Noxxic

Tank Rotation & Cooldowns

This rotation offers a general priority list for Guardian Druid abilities, along with key cooldowns at the bottom. It's based on a standard build and is here to help while we work on a smarter, build-aware system. If you are very new to the game or this class, we added info on the new assisted rotation features at the bottom of this guide. Updated for the latest patch in World of Warcraft: Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0.0).

Single Target

Ensure Mark Of The Wild is active and you are in Bear Form before combat.

Maintain 100% uptime on target.
Use procs immediately to avoid wasting them.
Cast off cooldown.
Cast off cooldown.
Use during burst phases.
Use to boost Mastery and damage.
Spend Rage when above 80 (or 60 if talented).
Use to avoid Rage capping and reduce damage.
Use if health is low.
Use as filler if no other abilities are available.

Maintain Moonfire uptime and use Ravage procs immediately. Prioritize Thrash and Mangle off cooldown, and spend Rage on Maul or Ironfur as needed. Use Frenzied Regeneration for survival and Swipe as filler.

AoE

Maintain 100% uptime on all targets.
Use procs immediately to avoid wasting them.
Cast off cooldown to apply debuffs.
Cast off cooldown unless Rage is capped.
Use during AoE burst phases.
Use to boost Mastery and damage.
Spend Rage for AoE damage.
Use to avoid Rage capping and reduce damage.
Use if health is low.
Use as filler if no other abilities are available.

Maintain Moonfire on all targets and use Ravage procs immediately. Prioritize Thrash and Mangle off cooldown, spending Rage on Raze or Ironfur. Use Frenzied Regeneration for survival and Swipe as filler.

Cooldowns

Use for burst damage and survivability.
Boosts Mastery and damage; use strategically.
Use for extra DPS or group healing.
Major damage reduction; use during high-damage phases.
Short cooldown; use frequently or for damage spikes.

Use Berserk or Incarnation Guardian Of Ursoc for burst phases, Lunar Beam for Mastery and damage boosts, and Survival Instincts for major damage reduction. Utilize Barkskin often to smooth damage intake.

New to Class? Try Assisted Rotation

Patch 11.1.7 introduced new features that make it eaiser to pick and play new characters. These new settings can be enabled from settings » gameplay enhancements:

Single-Button Assistant
Assisted Highlight
Cooldown Manager

If you are new to World of Warcraft or a certain class, enabling Assisted Highlight and Cooldown Manager can help you learn which abilities to prioritize and use.

While the Single-Button Assistant can be a much easier and more accessible way to play the game, it does come with a slight performance hit due to a small GCD penalty, as you will have to wait 25% longer in between spells and abilities.

To see which specs are best with the Single-Button Assistant feature, you can check out our DPS Rankings which uses SimC to sim every class using this feature.