[Bulldozzer]

Feral Talent Tree
Tier 1: Ferocity – Reduces the cost of your primary bear and cat attacks. A must have 5/5.
Feral Aggression - Increasing the damage of Ferocious Bite might be a good thing, and sure the increased AP reduction could come in handy, but you’re looking to become a tank. Skip this one. For raiding, you won't be biting or shouting unless you don't have a warr in the raid with you... and what are the odds of that?
Tier 2: Feral Instinct – Increased threat 5/10/15. A mandatory 3/3 point expenditure.
Brutal Impact – Stun duration is great for PvP, or for solo caster mobs, but worthless on bosses.
Thick Hide – Increases armor by 3/6/10 percent. 3/3 mandatory. Skip this and you should just reroll now.
Tier 3: Feral Swiftness – The first talent where you might want to slight points-wise. The run speed is irrelevant, but 4% dodge for two points is a winner. 2/2.
Feral Charge – 5 rage stun attack. A good caster interrupt and can save the life of a clothie when you charge, stun and taunt. 1/1
Sharpened Claws – Six percent crit for 3 points. Crit equals more rage and more threat. You’ll want 3/3 in this talent, especially as it is the prerequisite for Primal Fury.
Tier 4: Shredding Attacks – Reduces the cost of your Lacerate ability by 2 rage. It may not seem like a lot of rage, but when you spam this on bosses, as it is one of your highest threat moves. Really the first optional points that you may or may not consider taking based upon preference in style of tanking. I take it personally. 2/2.
Predatory Strikes - Increases AP by 105 at level 70.By itself, it’s an average talent, but it’s a prerequisite for Heart of the Wild, so worth getting. 5/5
Primal Fury – Five free rage when you crit. A no-brainer.
Tier 5: Savage Fury – Increases cat damage. Not necessary for tanking, but not a bad talent if not tanking.
Faerie Fire (Feral) – Your lone pulling talent, unless you envision moonfiring then flipping to bear. It also adds an amount of hate. You can also use this ability when you are rage starved to add a little more threat between auto attacks. Plus it’s just 1 point.
Nurturing Instinct – Increases the healing you do by a percent of your Strength. You’re tanking.
Tier 6: Heart of the Wild – Increases stam by 4% per point. It gets better the more Stam you have and is a must have 5/5.
Survival of the Fittest – Increases all stats by 1% per point, and more importantly decreases your chance to be crit by 1% per point. A must have 3/3. With this talent you only need 415 Defense instead of 490.
Tier 7: Primal Tenacity – 5 percent chance to resist stun and fear per point means 3 points well spent. Formerly not an optional talent, however with the advent of fear ward for horde, both sides can consider whether they want to spend these 3 points depending on the risk of fear/stun in whatever present encounters are through raid progression.
Leader of the Pack – This is the sexy talent bears strive for. It also buffs your party. 5% crit for everyone. More importantly, it allows the next talent…
Improved Leader of the Pack – Again a share the wealth talent. Spend two points get 100% chance to heal 4% of your life when you crit. You’re not a bear tank without it, and healing increases threat too!
Tier 8: Predatory Instincts – Increases crit strike damage by 10 percent, and mitigation to AoE effects. Bonus. 5/5
Tier 9: Mangle – This is an attack you hit every 6 seconds. It is the hardest hitting attack you do, and adds bleed damage which rogues and kitty druids will love you for. It is the 41 point talent after all.

Restoration Tree
Tier 1: Improved Mark of the Wild – Increases your Mark/Gift effects. Derided by many as a worthless talent. Small benefit for 5 points.
Furor – Gives you a 100% chance with 5/5 points to gain 10 rage when you shift into bear form. Can shift before each pull. Most take this over Imp Mark. If you are into powershifting for pots, the initial 10 rage boost can be beneficial, as it can be to begin fights. 5/5
Tier 2: Naturalist – 5 points for 10% more damage! Hooray damage. 5/5
Nature’s Focus – Healing Talent, bah.
Natural Shapeshifter – You’re tanking, if you shift forms, you can die.
Tier 3: Intensity – Enrage gives you 10 rage instantly. You enrage before all serious fights. Grab it. 3/3.
Subtlety – Caster talent. Skipped.
Omen of Clarity – For 1 point you get an occasional free attack. Gotta get it.
Nothing beyond this point is of note for tanks.

Balance Tree
Say what? There is nothing behind the curtain.


Lots of good discussion going on here, and have updated things based upon discussion for tanking talent builds.

Current Tank Build Example

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That being said, as a druid tank, I'm more in the effective health mindset of tanking as a bear. With around 23K health and 28K armor, the effective health multiplier is awesome. I have the commensurate 30 percent dodge base before raid buffs, but with resilience coming in at high levels on arena pieces which are above the level of raw tanking gear I can get in low 25-man content, the need for defense rating has reduced and stamina has resultantly increased.

[Cowofdoom]

Filled the talent calculator with the talents described above and made a link: Tanking Druid Talent Tree

[hornbear]

My buddy and mt cowofdoom linked me this post. I disagree some what a druid whose main role is off tank should have points 5 points in demo roar and 5 points in furor. Intensity is not needed and in a 25 man raid you should have a tree druid in there any way for improved mark of the wild.

One thing about druids is we get hit more for less damage then a warrior so a druid who has no rage is a bad druid. So there is no need for intenisty.

I am normally a tree druid but I a little bit of tanking experience in 25 mans.

here is link to build I use when I do tank. WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Druid -> Talent Calculator

[Norrath]

Furor is an absolute must-have. Aside from its uses when DPSing (powershifting for energy), Furor grants rage immediately after using a health pot macro.

Aside from that, Improved Mark of the Wild is the single-worst druid talent there is. I do not take it unless I spec Restoration. Improved Mark of the Wild gives 4 stats over the unimproved version. It is not worth 5 talent points. The only reason I choose it over Furor when I spec Restoration is because I do not use Bear/Cat at all under those circumstances.

[Qaletaqa]

Source: Norrath Furor is an absolute must-have. Aside from its uses when DPSing (powershifting for energy), Furor grants rage immediately after using a health pot macro. Aside from that, Improved Mark of the Wild is the single-worst druid talent there is. I do not take it unless I spec Restoration. Improved Mark of the Wild gives 4 stats over the unimproved version. It is not worth 5 talent points. The only reason I choose it over Furor when I spec Restoration is because I do not use Bear/Cat at all under those circumstances.

Powershifting for energy is a crapshoot at best, because you're spending roughly a second or so depending on latency to shift, followed by a 1 second delay on receiving the Rage/Energy from Furor (this is not a bug or latency, the delay is purposely set by Blizzard for the express purpose of defeating powershifting). By the time you get the 40 energy, you'd have already gotten 20 energy from a 2 second tick cycle, while losing out on 2-3 autoattacks of your 1.0 attack speed which are 2-3 potential Clearcasting procs. If you're having any kind of latency issues, it's even less beneficial.

Also, the only thing you can do with 40 energy on shapeshift for DPS is Mangle, which means the only time you could use this is to refresh Mangle. Instead of Powershifting, you're better off getting your 4-5 CP from Mangle x1, Shred to 4-5 CP (varies depending upon crit, could be Mangle + Shred, Mangle + Shredx2, Mangle + Shredx3), waiting for 70 Energy, then Rip + Mangle and the debuff will be applied before the first tick of Rip actually happens, and you're guaranteed the full uptime of the debuff for the duration of Rip. Also if you powershift with anything greater than 1 Energy remaining at shapeshift, you've really walking the line on usefulness as 2 Energy ticks gives you a Shred instead.

[Norrath]

Source: Qaletaqa Powershifting for energy is a crapshoot at best, because you're spending roughly a second or so depending on latency to shift, followed by a 1 second delay on receiving the Rage/Energy from Furor (this is not a bug or latency, the delay is purposely set by Blizzard for the express purpose of defeating powershifting). By the time you get the 40 energy, you'd have already gotten 20 energy from a 2 second tick cycle, while losing out on 2-3 autoattacks of your 1.0 attack speed which are 2-3 potential Clearcasting procs. If you're having any kind of latency issues, it's even less beneficial.

I couldn't disagree more.

With the recent changes to /cancelform, shifting out and back in is completely instant. Yes, you activate the GCD, but you can time it so you lose as little energy and swing timer as possible.

You gain around 30-35 energy by doing it right, which directly translates into more DPS.

Feral Druid Megathread - Elitist Jerks

[Bulldozzer]

I was talking about speccing purely for Tanking roles.

Furor is nearly worthless for bear druids, which is what I had initially intended this discussion to be about.

Speccing for kitty dps would shift a few points.

Had it as a tanking recommendation at the end of the message, guess I need to change the title, which I don't seem to be able to do.

Anyways, the nature of tanking heroics/10-man versus 25-man can also create some variance in what spec you need. If you're going into 25-mans with warriors, odds are their demo shout will be up, negating the need for feral aggression. While I can totally see the benefit for cat form, until I stop running less than 25-man content, I'll keep my small boost to mark/Gift for my party and I, since it's at least a constant benefit to me over the 20% chance for 10 rage when I shift forms. Most the time I just stay in bear anyways. I won't say the other way is wrong, just not as good for tanking in my opinion/for my playstyle.

Besides, the only reason points are up there in any of the other resto talents are to get to Omen/Intensity for me.

[Norrath]

Even totally disregarding the cat aspect of Furor, it is still a hundred times more valuable than Improved Mark of the Wild. It doesn't improve MotW near enough for the buff to actually be good. As it stands, MotW is a crap buff. The biggest boost it provides is the armor bonus, and it's only good for tanks. 25 resistance that doesn't stack with auras/resistance buffs is useless. Whenever resistance is a problem, you stack resistance, which includes those overriding buffs. 18 stats are nice, but untalented, it's 14.

Even disregarding all of this, any Restoration/Balance druids in your raids will have full points in it unless they are PvP specced.

It's a 100% chance for rage when you have full points in it.

After the latest patch, combat consumables such as health potions, armorshield potions or nightmare seeds became realistically available to a druid tank, and Furor helps lessen the rage cost of doing this.

It also gives you more rage when you start a fight which is always useful.

One of the greatest aspects of Feral druids is that they can spec both for DPS and tank at the same time. The cookie-cutter 47/14 build has everything you want as a Feral druid for DPS, and the only thing you miss as a tank is Feral Aggression.

There's a 47/14 build that has Feral Aggression, but it gives up Savage Fury (not that you'll really miss it) and Primal Tenacity. PT doesn't stack with Predatory Instincts when it comes to AoE fears, making it far less useful than people think. Whether or not you want Feral Aggression depends on your raid group. If it has a DPS warrior debuffing with Imp Demoralizing Shout, Feral Aggression is worthless.

[Qaletaqa]

Source: Norrath I couldn't disagree more. With the recent changes to /cancelform, shifting out and back in is completely instant. Yes, you activate the GCD, but you can time it so you lose as little energy and swing timer as possible. You gain around 30-35 energy by doing it right, which directly translates into more DPS. Feral Druid Megathread - Elitist Jerks

Powershifting
Many people ask what powershifting is. The basics: Furor gives the player 40 energy when they switch out of form and back in. This means you can shift out and in for a net gain of 40 energy, every time. This is essentially a conversion of Mana to Energy, as it will always cost you mana to shift. By timing the shift you can make it so you lose as little energy as possible (from the residual energy in your bar when you shift and the energy you lose while out of form), and this is essentially the skill of Powershifting. By doing it correctly you should be able to gain about 30-35 energy, and even doing it badly the gains should be in the region of 20 energy or so, although it is possible to gain no energy or even lose energy if you do it badly. By doing this you can gain a decent amount of DPS, an general analysis of the DPS gain you can expect follows:

Over the course of two minutes or so, you should easily get around 125 energy (5 shifts worth, minus a few per shift for "imperfect" shifts) if you pay attention. 125/42 = ~3 extra shreds (126). 3 shreds at around 1500 damage each = 4500 extra damage without crits, or ~10000 damage with (40-80 DPS or so), plus 3-6 combo points (probably another 20-30 dps on it's own). Total DPS gain of around 70-80 or so, which is pretty nice.

This is flawed logic, because shifting forms takes you -back- to 0 energy. If you shapeshift out and back, you're at 40 energy, and you're waiting 2 seconds anyways before you can Shred. You cannot just add up the extra energy gains and divide by 42 to see how many extra times you can Shred, because you're not getting 40 extra energy to just play with, you're resetting your energy, you're resetting your energy tick cycle because of the shapeshift, and you're losing whatever energy you had when you left Cat form. And there is still a delay on receiving the Energy of Furor that is not associated with Latency at all, I've sat in Silithus at 4am with 45ms to test this, and there is still a noticeable 1 second delay on receiving the Energy from Furor.

[Qaletaqa]

Source: Bulldozzer I was talking about speccing purely for Tanking roles. Furor is nearly worthless for bear druids, which is what I had initially intended this discussion to be about. Speccing for kitty dps would shift a few points. Had it as a tanking recommendation at the end of the message, guess I need to change the title, which I don't seem to be able to do. Anyways, the nature of tanking heroics/10-man versus 25-man can also create some variance in what spec you need. If you're going into 25-mans with warriors, odds are their demo shout will be up, negating the need for feral aggression. While I can totally see the benefit for cat form, until I stop running less than 25-man content, I'll keep my small boost to mark/Gift for my party and I, since it's at least a constant benefit to me over the 20% chance for 10 rage when I shift forms. Most the time I just stay in bear anyways. I won't say the other way is wrong, just not as good for tanking in my opinion/for my playstyle. Besides, the only reason points are up there in any of the other resto talents are to get to Omen/Intensity for me.

1) Demo shout/roar should be an assigned role, neither Warrior or Druid imp demo is worth taking and therefore both do the same attack power reduction. It could be you, it could be the other warrior not tanking right next to you.

2) A free 10 Rage just for taking a potion is nothing to sneeze at, especially when it can be done fast enough that you're in no danger of dying. It also works for Healthstones too.

3) Ferocious Bite is perhaps the most horrid DPE (Damage Per Energy) move that Druids have, it's a close race with Rake. Any time you use Ferocious Bite with more than 55 Energy you're making a horrible waste, and 36-54 Energy isn't much better.

4) It's 20% chance PER talent point, meaning it's 100% guaranteed at 5/5. And small is not the word for how much Improved Mark of the Wild benefits, you're spending 5 talent points to gain 119 Armor, +5.9 stats, and +8 all resists compared to untalented MotW/GotW.

[Norrath]

Source: Qaletaqa This is flawed logic, because shifting forms takes you -back- to 0 energy. If you shapeshift out and back, you're at 40 energy, and you're waiting 2 seconds anyways before you can Shred.

Seeing as energy ticks 20, it's still faster. What's your point?

Assuming that I have zero energy, I can a) not shift and wait 3 ticks (0 -> 20 -> 40 -> 60) before I can shred, or b) shift instantly, wait 1 tick (40 -> 60), and shred.

Source: Qaletaqa You cannot just add up the extra energy gains and divide by 42 to see how many extra times you can Shred, because you're not getting 40 extra energy to just play with, you're resetting your energy, you're resetting your energy tick cycle because of the shapeshift, and you're losing whatever energy you had when you left Cat form. And there is still a delay on receiving the Energy of Furor that is not associated with Latency at all, I've sat in Silithus at 4am with 45ms to test this, and there is still a noticeable 1 second delay on receiving the Energy from Furor.

All of that is accounted for.

I am well aware of the delay from Furor. It doesn't change anything. The energy timer isn't affected by it, and as you've pointed out, you have to wait till the next tick to Shred.

As for Feral Aggression, I'll just point out that Demoralizing Shout is better than Demoralizing Roar. They do not do the same AP reduction; untalented Demo Shout reduces by 300, untalented Demo Roar reduces by 240. You need at least 4/5 Feral Aggression to pass untalented Demo Shout. Also, contrary to Demo Shout, all 5 points of Feral Aggression has benefit on a raid boss. Demo Shout stops being beneficial after 3, and the third point is extremely weak. Even with that, 2/5 Demoralizing Shout is better than 5/5 Feral Aggression.

[Qaletaqa]

Yes, assuming you have zero energy. Which I believe, I said if you have anything greater than 1 energy, it's a waste of time and mana.

[Norrath]

It's not that hard to reach zero energy.

[Bulldozzer]

Yea, I find myself at that 0 energy mark in cat dps. Well with all the discussion, I'll go back up top to the original post and revise it this weekend to incorporate all the discussion, and thanks for the input. We can go from there.

[Melange]

Required talents for a feral Druid are:

Feral Tree:
Ferocity
Feral Instinct, Thick Hide
Feral Swiftness, Feral Charge, Sharpened Claws
Shredding attacks, Predatory Strikes, Primal Fury
Faerie Fire (Feral)
Heart of the Wild, Survival of the Fittest
Leader of the Pack
Mangle

Restoration Tree:
Furor
Naturalist
Omen of Clarity

The other talents can be taken as you see fit.
Most will take Savage fury, because without it you will not be very good at soloing. Most will take Predatory Instincts, for the increase in cat DPS. Predatory Instincts is one talent that does not need to be taken fully, if you would rather spend some points elsewhere. Improved Leader of the Pack is also very common, but not required.

For tanking, Intensity and Primal Tenacity are commonly picked up with the last 6 points. These last six points, and especially Primal Tenacity, are not adding very much, and can be traded for increased PVP viability or increased Cat DPS with Natural Shapeshifter.

Feral Aggression should never be taken, if taken for the Demo Roar buff, since your Demo Roar will still be overwritten by a two-point warrior Demo Shout, which is a very common build. Improved Mark of the Wild should also never be taken, because your guild should have a Druid healer, or even a Moonkin, and both those specs will take it. I do recommend bringing reagents to pass around on wipe nights.

For PVP, you are pretty much required to take Nature's Grasp. Some Druids will take Nurturing Instinct, if you have a healing role in PVP. Natural Shapeshifter and Brutal Impact are very important in PVP as well.

[Meeks]

Furor has its uses even for tanking. Druid can start a dight with a lot of rage by shifting abck and forth then hitting enrage. Obviously this has a much larger benefit in 5 man but the value of starting a fight with more rage even if it is just for the first hit is tangible. Someone else will presumably have imp mark anyway.

As to the person that mentioned getting improved demoralizing roar...many raids will have a warrior with 5/5 imp demo shout which is more reduction. That and ferocity is a great talent.

[Norrath]

5/5 Imp Demo Shout is a horrible waste unless you have warlocks putting up CoR -- and even then, it's questionable, as it doesn't reduce as much as 2/5 does without CoR

I fully agree that as soon as you have a warrior with 2/5 Imp Demo Shout, FA is a horrible waste... But if you do not have one, it isn't.

What many people also do not realize is that Primal Tenacity and Primal Instincts do not stack (or rather, they don't realize that Primal Instincts works on AoE fears). Primal Tenacity is a very questionable choice (not that there is much better to put points in). If you do not have a warrior putting up 2/5 Demo Shout, dropping Primal Tenacity and Savage Fury for Feral Aggression is the superior choice.

[Meeks]

Source: Norrath 5/5 Imp Demo Shout is a horrible waste unless you have warlocks putting up CoR -- and even then, it's questionable, as it doesn't reduce as much as 2/5 does without CoR I fully agree that as soon as you have a warrior with 2/5 Imp Demo Shout, FA is a horrible waste... But if you do not have one, it isn't. What many people also do not realize is that Primal Tenacity and Primal Instincts do not stack (or rather, they don't realize that Primal Instincts works on AoE fears). Primal Tenacity is a very questionable choice (not that there is much better to put points in). If you do not have a warrior putting up 2/5 Demo Shout, dropping Primal Tenacity and Savage Fury for Feral Aggression is the superior choice.

Why wouldn't you have warlocks putting up curse of reck? It is a huge increase to dps.

[Norrath]

No, it's not. It's a considerable increase to physical DPS, that is, hunters, rogues, warriors, Feral druids, and Ret paladins. Magic DPS -- mages, Balance druids, warlocks, shadow priests, arguably the largest group of DPSers -- do not benefit from it at all.

Even though it IS a considerable DPS increase, you do not always want to apply it, as it directly increases the boss' attack power -- and even fully improved Demoralizing Shout does not remove all of this extra AP. On bosses that hit hard, using CoR is suicidal.

Also, it removes a warlock's Curse slot. Curse of Agony provides decent DPS on its own; your physical DPS needs to increase enough to cover this and justify the increase in damage the MT will take.

[Meeks]

Source: Norrath No, it's not. It's a considerable increase to physical DPS, that is, hunters, rogues, warriors, Feral druids, and Ret paladins. Magic DPS -- mages, Balance druids, warlocks, shadow priests, arguably the largest group of DPSers -- do not benefit from it at all. Even though it IS a considerable DPS increase, you do not always want to apply it, as it directly increases the boss' attack power -- and even fully improved Demoralizing Shout does not remove all of this extra AP. On bosses that hit hard, using CoR is suicidal. Also, it removes a warlock's Curse slot. Curse of Agony provides decent DPS on its own; your physical DPS needs to increase enough to cover this and justify the increase in damage the MT will take.

5/5 demo and curse of reck increases boss AP by 15 over 0/0 imp demo. Hardly suicidal. Have used it on archimonde without a problem and can keep a mage up on bloodboil with curse of reck up. There is not a noticeable difference in hits with curse of reck. There is a noticeable difference in physical dps though.

This is hardly the place for this conversation though.