glyphs Guardian Druid: Mists of Pandaria Rotation Changes, Talents, and Glyphs (Patch 5.0.4)

[Vlad 411]

This article is no longer being updated. Please check our Guardian Druid guide, which is fully compatible with Mists Pandaria, and is being constantly updated. Thank you.

In preparation for the updates to our guides for Mists of Pandaria (Patch 5.0.4), we are releasing articles such as this one, explaining what has changed for a particular class and spec, and what the new rotation is likely to be.

Keep in mind that this is still a work in progress (both from Blizzard's side and from our own) and that this article assumes you are at least somewhat familiar with the Cataclysm version of the Guardian Druid rotation and playstyle (such as from reading our guide).

We will first list the most important changes to the Guardian Druid Cataclysm abilities, and then we will proceed to explaining the (likely to be) optimal rotation. Keep in mind that we do not document every single change or new ability, only those that impact the rotation.

Finally, we will give you some information about the most useful talents and glyphs you should choose.

New abilities

• Savage Defense is a new defensive ability. It has nothing in common with the Cataclysm version (Savage Defense). Savage Defense now costs 60 rage and grants you a buff that gives you 45% chance to dodge for 6 seconds. The ability has no cooldown, instead operating on a charge system: it has a maximum of 3 charges, and a charge regenerates every 9 seconds. Using Savage Defense while your previous buff is already active will simply extend the duration (2 seconds left on the old buff + a new application will result in a new, 8-second buff).
• Mastery: Nature's Guardian is your new Mastery. It increases your armor.
• Might of Ursoc is a cooldown that increases your current and maximum health by 30% for 20 seconds.
• Tier 4 talents offer a choice between Soul of the Forest, Incarnation: Son of Ursoc, and Force of Nature. We discuss these talents in greater depth in the Talents section.
• Tier 6 talents offer a choice between Heart of the Wild, Dream of Cenarius, and Nature's Vigil. We discuss these talents in greater depth in the Talents section.
• Symbiosis is a buff that you can place on one party or raid member. The buff lasts for 1 hour, and grants you an ability belonging to the target's class, depending on what your specialisation is. At the same time, the target receives one of your spells. A full list of all the buffs granted by Symbiosis can be found here. Note that these spells are still likely to change.

Changes to Existing Mechanics

• Frenzied Regeneration has been redesigned. It now has a 1.5 second cooldown and it instantly converts up to 60 rage into health.
• Mangle costs no rage and generates 5 rage when used.
• Lacerate,Thrash, and Swipe no longer cost rage.
• Faerie Fire, Lacerate, and Thrash have a 25% chance to reset the cooldown of Mangle.
• Thick Hide now also reduces magic damage taken by 25%.

Removed Abilities

• Pulverize has been removed.
• Demoralizing Roar has been removed.
• Challenging Roar has been removed.

Rotation and Spell Usage

The Guardian Druid rotation has had two active mitigation abilities introduced, namely Savage Defense and Frenzied Regeneration (we recognize that "mitigation" is a misnomer, since Savage Defenses offers avoidance and Frenzied Regeneration offers self-healing). This, coupled with the removal of some old concerns, has changed the rotation quite a bit from its Cataclysm version.

Despite this, we feel the rotation has been simplified. This is probably intentional on Blizzard's part, in order to allow Guardian Druids to focus on their new active mitigation system.

Since offensive abilities no longer cost rage, and, in the case of Mangle, actually generate it, the purpose of the rotation is clear: generate rage and use it on Savage Defense and Frenzied Regeneration to improve your survivability.

Therefore, we predict that the rotation will be similar to this.

• Use Mangle on cooldown.
• Keep up the Thrash bleed effect (it lasts 16 seconds).
• Keep up 3 stacks of Lacerate.
• Spam Lacerate.
• If no one else is keeping up the Weakened Armor debuff, you will need to do so through Faerie Fire. Since Faerie Fire also has a chance to reset the cooldown of Mangle, it will not be detrimental to you.

Once you are following these steps, your rage generation should be maximised, leaving you only to decide when to use your active mitigation cooldowns. The best ways to use these abilities will surely be defined as we come closer to Mists of Pandaria's release, and especially after its release, but we propose the following two uses.

• Savage Defense should be used only when faced with melee attacks (since it offers avoidance). Ideally, it should be used just as a new series of powerful melee attacks is coming.
• Frenzied Regeneration should be used to heal yourself after having taken a lot of damage. This will especially be useful to counter magic damage that you have received, or damage which bypasses armor (such as bleeds or Impale-type attacks). This is because Savage Defense and your Mastery do not protect you at all against such types of damage.

While the two cooldowns are not mutually exclusive, they both cost rather large amounts of rage and, as such, you will often have to decide between one or the other.

Talents

Tier 1 talents offer a choice between 3 means of increasing your movement abilities.

• Feline Swiftness is a passive ability that increases your movement speed by 15% at all times.
• Displacer Beast is an active ability that teleports you 20 yards forward and activates Cat Form and Prowl.
• Wild Charge is an active ability that differs based on the shapeshift form you are in, as follows:

• No shapeshift form: you fly to an ally's location.
• Bear Form: you charge an enemy, immobilizing them for 4 seconds.
• Cat Form: you leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 seconds.
• Travel Form: you leap forwards 20 yards.
• Aquatic Form: your swim speed is increased by 150% for 5 seconds.

We believe that Feline Swiftness will prove to be most useful in the vast majority of situations. This is because it will grant you its bonus even over very short distances, such as when side-stepping out of a void zone. Displacer Beast seems like the worst choice by far, since it will take you out of Bear Form, while Wild Charge's requirement of having an ally in the location you want to move to is quite cumbersome.

Tier 2 talents offer a choice between 3 healing spells.

• Nature's Swiftness is an active healing cooldown that makes your next Healing Touch, Nourish, or Regrowth instant cast and free of mana cost. Moreover, it increases both the potency of the spell and the spell's duration (in the case of HoTs) by 50%. Nature's Swiftness also affects some utility spells, most importantly Rebirth.
• Renewal is a powerful self-heal with a 2 minute cooldown.
• Cenarion Ward is a buff that you can place on a friendly player, lasting up to 30 seconds. When the player takes damage, Cenarion Ward activates a powerful 6-second HoT on them, consuming the buff in the process (meaning that it will only trigger one HoT per Cenarion Ward).

In terms of your own survival, Renewal is easily the best choice (it can be used in any form, so it will not interfere with your tanking). We believe this will become the default choice, essentially granting you an additional minor cooldown.

Cenarion Ward may also provide a hefty amount of self-healing, but since it is healing over-time, it is less valuable.

Nature's Swiftness could possibly be useful in some situations where you wish to help out your raid, especially if you are likely to need to use Rebirth.

Tier 3 talents offer a choice between 3 crowd control spells.

• Faerie Swarm is a spell that replaces Faerie Fire, upgrading the latter spell, causing it to also slow the target's movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds.
• Mass Entanglement is an AoE root, that roots up to 5 targets in place.
• Typhoon is a spell that affects targets in a cone in front of you, knocking them back and dazing them for 6 seconds.

None of these talents appear to have any real importance in terms of PvE raiding. You will most likely be able to choose which one of them you prefer for personal reasons (or for questing or doing achievements/dungeons). At best, they may be useful for clearing trash.

Tier 4 talents offer a choice between 3 talents that each significantly improve your tanking performance (at least in theory).

• Soul of the Forest passively causes Mangle to always generate an additional 2 rage.
• Incarnation: Son of Ursoc reduces the cooldown of your offensive abilities and of Growl to 1.5 seconds, for 30 seconds. This ability has a 3-minute cooldown.
• Force of Nature is an active ability that summons 3 treants for 15 seconds. The treants taunt nearby enemies.

Currently, Force of Nature is very underwhelming. Out of the other two talents, your choice will probably be based on encounter requirements and the balancing of these spells.

Tier 5 talents offer a choice between 3 crowd-control spells.

• Disorienting Roar is an AoE disorient that lasts for 3 seconds and affects all enemies in a 10 yard radius.
• Ursol's Vortex is a targeted AoE slow. When enemies first try to leave the slowing area, they are pulled back in.
• Mighty Bash is a single target 5 second stun.

As with the tier 3 talents, these talents do not have any impact on your gameplay and will most likely be only useful for trash or PvP encounters.

Tier 6 talents offer a choice between 3 talents that can affect your gameplay.

• Heart of the Wild increases your Stamina, Agility, and Intellect by 6% at all times. Additionally, with a 6-minute cooldown, it allows you to viably perform roles outside of your Guardian specialisation, for 45 seconds:
  • allows you to DPS in Cat Form, by increasing your Agility, Expertise, and Hit Chance;
  • allows you to DPS as a caster, by increasing your Spell Damage and Hit Chance, and reducing the mana cost of all your damaging spells by 100%;
  • allows you to heal efficiently, by increasing the healing of your spells by 100% and reducing the mana cost of your healing spells by 100%.
• Dream of Cenarius is a passive ability that grants you a healing bonus each time you deal damage, and a damaging bonus each time you heal.
  • Casting Wrath, Starfire, and Starsurge, or performing a melee attack increases the healing of your next healing spell (except Tranquility) by 30%.
  • Casting Nourish, Healing Touch, and Regrowth increases the damage of your next 2 Moonfire or Sunfire by 100%, or the damage done by your next 2 melee abilities by 30%.
• Nature's Vigil is a 3-minute cooldown that increases all healing and damage done by 20% for 30 seconds. While Nature's Vigil is active, all single target healing spells also damage a nearby enemy for 25% of the healing done, and all single target damage spells also heal a nearby ally for 25% of the damage done.

All three talents are very powerful and interesting. Heart of the Wild increases your survivability slightly, thanks to the 6% Stamina boost, but more importantly it may turn the tide in a particularly difficult encounter where assuming another role for a short while can be crucial.

Dream of Cenarius is triggered by Frenzied Regeneration, making it quite appealing, although the exact usefulness of this talent remains to be determined.

Nature's Vigil is a very straightforward and quite powerful cooldown. It will not only increase your self-healing while it is active, but it also grants you a threat/DPS boost.

In any case, we believe Heart of the Wild will be the default choice in most situations.

Glyphs

There are several Major Glyphs that are useful to you as a Guardian Druid.

• Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration changes your Frenzied Regeneration rather drastically. It causes it to cost a fixed 60 rage and not heal you at all. Instead, for 6 seconds after using Frenzied Regeneration, healing done to you is increased by 40%. We are certain that, in some encounters, this glyph will be mandatory.
• Glyph of Might of Ursoc increases the amount of health gained from Might of Ursoc by 20%, but also increases the cooldown by 2 minutes. This glyph will be useful when you need a lot of health at a specific moment in the encounter, but when you don't need to use Might of Ursoc again for a while.
• Glyph of Survival Instincts reduces the duration of Survival Instincts by 50% and reduces its cooldown by 60 seconds. This glyph will be useful when you need to use Survival Instincts more frequently but for shorter amounts of time (such as for very specific damage spikes caused by boss abilities).
• Glyph of Rebirth remains unchanged from Cataclysm. It resurrects players with full health. This is a useful glyph for raiders, although less useful than in Cataclysm, since targets of Rebirth now always come to full health with 60% health. However, since it now shares a category (Major Glyphs) with other important glyphs, it may be best to only use it when absolutely necessary, namely on encounters where there is a lot of AoE damage that can kill a newly-resurrected player.
• Glyph of Faerie Fire increases the range of Faerie Fire by 10 yards, making it easier to reach adds in some situations.
• Glyph of Maul causes Maul to also hit a secondary target for 50% of the damage it deals to the primary target. It is useful when you are fighting multiple enemies who are close to each other.
• Glyph of Stampeding Roar increases the radius of Stampeding Roar by 30 yards. This glyph may be useful in certain situations.

Minor Glyphs are purely cosmetic and play no part in your performance.

This concludes our Guardian Druid preview for Mists of Pandaria. We hope you have enjoyed reading it and that it proved useful to you. As always, we are looking forward to reading your opinions on the matter!

[jeffala 1]

It makes me kind of sad that we're going from the only tanks (I think) with spell damage reduction (Perseverance) to having none at all. Yuck.

[Dibface 0]

It makes me kind of sad that we're going from the only tanks (I think) with spell damage reduction (Perseverance) to having none at all. Yuck.

Actually, this is untrue! Bears actually recieved a tremendous buff to their passive spell damage reduction. The Thick Hide passive now provides a 25% reduction in spell damage taken.

Great guide, very helpful! Bear tanking looks to be very fun and interesting in MoP. A few things to note though. Wild Charge changes depending on spec/form. With no form, it flies you to an ally's position, but it gives you a charge in Bear Form. Dream of Cenarius also works with Frenzied Regen, making it a much more appealing choice. Same thing with Nature's Vigil. Both DoC and NV work with the Tier 2 talents as well, offering more synergy.

[jeffala 1]

Well, then. I (pleasantly) stand corrected.

[Vlad 411]

Thanks, guys. I've incorporated all your suggestions :)

[Talicia 2]

Did they change the wild charge recently? I believe the chrage is working in every form, be it caster, bear, travel, etc.. travel and flight form just makes you leap forward, cat and bear charges an enemy, and in caster form you pull yourself closer to an ally. Atleast that is what i got on the beta some week back :)

[Vlad 411]

Did they change the wild charge recently? I believe the chrage is working in every form, be it caster, bear, travel, etc.. travel and flight form just makes you leap forward, cat and bear charges an enemy, and in caster form you pull yourself closer to an ally. Atleast that is what i got on the beta some week back

You are right. That's our bad. We've updated this guide (and all the other druid guides, too). Thanks!