[Aisak]

I'm building up my tanking set for 10 mans and I'm sitting around 31k hp self-buffed, 27k+ armor. I am working to get these drops : Keystone Great-Ring, Darkmoon Card: Greatness Agility, Essence of Gossamer, Idol of Terror. I still need to enchant my staff and my chest as well.

Beyond those facts are there any changes I should make? Are there any better gem/enchants over what I already chose? Also is there anything I should tweak in my build? I hold agro fine in Heroics but I want to make sure my TPS is where it needs to be when I run raids. Any comments or suggestions are appreciated.

My Druid Aisak

Thanks.

[Lga45]

If you're gemming for avoidance, never use dodge rating. Swap those with pure agility, or the agi/stam. I would also not bother with omen of clarity on a tank build. Take primal gore (this is a must!). You can also safely skip improved mangle - its not really worth it imo. I went for a master shapeshifter build myself for general tanking - I prefer the threat. Actually, I run with 2 bear specs at the moment - one for hardmodes (=survivability), the other for cheese modes.

Glyph of growling is pretty situational - cant remember the last time I had a taunt miss in a critical situation. I use SI glyph instead.

[Kaidman]

Source: Lga45 Glyph of growling is pretty situational - cant remember the last time I had a taunt miss in a critical situation. I use SI glyph instead.

Many lulz happen when Growl is resisted on the very last tank of IC hard mode. I switch out Maul for Growl on IC each week now.

[Fenier]

Expertise is a slight bit low, just need it a tad higher to avoid attacks being dodged. This may become an issue after you replace your locket, but not likely till then.

I would do Agi to gloves instead of stamina, and your a smith but the gloves have no gem socket. I'd replace the dodge gems with agi / stam and possibly even some of the straight stamina gems with agi / stam.

As for spec King of the Jungle is pretty weak for a Bear tank. You could drop KotJ and Improved Mangle and pick up Feral Aggression 5 / 5 and Primal Gore offering you more mitigation, which allows you to keep Omen of Clarity. Gore will help generate Savage Defense Procs.

Glyphs look fine, may want to consider trading Skinning for Mining.

Also may want to look into the belt from H UK as it will give you an extra socket to work with.

You are at about 36% dodge now or so with selfbuffs, chainging the gems, enchanting the chest / staff, getting the new trinkets and such could easily see you spending most of your time with 40-45% dodge selbuffed between weapon / trinket procs.

Make sure to enchant the staff with Mongoose.

[Draygoon]

OK, so I can see the point in not having KotJ. I'll have to tweak my spec again, but why not have a lot of stamina? I have 31,757 Stam and 27,223 armor unbuffed. 31.45% Crit and 35.76% dodge, also unbuffed. The only problem I run into, is when someone in the raid group starts doing about 3500+ DPS, I'll start to lose aggro. I understand this is because I need to bring my DPS up, but at the same time, I've been told I need a lot of HP. Do I sacrifice health for agi, to bring my AP and crit up? If so, how much do I sacrifice?

I am

<a href="http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bladefist&n=Draygoon" target="_blank">Draygoon</a>

on the Bladefist server.

sorry the stupid coding isn't wanting to work right for some reason.

[Insahnity]

For talents, decide if you want to be pure tank or hybrid. Your spec is close to a hybrid, I use a similar one (Take out imp mangle and put into primal gore and shredding attacks and you have my build). I am contemplating swapping out shredding attacks for 5/5 furor as 3/5 furor is irritating me to no end (damn RNG).

Primal gore is a must for any build. You should be keeping up lacerate on as many targets as possible for Rend and Tear, and the crits do significant threat. Your ideas of KotJ and omen of clarity, DPS based talents, are valid and should be kept if you wish to be hybrid. Master Shapeshifter is used only in kitty specs, its too much of talent sink to be worth it as a bear.

My idea of a pure bear spec to looks something like this, room for changes:
The World of Warcraft Armory

For gemming, everybody is correct. Swap out dodge for agi or agi/stam. Druids get insane agi->dodge conversions, AND agi->crit->Savage Defense->More survivability.

For glyphs, there are better than imp growl, what that is personal preference. however, for your minor drop aqua form minor for unburdened rebirth, you dont swim in raids but you will be asked to combat rez.

For enchants, im assuming you are working towards +8/+10 stats to chest, and for staff, mongoose or 110AP. For your replacement gloves, look for 20 agi or 20 hit, depending on your gear set. Getting 2% threat is an option but less valuable to bears than the other two I mentioned. Once you have oodles of hit from ulduar gear (or Grim Toll), you will be left with +20 agi only.

For gear, unfortunately you have spent alot of time in pvp. It's good for fun but abysmal for raiding. Lay off the pvp and grind more heroics, it will take you a long time to get the gear you have targetted due to RNG. If nothing else it will lead to more badges, which is good. For Idol of terror you will have to find yourself a Kara run to get the required badges. If you go TBC, shoot for Commendation of Kael'thas trinket from Heroic Magister's Terrace, if you find somebody trying for a white chicken mount.

Fenier, he already has skinning, and of course he has no gem slots in hands/bracers, he's not a smith!

Draygoon, I would look at spec first. You are missing primal fury, which you desperately need for rage->threat. You can go from empty rage bar to full on a good swipe. Also, your Frenzied Regeneration will get a turbo boost from swipe spams, keeping your rage up. Look at getting 2 points from infected wounds or imp mangle. Once you have more rage to work with, look at your rotation, max dps is a maul/swipe spam, broken only by keeping up mangle, lacerate and demo roar (for survival).

[Fenier]

Source: Insahnity Fenier, he already has skinning, and of course he has no gem slots in hands/bracers, he's not a smith! Look at getting 2 points from infected wounds or imp mangle. Once you have more rage to work with, look at your rotation, max dps is a maul/swipe spam, broken only by keeping up mangle, lacerate and demo roar (for survival).

True, and apparently this teaches me to post on 3 hours of sleep!

If you take any points from Improved Mangle, take all 3. 1 point won't do anything for you

[Fenier]

Source: Draygoon OK, so I can see the point in not having KotJ. I'll have to tweak my spec again, but why not have a lot of stamina? I have 31,757 Stam and 27,223 armor unbuffed. 31.45% Crit and 35.76% dodge, also unbuffed. The only problem I run into, is when someone in the raid group starts doing about 3500+ DPS, I'll start to lose aggro. I understand this is because I need to bring my DPS up, but at the same time, I've been told I need a lot of HP. Do I sacrifice health for agi, to bring my AP and crit up? If so, how much do I sacrifice? sorry the stupid coding isn't wanting to work right for some reason.

Two things I noticed right off:

1: You don't have Primal Fury. This is important as it greatly helps your rage generation. You can go from 15 Rage to Full Rage on a single Swipe if there are enough mobs, even when you are not tanking them. It's that good. Pulling the points from KotJ is an option.

2: Glyph of Entangling Roots has no impact on you for tanking. Go with Growl or Survival Instincts.

Getting into your gear:

Shoulders have a dodge gem, drop it for agi or ago stamina. You can replace the +18 Stamina enchant with a +30 Stamina one for 10k honor. I haven't yet done that on my gear because I keep losing the shoulders you have. ;(

Cloak: Consider changing the 225 armor to 22 Agility

Chest: Trade red gem for agi or agi stamina. If you insist on the socket bonus change the second gem to hit/exp/crit and Stamina.

Bracer: Change the 6 to stats to gem to solid stamina or agi / stamina.

Gloves: Enchant is ok, but I use 20 agi personally. Trade dodge gem for agi or agi / stamina.

Boots: Enchant is bad for tanking. Trade it out for Runspeed / Stamina or straight Stamina.

Assuming you made those changes, you'd gain about 680 HP just from regemming and changing some enchants. You'd also pick up something like 48 Agility.

The agility differences will bleed over to help with your critcal chance some. If you are losing aggro to 3500 DPS, it could be due to not enough Rage for you to spam maul (I don't know in which situtations you are having issues) The Primal Fury change will help that.

If you are only losing aggro in raids it's likely a rotation issue since for the most part your gear seems ok.

[Aisak]

Source: Insahnity For gear, unfortunately you have spent alot of time in pvp. It's good for fun but abysmal for raiding.

Everything I've read elsewhere said for pre-raid gear the PvP gear is some of the best you can get. It's my understanding that you might lose some stats to the resilience, but the high agi/sta is generally considered to make up for it (pre-raid).

Thanks for the rest of the tips. I was using a hybrid tank/dps build because I had off-spec'd healing. I've since dropped that and spec'd pure kitty so I can refine my tank spec more. This is already a nice help.

[Viridios]

PvP gear is reasonable for a bear tank. It's not the greatest; you tend to lose a lot of hit and/or expertise.

The suggestions they made for glyphs/spec seem pretty reasonable. That said, I think [though I am not certain] that Growl acts as a spell for hit purposes; the glyph caps you when your normal attacks are capped.

See if you can get in a Karazhan run. It's generally the fastest way to get the heroic badges. There's still a lot of people that want the enchants, and the drop rate is massively increased.

The locket is quite good; I replaced it only after breaking 40 expertise [actual, not rating].

Hit rating is pretty important for threat. Honestly, assuming that you are wearing your tanking gear, that's your biggest issue right now. Get that hit up.

Skinning is comparatively useless as a raiding profession; yes, you can skin mobs. Yay. But remember, you slow the group down while doing so; they usually won't pull w/o all the tanks. The crit bonus, while seemingly nice, isn't worth it. Leatherworking [+110 Stam to bracers in 3.2], Jewelcrafting [Special gems], Blacksmithing [extra sockets] and Alchemy [dodge/stam trinket + double flasks + 40% improvement on pot] are all good replacements. Mining is great for tanks and meh for cats, but I would keep it.

Enchants: The boot enchant I personally favor Tuskarr's Vitality [+15 stam and run speed]; the loss of 7 stam isn't incredible, and sometimes that little bit of run speed can make the difference between surviving and not.

Make sure you get your rotation worked out. Improved Mangle, oddly enough, generally causes more problems than it solves; there's a lot more collisions between mangle and FFF. Drop that talent and use FFF/Mangle/Lacerate/Lacerate
repeat
FFF/Mangle/Lacerate/Swipe
FFF/Mangle/Swipe/Swipe
FFF/Mangle/Lacerate/Swipe
FFF/Mangle/Swipe/Swipe
and repeat the last two lines. Use a macro to put Maul in there automatically. Last week I was having issues tanking Malygos due to threat; this week I was easily outpacing the DPS, with no issues whatsoever.

Once you get your hit up to reasonable numbers [150-160] and your expertise to 30 or so, you should do fine in U10 and maybe U25 depending on guild/healers.

[Draygoon]

Ok.....I've looked all around, but have yet to figure out what FFF stands for. It's probably staring me right in the face, but I'm gonna ask what it stands for anyways.

[Viridios]

Feral Faerie Fire. I know, I had trouble figuring it out for a little while myself.

[Draygoon]

Ah....ok Makes sense lol Didn't even think about Faery Fire.

[adizs]

You can get both imp mangle and master shapeshifter if you drop IW and Feral Agression. You can find the spec I am using here (im wearing my dps gear though).

Imp mangle causes a lot of problems (like virdios mentioned) with getting a correct rotation since FFF and mangle is no longer on the same CD. I would however, never ever drop imp mangle though since it gives a good amount of threat.

[Viridios]

Source: adizs You can get both imp mangle and master shapeshifter if you drop IW and Feral Agression. You can find the spec I am using here (im wearing my dps gear though). Imp mangle causes a lot of problems (like virdios mentioned) with getting a correct rotation since FFF and mangle is no longer on the same CD. I would however, never ever drop imp mangle though since it gives a good amount of threat.

eu.wowarmory isn't working right now sadly, so I can't look at the spec. I assume it is:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

- a modified version of the one Tarskin posted a few months ago.

Depending on gear and/or boss, this could be a nice change. The problem is the sacrifice of Infected Wounds; no MT should be without that talent, since it does change the attack speed of bosses [per Wowhead and EJ]. That means that you are sacrificing 10% standard-attack mitigation for more threat. Even with the added Idol of the Corruptor proc [per Tarskin, .31% dodge and .25% crit] it doesn't seem worth it in most cases.

On the other hand, IW only changes standard attack speeds; for a boss like Sartharion+drakes or Mimiron - where damage is mostly a matter of magic or casted physical - it wouldn't be a big deal. General, IC-Steelbreaker and Yogg-phase 3 would be bad places to be missing IW. And of course IW truly shines as an OT talent; for every 10 mobs you IW, you can tank 1 extra.

[adizs]

Source: Viridios eu.wowarmory isn't working right now sadly, so I can't look at the spec. I assume it is: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft - a modified version of the one Tarskin posted a few months ago. Depending on gear and/or boss, this could be a nice change. The problem is the sacrifice of Infected Wounds; no MT should be without that talent, since it does change the attack speed of bosses [per Wowhead and EJ]. That means that you are sacrificing 10% standard-attack mitigation for more threat. Even with the added Idol of the Corruptor proc [per Tarskin, .31% dodge and .25% crit] it doesn't seem worth it in most cases. On the other hand, IW only changes standard attack speeds; for a boss like Sartharion+drakes or Mimiron - where damage is mostly a matter of magic or casted physical - it wouldn't be a big deal. General, IC-Steelbreaker and Yogg-phase 3 would be bad places to be missing IW. And of course IW truly shines as an OT talent; for every 10 mobs you IW, you can tank 1 extra.

That is indeed the spec I am using.

I totally agree with you Virdios, but correct me if I am wrong, I was under the impression that IW doesnt stack with Icy Touch? Since I am always raiding with a DK, even in 10 man I dropped it for just a tad more extra threat. I may be horribly misinformed though.

[Fenier]

Source: adizs That is indeed the spec I am using. I totally agree with you Virdios, but correct me if I am wrong, I was under the impression that IW doesnt stack with Icy Touch? Since I am always raiding with a DK, even in 10 man I dropped it for just a tad more extra threat. I may be horribly misinformed though.

That logic breaks down in any event you are seperate from the Death Knight, and any event in which the Death Knight dies first.

Since you don't have Infected Wounds, this would increase the rate at which you take damage by 20% in the absence of Talented Thunder Clap or a Paladin with Judgements of the Just.

[Viridios]

Source: Fenier That logic breaks down in any event you are seperate from the Death Knight, and any event in which the Death Knight dies first. Since you don't have Infected Wounds, this would increase the rate at which you take damage by 20% in the absence of Talented Thunder Clap or a Paladin with Judgements of the Just.

Well, not exactly. It doesn't change special attacks, and even physical bosses use a lot of those [Would anyone like a Fusion Punch?]

But yeah, fights where you separate and/or tank different mobs - or if people die - would be where having IW is useful. Unless you are having threat issues - which is easily resolved by rotation fixes/better gear - it shouldn't be a problem.

[Draygoon]

OK Fenier, I've done some changes. Changed my spec up some to include Primal Fury, changed some enchants and gems. It should look a little better, but I am apparently still having problems with my rotation. Are ya'll using a macro? If so, how is it setup? I've tried setting one up, but it's not working like it should. I'm only doing on avg, around 1200 DPS. I can burst up to around 1700, and I believe I hit 2K once before, but I don't remember what I was using as a rotation. The 2K was hit in 25-man Uld when I MTed XT-002.

Any suggestions or advice would br greatly appreciated. TY!

[tuffmuffin]

Without Improved Mangled, your basic rotation is ==Faerie Fire (Feral) --> Mangle --> Lacerate --> Lacerate== and just repeat.
Swipe is slightly more threat than Lacerate, so after you hit a 5-stack you can start swapping that in, just don't let lacerate fall off. You can macro it all together, but if you do exchange Lacerate for Swipe, it could just be a hinderance.

If you do macro it together:
/castsquence Faerie Fire (Feral)(), Mangle (Bear)(), Lacerate(), Lacerate()
/cast Maul

Naturally the Maul is in there for infinite rage scenarios. Really you can just put the abilites on easily accessable keys (for example the "2-3-4-4" rotation Warriors would use in BC) Remember if you pop Berserk you will need to use a Lacerate at least once in there to make sure it doesn't fall off, so if you do end up using a macro you'd need to keep Mangle and Lacerate bound to other keys anyway so it may just be easier not to use a macro. If you don't need to keep Demo roar up you could take the 5 points from Feral Aggression to pick up Master Shapeshifter to further increase your DPS (The 4% is multiplicative with the 10% from Naturalist, so instead of 114% it's really 114.4%)

EDIT: Also enchant your chest