Guardian Druid Playstyle and Rotation Guide

Guardian druid is a rage based tank, meaning you build rage by using short cooldown generators like Mangle and Thrash, then can spend it on defensive or offensive abilities including Ironfur, Maul, and Raze. The general playstyle of Guardian is relatively simple then, with your main goal being to keep your generators on CD while also ensuring you don’t cap on rage as that results in wasted offense and/or defense.

A common misconception about Guardian is that changing your stats will have a significant impact on your durability, where in reality the biggest thing you can do is make sure your rotation is done correctly, as there are many synergistic defensive talents that are passively kept active by doing so. For example, both Scintillating Moonlight and Rend and Tear are small damage reductions tied to Moonfire and Thrash respectively, adding a significant defensive benefit to maintain those DoTs. Tooth and Claw is a short duration damage reduction you can apply to targets through using Maul and Raze, which is also optimal for damage. Ursoc’s Fury is an absorb you gain based on damage done by Thrash, Maul, and Raze, so optimizing using those abilities offensively also maximizes the size of this shield.

As you can see, there are A LOT of minor defensive gains you can get just by doing your rotation properly, which you can find more detail on in the Rotation section. Sometimes though, you need a beefier defensive cooldown to get you through heavy incoming damage, so lets move on to cooldown usage.

Rotation

Druid of the Claw Rotation

Single Target

1. Maintain Moonfire DoT
2. Maintain 3 stacks of Thrash (5 if talented into Flashing Claws)
3. Ravage
4. Ironfur to not cap on rage or reduce rage below 25 before weaving (assuming you are running the Thorns of Iron talent package)
5. Ferocious Bite with 6 stacks of Feline Potential if an empowered Rip is already active
6. Rip with 6 stacks of Feline Potential
7. Ferocious Bite with >2 combo points if Rip is already active
8. Rip with >2 combo points
9. Tooth and Claw proc’d Maul
10. Mangle
11. Thrash
12. Rake if the DoT is not already active and it is safe to shift into cat form
13. Shred if it is safe to shift into cat form
14. Swipe as filler if it is unsafe to shift into cat form or you lack energy to Shred

Multi Target

1. Maintain Moonfire DoT (ignore this at 5 or more targets)
2. Maintain 3 stacks of Thrash (5 if talented into Flashing Claws)
3. Lunar Beam (if talented)
4. Ravage
5. Tooth and Claw proc’d Raze
6. Raze to not cap rage if you don’t need to spend it on Ironfur
7. Thrash
8. Mangle
9. Galactic Guardian proc’d Moonfire (ignore this at 5 or more targets)
10. Swipe as filler

Opener

1. Moonfire
2. Barkskin
3. Thrash
4. Incarnation
5. Tempered Potion
6. Thrash
7. Rage of the Sleeper
8. Mangle
9. Thrash
10. Mangle
11. Thrash
12. Follow respective rotation rules

Druid of the Claw Specific Notes

Wildpower Surge: When using Rake to shift into cat form after gaining 6 stacks of Feline Potential, beware that whatever rage you currently have will reset to 25 upon shifting back into bear form, so I recommend dumping rage with ironfur to get below that number before using Rake. On top of this, if you are talented into Heart of the Wild, you’ll want to hold onto the CD until you reach 6 stacks of Feline Potential, in order to further empower the amplified Rip. The cast sequence should be Heart of the Wild > Rake (shifts you into cat form) > Rip > Mangle (shifts you back into bear form).

Claw Rampage: Note that your chance to proc Ravage during Incarnation is based on the number of targets hit, not the individual button press, so in AoE this allows you an extremely high chance to proc Ravage when using Thrash or Mangle.

Elune’s Chosen Rotation

Single Target

1. Maintain Moonfire DoT
2. Maintain 3 stacks of Thrash (5 if talented into Flashing Claws)
3. Lunar Beam
4. Tooth and Claw proc’d Maul
5. Maul to not cap rage and if you don’t need to spend it on Ironfur
6. Mangle
7. Thrash
8. Galactic Guardian Proc’d Moonfire
9. Swipe as filler

Multi Target

1. Maintain Moonfire DoT (ignore this at 5 or more targets)
2. Maintain 3 stacks of Thrash (5 if talented into Flashing Claws)
3. Lunar Beam
4. Tooth and Claw proc’d Raze
5. Raze to not cap rage if you don’t need to spend it on Ironfur
6. Thrash
7. Mangle
8. Galactic Guardian proc’d Moonfire
9. Swipe as filler

Opener

1. Heart of the Wild (if talented)
2. Moonfire
3. Barkskin
4. Thrash
5. Lunar Beam
6. Berserk (or Incarnation if talented)
7. Tempered Potion
8. Thrash
9. Mangle
10. Thrash
11. Rage of the Sleeper
12. Follow respective rotation rules

Elune’s Chosen Specific Notes

Lunar Beam: Thanks to the Lunation hero talent, Lunar Beam becomes an ability you want to press as close to on CD as possible so that you can get full value out of the cooldown reduction provided by both Thrash (buffed by Lunar Calling) and Moonfire. Note that Moonfire should never take priority over Mangle, despite it giving more CDR on Lunar Beam, as the base damage and rage generation lost is more significant.

Lunar Amplification: This talent functions similar to Vicious Cycle which we’ll discuss in the next section, however the damage impact is significantly smaller so it doesn’t actually impact your rotation in any way.

Additional Notes

Vicious Cycle: With this talent you’ll want to try and not waste any of the buff stacks, which cap at 3 for both Mangle and Maul / Raze. Note that both Raze and Incarnation buffed Mangle will provide 1 stack per target hit, so you’ll reach the 3 stack cap much more quickly when using these in AoE. On top of this, having this talent alongside Raze in AoE pushes up the priority of Mangle above Thrash while in Incarnation, up to about 10 targets.

Galactic Guardian: Note that with changes to this talent in Dragonflight. procs of this ability while you already have a proc ready to use it will refresh the duration but not consume the previous proc, causing it to go to waste. This means that to get the additional damage and rage generation in single target situations you will need to use these procs as opposed to waiting until the end of the duration, following the priority list above.

There is however an interesting interaction with the Twin Moonfire talent, where the additional moonfire created by this talent when you get a new Galactic Guardian proc will actually consume any existing Galactic Guardian proc, allowing you to gain the extra damage and rage generation without needing to actually press Moonfire. Note that this only works if there are at least 2 targets within range.

Cooldown Usage

As a Guardian, you have up to 5 major defensive cooldowns to cycle between, which you then combine with the several smaller damage reductions in your kit which were discussed in the previous section. These CDs include Barkskin, Rage of the Sleeper, Survival Instincts, Berserk/Incarnation, and Lunar Beam. Guardians also have a short CD, powerful self heal in Frenzied Regeneration, as well as a spammable physical defensive in Ironfur which we’ll also discuss in this section.

Notably, out of these major cooldowns, Incarnation, Rage of the Sleeper, and Lunar Beam are all significant damage increases on top of being strong defensively. That means, unless you require them to live a certain pull or boss mechanic, you should be trying to maximize the number of times you can use these abilities over the course of a dungeon or boss encounter. If you’re looking for the highest damage output possible at the expense of defense, often that means you’ll be overlapping these abilities to stack their damage and stat boosts on top of each other. Usually that involves starting out with Lunar Beam, followed by Incarnation, then finally pressing Rage of the Sleeper once you’ve built up enough rage to immediately press several Mauls or Razes to maximize the short damage amp window it provides.

Outside of this, you’ll want to do your best to never overlap your Barkskin, Survival Instincts, and Rage of the Sleeper durations, as for the vast majority of incoming damage situations having just one of these active is more than enough to survive when combined with your other tools. Overlapping them just results in worse overall damage reduction since these cooldowns stack multiplicatively instead of additively, plus it reduces your overall defensive coverage which can be punishing in harder content.

Moving on to Frenzied Regeneration, don’t underestimate the power of pressing this button slightly before taking incoming damage, especially with the Fount of Strength talent for Druid of the Claw. On boss encounters or situations where damage patterns are very predictable doing this can very quickly heal you back up to full health, potentially allowing you to save a defensive on something else if the hit itself isn’t enough to kill you outright.

Then we’ve got Guardian’s primary form of mitigation, Ironfur, which is something you’ll want to try and maintain at least 1 stack of whenever you’re taking physical damage. Additional uses of Ironfur do not actually refresh the duration, instead applying an entirely new full length stack that overlaps with any existing ones. This can also have a small to moderate offensive benefit depending on if you are talented into Thorns of Iron and other Ironfur boosting abilities.

In AoE situations, you’ll likely be spamming Ironfur to dump rage, especially when in Incarnation, as the rage generation with the Blood Frenzy talent is extremely high in these situations. It’s important to keep on top of your rage and ensure you don’t cap as spending rage fuels Ursoc’s Guidance CDR and After the Wildfire healing, meaning the more you manage to spend the more uptime you get on Incarnation. In single target situations you generate much less rage, but you’re also taking a lot less damage, so in scenarios where you don’t feel threatened feel free to dump rage into Maul instead for additional damage and potential defensive upside if talented into Ursoc’s Fury.

Weaving

With the addition of Wildshape Mastery and Wildpower Surge for the Druid of the Claw hero tree, weaving is making a small comeback. That being said, it is much more simple than previous iterations, with you only spending a few globals in cat form at a time. This can also be further simplified if you just ignore weaving outside of your empowered spenders, which happens every 20-30s. For players that prefer to avoid this playstyle you are able to opt out of it entirely, though it is a single target damage loss to do so.

In terms of how it currently works, you essentially gain stacks of Feline Potential whenever you hit Mangle, and then at 6 stacks your next Rip or Ferocious Bite is empowered. To maximize this damage, you’ll of course need to talent into both Rake and Rip in the class tree, as well as Fluid Form in the capstone area in order to remove wasted globals. Doing so allows you to press Rake to shift into cat form at 6 stacks of Feline Potential (something that can now be done while tanking by the way!), followed by your empowered 5 combo point Rip, then concluding with Mangle to shift you safely back into bear form.

During Incarnation this priority can change a bit as Mangle has a significantly reduced CD, allowing you to reach 6 stacks of Feline Potential before your empowered Rip is finished. In this case specifically you would opt to use an empowered Ferocious Bite instead of Rip to maximize damage, as you would waste a large portion of empowered Rip duration otherwise.

Outside of using your empowered spenders, feral abilities like Rake and Shred are mostly used as filler in place of Moonfire and Swipe - assuming it is safe for you to shift into cat form - which increases the value of the Primal Fury talent. Using feral generators as part of your rotation means you’ll occasionally gain enough combo points to use an unempowered spender, which again prioritizes Rip over Ferocious Bite, as discussed in the Rotation section.

In general, weaving adds a bit of complexity and flavour to the Guardian druid rotation, though it isn’t mandatory and can be a bit restrictive on your Class tree talent points.