Guardian Druid Tank Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities — 12.0.5

Ironfur increases your Armor by 112% of your Agility for 7 seconds. Multiple applications of Ironfur may overlap and stack their Armor increases, but their durations will not stack. For example, if you use Ironfur and then use it again 3 seconds later, you will have two applications of Ironfur for 4 seconds, granting you 224% of your Agility as Armor. After 4 seconds, the first application will have expired, leaving you with 112% of your Agility as Armor for 3 more seconds. Agility buffs and procs increase the amount of Armor you gain from Ironfur.

Armor is extremely effective at reducing Physical damage intake, so having at least one stack of Ironfur up as often as possible is recommended. Additionally, you will occasionally want to pool your Rage to put up multiple stacks of Ironfur for a short period to deal with a spike in damage. There is a hard limit to how much Armor can reduce your incoming damage by, at 85%. This is around 7-8 (3-4 with an Aug voker) stacks of Ironfur and can generally be achieved on 5-10 targets or inside of Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc.

Armor does not normally reduce Bleed damage (typically, this is presented in-game as a "Physical DoT") or Magic damage. However, there are exceptions to these rules, which appear on a case-by-case basis. When faced with Bleed or Magic damage, you will find Ironfur ineffective and should instead use your defensive cooldowns to reduce the damage or a well-timed Frenzied Regeneration to heal yourself. Remember that if you are tanking a boss, you are almost always taking auto-attacks and other damage sources. Auto-attacks are Physical, so it is still worth maintaining Ironfur on most encounters.

Finally, consider your situation carefully before using Ironfur. Since it is proactive, no matter how low on health you have been brought, using it if there is no new incoming damage is pointless.

Guardian Druid's primary resource is Rage.

The Rage bar has a maximum capacity of 100 and is empty by default. Rage decays quickly out of combat. In combat, Rage does not decay.

Rage is generated in the following ways:

• Activating Bear Form grants you 25 Rage (leaving Bear Form empties the Rage bar).
• Auto-attacks generate 4 Rage.
• Being auto-attacked generates 3 Rage (can only occur once every second).
• Mangle generates 10 Rage (+4 with a Gore proc and +5 with Soul of the Forest).
• Thrash generates 5 Rage.
• Moonfire with a Galactic Guardian proc generates 8 Rage.
• Bristling Fur generates 1 Rage per % of max health taken in damage while active.
• Blood Frenzy generates 2 Rage every time a Thrash bleed ticks on any target (Thrash ticks once every 3 seconds, reduced by Haste).

As of Midnight, Druid of the Claw Catweaving is a DPS LOSS. Until we see any changes/buffs or nerfs, you do not need to worry about weaving anything other than shifting into Cat Form every 2 minutes to cast Heart of the Wild, which is a massive DoT applied to a single target and definitely worth using if safe in Single Target.

Ripweaving is where you gain a buff once you cast Mangle six times with the Wildpower Surge talent that empowers your next Rip and Ferocious Bite and generates max combo points upon entering Cat Form. You shift into Cat Form by using Rake in Bear Form, due to the Fluid Form talent, you will instantly be shifted into Cat. You are then able to apply this empowered Rip and shift straight back into Bear Form by casting Mangle whilst in Cat Form. This is an extremely safe version of Catweaving and has very little impact on your survivability. You are even able to utilize this while tanking a boss actively due to the Wildshape Mastery talent that retains Ironfur in Cat.

Make sure that you do not shift to Cat too soon after casting Mangle as it can be on cooldown, delaying your ability to shift back to bear quickly.

Catweaving is an advanced topic and significantly complicates the Rotation. It is not recommended for those who are just picking up Guardian Druid or when you are learning a new fight. That being said, when done correctly, it can be a significant DPS increase over staying in Bear Form single-target (depending on tuning).

1. Wild Guardian
2. Wild Guardian
3. Wild Guardian

The Apex talents for Guardian Druid revolve heavily around Maul, essentially adding a 12 second DoT that you can maintain permanently by casting Maul at least once every 12 seconds. This doesn't really affect or change our rotation at all, as we generally have plenty of excess rage that we are already dumping into Maul.

Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc is our main cooldown, available every 2-3 minutes (depending on rage spent and talents). It grants increased health and reduced cooldown on Thrash and Mangle. It also makes Mangle hit 3 targets.

You can opt to save this as a defensive cooldown in some situations if you are expecting significant danger upcoming but generally is best used off cooldown as an offensive CD.

Barkskin is a 40-60s cooldown that we want to use on CD as much as possible. It deals damage with the Brambles talent and reduces our damage significantly. This helps smooth our damage intake in general and survive big hits.

Survival Instincts is our biggest defensive. Midnight gave us 2 charges baseline so planning these is even easier. Generally saved for very dangerous damage intake or huge hits.