Bear Tank discussion

[Arcdelad]

So...those few....those proud...those struggling to find the new groove!

I turned the corner last night I think in BT - I "think" I saw the lightbulb click...but then again it could have just been the the fact that I have a new CFL in my desk lamp... /shrug

MAUL

Maul is now OFF the general cooldown, and gets applied to your next attack. Moreover, MOST damage building abilities in the feral tree add maul damage.

Compounding that, the talent "rend and tear" adds ADDITIONAL damage to both MAUL and SHRED when you have a bleed up.

Last night I experimented...doing an "old school" attack rotation (hitting mangle every CD, swiping in between, lacerating, and using maul as a tertiary attack), I was way behind the khader and geos in terms of threat. So...I experimented - and Maul, if done AFTER a lacerate (to get your bleed on) does AS MUCH OR MORE DAMAGE as mangle and AS MUCH THREAT. Not only that, you can almost SPAM it and keep it "constantly" up.

Once I changed some buttons around, my rotation went like this: start with mangle to build initial threat, apply ONE lacerate (which gets amped by the mangle), then keep MAUL up at all times and using swipe until your mangle CD is ready. This puts up a TON of mauls and mangles (use mangle every opportunity), and swipe fills the gap. Lacerate needs to be watched - if you dont have a bleed up then maul loses a ton of OOMPH.

Using this rotation I was way ahead of khader and geos, so it made a CONSIDERABLE difference. Moral: MAUL cant be overlooked if you put points in "rend and tear"

Growl

20 yard range = awesomeness

Infected Wounds

I don't have this talent, and there is a lot of controversy about whether or not its worth it for tanking...in theory it slows down the attack speed of a raid boss by 20%, but noone that I can see has any supporting data...also, its not known if this gets overwritten by other debuffs like warrior ones, or a hunter sting...

tol...any idea if its working?

Berserk

The important of this for bear tanking cant be overlooked IMO - load up on rage, hit berserker (itll soon take mangle OFF CD completely letting you get a crapton of mangles), and watch your threat go nuts...

Expertise

The verdict is still out on this as well, but I suspect itll get clearer the closes we get to 80...

[Tolwen]

Another great post Arc, thanks:)
To be honest I was so busy watching what I do and the buffs/ debuffs I was getting(since no bigwigs for me, mac:( )I didn't really look at the bosses debuffs so I'm not sure about inflect wounds either, will check it out for sure tonight.
Actually I was thinking of getting rend and tear as well since I don't find imp stun of good use in 25 raids such as BT and ..., at least 90% of the times I used that ability the mob was "immune"...
And for expertise I got the +10 talent but I don't know if it's for this that I'm hitting the bosses while in bear gear more often or it's because the patch?(May have to take out those 2 talent points)

Growl

20 yard range = awesomeness

Couldn't agree more!

[Gutboy]

no bigwigs for me, mac:(

hey Tol, if this means that you don't think Mac WoW players can run BigWigs, that's wrong. Addons don't care which platform you're on; they work entirely within the game. Let me know if I can help you get hooked up.

GB

[Tolwen]

no bigwigs for me, mac:(

hey Tol, if this means that you don't think Mac WoW players can run BigWigs, that's wrong. Addons don't care which platform you're on; they work entirely within the game. Let me know if I can help you get hooked up.

GB

http://forum.twilightonalex.com/index.php?topic=6040.0
Thank for the offer though GB:)

[Oilslick]

arc,

my rotation remains almost the same as i used before, and i haven't had any problems hanging right along other tanks in a few tries at the hhm over this awful connection i have offshore.

mangle - lacerate - lacerate - mangle+maul - lacerate - lacerate - mangle+maul etc.

After that first mangle, i basically hit my mangle and maul buttons at the same time every two lacerates instead of every three.  I used to have to pay attention to my rage and wait until it was maxed till  i could toss in mauls on top of my mangles...not any more.

against a prot warrior we remain pretty much neck and neck till i enrage and overtake him by a longshot

I used to have serious problems holding aggro against some of our dps that are uber geared compared to my poorly geared druid...not any more, it's cake.  I can't wait to get home on a good connection and see how it goes.  Hardest thing i face on this connection is picking up the target in the first place, but once i got him nobody can get him off me.

[Arcdelad]

could be a couple of things...Ill look at your spec and see how that is, but also remember that I am comparing my threat gen to super geared, highly skilled tanks like khader and geos...i never really had threat issues with the dps (i think tanks are threat op'ed now accross the board), my concerns were with how i compared to the other tank classes...

i think there are multiple bear tank threat options out there now which is a good thing...for me, its nice to see maul almost take over mangle as the #1 threat gen with the rend and tear spec - I was getting 3-4k maul crits last night and my mangle (that i have noticed) hasnt breached 3k to date...

[Oilslick]

definitely i can't compare myself against tier geared tanks yet, but against similarly geared tanks i don't seem to have any problem really...unless it's a ret pally pretending to tank w/ righteous up - no chance then.