you are able to time the on-use effect to gain the 60s of CDR, which also is easier than it sounds as you don’t actually need to kill the target to proc that effect, getting it sub 1% seems to be enough. That being said it also lacks Primary stat, which is a pretty considerable loss.

Ara-Kara Sacbrood (Ara-Kara, City of Echoes) - A haste trinket that procs additional primary stat for 1min at a time, basically making it a haste stat stick. If you get lucky you can get a lot of these primary stacks making it better than most stat sticks, especially for a spec like Guardian that does enjoy haste. The damage provided from this trinket outside of the stats is negligible, however the sheer amount of stats provided makes this one of the best trinkets this season regardless.

Ceaseless Swarmgland (Ara-Kara, City of Echoes) - A passive defensive trinket, however currently the effect is extremely undertuned so you’re better off sticking with one of the stat stick options as opposed to this.

Empowering Crystal of Anub’ikkaj (The Dawnbreaker) - A passive stat proc trinket, however since it is both a proc and a random stat I rate this lower than some of the other stat stick options. It can be a decent backup option until you obtain something better.

Refracting Aggression Module (The Stonevault) - This turns your taunt into a defensive, which sometimes is a bit awkward as in raid you often don’t need a defensive when you taunt, and in M+ you sometimes want to save taunt in case a DPS player gets aggro early in a pack. On top of this, the absorb shield itself is currently extremely undertuned, and there is no offensive addition to help make up for that, so you’re better off using one of the other options and this list.

Bottled Flayedwing Toxin (The Necrotic Wake) - A passive damage trinket with Agility, the effect has no defensive value and also isn’t the best offensively, leaving this as something to hold you over until you get something better.

Dead-Eye Spyglass (Siege of Boralus) - A powerful proc trinket with a roughly 33% uptime, this is especially good if you line up offensive related cooldowns like Lunar Beam and Rage of the Sleeper with the crit proc.

Throngus’s Finger (Grim Batol) - This trinket is technically only available to Strength tanks despite being a versatility trinket with a dodge proc, however even if you do get your hands on it the proc is fairly underwhelming, especially when considering it only has a 33% uptime, no offensive upside, and the trinket itself lacks primary stat.

In The War Within you’re able to equip 2 pieces of Crafted “Embellished” gear pieces with special effects, of which there are a few good options for Guardian druids.

Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension (Weapon) - This embellishment gives you a stacking secondary stat buff while in combat that randomizes over time. This is also a nerubian embellishment, allowing you to double the effect if you wear another crafted piece embellished with a Writhing Armor Banding. The main downside here is that this takes 80 seconds to ramp up to its full value, causing it to be weaker on shorter encounters or in M+ when you break combat too often.

Adrenal Surge Clasp (Belt) - Another nerubian embellishment, this has a chance on being hit to grant some primary stat at the expense of some mastery, which is a trade-off Guardians are happy to make. That being said it does not proc off ability damage, meaning you need to actively be hit or have a DoT effect on you in order to proc it, which can drastically reduce the uptime on some raid encounters.

Elemental Focusing Lens (Flexible) - Gives your abilities a chance to deal a flat amount of magic damage depending on the gems you have socketed. This damage is relatively low but unlike Ascension it has no ramp up time, making it ideal for shorter duration fights in raid.

Writhing Armor Banding (Flexible) - When combined with one of the previously mentioned nerubian embellishments this doubles their effects, making it powerful when paired with them but useless without them.

Recommendations:

Raid (5+ min fight duration) - Ascension + Writhing Armor Banding on Bracers or Boots

Raid (<5 min fight duration) - Elemental Focusing Lens x2 on Bracers and Boots

Mythic+ Dungeons - Adrenal Surge Clasp + Writhing Armor Banding on Bracers or Boots