Guardian Druid Basic Tanking Guide

Bears with their own talent tree and turning into armored dps machines. Let's rock
www.preachgaming.com
questions to [e-mail]

[@merxy2]

one HUGE thing he forgot about heart of the wild: it will also usable to, for 45 seconds, increase your healing such that your tranquility will actually surpass the power of your resto counterparts. After tranq is down you will still have about 30-35 seconds of being able to use rejuvenation while in bear form and again, stronger than a resto's rejuv. Also, if you need the extra damage, spamming wrath with heart up will actually burst ridiculously large dps numbers considering you are a tank.

[@gomababe]

Thanks for making the comprehensive guide, even if some of the stats stuff is a bit out of date now. As a newbie to tanking at all this was really useful and will help loads when I try out another dungeon on my nelf druid.

[@Marchangsje001]

Hey, i just have a few comments on your guide. I’m a raiding bear tank since the beginning of TBC, so i have a bit of experience with bear tanking throughout the years. We are now ready with MV10 man and starting heroic mode next week. The part where you talk about stats is where I would like to give a comment. I agree that stamina and agi are the main stats, off course every piece of gear should have that… pretty trivial.

[@merxy2]

i completely agree with you up to a point. i believe that stam is only good when you can get it in proportions to agility of 1.5* or more and crit will still be superior till you hit the 2 times mark. remember that you get a 1.5* multiplier on your crit chance, so crit > agi. from what i see, you'll want hit + exp to 15% > mastery to 18% (for base survive) > crit > haste > hit+exp over 15% > mastery over 18% > dodge. i run with crit on every gem (green orange and yellow) and it works beautifully

[@Xavneiros]

I've been playing my Druid for 4 years as a main. I was going to reroll during MoP but Preach you've made it hard for me, thanks dude, just thanks. (I hope people have an understanding of sarcasm with the thanks!)

[@blackie75]

best guides on the web......you should be getting a fuck tonne more views on most of these

[@TheLowe91]

Awesome Guide :D an the background music was perfect haha you should do all you basic stats/glyph/talent guide there :) and when is Prot Pally due?

[@laggstern]

Pink panda running like thousands times while you are watching talents :D

[@ArshikaTowers]

Nature's Vigil as the possibility to cast heals on yourself, so with the buff of healing and damage, it is also passive heals on you and melee every time you hit the target. They are small heals, but that is less the healers have to deal with...

[@mejo1612]

15% would be appropiate now. When Panda first dropped though you could get by on 7.5% up to Heroics raids. I was just responding to a post from almost 3 months ago in what you were reading.

[@merxy2]

also about the stats, rage gen is very highly important -> im hitting about 45% crit now which puts me in the position of being able to frenzied regen so healers can ignore me when the other tank has agro and still tooth and claw on every proc to reduce the damage taken by the other tank. When im the one tanking, i always have savage defense up, use up almost every tooth and claw proc, and still get to do a few heals with frenzied. Also, crit and armor elixirs are better than agi or stam flask

[@mejo1612]

Read most of these post, his video is not up to date. Maybe he just did not understand the stat weight fully when he made the video. In any event, Crit is important. If your ITL is above 470 then you don't really need to gem or enchant for Sta. But here is what I follow. Melee Hit (Only to 7.5%) = Expertise (Only to 7.5%) > Agility > Crit > Haste > Mastery > Dodge.

[@Dlorii]

as always good work by the preacherman!

[@almostfearsome]

Hey Preach. I loved the guide, but I've read some other sources that Crit might actually be a very valuable stat cause of the Primal Fury passive ability. Also an alternative to the Hit/Expertise is to stack Crit so that it increases your rage generation. There's also talk about capping Rage per Second by balancing out Crit to 6.6 RPS, which allows for 80+% up time of Savage Defense. I'm curious for your take on this especially since the amount of dodge from agi is low at the moment

[@Marchangsje001]

Having mastery is indeed important for extra armor but the amount of armor that mastery gives is actually realy small, so reforging away from mastery isn’t that big of an issue. These 2 stats, haste and mastery I would reforge into hit/exp until you reach the cap of 7,5% for raiding (like you said … missing an attack is less damage and less rage generation…) and after that I would reforge it into crit for more rage generation and also damage increase.

[@TriviaMania_]

Preach, after you had finished all the class guide, can you make a leveling guide please, some really need that.Love your videos, keep up the good work

[@martyxm]

I agree. My ilvl 507 bear is Hit (7%), Exp (14%), Crit (42%) unbuffed. I ignore mastery and dodge. You cannot afford to miss. If I swiped the Bats on Tortos and missed they would eat the closest healer >.< In ToT LFR today on Tortos/Magera/Ji-Kun I was 4th on DPS with 90K which is awesome :)

[@thelostlegion5163]

As for Mist, I'm not entirely sure. I main tanked back in cata, and i usually maintained gear for feral, feral tank and resto. My resto and feral were usually about a tier or half a tier behind most times, but druids being druids, i could keep up with deeps and heals.

[@LoLSmileyFACE650]

preach your awesome man keep up the great work. i have seen just about all of your guides. i have been leveling my monk and was wondering if you could do monks next maybe?. im lovin brewmaster and just wanted an updated opinion on them since the EXP came out.

[@Zeusgodofstorms]

Preacher I know when you would bring a cat to a bear fight, winter

[@merxy2]

if ur running with stam / dodge or mastery then yes, you are doing something wrong. it works kinda in dungeons and the early raid bosses, but in all seriousness you need to start going for rage gen builds in order to keep up with the other tanks. In fact i believe rage gen build surpass all the other tanks for you can dodge, heal, reduce the damage taken by the other tank (tooth and claw) and deal that extra few 100 dps your group needs to down the next boss with all them crits

[@mejo1612]

Don't confuse that Agi is not our most important stat. Without the 2 Soft caps hit, you run the risk of being dodged/parried on boss fights. This means that you will lose a LOT of your ability to generate rage which equals a lot of lost opportunities for damage mitigation abilities like Frenzy Regen or Savage Def.

[@merxy2]

and by orange gem i mean exp/crit, not agi/crit. That way you can reforge out of the exp on ur gear into crit and end up with the same you would have with a yellow gem, but then u get to walk away with the socket bonus

[@ThunderCatsHo100]

do note that if you take the frenzied regen glyph its better to role with heart of the wild for the lv 90 talent

[@pupfish1966]

This is gonna blow your mind Preach...What if Brad from accounting created savage defense and frenzied regen??? See I told you, total mental obliteration!

[@CloakVision]

In raids nature swiftness is better option cuz you can ress in combat instantly your friendly allies, renewal is not so important if you have great healers. And that maul glyph..

[@Jegethyx]

I took my bear to a boomkin fight. We had chicken for dinner that night.

[@mejo1612]

I am not having trouble with threat, I never was. You are clearly missing the point. More rage = more opportunity for survive-ability. If you are generating more rage you can be using both Freny Regin and Savage instead of having to pick one (fight dependent of course). Also, by having the ability to regularly add maul into the rotation you are doing more damage which = shorter fight times. Those two factors combined = Crit/Haste superior that wasting anything into Mastery / Dodge

[@ThunderCatsHo100]

because if you pop out of bear form while youre tanking the boss (when you'll be doing the moving) you die

[@Marchangsje001]

In this current patch I would never reforge to dodge. The amount of dodge you can reforge on gear is so little that 0,4% or maybe 1% of extra dodge is like nothing compared to the 45% you get from savage defense if you can keep it up at all times because of the rage generation with crit. This means that I also gem green gems ‘crit + stam’ and orange gems “exp+crit” or “agi+crit” or purple “agi+stam”.

[@kayper22]

hey preach was wondering if we could address the fact that u say reforge out of crit, but given that all crits generate rage one would belive that crit is a HUGE bonus to out tanking. Me personally i go stam, agil, hit, CRIT, exp, mastery, haste... and i always have TONS of rage.. if you would try this out for yourself.. and let us know what u think about this build. it seems to work great for me, but i haven't tried your build either.. look forward to your insight.

[@Cantoras]

yeah, thats why I said "basically just crit". Attack power has no effect for def, so I left that out

[@Camps2630]

Been thinking of leveling a druid, mainly a feral//tank

[@TheLowe91]

Will the be in the not to near future a time when we can get that hit an expertise cap an not surfacing such things as mastery and agility, or will it always be this way?

[@mejo1612]

Agi = AP, Crit and Dodge. Agi is god for Druid. The only time it is not is when you need to hit your caps in Exp / Hit. If you are in 3/4 Panda epics you should have zero issue getting caps in both without sacrificing Agi.

[@Ritsuc]

Yea preach, you are so awesome at the other classes. ever since beta you've been saying crit is terrible when everyone else says it's amazing. Do you have good reasons for saying that? or have you just not been able to try it out and see?

[@streetpaladin]

its not long been youtube released .they'll be done in the morning

[@TheBravoFour]

If you're having trouble with your threat, then yeah push Crit and Haste. If you don't have a problem, then your ability to survive are clearly better.

[@Cantoras]

Kind of confusing choice for reforging and gemming. you say to reforge away from crit because it's bad(wich it is not, but lets leave that aside) and then you gem for agi in every socket (wich is basically just crit) so it kind of is the opposite of your reforging method

[@TheRandom1337Dude]

Isn't it the other way around? You took a boomin to a bear fight = chicken Bear to a boomkin fight = slaughter

[@mejo1612]

Well played Sir...........Ouch

[@suluzeswow]

Love ya vids Preach. BROFIST.

[@KmarkecGamer]

hes maybe more squishy but he can heal often and literally 300% of his full HP

[@Marchangsje001]

But I would not reforge away from crit, Crit actually matters more nowadays, as we only generate rage for outgoing damage (and abilities like Mangle and Enrage), and more crits means more rage because of Primal Fury. More rage means more usage of abilities like savage defense and frenzy regeneration which will increase your survivability. As you said, haste is bad, reforge it…!

[@Cooba13]

I go crit/stam in everything (except red, there it is agi/stam) and have 60 rage for savage on almost every cd :)

[@emomikey38]

Hey mike i think this guide is a bit out dated, because the best 2nd reforge/gem stats for Bears are Crit/Exp. Just a heads up

[@Jegethyx]

You should pop a link to the 5.2 update in an annotation as right now this video just just giving wrong information and people may not know of the 5.2 update video. So, for anyone watching this: Crit and haste are now the strongest secondary stats for guardian druids after reaching the hit and expertise cap, with mastery and dodge being the weakest.

[@swipafoxx7758]

Thats the Incarnation: Son Of Ursoc talent. a must have , pop that and /rapeface.

[@H.Cook420]

has the feral druid's survivability lowerd because of them splitting the cat/bear into different specs?

[@swipafoxx7758]

just curious why you said Fairie Swarm is shit, as I use it cause it has a chance to refresh your mangle c/d

[@nkish]

Guess you can tell Brad from Accounting did not work on the Druids for MoP... :)

[@Leono413]

Annotations do not appear to be working. :/

[@Camps2630]

Debating if I should level my Druid up (feral+Guardian)...problem is, im having fun with my Prot warrior!!

[@Lets2Playerz]

At about 12 seconds the Bear Form changes, how did he do that?

[@PedroSoares-js9zd]

how hard is it to have the latest gear for all the druid 4 specs? Im want to make a druid cause they can play all roles. Am i dreaming to much?

[@porcu12345]

winner winner chicken dinner

[@redninja789]

He did make another video that says stack crit

[@MrTittut]

why do I need agillity ?

[@nathanburke5530]

YOU NEED CRIT NOTHING BUT CRIT

[@Youcah]

Hit+Expt > Agility > Crit > Mastery + Dodge.

[@mejo1612]

I would strongly disagree with the idea that Crit / Haste are "Shit" as you put it Preach. I am rolling with - Stamina >= Agility > Melee Hit (7.5%) = Expertise (7.5%) > Crit >= Haste > Mastery > Dodge - right now and I have found this to be extremely superior to Mastery / Dodge ahead of Crit/Haste. You get so little return for Dodge and Mastery that it is completely not worth adding 2. I generate enough rage right now to work in regular maul with Tooth and Claw being applied constantly.

[@abstrusejon3619]

Crit is badass as fuck for guardian druid, it's mastery that sucks.

[@4B1rd0nCr4ck]

Dude, Aggi is attack power and crit, not just crit.

[@DiZZ3YPs3]

You may notice, this guide is a tad old. Watch his more recent guides, things change, y'know?

[@Jegethyx]

The joke was that I killed the boomkin and ate it. It's less funny if I need to explain.

[@Ritsuc]

this is his 5.2 post, he's been saying crit is terrible since beta...when even then it was up there. Mastery has always been crap

[@Amoncaco]

I want to level my druid now :(

[@BobSmith-ob7lb]

No real need for agility. U want stam dodge parry and mastery that's about it. And strength if u want high dps

[@Magnua-The-Sloth]

thx for help :D

[@Cinomod6066]

lol im sooo gald im not the only person in wow that has every single tanking class lol all my firends think i weird for it for some reason lol its just what i liek to do dps imo is a bit too easy and healing is just like meh if your not raid healing its boring lol.

[@WolfgangBrozart]

Not sure if trolling or just stupid but um have you ever even played a bear? Agi IS good for bears. Read it again so it seeps in. Agi is good for bears.

[@TheRandom1337Dude]

If that was a joke... ok

[@Camps2630]

Crit isn't bad, not sure what preach is talking about...

[@michealwright3262]

honestly this guide is completely backwards to what guardian druids really are. Crit is top, even over Stam, and Mastery is shit. Haste isn't exactly a bad stat either. It is a dps based tanking class that can heal itself, and it has so many cds that it can deal around magic damage taken.

[@mejo1612]

Message me and I can break this down for you, It can take a good deal of work to do it. However, if you have a game plan and know were to cut corners it may not be as tough as you think.

[@DaFlame29]

10:38

[@Dezzy529]

smexy

[@cokwow12345]

update your guide, Crit is what you STACK as a guardian druid it's not "TOTAL SHIT"

[@Chamsin15]

Crit/haste is crap? really outdated

[@Wolv86]

this "guide" is pretty dame useless atm. Its what ziddy1232 said so i am not going further into the stats ect. It made me laugh tho :)

[@samusaran13372]

good vid nigga

[@MsPumpanickel]

This is not up to date as of 5.2... Quit misleading people and making WoW a worse place.