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: The War Within (11.2).
Single Target
Ensure Moonfire is active on the target before starting.
Maintain Moonfire and 5 stacks of Thrash. Use Maul for damage and Mangle for Rage generation. Activate Heart Of The Wild and Barkskin on cooldown, and use Incarnation Guardian Of Ursoc and Rage Of The Sleeper during burst phases.
AoE
Pull mobs together with Moonfire before engaging.
Maintain 5 stacks of Thrash and prioritize Raze for AoE damage. Use Heart Of The Wild and Barkskin on cooldown, and activate Incarnation Guardian Of Ursoc and Rage Of The Sleeper during burst phases.
Cooldowns
Use Barkskin liberally for consistent mitigation and Survival Instincts for major damage spikes. Activate Incarnation Guardian Of Ursoc and Rage Of The Sleeper during high-damage or burst phases.
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.