Guardian Druid Raid Guide (2024)

• Boundless Moonlight
  • Makes it important to tank all enemies inside the Lunar Beam zone.
• Atmospheric Exposure
  • This effect is permanently refreshed while enemies are in your Lunar Beam zone, this means it lingers after it ends or they walk out for another 6seconds.
• Moondust
  • Since Moonfire is more or less up all the time on enemies this is a nice convenient passive slow.
• Lunar Calling + Lunation
  • This talent combination enables Thrash to contribute cooldown reduction on Lunar Beam increasing the usage rate a lot.
• The Light of Elune
  • The proced Fury of Elune has no internal cooldown and also applies Atmospheric Exposure to targets hit.
• The Eternal Moon
  • The Lunar Beam buff on yourself does not depend on the zone and provides you both with healing and mastery increase even if you leave the zone on the ground.
  • Other benefits like the talents mentioned above only apply when enemies are within the zone.

• Ravage
  • When it procs Ravage replaces your Maul for 15 seconds or until used.
• Fount of Strength
  • The health increase is only active during the Frenzied Regeneration buff.
• Dreadful Wound + Aggravate Wounds
  • Dreadful Wound is applied to all targets hit by Ravage and provides you with 10% damage reduction.
  • With this talent combination Aggravate Wounds extends this bleed and damage reduction passively by just pressing your normal rotation.
• Wildshape Mastery
  • Wildshape Mastery provides health and armor when shifting into Cat Form.
    • This buff gets canceled when shifting back into Bear Form.
  • The same concept of buff canceling applies to the Wildshape Mastery healing for damage taken buff.
  • Both Frenzied Regeneration and Ironfur does not vanish when swapping between Bear Form and Cat Form.
• Ruthless Aggression
  • This bonus agility and armor is buffing your Thorns of Iron damage.
• Empowered Shapeshifting or Wildpower Surge
  • Wildpower Surge enables smooth usage of Cat Form together with Rake and Rip.
  • Empowered Shapeshifting is the passive option if cat-weaving is not wanted.
• Claw Rampage
  • The tooltip is misleading, every target hit with the initial damage has a 25% chance to proc Ravage. Meaning on bigger pulls you most likely receive a proc after each ability.

When to use this spec

This is the default loadout going into any boss unless specified otherwise. You have to adjust the class talent tree based on the utility needed for the encounter. To make your life easier, boss-specific talent loadouts are available in theRaidssection.

Gameplay Altering Talents

Discover all talents that significantly alter your gameplay within the Spec and Class Talent trees. This section gives a concise overview of these talents and their applications but for a more detailed look check out the Rotation andDeep Divesections below.

Spec Tree

• Dream of Cenarius
  • This proc makes it so your Regrowth can be cast in Bear Form and heals for 200% more. A Dream of Cenarius proc is very effective for healing yourself and others. You should be tracking this.
• Improved Survival Instincts
  • Grants you another charge of Survival Instincts giving you more cooldown opportunities.
• Innate Resolve
  • Grants you another charge of Frenzied Regeneration and increases the healing based on your missing health. This is amazing for both cooldown management and bonus healing.
• Infected Wounds
  • Makes it so your Mangle or Raze slows targets hit by 50%, an amazing utility tool.
• Tooth and Claw
  • Empowers your Raze or Maul to be way more valuable and act as a defensive cooldown.
• Thorns of Iron
  • Makes it so your Ironfur deals a burst of physical damage when used.
• After the Wildfire
  • A very strong heal around you whenever you spend 200 Rage, this is incredibly helpful to the whole group.
• Rend and Tear
  • Makes maintaining your Thrash stacks grant defensive value.
• Ursoc's Guidance
  • Grants huge cooldown reduction for Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc when you spam spend Rage.
• Galactic Guardian
  • Keeping track of this buff and utilizing Moonfire with it is high value for damage and Rage generation.
• Twin Moonfire
  • Moonfire now hits 2 targets close to each other making multi-dotting easier and way better. This tool helps when pulling or getting aggro on multiple mobs.

Class Tree

• Well-Honed Instincts
  • With a 120 second cooldown, you proc a Frenzied Regeneration when falling below 45% HP. What's important to note is that this overwrites any current active Frenzied Regeneration can also can be overwritten by any newly applied Frenzied Regeneration.
    • Keeping track of the cooldown and not overlapping it is very important.

Hero Talents

• Killing Strikes
  • Provides a nice Agility and Armor bonus.
• Wildpower Surge
  • Makes the whole cat-weave even possible.
• Strike for the Heart

When to use this spec

This is the Elune's Chosen version of the Raid Build that does a lot less damage but is passive and easy to play.

To make your life easier, boss-specific talent loadouts are available in theRaidssection.

Talent Adjustments

Listing all the changes within the Class and Spec tree compared to the default build.

Class Tree

• Added
  • Astral Influence
  • Innervate
  • 1x Lore of the Grove
  • Verdant Heart

• Removed
  • Rake
  • Feline Swiftness
  • Rip
  • Fluid Form

Spec Tree

• Added
  • 1x Fury of Nature
  • Lunar Beam
  • Twin Moonfire

• Removed
  • Gory Fur
  • Pulverize
  • Blood Frenzy

Hero Talents

Changed to Elune's Chosen for more info visit the Hero Talent section above.

• Elune's Grace
• Lunar Calling
  • Thrash now counts towards any arcane damage multiplier or cooldown reduction.
• The Light of Elune
  • Bonus rage generation, without an internal cooldown.
• Lunation
  • Provides massive cooldown reduction for Lunar Beam

Opener

• The Goal of the opener is to get all major cooldowns going while also dealing the most damage possible. This is achieved by casting Moonfire and Thrash as early as possible and getting everything rolling while generating Rage to spend it later on Ironfur and Maul or Raze.
• Generally opener rotations for tanks work very well when it's all planned and not much defensive usage is needed. Keep in mind that this can be changed up without any issues if needed.

Priority List

Make sure to keep this list in mind, unless some bosses or scenarios require you to hold some abilities listed here

1. Make sure to be in Bear Form, if you ever leave it while tanking you most likely die.
2. Keep Rage of the Sleeper,Lunar Beam, Heart of the Wild, Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc on cooldown only hold them if needed later on.
3. Keep Moonfire up on the target 100% of the time.
4. Spend your rage on Ironfur.
   • With Thorns of Iron Ironfur is your main rage spender.
5. Consume your Tooth and Claw with Maul/Raze
   • Maul for the Single Target damage.
   • Raze in AoE scenarios with 2+ targets
6. Keep Thrash on cooldown.
7. Keep Mangle on cooldown.

Opener

• The Goal of the opener is to put up all the needed debuffs on the target, while also doing the highest DPS possible. This is achieved by casting Moonfire and Thrash as early as possible and getting everything rolling while generating Rage to spend it later on Ravage procs with Maul or Ironfur.
• Generally opener rotations for tanks work very well when it's all planned and not much defensive usage is needed. Keep in mind that this can be changed up without any issues if needed.

Priority List

Make sure to keep this list in mind, unless some bosses or scenarios require you to hold some abilities listed here

1. Make sure to be in Bear Form, if you ever leave it while tanking you most likely die.
2. Keep Rage of the Sleeper,Heart of the Wild,Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc and cooldown only hold them if needed later on.
3. Keep Moonfire up on the target 100% of the time
4. Consume your Ravage proc with Maul.
5. On Single Target apply Rake and Rip to the target.
   • Only with 6 stacks of Wildpower Surge.
   • After applying shift back into Bear Form with Mangle.
6. Keep Thrash on cooldown.
7. Keep Mangle on cooldown.
8. Spend your rage on Ironfur.
   • With Thorns of Iron Ironfur is your main rage spender.
9. Consume your Tooth and Claw with Maul/Raze
   • Maul for the Single Target damage.
   • Raze in AoE scenarios with 2+ targets

Tank mechanics

• Brutal Crush
  • After being hit you receive 20 applications of Tenderized which results in a 200% healing reduction.
    • Every second, you lose one application stack which fully clears your debuff after 20 seconds.
    • The boss casts this mechanic roughly every 15 to 20 seconds.
    • As the inactive tank, taunt when the cast succeeds.
• After Hulking Crash the Boss transitions into the intermission.
• Ravenous Spawn appears in a cocoon on one side of the room, make sure to move there.
  • These cocoons break staggered after some time spawning Ravenous Spawn pick them up and watch aggro since they are spread out.
    • Disembowel is cast on the target that has aggro so watch your DPS and Healer players if they are getting attacked.
  • Disembowel is a bleed which can be removed by Cauterizing Flame.

Boss Tips and Tricks

• At the start of the fight, bring the Boss to a corner as this makes Stalkers Webbing easier to clear.
• During Carnivorous Contest, use Stampeding Roar while soaking to not get sucked to the boss.
  • Do not walk under the boss Devour, it kills you almost instantly.
• Utilize your Moonfire to pick up aggro in the intermission.

Tank mechanics

• Gruesome Disgorge is both a tank mechanic and a raid mechanic.
  • Gruesome Disgorgeis cast at the active tank and shows a huge cone that faces and moves with you.
  • As the inactive tank, taunt when the cast succeeds.
  • When hit by Gruesome Disgorge you and anyone inside the cone is sent into a different phase, Baneful Shift.
    • During the phase, you need to kill the Lost Watcher and Forgotten Harbingers while preventing Blood Horrors from reaching the boss
  • Lost Watcher is your tank target, make sure to taunt it.
    • Black Bulwark needs to be interrupted.
    • Spectral Slam is cast on you doing moderate damage.
    • Position the Lost Watcher between or close to Forgotten Harbingers.
• Spewing Hemorrhage.
  • Spewing Hemorrhage creates two beams on each side of the boss while being cast.
  • Boss facing determines where the beams are.
  • The active boss tank can move accordingly to adjust final beam positions during the cast.
  • Your goal is to place the beams as far away as possible from the inside group with Baneful Shift.
  • These Beams always turn clockwise so keep that in mind.

Boss Tips and Tricks

• Use Stampeding Roar when running away from Goresplatter you can jump over the "water" and not take any damage.
• Utilize Ursol's Vortex for the inside phase Baneful Shift to slow and grip the small adds back they are spawned from Manifest Horror.

Tank mechanics

• Captain's Flourish is the tank combo mechanic during this fight.
• Sikran starts with 2x Expose followed by 1x Phase Lunge.
  • Taunting during any of these casts changes the destination target to the taunter. Watch out when to taunt here.
• Managing Captain's Flourish:
  • The active tank takes two hits of Expose increasing his physical damage taken.
  • The Inactive tank taunts during Phase Lunge increasing his damage taken by the next Phase Lunge.
  • After this combo, the tanks swap roles meaning the tank who took Phase Lunge now takes the next two Expose.
  • While the previous Expose tank now takes Phase Lunge.

Boss Tips and Tricks

• Move the boss to be lined up with the Phase Blades images. This makes it easier for Decimate targets to hit them.
• Use Barkskin right before Decimate goes off to have a nice damage reduction for the Cosmic Shards debuff.
• Use Stampeding Roar whenever Shattering Sweep happens.

Tank mechanic

• Savage Assault is the only tank mechanic in this fight.
  • As the inactive tank, taunt when the cast succeeds.
• The mechanic does a high amount of damage and applies a dot based on 60% of unmitigated damage done to you, meaning you need to mitigate the damage as much as possible.
  • The damage is split into magic and physical damage.
  • Both instances are calculated separately when it comes to the dot application. If you only have a physical absorb, you receive the full magic dot + the unmitigated physical one.

Boss Tips and Tricks

• Use Skull Bash to counter the knockback if you stand too close to the boss.
• Stampeding Roar the raid team whenever the boss phases and flies away.
• During Savage Assault make sure to have a few Ironfur stacks and Barkskin active.

Tank mechanics

• Volatile Concoction is the very short duration tank mechanic.
  • It's very important that the inactive tank taunts when the cast succeeds.
• When you have Volatile Concoction on you it's very important to stay at the highest HP possible.
  • The debuff is a big magic dot and only 8 seconds long.
  • After the debuff runs out, you explode on the whole raid and the damage is reduced based on your current health percent when the debuffs drops. Staying healthy and as close as possible to 100% is your goal.
  • Volatile Concoction also applies a +damage taken debuff to you preventing you from taking 2 hits back to back so make sure to taunt of your tank partner.
• Experimental Dosage spawns different add types throughout the fight. Your main concern is the Colossal Spider.
  • Whenever they spawn be ready to taunt or attack them to pick up the aggro.
  • They cast Vicious Bite at the target with aggro, this does magic damage to you.
  • At 25% health they enrage and start stacking up a damage done increase.
  • Whenever you have Volatile Concoction be extra careful of your HP.

Boss Tips and Tricks

• During this fight make sure to position the boss next to the eggs you want to break next.
  • Here you want to make sure that the boss model is not covering the eggs. If it is covering the eggs, it is substantially harder for other players to break them.
• Barkskin and a late Frenzied Regeneration are amazing tools to counter Volatile Concoction.
• Utilize Ursol's Vortex for the Voracious Worm adds.
• Use Stampeding Roar whenever you move to the next section of the room.

Tank mechanics

• Void Shredders
  • This ability consists of 4 hits each dealing damage and applying one stack of Chasmal Gash to the active tank.
  • As the inactive tank, you can taunt at any point during the cast or after it is over as it does not change targets.
• This mechanic is just a regular tank swap mechanic and there is nothing more to it.
  • Sometimes it can be paired with a good amount of raid damage which can be dangerous.

Boss Tips and Tricks

• Use Stampeding Roar during Nether Rift.
• During Void Shredders make sure to have a few Ironfur stacks and Barkskin active.

Tank mechanics

• This council boss consists of two bosses: Anub'arash and Skeinspinner Takazj.
  • Both tanks want to preemptively decide on one boss to start on so make sure that is clear.
• Anub'arash casts Piercing Strike.
• Skeinspinner Takazj casts Poison Bolt and Void Bolt[/wow-spell which are both magic casts that leave a dispellable dot behind.
• [wow-spell id=438218]Piercing Strike deals a decent amount of physical damage to the active tank and leaves an increased damage taken debuff.
  • As the inactive tank, taunt after the cast succeeded.
• Skeinspinner Takazj casts either of her "Bolt" spells whenever she is not casting any encounter-related mechanic.
  • Both bolts are quite harmless on low stacks, but become dangerous fast when reaching higher stacks.
  • Poison Bolt is a poison only dispel mechanic.
    • Make sure to get dispelled by your fellow Paladins, Evokers, Monks, and Druids.
  • In Phase 2 Poison Bolt changes to Void Bolt and becomes a magic dispel that can be dispelled by any healer.
• The goal is to keep the bosses stacked as much as possible while swapping tanking roles after each Piercing Strike.

Boss Tips and Tricks

• During Call of the Swarm use Ursol's Vortex to prevent Shattershell Scarab from reaching players they fixate.
• Use Remove Corruption to dispel yourself while tanking Poison Bolt whenever ready.
  • Help Remove Corruption your tank partner while they are tanking Skeinspinner Takazj.
• Use Stampeding Roar whenever Reckless Charge happens so the raid team can reposition.

Below you are presented with a good list of farmable alternatives that are obtainable outside of WoW’s weekly lockout system. While replaced in time as you progress, these offer immediate character power.

#showtooltip Growl/cast [@mouseover,exists,harm][@target,exists,harm] Growl

/cast [@boss1] Growl

/cast [@boss2] Growl