Hi,
New druid here, did some pve as bear then took a long break, decided to give PVP a try.
I did some rbgs as a bear so far and I enjoy it a lot. I run legacy of the sleeper.
I am however amazed by the lack of guidance for guardian on the Internet, I’m still unsure on what to use for talents and conduits. My gear still needs work, i m not sure if i should sit on 200 ilvl haste/versa or if I should use my mastery/versa pve items (220+)
Any tips would be greatly appreciated
My druid here:D
@Oktalar I indeed face the same problem.
Searched all over but didnt fint that much.
Focus on vers first its your most important stat in PvP.
I would recommand both Sleeper and the NOW legendary. You can swap them out of combat.
For talents:
Brambles is great for defending a flag! It interupts capping!
I always use Wild Charge
Resto affinity for the free heal
Mass root on flag maps and stun on defending maps
I normally use incarn
Servival of the fittest
and finaly rend and tear.
Couvement I went with Night Fae also for Boomy specc.
But I think for RBG specific Venthyr is better.
On counduits I am also still doing research.
For night fae I use Niya with:,
Conflux of elements
Born of the wilds
Tough as bark
Well-honed Instincts
This is my information so far.
Would love to hear from a higher rated player.
Also when and how to use the Sleeper legendary correctly.
My druid here 
Hey there,
I’ve been playing Guardian in RBGs up to 1.800. Here’s what I do.
Talents
15 - Brambles
Gives a bit of damage reduction and most importantly a damage aura when you pop Barkskin. Absolutely necessary tool for defending flags.
25 - Renewal
Never really picked anything else. Don’t see the point in Wild Charge, as the moments where I want movement are usually the moments where I want to get away from enemies - not closer to them. Renewal on the other hand is another defensive cooldown that also synergizes well with Incarnation, Battlemaster trinket, Battle Standard and all the other HP boosting skills. Great for staying alive.
30 - Restoration Affinity
Usually Resto. Passive healing is another layer of defense, Vortex is a great defensive tool for when you are trying to get away from someone and being able to heal a bit is great in small skirmishes. When I’m defending carts on Mines, I pick Balance Affinity because you can do quite a lot with it while defending top cart.
35 - Mighty Bash
As a defensive option and to interrupt Convoke and stuff. Mass Entanglement when running flags to root the people who are hitting you.
40 - Incarnation
Another good defensive cooldown.
45 - Survival of the Fittest
The other two talents are poop and this one also synergizes well with the NOW legendary as well as the Brambles talent.
50 - Rend and Tear
All three feel kinda bad. Rend and Tear is the easiest to use, so I pick it.
Conduits
I’m Necrolord, so I play with Emeni as my soulbind. The two defensive conduits are Well-honed Instincts (auto-frenzy when you drop below 40%) and Layered Mane (xx% chance to apply two stacks of Ironfur). Could also go for Innate Resolve (15% more Frenzied Regeneration healing, which is an increase of about 5% of your max hp) or Tough as Bark (reduces Bark CD by 6s), but both feel a bit weak. Whereas a second stack of Ironfur (which I use a lot in flag carrying scenarions) seems like it scales way better in high pressure situation and would thus mitigate more damage. For Finesse conduits it’s pretty much the only two ones which aren’t bad: the CD reduction on Mighty Bash/Entanglement and the increased duration on Roar.
PvP Talents
Here I got two different setups: one defensive for flag carrying/base defending and one for being in team fights (I stay tank on temple f.e.).
Defensive
Demoralizing Roat, Raging Frenzy, Toughness
Teamfight
Demoralizing Roar, Roar of the Protector, Den Mother
Legendaries
As for Legendaries: you wan’t both. Sleeper and NOW. Sleeper for flag carrying, then NOW for flag defending. Sleeper for base defending, then swap to NOW while Sleeper is on CD, then swap back to Sleeper when it is off CD. I found that the way to loose a cart/flag is mostly because of CC rather than being killed.
Stats
I prefer: Versatility >> Mastery > Haste
Haste is nice if you are playing PvE where you can guarantee a smooth rotation, but in bursty/CC-heavy PvP situations I feel like having extra HP and healing is stronger and more reliable. But given the way PvP gear is statted, you end up with a lot of Haste anyways. But if I can choose, I choose Mastery over Haste.
To your item question: definitely go for the higher ilvl item. Even though Mastery stacks very poorly, it should be better in terms of defense in PvP. And you really want the extra stamina.
Thank you both for your answers
Ok,
Tried guardian a bit more, destroyed a run for a high rated German team and I’m sorry for that:(.
So far…renewal is so much better than bash imo, an extra heal is so important. I’m NF cause I’m also doing balance/resto, more or less focused on PVE, might change for 9.1.
I’m doing Niya so i can have some extra ST damage, but I might switch to dreamweaver soon. I love well honed instincts+ innate resolve so far. I dont have NOW sadly but I really enjoy using healing leggos in group fights, switching back to sleeper when i defend nodes.
Overall I feel like i m doing better, PVP gear is so hard to get imo but so far I guess, i have to get better at playing a tank in bgs.
Btw, still thinking o going celestial guardian over incarn, had some fun with it and i feel like i dont need the extra hp from incarn
Thanks again for the answers.
Don’t be too hard on yourself for making mistakes in the beginning. Especially as tank. Every other player in the BG has other players to fall back on (there are five other DPS if you DPS and two other healers if you heal) while you are the only tank. So every mistake you make feels consequential. Especially when defending bases alone or carrying flags. And it’s hard to learn these type of settings outside of RBGs because random BGs just don’t match up. So fight through it! In the end you’ll be a better tank because of it. Was it anything specific you failed at? Defending a base? Staving of a rogue while going for the flag alone?
Renewal isn’t in the same talent row as Bash, so those two don’t really compete with each other. Did you mean Wild Charge?
And I wouldn’t care about your damage. At all. In RBGs where people are properly geared and (usually) know their specc, your damage will be completely negligible. No matter how hard you try. Your sole responsibility is to stay alive - i.e. to be as tanky as possible. So I would always go for the most defensive option available. And an extra 30% HP is massive even without the CC immunity.
Yeah, I always confuse bash with wild charge, I now prefer renewal instead of wild charge.
Gonna focus on being more defensive, but I noticed my dmg is decent enough at 1500+ rating to make a dent in the dps hp. I managed to kill 38k+ hp hunters/rogues and I usually put enough pressure in 1v2 defense situations if they don’t play a healer class.
You are definitely right about incarn, I’m gonna stick to it and next week I’ll also craft NOW.
The game that I ruined was a capture the flag map , the big one with a river in the middle. I captured the flag when I was being told but apparently my path with the flag was not good enough. The voice chat was a mix of German and English and tbh I didn’t really understood what I did wrong, just ppl bashing on me for going the wrong way. I was trying to move with the flag towards the capture point while staying close to my assigned holy paladin who was running in front of me, as close as possible for his mastery to matter. I wish they would have been more specific on what I did wrong so I can fix my gameplay.
I did some more runs afterwards with different groups , including capture the flag maps and it felt like I did the same thing, but no one complained and we even won.
Are there any specific routes I should take as guardian? I don’t have a specific route in the back of my head, I usually try to avoid team fights while moving as straight as possible towards the capture point.
I’m not sure if I should switch out from bear form when I run. I did it when they had no stealth and I was safe to move to travel or soulshape, but otherwise I stick in bear cause I’m scared of getting destroyed by a rogue. The German group told me never to soulshape, but I was under the impression I keep my armor/hp up, and I only did it to blink when I didn’t had fur up and low rage. For now I’ll just stick on carrying the flag and never switching from bear untill I gain some experience.
As a night fae, which soulbind do you recommend? As I said, for now I run Nyia, I like Burrs. Grove Invigoration should be nice as well for defense, soulshape healing as well and I love swift patrol.
For Dreamwever I don’t think I ever managed to get alive out of the podtender and except for social butterfly which could be decent in group fights I don’t see any advantages here, ofc I might be wrong, I’m still learning. Korayn seems decent with soulshape stun I guess? Otherwise it seems really offensive to me and I have to go for first strike if I want to use 2 endurance conduits.
As for defend flag maps, I usually manage to guard the flag, my main issue is keeping focus up when my flag is not attacked for long minutes :P. I usually stay in midrange so I don’t get sapped, and if my flag is capped I run in stealth and I do incapacitated roar, and then I sit on the flag. If I get CC-ed and got no trinket I use barskin (with brambles). If I have no trinket and barskin is ending, I incarn and call for help.
In the beginning I liked to spam moonfire from far away and abuse the 40yards range, until I met a rogue with smoke bomb. Luckily wild charge in travel form with soulshape saved the day.
Please share if you know of any better strat, I’m open to any suggestions on how to improve my gameplay.
I hope you won’t get turned off by my wall of text :D.
Thanks again!
I think it’s not a 5 second stun in pvp. More like 3. Maybe they recently fixed it?
Interesting. In my games I’m certainly able to damage them, but it’s more a war of attrition than a damage race. And good rogues/hunters will just disengage if they see that they’re not getting anywhere. I usually only try to delay them until help arrives (I always call for at least one DPS to peel when I get attacked - no matter what).
Well, if they couldn’t even tell you what you did wrong than I would assume that they just wanted someone to blame for the loss. Shrug it off.
I’m always communicating with my lead. He needs to tell you where you are supposed to go. Because only he knows where the team fight is currently headed towards and whether they are winning, loosing or just holding out. And what their next move is. Ideally they have won the team fight and he tells you to exit through the main entrance and to just run straight across the map into their arms. Even better if they already pushed the enemy back towards their graveyard and ward you off of any potential attackers. If they don’t win, then he should tell you to take exit that is on the other side of the enemy team’s graveyard (so ramp for Horde, water for Alliance) to avoid the team fight, the enemy’s respawn and to be closer to the people respawning at your own graveyard. Short story: stay away from the enemy team’s graveyard and the team fight in general. Only take the shortest, most direct route if your team is winning/has won the team fight and you don’t expect anybody between you and the team fight.
I only ever leave bear form if the enemies’ stealthers are accounted for: either because they are dead or because they are unstealthed somewhere far away from me. If they are alive and stealthed, it’s safe to assume that they are close by or at least coming for me. So I would play it the same as you did. Only travel form/soulshape when you are damn sure that no one is near you. Otherwise bear. If you get hit by Convoke or a rogue who pops cooldowns while you are travel form, you are toast.
Yeah. That’s surprisingly hard. What I do to keep myself engaged is I jump around in cat form. Sounds retarded but as you said: it’s very difficult to stay concentrated when you are doing nothing. Whereas when I’m jumping around, it’s a lot to easier to go from idle to action. Or I pay attention to what the team does via the small map (Shift + M) and try to support the lead by directing people who need to peel from the team fight to help at out bases or other minor tactical decisions which are often overseen when your lead is partaking in the team fight or calling targets.
I haven’t figured out what’s best for these either. Also always depends on what you are up against. A lonesome rogue shouldn’t be much of an issue. If he smokebombs right away, I roar (which also puts me in bear form), Incarnate (because good rogues actually manage to blind you before you get close enough) and then trash away. Against bad rogues you can also play more greedily and hold Incarnation for longer by just spamming Moonfire and staying at range. But then again: Why take risks? Once I have popped Incarnation, I make sure to call out for one of the DPS to come and help me kill the rogue. Once the rogue is dead or gone, I switch to NOW and tell the DPS that he needs to stay until trinket and/or Incarnation are back up again. Then I switch back to Sleeper and let the DPS go.
What’s more difficult is a balance druid. Druids are ironically your biggest enemy because they have so much disable. They can cyclone you while in caster form, sleep while in bear and have on-demand stun/knockback. Even worse when they come together with a rogue. In those cases I pop Incarnation as quickly as possible and call for two DPS to help me. I don’t think there is a way to fight all of their CC without having CC immunity. Even if you pop Barkskin, the boomie might be able to knock you back while the rogue goes for instant CC as a follow-up. My biggest take-away from defending bases as Guardian druid has been to call for help immediately. Even if you are a tank and have lots of HP, it’s always better and safer to have a DPS peel from the team fight than to risk loosing a base because a second DPS jumped you, your trinket/Incarnation were on CD/ran out or the rogue/boomie just outplayed out.
Hope some of this helps! Let me know if you got any advice as well!
Thanks for the advice. I was in vacation so I didn’t play much, just got back and I managed to push 1600, finally upgrading my gear to 213. It’s so dependent on the group you’re getting it’s so annoying so many times.
In my last game, we got paired against a 1700 average rating team, while we were under 1600. It was fun to see what a good boomie + rogue can do. By the time I called for help, they already got the flag. Smoke Bomb, I roared, boomie got out and cycloned me, I trinketed into pushback + blind instantly, they knew I would trinket. They had amazing coordination. My incarn was on CD from a previous cap attempt from the rogue and their guardian druid. I’m still licking my wounds.
I guess the key is to remain calm, call for help asap and trinket into barskin immediately. Also hug the flag at all cost, like sit on top of it.
Hopefully i ll be able to push to 1800, next week vacation again, so really slow time. 9.1 is up the corner so I don’t know if I ll make it but so far I’m happy with how things are going.
Ty again for the advice!
Hey, congratulations on 1.6! 
Yeah, group selection is a skill in and of itself. Playing with a good group feels almost like playing a different game.
Yeah, Rogue + Boomie is brutal. If they play it right they literally have an answer for everything you do. Even if you pop Barkskin right on top of the flag, they can knock you back and then CC you. That’s why I always ask for a DPS to remain at the flag spot until Incarnation is back up.
You’ll get there You already made it out of the no man’s land that is <1.400 RBGs!
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