WoW Guardian Druid Preview 10.1.5

Guardian druid in 10.1 is in a particularly good place, it handles the affixes well (although you do have a sacrifice really good talents to do so in some places), its damage is well above average with several playstyles to play with and an excellent tier set. While not the top tank, it’s got a lot going for it despite the problems in the class and the spec tree is getting a rework.

We’re going to talk about some of the talent changes, and the repositioning of the tree itself and how it can affect the playstyles going forth. Before we get started, if you’re new to guardian druid, there’s two prevailing builds at the moment, Physical and Laser, physical opts for the physical talent traits, empowering your thrash and maul to provide consistent absorb shields, while laser is focused around moonfire, to provide damage mitigation and and healing.

Maul and Raze:
Raze was introduced in a previous rework during the 10.0(.5) patch, the talent replaces Maul, a single target ability, into a AoE frontal, and it was met with mixed receptions, some loved it, others didn’t. In 10.1.5 Raze will no longer replace Maul, instead it will become its own ability that will still interact with every Maul talent currently on live. This adds a good option to the spec that had to sacrifice good single target damage for AoE, in keys we can now have both.

Innate Resolve:
On live, this talent currently increases healing by Frenzied Regeneration by 20% and gives us our 2nd charge of the ability. The change coming to 10.1.5 is that Frenzied Regen will heal for an extra 150% based on our missing health and we still gain the 2nd charge. Frenzied Regeneration is already one of our top healing abilities, this is going to buff significantly, something we can now rely on when we’re in trouble. It does require us to use it at as low of health as possible to gain the full effect, but any increase in its healing is only good for us.

Flashing Claws:
The live version of the talent gives your thrash an optionally chance to proc another thrash, which can proc off itself(10/pointx2). What’s being added onto the talent is that for each point into the talent, thrash will stack an additional time, up to 5. This is a nice buff to the thrash bleed and synergizes well with the extra proc chance.

Dream of Cenarius:
This talent is coming up from the capstone area of the tree into row 3. This is a talent I’ve personally enjoyed playing to add to bears utility, crazy off healing by being able to cast a free, 200% increased regrowth in bear form every 20s. Its movement to the top of the tree makes this a super easy option to pick up if you desire.

Thorns of Irons:
This option is being moved to row 6, taking the place of Soul of the Forest. Unfortunately the nerf to this talent hurts it just enough where there’s better options on the tree to choose from, but from a purely physical build perspective, it’s free damage for hitting Ironfur.. something you’re already doing anyway to survive.

Soul of the Forest:
This talent has taken up a new slot directly in the middle of the tree, locked behind a mostly default 2 points talent node, making it an easy grab.

Rend and Tear/Untamed Savagery:
Currently tucked away as an end capstone on the far left of the tree, grabbing this talent has required heavy investment to grab, with it moving to row 8 (far left, replacing Pulverize), this is now an incredibly easy pick up with 2 pathing nodes leading to it.

Pulverize:
Swapping places Rend and tear/Untamed Savagery, this talent (personally speaking) still needs work. While the cost of 2 stacks of Thrash bleeds to be able to use this talent is going to be lessened with the change to Flashing Claws, its still costly for a single target damage reduction, while it may have its niche uses, its placement at the bottom left makes it easy to ignore, or pick up.

Scintillating Moonlight:
Taking the place of Galactic Guardian, this is to continue the shaving of capstone level talents to alleviate the burden of talent choices at the end of the tree.

Galactic Guardian:
With a shift to the right of its previous place, Galactic Guardian is now locked behind a 1 point talent option, making this a lot easier to grab if you wish. While there is a major ability change to how this talent works (its nerfed, we’ll discuss in another write up), it’s still a decent option to grab while playing hybrid builds.

Moonless Night:
Replacing the capstone position of Thorns of Iron, which was oddly placed on the right side of the capstone tree, next to many arcane focused talents, this talent is now surrounded by its arcane brethren.

New pathing options:
Another wonderful additive into the tree is two new pathing options stemming from Incarnation: Guardian of Ursoc, while this may seem minor, Incarnation used to divide the tree and make certain talent builds incredibly difficult to take or manage. Adding the two new pathing options is a superb change to the tree.

Like: The general sense of the tree now seems like it has purpose, a direction, which is something I’ve argued for some time, was sorely lacking about the guardian druid trees, and we’ll reserve our comments about the class tree for the moment, the spec tree is well on the way to being more defined.

Dislike: While many of the talent variations and re-placements have been for the better, Earthwarden is still incredibly difficult to go and grab without losing more than your gaining. Talent trees should have a balance of choice, and its current placement feels unbalanced.

Like: Physical bear has been my preferred playstyle in Dragonflight, and while this is a purely biased opinion, the shift to more physical talents and pathing are really going to help that playstyle along.

Guardian Druid in 10.1.5 is looking to be incredibly strong, with lots of utility and a variable and customizable damage profile. My opinion, while bears meme status currently still lingers in the minds of the meta, bears have become a great tank option and 10.1.5 is going to only improve that significantly. While they be the meta tank? That’s to be seen, will bears be referred to as a certain movie that came out earlier this year about a bear’s adventures in 1985? Most likely.