News

Season 3 News

Blizzard are experimenting with hero tree based tier sets this tier, here's some information on both of our options.

Elune's Chosen Tier Bonus

2-Piece

Thrash damage increased by 20%. Thrash has a 40% chance to launch a Starsurge at a victim at 65% effectiveness.

4-Piece

Starsurges launched by Thrash split to up to 3 additional targets at 20% effectiveness and grant a stack of Gathering Moonlight. Casting Lunar Beam consumes Gathering Moonlight to increase your damage by 4% per stack for 12 seconds.

An additional 20% buff to Thrash is pretty significant given it is already one of EC Guardians strongest spells, especially with regards to AoE. The 2p Starsurge is fairly minor for damage (in part because it is not affected by the percentage increases from Fury of Nature nor Elune's Favored) and, rather dissapointingly, no longer has any interaction with Lunation. The 4p effect plays off of the 2p procs but unfortunately, once again, doesn't really change anything rotationally for Guardian. Like the 2p, the 3 mini-starsurges do not interact with any parts of our kit in any notable way and just provide some passive damage. The Gathering Moonlight buff could be powerful, unfortunately, Guardian largely lacks the burst damage to fully take advantage of these frequent but short damage windows - the best you could do is to try and pool a full rage bar or try to line up a high stacked Lunar Beam up with Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc but it's unlikely to be worth holding either of these cooldowns to do this. That said, on average it will likely work out to be around a 8% Damage increase (more on AoE), largely due to the additional Thrash steroid and the frequent damage amp windows from the already very low cooldown of Lunar Beam. Defensively though, this is very underwhelming, the only real gain being an increase to the healing from Elune's Favored as a result of the overall damage increase.

Druid of the Claw Tier Bonus

2-Piece

Ravage increases your haste by 10%, chance to critically strike by 10%, and the damage your bleeds deal by 30% for 5 seconds.

4-Piece

Ravage has a 40% chance to make you Ravage your target again 4 seconds later at 60% of the initial power.

The 2p alone has a lot of stats loaded into it, with haste in particular being notoriously strong offensively for Guardians in The War Within. The 30% buff to bleeds will primarily be aimed at those who Ripweave or Catweave but it will also affect your Thrash bleed as well as Dreadful Wound even if you don't. Defensively, 10% haste and 10% crit is a strong steroid with a reasonable uptime which will really help to smooth out damage curves for Drud of the Claw Guardian. When the 4p comes into play is when this tier set truly shines. The echo Ravage casts massively increases your uptime on all Ravage associated buffs (including the 2p bonus stats and bleed damage, Ruthless Aggression or Killing Strikes and the Dreadul Wound bleed). Offensively, this tier set should provide around a 16% increase. Meanwhile defensively, this set addresses a frequent complaint about Druid of the Claw by massively upping the consistency and uptime of Ravage and everything associated with it.

Rotation

NOTE

The rotations below are purely about damage dealing. For further information on potential nuance for the rotations with regards to survivability please read the follow-up sections (primarily Ironfur and Defensives)

Before going into the rotations for the specs, here are a few common questions about how the rotations work and some specific terminology that not all will be familiar with:

What is a priority list?

When reading the rotations below, you should not think about them as steps to follow in a specific order. At any given point in combat, you should cast the highest priority thing on the list that you are able to cast, providing any stated conditions are met.

What does Pandemic mean in WoW?

Pandemic is an in-game mechanic where most damage over time (DoT) or heal over time (HoT) effects can have their duration extended by up to 30% if they are refreshed with less than 30% remaining on their duration. For example, if a DoT is ten seconds long you could refresh it at 3 seconds (30% of 10 seconds) and the total duration of the debuff would increase to 13 seconds, meaning that no duration of the spell cast is wasted. If a ten second dot is refreshed at 8 seconds then the total duration of the debuff would also increase to 13 seconds, but this would mean you lose 5 seconds of the debuff compared to if you cast it in the pandemic window.

What is Ripweaving and Catweaving?

Those of you looking into Druid of the Claw specifically will come across these terms. Catweaving is a fairly old term in WoW but with the introduction of some key talents in The War Within it has evolved into something very different from what it used to be. The current meaning of these terms roughly boil down to:

Ripweaving - This is the simplified form of Catweaving. It involves using a very standard Guardian rotation the vast majority of the timne but when you reach six stacks of Feline Potential (from the DotC node Wildpower Surge) you will quickly enter Cat Form (ideally, using Fluid Form), use the empowered finisher and then quickly return to Bear Form.
Catweaving This is the more advanced and modernised version of Catweaving and no longer does it involve "just using cat stuff when offtanking". Modern Catweaving abuses Fluid Form and Empowered Shapeshifting to frequently shift in and out of Cat Form whilst both tanking and offtanking, allowing us to replace our weak filler spells (primarily Swipe) with stronger Cat abilities (Rake, Shred, Rip and Ferocious Bite).

Ironfur

Ironfur is your active mitigation as a Guardian Druid. Ironfur costs 40 rage, and each application of Ironfur increases your armour by 112% of your agility.

You hit the armour cap at 85% physical mitigation, so roughly 5-6 stacks (4-5 with an augmentation evoker) will reach the armour cap.

How To Use Ironfur

The general aim with Ironfur is to:

Maintain at least one Ironfur whilst tanking.
Use more Ironfurs if you're ever in a scenario where you're taking heavy physical damage and have limited/no defensive cooldowns available (a large pull in a key, taking a tank buster etc).
Use additional Ironfurs if you're ever going to overcap on Rage. This is for some (very minimal) ToI damage, and to dip into Incarn cooldown reduction if you're specced into it.

Defensive Usage

In addition to Ironfur, which is our active mitigation (meaning it should basically be active all of the time that we are tanking mobs and taking physical damage) Guardian has a plethora of limited window Cooldowns which also significantly aid our survivability. The main way that defensive cooldowns function is by increasing our Effective Health Pool (EHP). EHP is a measure of how much damage we can take whilst also factoring any damage reduction or resistances we have, E.g. if someone has 1 million health, but takes 50% reduced damage then they can actually take 2 million damage before dying. That would make their EHP 2 million, which is obviously a big increase from their Raw Health Pool (1 million in this scenario).

Cooldowns for Guardian work in two primary ways but both fulfil the criteria of increasing our EHP. They will either reduce the damage that we take for their duration in some way and/or massively increase our hp for the duration, often doing this with some additional benefits. Our main Defensive cooldowns are:

These defensive's should primarily be used in a way that enables us to survive through an encounter but as mentioned, several do come with additional benefits. For example, Rage of the Sleeper will reduce our damage taken by 20% and also grant 20% leech for its 8 second duration, both of which aiding our survivability. However, it will also increase our damage done by 15% and reflect damage back at our attackers.

Because of this Offensive and Defensive duality that many of our cooldowns possess we need to factor in both sides of them when planning for an encounter. The general goals for any encounter should be:

Cover all major/threatening damage events (typically tank busters) with an adequate cooldown.
- It is usually not advised to use multiple defensive cooldowns to cover a single damage event due to how they interact with each other (see below).
Aim to cover as many individual damage events as possible by having some form of cooldown active and "rolling" into the next one as the first expires.
Prioritise getting as many uses of your multi-purpose cooldowns as possible.
- E.g. if you have a choice between using Rage of the Sleeper and Barkskin to cover a tank buster, it would be ideal to use Rage of the Sleeper since it also provides a sizable damage benefit and may lead to additional uses of this cooldown later in the encounter.

Overlapping cooldowns with a direct damage reduction component (Barkskin, Rage of the Sleeper, Survival Instincts and Pulverize) is less ideal than spacing them out because multiple instances of damage reduction reduce the effectiveness of the cooldowns i.e. they are multiplicative with one and other, not additive. For example, say that without a cooldown a tankbuster would hit you for 1 million damage. With Barkskin (20% Damage Reduction) you would take 80% of this, so 800k. If you then pressed Survival Instincts (50% damage reduction) on top of this, you would reduce your incoming damage (800k after factoring in Barkskin) by 50%. So you would take 400k damage, from a 1 million damage hit, meaning that combined you would mitigate 60% of damage - not 70% (20% + 50%), effectively reducing the effectiveness of the cooldowns compared to their seperate use.

Talents

General Talent Build Information

Before choosing your talent setup there's a couple of important details to be aware of:

Whilst both hero talent trees perform similarly damage wise in AoE scenarios (with EC having a small edge at higher target counts), there is a huge disparity between the damage of the two trees in Raid/Single Target situations, with Druid of the Claw being ahead by around 10-25% depending on talents.
Both trees offer similarly strong defensive benefits with the option to easily swap into additional surviability or damage talents if they're needed/wanted.

It's also important to clarify what we mean by the terms "Maul-Centric" and "ToI-Centric" (Thorns of Iron) playstyles:

Maul-Centric is simply where Maul is considered you're primary spender. The goal is to spend as much rage as possible on Maul which will account for the majority of your damage from spenders. These builds will likely still take Thorns of Iron but this is simply because some rage will still be spent on Ironfur (e.g. If you need additional physical mitigation for a physical tank buster or if you are about to overcap rage)
A ToI-Centric playstyle is in opposition to this, where Ironfur will make up the vast majority of your rage expenditure. Maul will still be pressed sometimes, such as to utilise Tooth and Claw procs (either offensively or defensively) or when at 3 stacks of Vicious Cycle, but the focus is usually not on Maul as the primary spender - see the DotC section below for clarity on why its "usually" and not "always".

To further clarify, because there is a lot of overlap in the talent choices between these builds you are not hard locked into one particular playstyle for an entire encounter or key. For example, you could play more toi-centric whilst doing a large trash pull in a dungeon but then play more maul-centric on a boss encounter. Ultimately a fluid approach is often best - especially for keys, where there are vast differences in the requirements of an encounter from pull to pull.

Raid Talents

Below you will find the most optimal builds for DAMAGE in a raid setting, with additional notes mentioning what to change for a more mixed/defensive style build.

Druid of the Claw - Raid Talents

ToI-Centric with Full Catweaving

Class Tree

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Despite being a "ToI-Centric" build, the primary focus of this build is Ravage. For a detailed overview of the rotation refer to the Rotation section above but in general the goals of this build are to spend as many Maul modifiers (Tooth and Claw, Vicious Cycle) on Ravage as possible without delaying ravages or wasting stacks of the buffs. It also aims to maintain as high an uptime on Wildpower Surge empowered Rips. As a consequence of the first point, we actively press Maul less because those mauls would consume the buffs that we ideally use to get massive Ravage casts. Because we can only press Ravage when it procs and we press Maul infrequently to save the modifiers our last remaining option is to spend rage on Ironfur for damage - hence this being a (technically) "ToI" build.

Druid of the Claw Notes

For more sustain across an encounter you can opt to pick up Ursoc's Fury instead of a point in Flashing Claws.
If you are concerned or in need of some more self-sustain you may opt to drop Ursoc's Endurance, sacrificing a small amount of damage from Thorns of Iron in favour of picking up Innate Resolve.
If you're still lacking DR cooldown coverage on a boss then you have two main options:
- Moving two points to pick up Pulverize. The most likely points to move for this would be a point from Flashing Claws and Blood Frenzy which would be a noticable damage loss as a consequence.
- Improved Survival Instincts is also an option if you've planned out your cooldown usage and know that the flexibility of the second charge will allow you to cover everything. Dropping Ursoc's Endurance or Brambles to enable this is probably your best option, both of which being a small damage loss.
For a decent increase to group survivability you could drop a point in Fury of Nature in favour of After the Wildfire. This would be a decent damage loss to Moonfire specifically but would be a notable increase to self healing as well as the healing cleave onto any stacked raid group.
In our Class tree the points in Lycara's Inspiration is fairly inconsequential on most encounters. This is particularly useful if an encounter required something like Incapacitating Roar/Mighty Bash, Typhoon, Ursol's Vortex, Mass entanglement or even Innervate.
Ursine Vigor is another optional point in the bottom area of our class tree. It is a nice quality of life improvement for those playing Wildpower Surge but outside of that it is far better to spend this point elsewhere.
On that topic, the suggested build was made with the idea of Rip/Catweaving. If you are not planning on doing this aspect of the rotation then you have no need for Rip or Fluid Form either which opens up those points. Rake should still be talented as it our only method of talenting Grievous Wounds.
Because of the introduction of Wildshape Mastery, Tiger Dash actually becomes a very potent burst movement speed cooldown that is usable in almost any situation without fear of getting one shot. Very useful if you need cover a distance quickly and are unable to Wild Charge to a target.
In certain fights it may be worth swapping Renewal to Aessina's Renewal. This would mostly be for encounters with few to no threatening bursts of tank damage but plenty of rot damage taking place across the fight where you may otherwise just be sitting on Renewal for an extended period of time, but be aware, Aessina's Renewal has been very buggy through the expansion so far, resulting in a lot of inconsistency on whether it will even proc on a fight. Be sure to check logs of a specific fight to see if it is actually doing anything!

Elune's Chosen - Raid Talents

Maul-Centric EC

Class Tree

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Important to note that Elune's chosen (at least the build presented here) is noticably easier to play. There is no form of catweaving to worry about and generally less attention will be focused on tracking buffs like Vicious Cycle/Tooth and Claw. Worth baring in mind if you're looking for a simpler rotation and playstyle, albeit at the cost of a significant amount of damage - around 25-30% compared to that of the highest performing Druid of the Claw build on single target.

Elune's Chosen Notes

Elune's Chosen offers fantastic defensive cooldown coverage. Between Barkskin, Survival Instincts and Lunar Beam, along with the option to add on Rage of the Sleeper, you'll basically always have something rolling.
If you feel that an additional defensive is required then your two best options would be:
- To access Rage of the Sleeper by dropping a point in Flashing Claws for it
- If you've planned out your cooldown usage and know that the flexibility of Improved Survival Instincts will allow you to cover everything then you could look to talent it by dropping Ursoc's Endurance or even Brambles for a slight damage loss as the potential trade-off.
If some additional self sustain is required then dropping Ursoc's Endurance for Innate Resolve is an excellent pick up, for only a small damage loss from Thorns of Iron
Swapping one point of Fury of Nature for After the Wildfire is another potential increase to personal survivability whilst also being a big increase to your group healing utility. Especially on encounters with heavy raid stacking.
If even more group healing utility is wanted then looking to pick up either Dream of Cenarius by either dropping Ursoc's Endurance or switching out Brambles for a small damage loss is an option.
In our class tree, EC has a bit more freedom with its point allocation compared to that of Druid of the Claw.
- Worth pointing out that you should never be talenting Circle of the Heavens and always talent Circle of the Wild in its place.
- This is because the tooltips are misleading and the talents actually work based on which spells are considered to be Feral/Guardian vs Resto/Balance. As such, the only Guardian spells that would be buffed by Circle of the Heavens are Moonfire and Fury of Elune procs from our hero tree, which together will make up a smaller % of our damage profile than all of our other spells combined.
Matted Fur, Natural Recovery, Starlight Conduit and Astral Influence are all very minor talents which can be talented out of for incredibly small survivability or damage gains. This allows picking up other utility options like Incapacitating Roar, Mighty Bash, Improved Stampeding Roar, Typhoon and Innervate depending on what a particular encounter calls for.
In certain fights it may be worth swapping Renewal to Aessina's Renewal. This would mostly be for encounters with few to no threatening bursts of tank damage but plenty of rot damage taking place across the fight where you may otherwise just be sitting on Renewal for an extended period of time, but be aware, Aessina's Renewal has been very buggy through the expansion so far, resulting in a lot of inconsistency on whether it will even proc on a fight. Be sure to check logs of a specific fight to see if it is actually doing anything!
Whilst very uncommon, swapping Moondust for Elune's Grace is a potentially useful swap. This will mainly be a benefit on fights with frequent knockbacks to allow you to potentially prevent more of them or potentially on encoutners with lots of frequent movement between groups of adds.

Mythic+ Talents

I strongly encourage you to experiment with talents and find something you enjoy and succeed with but below are some potential ideas for builds you could use as a starting point or run as-is for both of Guardian's hero trees. I've tried to show some of the variation available due to talent swaps that would allow you to tailor your talent build to suit different scenarios, for more extensive information on these swaps please see the customisations section for each of the hero tree's below their respective example builds.

Druid of the Claw - Mythic+ Talents

Balanced with Weaving

Class Tree

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Specialization Tree

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Fast Cooldown Recycling

Class Tree

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Specialization Tree

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Group Utility No Weaving

Class Tree

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Hero Tree

Specialization Tree

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This image gives a rough idea of the relative power of a talent node based on its assigned colour, I strongly encourage you to take this information below and use it to either adjust the trees above to you/your groups needs and wants or to come up with your own from scratch. The key for what each colour represents is:

Green - These are your staples. Every DotC mythic+ build should aim to always have these talents.
Purple - Strong talents in their own right that will fit into most builds.
Blue - Talents that are a bit weak either due to their position, cost or power relative to nearby nodes. However, these nodes are usually needed to flesh out a sections point total or for pathing to access stronger talents further down the tree.
Orange - This shows where both of the talents in a choice node are a competitive choice. The reasoning behind which of these choices to talent will be discussed below the image.
White - These are niche options that on their own are a bit weak with specific complimentary talents can be very powerful options to take. The reasonings on when to talent these can be found below the image
Grey - Not worth considering currently.

GuardianDotCM+

In the class tree there's a few talents to move around that offer some customisation. Here are some of the main ones to consider:

Rip, Ursine Vigor and Fluid Form are all primarily taken for Ripweaving and Catweaving, so without Wildpower Surge they are effectively useless in keys.
Rake also falls into this category but it is also our only way of pathing to Grievous Wounds so is usually worth taking whether you intend to catweave or not
Hibernate is situational because not only do you need a beast mob present in dungeons, it's also a fairly awkward ability to use - even though you don't drop form it does still have a cast time, during which you cannot dodge - so it is likely best to find an alterantive method for cc in the group if possible.
Innervate, most of the time in m+ this won't be needed given the healers ability to constantly top up their mana - there may be times where a healer requests it for a particularly rough tyrannical boss and we don't typically lose too much given Heart of the Wild nor Ursine Vigor are particlarly significant.
Remove Corruption would be a niche pick if it werent our best method to access the entire right side of the tree. As such, this should be taken all the time despite being entirely useless in some dungeons.
It's a similar story with regards to Soothe to access the likes of Stampeding Roar and Lycara's, meaning that Soothe should be taken all of the time, whether it has a use in a dungeon or not.
Tiger Dash has some potential as a personal burst movement cooldown. Particularly useful if you need to kite and are already being slowed since it will automatically shift you into Cat Form (removing the slow/root) and give you the massive movement speed buff to create distance immediately without putting you in danger due to the bonuses from Wildshape Mastery
Renewal vs Aessina's Renewal largely comes down whether you make good use of Renewal. If you press it frequently and have it on cooldown for the vast majority of a dungeon, it will almost always be better given that you have control of when the healing triggers and it's a larger burst of healing which is more likely to impact your survival. That said Aessina's Renewal is an OK passive alternative, but be aware that there have been several bugs with it through this expansion causing it to either proc less frequently than it should or not at all.
Lingering Healing has some potential synergy with Reinvigoration since it extends both the empowered Regrowth and Rejuvenation that you gain as a result.
Symbiotic Relationship is a potentially interesting talent but it heavily depends on what build you run. If you're running a high self sustaining build with the likes of Reinvigoration and maybe even After the Wildfire you have the potential to provide some potent burst healing to your ally.
Incessant Tempest may have an occasional use case if a knockback is required every 25-30 seconds, but this scenario is incredibly unlikely so there's usually better options for the talent point. Gale Winds does have more potential use given it can make moving mobs together a little bit easier with the increased distance but this is ultimately a very, very small upgrade to base typhoon and usually neither upgrade is worth the point but the option is there!

The Druid of the Claw Hero Tree itself only really posseses two real choices.

Wildpower Surge vs Empowered Shapeshifting essentially just comes down to if you intend to weave or not. Weaving offers a significant gain to ST and/or priority damage as a trade off for a more complex rotation and the potential to be punished defensively if you mess it up. If you do want to weave, take Wildpower Surge and the talents mentioned above in the class tree, if not then take Empowered Shapeshifting for more simplistic gameplay along with similar AoE damage but lower single target/priority damage.
The other choice is between Ruthless Aggression and Killing Strikes. Since both choices have their uptime increased dramatically by our new tier set, this choice largely depends on whether you are chain pulling frequently or not. The more you chain one pull into the next with no drop in combat, the more value that Killing Strikes loses. The armour and agility from Killing Strikes will still be present but when you start to lose many of the free Ravage procs, Ruthless Aggression will start to generate noticably more total Ravage procs over the course of a key.

The Spec tree also comes with some different options to consider:

After the Wildfire will still do a good amount of group healing, however, its not the automatic group Lay-on-Hands that it was last expansion, due to the significantly inflated health pools with no compensation buff to the healing and also a nerf to the rage to trigger. It will still contribute a lot of healing on a high throughput, rot encounter and potentially has some decent synergy with anyone looking to run Symbiotic Relationship but the factors mentioned previously mean its far from an automatic lock in.
Reinvigoration is a decently powerful talent with multiple synergies with across our class and spec tree. It is worth noting however, that at the time of writing there are a couple of issues with it. The Regrowth and Rejuvenation that are autocast will use up your mana pool and will only be cast if you have the mana to do so when you press Frenzied Regeneration which can be an issue during Incarn if you're pressing Frenzied Regeneration a lot or if you're trying to use Remove Corruption as well. It also causes FR to provide the same amount of healing over a longer duration (not including the Regrowth/Rejuvenation healing) rather than providing an additional tick or 2 of healing to match the 1 or 2 second duration increase. Even with all of this it's a decent improvement over a normal Frenzied Regeneration but if these bugs/interactions are fixed then this talent will be even stronger.
Dream of Cenarius was affected similarly by the stamina inflation, you can still save a life but it may not be enough healing alone to immediately put a DPS out of danger entirely. It does however, have some interesting synergy with the Reinvigoration which further amps up the regrowth into a potentially huge heal (the Dream of Cenarius proc is consumed in the process). This may result in a decent bit of overhealing but it's a combo that's worth baring in mind.
Improved Survival Instincts will still provide the added flexibility to some boss encounter by allowing you keep one charge rolling and pooling the second to allow for better cooldown coverage, but unless the encounter is planned out and this is the only way to safely cover all tank hits (unlikely given barks power and low cooldown, Rage of the Sleeper or the option to take Pulverize) it's usually not worth the point.
Pulverize is incredibly niche, but that niche is usually what people take improved SI to try and handle - there is no singular node in our class tree that provides more ST mitigation than Pulverize. For particularly hard hitting Tyrannical bosses/Scary, singular Fortified threats it is absolutely incredible, but thats about it.
Ursoc's Fury, despite repeated nerfs since its inception, will provide a very solid amount of absorbs. This is largely due to the ridiculous power of Ravage along with the increased usability of Raze from 11.1. This also has some nice synergy with the 11.2 Tier bonus since the additional Ravage procs will also contribute to the absorb.
Galactic Guardian and Twin Moons are still incredible talents even in the largely physical focused DotC tree, just like in Dragonflight they will provide a good 15-20% of your rage generation in AoE without you even pressing Moonfire at all.
On the topic of Rage generation, Blood Frenzy still conitrbutes around 30+% of your total rage gen across a dungeon, this talent is absurdly powerful but in non-push keys, where less ironfur is needed throughout the run you can comfortably swap this into Flashing Claws for lower rage gen but straight up more damage.
Survival of the Fittest is a strong talent that massively increases our flexibility on defensives on an encounter and our uptime on two of our key defensives (Barkskin and Survival Instincts). If it's not needed to cover every buster on an encounter then its value is definitely diminished. It will still provide more uses but pathing through Ursoc's Warding to get Reinfroced Fur might be a preferred option. Essentially a question of if you would prefer more frequent Barks or more potent Barks.
Earthwarden as a talent is ideal against slow but hard hitting mobs and even those only start to hit relevant numbers in higher keys. Unfortunately, what mobs will hit you and eat the earthwarden stacks is generally out of your control unless you pull with that in mind or take it for a specific Boss/Lieutenant. Can still be a potent talent just be aware of its flaws.
Also worth noting that we will likely be sitting at the armour cap of 85% phsyical reduction a lot in aoe and even ST pulls, the combination of Killing Strikes' agility gain (which increases Ironfur armour), Killing Strikes' 20% more armour from Ironfur, Reinforced Fur will make maintaining the 85% armour cap fairly trivial with good rage generation and an additional 10% DR on Barkskin is nothing to sniff at.
Moonless Night is a very one dimensional talent, if you're looking to do a lot of damage then it's one to consider but bare in mind that a large portion of this damage will come from the fact that every moonfired target hit by Raze and Ravage will trigger Moonless Night's effect even though they're technically AOE spells.
Berserk: Ravage is an unusual point to consider dropping but because of Claw Rampage's chance scaling per target hit (i.e. 57% per mangle cleave cast and each Thrash cast scaling to a higher chance at 4+ targets) it is very unlikely that we'll ever be in the situation to press it anyway. And even if we are Swipe would grant the same Ravage proc chance as thrash due to being included in the Claw Rampage effect. Food for thought.

Elune's Chosen - Mythic+ Talents

Thorns of Iron Centric

Class Tree

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Raze Cooldown Recycling

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Thorns with Group Support

Class Tree

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This image gives a rough idea of the relative power of a talent node based on its assigned colour, I strongly encourage you to take this information below and use it to either adjust the trees above to you/your groups needs and wants or to come up with your own from scratch. The key for what each colour represents is:

Green - These are your staples. Every DotC mythic+ build should aim to always have these talents.
Purple - Strong talents in their own right that will fit into most builds.
Blue - Talents that are a bit weak either due to their position, cost or power relative to nearby nodes. However, these nodes are usually needed to flesh out a sections point total or for pathing to access stronger talents further down the tree.
Orange - This shows where both of the talents in a choice node are a competitive choice. The reasoning behind which of these choices to talent will be discussed below the image.
White - These are niche options that on their own are a bit weak with specific complimentary talents can be very powerful options to take. The reasonings on when to talent these can be found below the image
Grey - Not worth considering currently.

GuardianECM+

The Druid class tree offers a little more in the way of customisation for EC compared to DotC, largely due to the points saved from not having weaving be a part of the rotation. Below are some of the notable options to consider:

I will immediately clarify that Circle of the Wild should always be taken over Circle of the Heavens. This is because of an inaccurate tooltip description for how the talent works. Wilds buffs all Guardian and Feral spells, including Lunar Beam, Thorns of Iron and Lunar Calling Thrash. Heavens will buff all Balance and Restoration spells, the only significant one of which would be Moonfire but this is not enough to make Heavens better than Wilds in any scenario.
Since several points are saved in comparison to DotC (due to the lack of catweaving in EC) we do have a couple more points to play with in the top/middle section of the class tree. This makes it easier to pick up some lower value options like Natural Recovery, Lingering Healing, Well-Honed Instincts and Matted Fur without any real sacrifice.
Given our tier set provides yet another 20% modifier to Thrash, it is absolutely always worth to spec into Rake for access to Grievous Wounds. This is a fairly major step to address EC's fairly low damage given how much of a damage portion Thrash will make up - especially if running a ToI-centric build.
Typhoon is a potentially useful stop/displacement that was difficult to justify as DotC but is much easier to grab for EC with it's free points.
Remove Corruption would be a niche pick if it weren’t our best method to access the entire right side of the tree. As such, this should be taken all the time despite being entirely useless in some dungeons.
It's a similar story with regards to Soothe to access the likes of Stampeding Roar and Lycara's, meaning that Soothe should be taken all of the time, whether it has a use in a dungeon or not.
Hibernate is situational because not only do you need a beast mob present in dungeons, it's also a fairly awkward ability to use as a tank - even though you don't drop form it does still have a cast time. So it is likely best to find an alterantive method for cc in the group if possible.
Renewal vs Aessina's Renewal largely comes down whether you make good use of Renewal. If you press it frequently and have it on cooldown for the vast majority of a dungeon, it will almost always be better given that you have control of when the healing triggers and it's a larger burst of healing which is more likely to impact your survival. That said Aessina's Renewal is an OK passive alternative, but be aware that there have been several bugs with it through this expansion causing it to either proc less frequently than it should or not at all.
Innervate, most of the time in m+ this won't be needed given the healers ability to constantly top up their mana - there may be times where a healer requests it for a particularly rough tyrannical boss and we don't typically lose too much given Heart of the Wild nor Ursine Vigor are particlarly significant.
Lingering Healing has some potential synergy with Reinvigoration since it extends both the empowered Regrowth and Rejuvenation that you gain as a result.
Symbiotic Relationship is a potentially interesting talent but it heavily depends on what build you run. If you're running a high self sustaining build with the likes of Reinvigoration and After the Wildfire you have the potential to provide some potent burst healing to your ally. It is very important to note that, for some reason, our mastery healing does not contribute to the bonded ally meaning that a significant amount of our healing during Lunar Beam windows will not be transferred. If this is changed you can expect to see this talents power level rise significantly for Elune's Chosen setups.
Incessant Tempest may have an occasional use case if a knockback is required every 25-30 seconds, but this scenario is incredibly unlikely so there's usually better options for the talent point. Gale Winds does have more potential use given it can make moving mobs together a little bit easier with the increased distance but this is ultimately a very, very small upgrade to base typhoon but the option is there!

In the Hero Tree there is really no choice at all for keys.

Due to the Bear aura not affected non guardian spells and frankly very low tuning of Lunar Beam, Stellar Command offers no perceivable benefit whilst Lunar Calling does increase thrash damage by all of our arcane modifiers and also increases kit synergy with Lunation.
The Light of Elune offers a decent chunk of rage at fairly regular intervals and Astral Insight is unfortunately tuned too low to make a massive impact.
Moondust is effectively a permanent slow on any cc'able mob in the dungeon due to our automatic moonfire spreading which is significantly more impactful than a 3s shorter cooldown on wild charge.
Lastly, Lunation drastically increases our uptime on the focal point ability of the hero tree (Lunar Beam) whilst Arcane Affinity offers an almost inperceivable buff to our Arcane damage.

The Spec tree is where the majority of our customisation options come in:

Given the nature of the Elune's Chosen hero tree we are naturally pushed towards taking more of the arcane focused talents, in particular Lunar Beam for which the shortest and most powerful path to access is directly through Galactic Guardian and Twin Moons. As a result you will always take each of these talents when running Elune's Chosen
After the Wildfire will still do a very good amount of group healing, however, its not the automatic group Lay-on-Hands that it was last expansion, due to the significantly inflated health pools with no compensation buff to the healing and also a nerf to the rage to trigger. It will still contribute a lot of healing on a high throughput, rot encounter and potentially has some decent synergy with anyone looking to run Symbiotic Relationship but the factors mentioned previously mean its not an automatic lock in.
Reinvigoration is a decently powerful talent with multiple synergies with across our class and spec tree. It is worth noting however, that at the time of writing there are a couple of issues with it. The Regrowth and Rejuvenation that are autocast will use up your mana pool and will only be cast if you have the mana to do so when you press Frenzied Regeneration which can be an issue during Incarn if you're pressing Frenzied Regeneration a lot or if you're trying to use Remove Corruption as well. It also causes FR to provide the same amount of healing over a longer duration (not including the Regrowth/Rejuvenation healing) rather than providing an additional tick or 2 of healing to match the 1 or 2 second duration increase. Even with all of this it's a decent improvement over a normal Frenzied Regeneration but if these bugs/interactions are fixed then this talent will be even stronger.
Dream of Cenarius was affected similarly by the stamina inflation, you can still save a life but it may not be enough healing alone to immediately put a DPS out of danger entirely. It does however, have some interesting synergy with the Reinvigoration which further amps up the regrowth into a potentially huge heal (the Dream of Cenarius proc is consumed in the process). This may result in a decent bit of overhealing but it's a combo that's worth baring in mind
Improved Survival Instincts will still provide the added flexibility to some boss encounter by allowing you keep one charge rolling and pooling the second to allow for better cooldown coverage, but unless the encounter is planned out and this is the only way to safely cover all tank hits (unlikely given barks power and low cooldown, Rage of the Sleeper or the option to take Pulverize) it's usually worth spending the point elsewhere.
The previously mentioned focus on Arcane tends to push Elune's Favoured ahead of Ursoc's Fury as a trickle sustain option. Whilst UF is still a decent consideration given the increased damage on Thrash thanks to Lunar Calling and amount of razing possible through rage generation, the raw damage of Moonfire, arcane Thrash and Lunar Beam (on mass AOE) tends to push the healing of Elunes favoured noticably ahead.
Earthwarden as a talent is ideal against slow but hard hitting mobs and even those only start to hit relevant numbers in higher keys. Unfortunately, what mobs will hit you and eat the earthwarden stacks is generally out of your control unless you pull with that in mind or take it for a specific Boss/Lieutenant. Can still be a potent talent just be aware of its flaws.
If Raze is talented then because of the rage generation and lack of need to save Vicious Cycle/Tooth and Claw for a specific ability (ravage), dropping Berserk: Ravage is an even more likely option as EC since so many more of your globals during Incarn/Berserk will be pressing Raze you will stil never need to swipe unless you're overpressing Ironfur.
Incarn is still an incredibly powerful defensive cooldown, but given the abundance of low cooldown defensives available to EC and depending on the cadence of pulls in a dungeon it may be an option to consider dropping the point in Ursoc's Guidance points in favour of other talents in the final third - such as Raze, RotS, UF or Flashing Claws.
Moonless night is a powerful offensive tool but offers next to no defensive value, its worth mentioning as an option for your weekly keys but do not expect to see it much in higher difficulty key levels.
Even with the slightly higher rage generation from EC's hero tree, Blood Frenzy contributes 30-40% of your rage generation throughout a dungeon. For push keys this will likely remain an absolute staple for Guardian players in push keys. However, espectially in non-push keys, dropping Blood Frenzy to pick up either the first or second point in Flashing Claws is a powerful option.
Flashing Claws has incredible synergy with the 11.2 Tier Set for Elune's Chosen and is something that all builds should try to include if possible. With Thrash hitting like a truck for EC, adding free Thrash casts means more Thrash damage, more chances to proc the tier set and strong synergy with Rend and Tear from the additional stacks.
Berserk: Aggression is an option to consider dropping if you choose to focus entirely on the Thorns of Iron playstyle. However, be aware that this is your best path towards Rend and Tear and still an additional 15% haste during your biggest damage window, so even in ToI-centric builds it is a very strong node.

Consumables

Flasks

Flask of Alchemical Chaos: Default flask for everything. It is slightly stronger than the four traditional stat flasks since it provides more stats, albeit with a random component but it's biggest power comes from its interaction with Tempered Potion (see below).
If you are not using Tempered Potion then Flask of Tempered Swiftness, Flask of Tempered Mastery, Flask of Tempered Aggression and Flask of Tempered Versatility become options. Either sim yourself so see which of the four is best or pick your preferred secondary stat.

Food

Feast of the Midnight Masquerade or Feast of the Divine Day: Best available food by a long way, use this whenever one is available.
Beledar's Bounty The best personal food alternative to feasts in TeWaWi.

Potions

Tempered Potion Strongest combat potion available. Important to note that whilst using Flask of Alchemical Chaos it will provide all 4 secondary stats.
Invigorating Healing Potion The new standard healing potion for 11.2. You should always have some of these on you if you're planning to do any challenging content.
Draught of Silent Footfalls The invisibility potion for TeWaWi, fairly niche given our access to Prowl but, on occasion, invisiability does enable pathing that stealth does not.

Oils/Stones

Algari Mana Oil A very minor increase but slightly better than alternative weapon enhancements at this point in the expansion.

Runes

Crystallised Augment Rune: The standard augment rune for TeWaWi, removed on death.
Soulgorged Augment Rune: Requires raid Renown 9 to drop from the Soul Hunters encounter. Provides the same stats as the Crystallised Augment Rune but lasts for one hour and is not removed on death.
Ethereal Augment Rune: Requires Renown 18 with the K'aresh Trust faction and can then be purchased for 100,000 Gold. This provides the same stats as the others and the buff is removed on death, but the item is infinitely reusable.

Gearing

Stat Priority

Offensive

WARNING

Sim yourself using Radibots Top Gear to decide on what to use out of items you have. Use Droptimizer to identify potential damage upgrades you can get from content. Do not follow a set stat priority for damage

Defensive

WARNING

The defensive difference between secondary stats on the whole is incredibly minor. In terms of a rough value, generally less than a % gain in survivability by focusing on one secondary stat over another. The defensive gain from equipping a higher item level piece of equipment will (with the exception of trinkets/cantrip effects) always be better for survivability than choosing a lower item level piece with specific secondary stats.

Agility >>>> Mastery > Vers > Haste/Crit

Tertiary Stats

Tertiary stats are - as the name implies - a tertiary consideration. They are not a significant enough factor to Tank survivability to influence your gearing on their own outside of very specific circumstance.

Reshi Wraps

The new Legendary Cloak for the 11.2 patch. This cloak is required to complete all of 11.2's raid content and comes with a role based proc. For tanks, this is Ethereal Protection.

Give the ability to change the stats on the cloak using the new "Fiber" gem-slot it has, you will ideally want to sim your character fairly frequently to choose between Pure Chronomantic Fiber, Pure Dexrous Fiber, Pure Energizing Fiber and Pure Precise Fiber. If you do not want to optimise too much then Pure Chronomantic Fiber is a solid default choice.

Embellishments

Your best end game Emebllishemtn setup is 2x Dawnthread lining or 2x Duskthread lining on Wrists and Belt when you can craft the slot at myth track to replace your D.I.S.C belt. You should sim your character to determine which one would be better based on your particular gear. This assumes an uptime of around 70% which is plenty achieveable in the majority of content.
If you're worried about attaining this uptime (I would still advise not to be) then running 2x Elemetanl Focusing Lens is fine but slightly weaker offensively and offers no defensive merit.
For more immediate gains or if you're not raiding (and thus have a lower chance to obtain a Myth track weapon quickly) you could consider crafting a Charged Halberd with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension applied. Follow this up with a Dawnthread lining or Duskthread lining on wrists and you'll be ready to transition to the ideal end game setup when you get your fourth spark.

Enchantments

Slot	Enchant	Notes
Weapon	Stormrider's Authority (Haste proc), Oathsworns Tenacity (Versatility proc) or Council's Guile (Crit proc)	You should sim yourself to see which would be best with your gear. Stormrider's Authority is a safe default choice
Chest	Enchants Chest - Crystalline Radiance	Grants Agility. Can use Enchant Chest - Stormrider's Agility for move speed instead of some Agility.
Legs	Stormbound Armour Kit / Defender's Armour Kit	Main stat plus stamina or armor. Minimal difference - armor slightly better vs physical, stamina vs magic.
Cloak	Chant of Winged Grace (Avoidance), Chant of Leeching Fangs (Leech) or Chant of Burrowing Rapidity (Speed)	Personal preference. Note: Wings of Shattered Sorrow already provides avoidance during high damage.
Bracers	Change of Armoured Avoidance, Change of Armoured Leech or Change of Armoured Speed	Personal preference between Avoidance, Leech and Speed.
Boots	Defender's March or Scout's March	Defender's provides small HP increase. Scout's helps avoid mechanics through movement speed.
Ring	Radiant variants: Critical Strike, Haste, Mastery, Versatility	Sim for optimal DPS combination. Haste is a safe default choice.

Gems

Blasphemite Gems

Effectively Meta gems from previous expansions, each gem will provide you with an amount of Primary stat and an additional buff based on what other gems you have equipped. You can only have 1 Blasphemite Gem socketted in your gear at a time.

Culminating Blasphemite is our standard gem of choice. It will provide 181 Agility and increases your critical strike damage by 0.15% per unique Algari gem colour you have equipped.

Elusive Blaphemite a potential alternative for those who like to go fast. Especially given how minor the critical strike damage gain from Culminating Blasphemite ends up being.

Algari Gems

These are your standard gems, you can equip as many of these types of gems as you want so long as you have the socket slots to hold them. They come in various combinations of Critical Strike (Rubies), Haste (Emeralds), Versatility (Sapphires), Mastery (Onyxes) and Stamina (Ambers). You will typically wear one of each of the four secondary stat variants (and not socketing an amber gem) but simming using Raidbots' Top Gear function is the best way to find the ideal combinations of gems for your gear. Be aware that this will likely change through the tier as your gear changes so sim regularly to check!

Trinkets and Cantrip Items

Trinkets

Damage Trinkets

There are, once again, many strong damage trinkets this tier that are all relatively close in value. I would strongly reccomend that you perform regular droptimiser sims of your character using raidbots to see which would be best in terms of availability and damage for you but you'll find a few notable ones below.

Brand of Ceaseless Ire - Passive Crit stat stick with a very, very high damage effect. Highly reliant on you staying in combat the entire time, but if you can this trinket is absurdly good.
Tome of Light's Devotion - High damaging trinket but does rely on you staying on the Radiance buff to deal its maximum damage.
Ticking Sack of Terror - Very strong trinket, but currently it has not had the damage reduction from the "Tank tax" applied to its damage so may drop dramatically in the near future.
Araz' Ritual Forge - Crit stat stick with a huge amount of main stat on use that decays over 30s and also cuts the users max health during its time. Very good to pair with incarn which abuses the trinkets strength whilst also negating its downside.

Defensive Trinkets

Ringing Ritual Mud - A big absorb trinket with a small damage component and a slightly variable cooldown. The trinket is very accessible being from a dungeon rather than a raid boss.
Loomithar's Living Silk - A big group sruvival CD that will likely shine in organised dungeon play. Could probably save a run in a pug, but if your plan is to take this trinket, sit on it and only use a couple of times a dungeon then you would likely be better with something more present throughout the run.
All-Devouring Nucleus - A cheat death trinket that's value can shift from absolutely incredible when it saves a run, to literally lowering your performance at other times. Consider where and when to run this and it can be very powerful but it should not be an all-purpose default option.

Cantrip Items

Harvester's Interdiction - Much like Season 1, Guardian Druids true BiS weapon will only be available from your weekly vaults dungeon slots - but this time you have double the chance. Whilst not worth running at Hero track if you can get a regular Myth track weapon, this polearm at Myth track is roughly 0.5% ahead of other Myth track polearms so pray that you're lucky enough to receive one!

Spellstrike Warplance - The other potential BiS weapon which also can only come from the weekly vault dungeon loot. Slightly weaker effect than Harvester's Interdiction but better stats mean they work out to be about the same (0.5%) over regular myth track weapons.

Interloper's Reinforced Sandals - Highly contested item but if you are lucky enough to receive these there's no reason not to run them to increase the power of your Reshii Wraps

Band of the Shattered Soul - Likely another highly contested item. The cantrip effect is basically irrelevant, but it is completely free and the ring comes with exception stats for Guardian.

Miscellaneous

Macros

BoP Cancelaura macro

A situationally useful macro for tanks primarily. BoP (Blessing of Protection) is a paladin external that will remove many harmful debuffs from its target, the downside is that it renders the target immune to physical damage so mobs will target someone else since they cannot hit you as the tank while Bop’d.

This macro will remove the Blessing of Protection buff from yourself, meaning that mobs will continue to target you rather than your allies but you will still have the applicable debuffs removed by the BoP application.

/cancelaura Blessing of Protection

Set Mouseover as Focus macro

A macro that is more useful in some content than other (Keys and pvp primarily) but still a useful tool to use is the focus targets. To set a mouseover target as your Focus target simply mouseover over the mob and press this macro:

/focus [@mouseover,exists,nodead]

Note: To select a different mob as your focus you can simply mouseover the new mob and press the macro again. To completely remove any mob as your focus you can simply mouseover nothing and press the macro once more.

Mouseover Combat Res macros

An essential macro for all druid specs. This macro will attempt to cast Rebirth at your current mouseover target so long as they are a friendly character and are dead.

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,help,dead] Rebirth

Many players prefer to use a more advanced version of this macro which will cast either Rebirth or Revive based on whether the player is in combat or not. This is entirely personal preference but the macro would look something like:

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,combat,help,dead] Rebirth;
/cast [@mouseover,nocombat,help,dead][] Revive

One Key Shapeshift/Fluid Form macros

Some people prefer to have a single keybind that will allow them to shift between Bear Form and Cat Form rather than binding both forms seperately, which is typically done by a macro.

This macro will:

Check if you are not in Bear Form, and if so will attempt to switch you to Bear Form
If you are already in Bear Form, it will attempt to switch you to Cat Form

#showtooltip
/cast [noform:1] bear form
/cast [form:1] cat form

With the addition of Fluid Form a variant of this macro has become fairly popular for use during combat that allows lets you press Rake (or Shred) in Bear Form and Mangle in Cat Form using a single key bind.

This macro will:

Check if you are not in Bear Form, and if so will attempt to cast Mangle
If you are already in Bear Form, it will attempt to cast Rake

Note: If the macro is not shifting you when you press it then check that:

You have Fluid Form talented
You are in range of the target to cast Rake/Shred/Mangle
Mangle is not on cooldown

#showtooltip
/cast [noform:1] Mangle
/cast [form:1] Rake

Bear Form Required Ability macros

Several spells require you to be in bear form in order to actually function. You can add a condition to the macro to first check if you’re in bear form (and if not, then cast it) before casting the desired spell.

This macro will:

Check if you are in bear form, and if not will attempt to switch you to bear form.
Will cast Growl at your current target

#showtooltip Growl
/cast [noform:1] bear form
/cast Growl

This macro will:

Check if you are in bear or cat form and if not switch you to bear form.
Check if you have an active focus target and if so will attempt to cast Skull Bash at it.
Will attempt to cast Skull Bash at your current target.

#showtooltip skull bash
/use [noform:1/2] Bear Form;
/use [@focus,harm,nodead][] Skull Bash

Ursol's Vortex and Mass Entanglement macro

This macro is useful because Ursol’s Vortex and Mass Entanglement are mutually exclusive as they are two halves of a choice node, meaning they can share a keybind.

This macro will:

Cast Ursol's Vortex at your cursor location if the spell is known
Cast Mass Entanglement at your mouseover target so long as your mouseover is a hostile target and the spell is known
Cast Mass Entanglement at your target if you do not have a mouseover so long as your target is a hostile target and the spell is known

#showtooltip
/cast [known:102793,@cursor] Ursol's Vortex;
/cast [known:102359,@mouseover,harm,nodead][known:102359] Mass Entanglement

Mighty Bash and Incapacitating Roar macro

Similar to the above, this macro is useful because Mighty Bash and Incapacitating Roar are mutually exclusive being two halves of a choice node.

This macro will:

Cast Incapacitating Roar if the spell is known
Cast Mighty Bash at your target if the spell is known

#showtooltip
/cast [known:99] Incapacitating Roar;
/cast [known:5211] Mighty Bash

Soothe and Remove Corruption macro

It can be useful to macro certain spells that require mutually exclusive conditions together onto one keybind. The following does that using Soothe (requires an enemy target) and Remove Corruption (requires a friendly target). There are many different spells that this can be done with so simply change the name and possibly the conditions to suit your needs.

This macro will:

Attempt to cast Remove Corruption at your current mouseover target if they are friendly.
Attempt to cast Soothe at your current mouseover target if they are hostile.
Attempt to cast Soothe at your current target

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead] Remove Corruption;
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][] Soothe

Cooldown with trinkets macro

Macroing big cooldowns together with trinkets and cantrip effects is often a sensible idea, it makes things easier for you as the player since you only have to press a single key to trigger multiple effects that you would want to happen at the same time. This ultimately requires that all or all except one effect be off the GCD. It is generally best to not do this with trinkets that trigger GCD or channeling effects. Refer to the trinket section for info on which trinkets this is applicable to.

This macro will:

Attempt to cast berserk or incarn (if talented).
Use whatever trinket is located in Trinket slot 1 (top).
Use whatever trinket is located in Trinket slot 2 (bottom).
Use whatever cantrip effect is located on your Weapon slot

Delete rows as required before using this macro or you may not use the correct trinket slot with your cooldowns.

#showtooltip
/cast berserk
/use 13
/use 14
/use 16

Useful WeakAura(s)

Ironfur Tracking WeakAura by Naemesis

Kitch's Guardian WeakAuras by Kitch

Xora's Bear WeakAuras by Xora