The Ancestral Guardian Barbarian was introduced in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. While perhaps overshadowed by the Zealot, which wound up in the 5.5 PHB, this has also long been a pretty well-established and effective subclass. Notably, Ancestral Guardians are one of a handful of subclasses across any class that is built to truly play a "tank" role in a group.
I actually have a ton of familiarity with the original version of this subclass, because one of my players in my 6-years-and-counting Ravnica campaign plays one. And I will tell you: he might not put out the most damage (though with an artifact weapon that deals an extra 2d8 damage along with other benefits, he's no slouch) what he does do very well is protect his allies. The key is, not only does he impose disadvantage on attacks against other targets than himself, but the soft-taunt debuff also extends damage resistances, to the point where, especially if the monster is doing any non-bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage, they truly do less damage to anyone else.
The subclass is renamed here as Spiritual Guardian, which I guess just broadens out which spirits you might call upon. What I will say is that in the Ravnica game, I have had NPCs talk to the Barbarian and refer to him as a Shaman, because he literally is one - having a connection to unseen spirits upon whom he can call for aid, which is more or less the actual definition of a shaman. So, ironically, while I don't think the Barbarian is the best class to emulate a WoW Shaman, in this case at least the subclass literally has you play a shaman using the real-world definition.
Now, the rough concept of this subclass is to make it work for WoW's Enhancement Shaman. Don't get hung up on this too much: it's nothing like Enhancement. Actually, honestly, the Elements Barbarian is closer to what Enhancement feels like, while to get a real Elemental Shaman feel you'd want to go with something like a Circle of the Land Druid and focus on elemental damage types like lightning and fire, or maybe even just go with an Evoker Wizard (or a Genie Warlock, actually). The "ancestral spirits" theme of Shamans is really secondary to its "primordial elements" theme in WoW. And while Elemental and Restoration Shamans can both take the "Farseer" Hero Talents (a system that works as a kind of secondary subclass that is role-agnostic) that do actually have ancestor spirits appear and fight alongside you, Enhancement is the one spec that doesn't get this option.
So, really, even more than other suggested subclasses, we should kind of set aside the WoW of it all and truly treat this as its own, setting-agnostic option. I'm also going to try to take it on its own merits, in part because while I see the Ancestral Guardian in play, I'm not often looking at all of its features laid out in front of me. Naturally, my experience with the subclass will color my impression of this one. Will this be like the new Grave Cleric, where it would be good if we didn't have a better version that existed previously? Or will this one shine and actually be an improvement over something that's already solid? Or maybe it will be just a lateral move.
Let's get into the features.
(Credit here goes to the Dungeon Dudes, using their video ranking the WoW subclasses.)
Level 3:
Spiritual Protectors:
When raging, when you hit with a weapon or unarmed strike, you can choose one effect:
Distract: The target has disadvantage on attacks against creatures other than you or another Barbarian with this feature until the start of your next turn.
The key change here (other than having two other options to use) is that this no longer imparts resistance to the damage of those attacks if the monster decides to go after your friends regardless. That actually does wind up being a pretty big nerf to this, as a monster might still decide they'd rather risk disadvantage to hit a target that will take full damage from their attack rather than hitting the Barbarian.
It's very unlikely you'll have two Spiritual Guardians in the same party, but then, my party has two Storm Sorcerers. Obviously, this is the standard "soft taunt" that you see with Armorer Artificers and Cavalier Fighters, though I don't think they have carve-outs for others of their subclass. However, if you do have one of those two characters in your party, you should both blanket the target with disadvantage. I will say this is less exciting if you're using a weapon with Sap, though it does apply to all attacks.
Hinder: You can apply the Slow weapon mastery in addition to another mastery.
Slow doesn't stack up, but if you really need to keep a foe from fleeing, this can help. Indeed, combining Distract and Hinder will help you lock down foes and keep them from hurting your friends (though if you slow them enough that they can't get to your friends, Distract is kind of redundant). Probably the most situational choice.
Strike: You deal an extra 1d4 of your choice of Cold, Fire, or Lightning damage.
Ok, this is interesting. it's not a ton of damage, of course, but unlike other Barbarian damage buffs at 3rd level, this is going to apply to all attacks. You thus get slightly more value out of it if you're dual-wielding or can weaponize your bonus action through something like Polearm Master. 1d4 ain't much, but it's not nothing either when you can apply it to every attack. And this also gives you a good option when you just want to pour out as much damage as you can.
Generally, I think the taunt has taken a nasty nerf, but the existence of these other options does make this a bit interesting, and not strictly worse. What it does is push this subclass a little away from the tank archetype - not fully away, but lets you play one that is more about damage.
Level 6:
Spirit Shield:
While raging, you can use a reaction when another creature within 30 feet takes damage to reduce the damage they take. Roll d6s equal to your rage bonus, and reduce the damage by the number rolled.
I think this is the same as the old version (the math on how much you reduce might be different,) but this is going to help you mitigate what damage does go through. (Actually, now that I check, the damage mitigation scales up slightly faster, as you'd get d6s added at levels 10 and 14, while the rage bonus goes up faster than that).
Level 10:
Consult the Spirits:
Once per short or long rest, you can cast Augury or Clairvoyance without a spell slot or material components. The sensor for Clairvoyance takes the form of an invisible ancestor spirit.
This is unchanged. It's also only rarely impactful. It's not that these spells aren't good, but this is a pure utility boost, and doesn't do anything for you in combat. Now sure, giving Barbarians stuff to do outside of combat is great, but you're not going to feel much of an impact here at this level.
Level 14:
Spirits' Fury:
Once per turn, when you roll an 18-20 on the d20 while making a melee weapon attack as part of the attack action, you can make one additional attack with the same weapon.
This is a totally different feature from the old version, which would let you deal force damage to the attacker that triggered Spirit Shield. But what do we think of this? Well, first off, I do think this is the one real nod to Enhancement Shamans, who imbue their weapons (they always dual-wield) with elemental magic, most famously "Windfury," which lets their attacks trigger additional attacks that hit at the same time. Baseline, this is going to be going off about 15% of the time, though if we're always using Reckless Attack (or getting advantage some other way,) we'll have a 27.75% chance of triggering this, and with two attacks, that becomes a 48.8% chance. If we're dual-wielding with a Nick weapon, it can become a 62% chance to get it (though we'd prefer to get this on our main-hand attack, as we probably don't have the Two Weapon Fighting Style.)
So this actually has a decent chance to happen, though I suspect you'll be very sad if you go through a few combats without seeing it trigger. I think I'd have to see it in play to get a feel for how fun it is for this to go off versus how frustrating it is when you never see it happen.
Overall Thoughts:
My gut tells me that this is a bit like the Grave Cleric revamp, though less of a nerf when you break it all down. The big elephant in the room here is that the World Tree Barbarian is probably the best "tank" Barbarian - while that doesn't have any taunt-like feature, it is probably overall better at protecting allies. And this version, losing the blanket resistance it imparts to anyone the target hits, truly loses its most potent tanking feature. (As a DM, I'll often think "why even bother going after someone else if I'm getting disadvantage and doing no more damage on a hit than I would to the Barbarian?" which is precisely how a tanking feature should work.)
So yeah, I don't think this is necessarily bad, but by pushing the subclass away from tanking and a bit more toward damage-dealing, it loses some of its identity. Now, the math on said damage-dealing is a bit of a question mark. I suspect that it's not going to keep up with Berserkers or Zealots, though, meaning that you're sort of straddling the "pump damage out" and "protect allies" roles, while D&D generally rewards specialization.
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