Drooooood tanks!!! + 3.1

Started by Tolwen, May 21, 2009, 12:44:17 PM

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Tolwen

Sooo 3.1 came out and a lot changed for us bear tanks! We lost having the most hp pool by a lot(although we can still have the most by gemming all stam). Our armor got nerfed but we gained savage defense!!!
I've been wanting to write up something for a while but school wasn't allowing so now that I'm free, here it is (I tried to summary all the stuff that are out there and just rewrite them so yea, would it not count as plagiarism if i site sources? :laugh: )
Please leave comments and if you think anything is wrong or needs to be added, let me know :)

Gems

So with the recent changes, gemming stam all the way is not our best choice anymore (although it can be good for a few encounters). Imo the best thing is to have a balance between stam and agi, the agi-stam gems help a lot. Also gemming all agi is a good option too but be careful that you don't wanna go over 50%.

Bear Rotations

Our highest threat skill is maul and the best thing to do is to spam it all the time with every other move u hit (I'll post some macros that add maul to your other attacks but I haven't tested them yet so not sure how it works) but keep in mind that if it's one of those fights that rage is a problem, maul isn't your best choice.
With the new changes faerie fire is now our second highest threat move. So it's recommended to refresh it at each cd (even if the debuff is already on the mob).
Mangle the third ability on the AGGRO list is one of our most important attacks. It increases bleed damage and maul damage which means it should be used at each cd. Also mangle+bersek= good aggro jump
Lacerate, you would want to keep it at 5 stack and let it dot(don't spam it since the ticking is where the aggro/ dmg comes from) and refresh it before it runs out.
Demo roar should always be kept up as well since it helps the healers a lot.
Oh i forgot about swipe, very nice for aoe tanking (gotta love swiping 360) and good against a single target when all your other abilities are on cd (uh i don't know exactly how to use the word cd, well I mean when you can't use all your other abilities)
Glyphs

[item]Glyph of Maul[/item]
[item]Glyph of Mangle[/item]
[item]Glyph of Survival Instincts[/item]
[item]Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration[/item]
[item]Glyph of Growl[/item]

Well glyph of maul is a must!
I realized that a lot of my taunts failed so i picked up glyph of growl (totally worth it since fail taunt = raid wipe)
After thinking on it for a while and reading a bunch of forums I went with glyph of FR instead of SI. Since SI already boosts your hp by a lot without the glyph and it's mostly used when you either know a huge dmg is coming or your hp drops a lot and you use it as an oh shit button (the healers will heal you up anyway) but the fr one increases the incoming heals and the heals you get from fr by 20%. Although this can change with the 4pt t8 bonus.

Bear Macros
These are the macros I was talking about.

Mangle :
#showtooltip
/cast Mangle(Bear)
/cast !Maul

Swipe :
#showtooltip
/cast Swipe()
/cast !Maul

Lacerate :
#showtooltip
/cast Lacerate()
/cast !Maul

Gear

I'm not gonna go to gear atm (will try to update this part later) but it's worth mentioning that [item]Twisted Visage[/item] is your best option as a feral druid (not counting the one that drops from yorg)

A lot of this info came from http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=53008.0   and some from EJ forums.

Oilslick

I kinda disagree about glyph of maul personally...the threat is currently divided evenly between the two targets - I've taken to sticking to old school tab targeting, put up a faerie, single lacerate, and if more is needed i'll give a maul, then occasionally maul on the second target as/if needed.  On principle though, I don't like the idea of using a glyph that will reduce the aggro i generate on my focused target in a multi mob situation.  I think in reality it may only make a substantial difference for those times you pug with people that don't target assist. I use mangle, frenzied, and growl for my glyphs.

Raif

I dont have much experience PRE glyph of maul.
But watching Omen i never have a problem building aggo on my primary target what with FFf and mangles i find the glyphs puts threat on the second mob allowing for the pug groups who dont assist

Tolwen

sorry for responding late....
Tbh I haven't had an aggro holding problem on my main target recently (with the maul glyph). Either in a raid or a pug there when tanking trash there will always be aoe dmg and people won't all attack the main target, the glyph of maul lets me be sure that I have aggro on at least one other target than my main one and i can always use fff, taunt, and other abilities to grab the aggro on the targets of mine that I may loose aggro with only using swipe. On boss fights where single target aggro can be a problem, there aren't usually adds near the boss and if they are, they get tanked some where else so our maul won't be hitting 2 targets and thus the threat will not be divided.

Oilslick

Just differing opinions i guess...i don't see the point of having the glyph of maul at all if you're in a single target tank mode...and if something can be useful to the raid/group when holding aggro on multiples is easy enough for me via the old /maulmaintarget/tabtarget/fff/tabtarget/lacerate/tabtomaintarget/eatitforlunch deal...well, draw your own conclusions.  However, mangle still ought to be up more often than it's cd without the glyph...so even my argument needs some revisiting.  Honestly - I kinda wish we had a more difficult time choosing our major glyphs as a bear due to the number of really good ones...like most other classes.

Also, as my second spec is resto and not kitty - having the glyph of mangle is a bit advantageous to my often asked for kitty form when not a bear.