First and foremost, this is a guide. It's not a rulebook, but a general rule of thumb for how things will work out the best for you when tanking as a Druid. This guide is written from the perspective of tanking 5-mans, progressing into Heroics/Karazhan, and then onward into 25-mans and Zul'Aman. If you're utilizing a "hybrid" feral/resto, feral/balance setup because that's what suits your playstyle or your friend's/guild's needs so be it. This is about maximizing your role as a Feral Druid in a progressing guild.
This guide assumes the following things, and if none are true then this guide is not for you:
1) You're tanking 5-mans
2) You're tanking Heroics/Karazhan
3) You're tanking 25-man raid trash, MT/OT raid encounters as needed.
Now with that out of the way, I'd like to thank the major names at Tankspot as it's been very useful to me in understanding threat, generating threat, rage management, and mob behavior even as a Druid tank as there are core fundamentals of tanking that apply to any tanking class, as well as the simalarites involved in using a rage bar. Your work in explaining and maximizing tanking in WoW for the first 2 years are invaluable to the Druids and Paladins joining the Tanking Community. Usually I'd considered this to be mainly a Warrior site, but with the addition of the Paladin Tank guide I felt it was time to see one wrote up properly for Druids. I'd also like to thank the Druid forums both US and Euro (Tossk, Emmerald), where a lot of this information was compiled from in addtion to my own experiences in game.
Color Keycode:
Very Important / Required,
Important / Optional,
Unimportant / Just Don't.
Common Terms and How They Apply To Druid Tanks Strength: We gain 2 attack power per 1 point of Strength regardless of form. Talents can increase how much Strength one point of Strength actually is, but the conversion to attack power remains the same, Character Sheet Strength x 2 = Attack Power gained from Strength. Hitting harder is good and means more threat generated, but does not contribute to a Bear's damage mitigation and avoidance.
Agility: This is a core stat for Bear tanks, the importance of it cannot be stressed enough. At level 70, it only takes a mere 14.7 Agility to provide 1% Dodge, and 25 agility to provide 1% Critical Strike. Compared to 18.92 Dodge Rating for 1% Dodge, and 22.08 Critical Strike Rating for 1% Critical Strike, plus the fact that Agility does -both- at the same time, and you begin to understand it's importance. Agility also provides 2 Armor for every 1 Agility, and although this is not the primary way to increase armor, it sitll helps. When evaluating Agility on gear selection, the formula is as follows:
ItemAgility * 1.03 (Survival of the Fittest) * 1.1 (Blessing of Kings) = AdjustedAgility
AdjustedAgility / 14.7 = Dodge%, AdjustedAgility / 25 = Critical Strike % and AdjustedAgility * 2 = Armor gained
Example: Item with 10 Agility * 1.03 = 10.3 * 1.1 = 11.33 AdjustedAgility
(11.33 / 14.7) = 0.77% Dodge, (11.33 / 25) = 0.45% Critical Strike, and (11.33 * 2) = 22.66 armor gained.
Stamina: This is a core stat for any tank, but it is a major stat moreso for Druids due to a Druid's inability to avoid damage with Block and Parry. Druids receive damage more consistently than any other tanking class, and therefore Stamina is a primary means of dealing with this. Stamina is also a core stat because it is very easy for a Druid to achieve higher HP than Warriors or Paladins. Your stamina is increased by 25% just for going into Dire Bear Form, without any consideration yet to talents, Blessing of Kings, or the Tauren 5% Total Health Racial. Survival of the Fittest makes each point of stamina pre-Dire Bear Form worth 1.03 instead of 1, and Heart of the Wild raises your Stamina in Dire Bear Form by an additional 20% after the 25% increase from changing to a Bear. So when evalutating stamina on gear selection, the forumla as is follows:
ItemStamina * 1.03 (3/3 SotF) * 1.25 (Dire Bear Form) * 1.2 (Heart of the Wild) * 1.1 (Blessing of Kings), * 10 (to convert to actual Health) * 1.05 (if Tauren)
Example: 10 stamina on an item for a Tauren Druid would be 10 * 1.03 = 10.3 * 1.25 = 12.875 * 1.2 = 15.45 * 1.1 = 16.995 * 10 = 169.95 HP * 1.05 = 178.4775 HP
Compared to a Tauren Prot Warrior with 5/5 Vitality 10 stamina * 1.1 (Vitality) = 11 * 1.1 (BoK) = 12.1 * 10 (actual Health) = 121 HP * 1.05 = 127.05 HP, or a Protection Paladin with 5/5 Combat Expertise 10 stamina * 1.1 (CE) = 11 * 1.1 (BoK) = 12.1 * 10 (actual Health) = 121 HP, you can see that Druids are -meant- to have higher Stamina, because we're -going- to be taking damage more consistently than the other tanking classes.
Armor: This is a core stat for any tank, but moreso for Druids. Our high Armor combined with our high Dodge is what gives us our niche in the tanking community in terms of mitigating and avoiding damage. Armor on items are multiplied by 400% in Dire Bear Form. With talents you can increase the Armor value on items worn by 10%, which is calculated -before- the 400% change into Dire Bear Form. So if an item has 100 armor on it, with talents it has 110 armor, which then becomes 440 armor in Dire Bear Form. It is common misconception that the 10% armor talent means you multiply by 410% instead, but you don't. Note that armor from Enchants (120 armor to Cloak) and Armor Kits (240 Armor Glove Reinforcements) are -not- multiplied by 10% from Thick Hide or 400% when shifting into Bear, and so it is better to get 12 Agility to cloak and 15 agility to gloves. So again, the formula for evaluating Armor from items is as follows:
ItemArmor * 1.1 (3/3 Thick Hide) * 4 = Armor in Bear Form
100 armor * 1.1 = 110 * 4 = 440 Armor in Bear Form
For a full and complete explanation on how armor mitigates physical damage:
WoW Wiki Armor Charts Block: We don't use shields, therefore we cannot block, and any gear affecting block has to be looked at is if that were not even on the item.
Parry: We cannot Parry. See Block for how that affects itemizaiton choices.
Dodge: This is a core function for Druids. As we cannot Block or Parry, and low +defense itemization soft caps our ability to be missed, this is our primary means of "avoiding" crushing blows. However, do not pickup Dodge rating unless the rest of the item is good enough to warrant it. Agility is the better way to raise your Dodge, as well as having more benefical effects such as Critical Strike and Armor. Night Elf Druids gain an additonal 1% Dodge just for being well..Night Elfs, to be polite. The rest of us think it's because you spend all your time mashing the space bar in order to do flips. Kidding aside, it's a great racial to have as a tank, as easily important as the Tauren 5% total Health increase.
Crit Immunity: This is not a World of WarCraft term, but a tanking community term in reference to how much Defense / Resilience / Talents it takes to be unable to be crit by a PvE creature. For same level creatures they have a generic 5% chance to crit, and for raid level mobs (+3 of player level) they have a 5.60% chance to crit.
Defense: For every point of Defense above 350 (player level * 5), you gain 0.04% to Dodge, Block, Parry, be missed, be crit. This means that before any Talents or Resilience, you need to obtain 490 Defense (490 - 350 = 140 Defense from Items * 0.04 = 5.6%) to be crit immune. For Druids, 3/3 Survival of the Fittest provides 3% chance not to be critically struck. This means that you only need to obtain 2.6% via Defense and Resilience. This is very important due to the lack of Defense on Leather, and sharing itemization goals on Rings, Necks, Cloaks, and Trinkets with Warriors and Paladins. With this talent you only need 415 Defense (415 - 350 = 65 Defense from Items * 0.04 = 2.6%) without any Resilience.
Note that it takes 2.37 Defense Rating to = 1 point of Defense, so it takes 155 (154.05 but as you cannot gain .05 rating, you have to take 1 more point of actual rating to cover this) Defense Rating to achieve 65 Defense. Keep in mind that once you move beyond the Heavy Clefthoof Set with it's large amounts of Defense Rating, that you may want to consider the +12 Defense Rating to Bracer enchant over the +12 stamina one. I know that means giving up 203-214 HP, but remaining crit immune is more important than that small of an amount of stamina in comparison to how much you will be crit for without immunity.
Resilience: For every 1% of resilience, you gain 1% chance not to be crit, 1% less damage from Damage over Time effects, and 2% less damage from critical strikes. As the goal here is to become crit immune to PvE creatures, the 2% less criitcal damage is ignorable. It takes 39.4 Resilience Rating to gain 1% Resilience at level 70, therefore it takes only 103 (102.44, but again no partial rating gains available) to gain 2.6% crit reduction and therefore becoming crit immune in conjunction with the 3% from Survival of the Fittest.
Resilience is an excellent way to help cover the gap in Defense itemization on leather for Druids, and is easily obtainable for Wrists, Belts, and Boots via Honor/Tokens from Battleground PvP. Arena gear is available as well, but there are better pieces of gear available in PvE, as well as the fact that you're only looking to supplement your Defense with Resilience, not replace it. Furthermore, you should never be in a position to need to enchant your chest with +15 Resilience Rating, there are more than enough options available through Heroic Badge rewards, Reputation rewards, Quest rewards, and instance drops to get the bulk of your crit immunity via Defense.
Hit: This affects your chance to land a melee/ranged physical attack, and as of 2.3 also affects Growl as opposed to previously it worked off of spell hit. For Bear form, your miss rate is calculated the same as a Warrior/Paladin using a 1h/Shield or 2H weapon. That means that versus a same level creature you need 5% to hit in order not to miss, and for raid level mobs (player level +3) you need 9% to hit. It takes 142 (141.84, but again no partial rating gains) Hit Rating to achieve 9% to Hit. As your gear level increases beyond the Heroic/Karazhan level, your damage mitigation increases and therefore your rage generation from damage taken slowly decreases, increasing the need not only for you to hit with special attacks to generate threat, but to hit with auto-attacks to generate rage to use those special attacks. Due to the need to retain crit immunity, the amount of +hit you are going to get from gear is going to be very limited, mainly from item sets, weapons, and gems.
Uncrushable: This is primarily a Warrior and Paladin term, as it refers to the 15% chance that a raid level (player level +3) creature has to inflict a Crushing Blow, which deals 150% normal damage. Blocks cannot be crushing blows, and crushing blows can be parried, but since we can do neither, the only thing we can do to avoid them is be Missed or Dodge. A term called Avoidance has sprung up in the WoW tanking communtity to refer to the total amount of Miss, Dodge, Block, and Parry is required to avoid crushing blows. That magical number is 102.4% (5% natural Miss, +Miss% from Defense, +Dodge%, +Block%, +Parry%). Since we cannot Block/Parry, and our +Defense generally stops at 415 or even slightly lower if we're using Resilience, we would need a 94.8 % (102.4 - 5% - 2.6%) to Dodge in order to push Crushing Blows off the combat table. While many high geared raiding druids are able to break 50% dodge raid buffed, the primary way a Druid handles Crushing Blows is via our very high Armor rating, allowing us to mitigate a Crushing Blow into an amount similar to what a Normal hit does on a Warrior/Paladin.
Feral Druid Talents - What You Need Now, What You Need Later, and What You Don't Need
Forewarning: The Feral tree is for both Bear Tanking and Cat DPS, therefore many of the talents are of a dual nature. Keep in mind that there are many times where you will be told to DPS instead of tank, because it is more beneficial to have you doing DPS compared to trying to have a Prot Warrior DPS, or a Prot Paladin trying to DPS or Heal. Therefore these talents must be considered with both roles of a Feral Druid in mind, as well as being weighed against what else is available. Anything that's considered a core talent will be labeled as "A Very Imporant Talent".
Ferocity: Reduces the cost of your Maul, Swipe, Claw, Rake, and Mangle abilities by 1/2/3/4/5 Rage or Energy. This is A Very Important Talent.
Feral Agression: Increases the Attack Power reduction of your Demoralizing Roar by 8/16/24/32/40% and the damage done by your Ferocious Bite by 3/6/9/12/15%. At Rank 6 of Demoralizing Roar (240) this only provides an increased attack power reduction of 96 (336 after talent). Ferocious Bite is horrible sustained DPS as it drains all of your remaining Energy on use, so the damage increase isn't even important. Overall a very poor talent, and only useful for destroying Cloth in PvP when Clearcasting is up.
Feral Instinct: Increases threat caused in Bear / Dire Bear form by 5/10/15% and reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while Prowling. This is Defiance for Druids people, Bear threat is the same as Defensive Stance (130%), and this talent makes it 145%. This is A Very Important Talent, and the stealth increase is very nice for PvP related events, as it's the exact same stealth increase as a Rogue's 5/5 Master of Deception.
Brutal Impact: Increases the stun duration of your Bash and Pounce abilities by 0.5/1.0 seconds. This is an effective talent for 5-mans, Heroics, and raid trash but not very useful against Boss creatures as they are generally immune to being stunned. It's a good filler talent, and the increased Pounce duration is great for soloing/PvP, but it's not mandatory. As you progress into the 25-man scene you may want to consider dropping this talent, it's up to you.
Thick Hide: Increases your armor contribution from items by 4/7/10%. As stated above under Armor, this increase goes into effect -before- the Armor increase from Bear / Dire Bear Form. This is A Very Important Talent -until- you are breaking 35880 Armor in Dire Bear Form (75% armor mitigation versus level 73 creatures). Once you begin going over the Armor cap, you can begin to remove points from this talent as your gear continues to improve, and place them elsewhere (like filling out Intensity in Restoration). Can also remove points out of this later to help deal with any rage problems, but be careful in doing this and experiment 1 point removal at a time.
Feral Swiftness: Increases your movment speed by 15/30% while Outdoors in Cat Form, and increases your chance to dodge while in Cat Form, Bear Form, and Dire Bear Form by 2/4%. Dodge is important for tanking, therefore this is A Very Important Talent. The run speed boost in Cat Form is pretty slick too.
Feral Charge: 5 Rage, 8-25 yard range, requires Bear / Dire Bear Form. Causes you to instantly charge an enemey, immobilizing and interrupting any spell being cast for 4 seconds. Note that this does not stop spellcasting for 4 seconds, that only refers to how long the immobilize lasts. For 5-mans and Heroics, as well as any creature that has a knockback/juggle/secondary target charge, this is A Very Important Talent. Some creatures are immune to the immobilize, and not all creatures are casters, but the beauty of this talent is that it lets you get back to the creature(s) you're tanking very fast. As of 2.2(?) Feral Charge suppresses movement impairing effects like Hamstring and Daze for the duration of the charge and resume effect upon reaching the target. Considering we lack a trainable Charge/Intercept/Intervene, it's worth the talent point even though it contributes nothing to damage mitigation.
Sharpened Claws: Increases your critical strike chance while in Bear, Dire Bear, or Cat Form by 2/4/6%. Crit is good for tanking, more damage = more threat, more white damage = more rage, and in conjunction with Improved Leader of the Pack provides a self-heal for 4% of your total health every few swings. Obviously crit is also fundamental in Cat damage. This is A Very Important Talent, as well as being the pre-requisite for Primal Fury.
Primal Fury: Requires 3 points in Sharpened Claws. Gives you a 50/100% chance to gain an additional 5 Rage in Bear / Dire Bear Form, and an additional combo point from moves that grant combo points in Cat Form, any time you land a critical strike. Reinforces the value of crit even more, free rage is good, faster combos in Cat is good. A Very Important Talent.
Predatory Strikes: Increases your melee attack power in Cat, Bear, and Dire Bear forms by 50/100/150% of your level. At level 70 this means you gain an extra 105 attack power just for going into one of these forms. Not really a stellar talent, but A Very Important Talent because it's the pre-requisite for Heart of the Wild.
Shredding Attacks: Reduces the energy cost of your Shred ability by 9/18 and your Lacerate ability by 1/2. While using less rage to do the same thing is always good, the primary benefit of this talent falls under Cat Form. Because we're both tanks and dps though, this is A Very Important Talent.
Savage Fury: Increases the damage caused by your Claw, Rake, and Mangle (Cat) abilities by 10/20%. So far this ability affects Bear form in no way, and is one of the few talents in the Feral tree like that. However, it's required for your role as DPS because it affects Mangle (Cat), so still A Very Important Talent.
Faerie Fire (Feral): Requires Bear / Dire Bear / Cat Form. Decreases the armor of the target by 610 (Rank 5) for 40 seconds. While affected the target cannot stealth or turn invisible. Stacks with Sunder Armor, great for pulling, it's threat is modified by Bear Form, allowing you to re-apply it for no rage cost and additional threat every 6 seconds. However, on the 25 man raid scene be prepared for the fact that Balance Druid's Improved Faerie Fire will cause you to get the "A more powerful spell is already active" message. Still considered A Very Important Talent though, as it will help with trash mobs and anything you're offtanking that isn't being nuked by a Balance Druid.
Nurturing Instinct: Increases your healing spells by up to 25/50% of your Strength. Affects tanking in no way whatsoever, affects Cat form in no way whatsoever. This is purely a utility talent for small groups, soloing, and PvP. The most use you're likely to get out of this while raiding, is you're dpsing in cat form, your melee group that you've been placed in just got unexpected aoe damage, and you can pop up, Barkskin + Tranquility, saving your group somewhat until raid healers get things under control.
Heart of the Wild: Increases your Intellect in caster form by 4/8/12/16/20%, Stamina in Bear/Dire Bear Form by 4/8/12/16/20%, and Attack Power in Cat Form by 2/4/6/8/10%. Requires 3/3 in Predatory Strikes. Stamina is a core stat for Bear Tanking, so this is most definitely A Very Important Talent.
Survival of the Fittest: Increases all atrributes by 1/2/3% and reduces the chance to be critically hit by 1/2/3%. This increases your stamina and agility (Bear tank stats!), and your chance to be crit by 3%. This is A VERY IMPORTANT TALENT. Note the capital letters. It's that good. This is why you only need 415 Defense to be crit immune instead of 490. This talent more than any other, is required to be a Bear Tank. If you don't have it, go respec. And yeah, it increases your Strength too, go Cat Form!
Leader of the Pack: Provides 5% melee critical strike chance to self and all party members within 45 yards while in Cat, Bear, and Dire Bear Form. This is one of the largest reasons you're wanted in raids, and why Rogues put up with you rolling on "their" loot. Also a pre-requisite to Improved Leader of the Pack and Mangle, thusly overall A Very Important Talent.
Improved Leader of the Pack: In addition to the 5% crit, all party members have a 100% chance to heal themselves for 2/4% of their total Health whenever landing a melee or ranged critical strike, cannot occur more often than every 6 seconds. Compounds the benefits of crit, when considering the average Karazhan geared Druid is pushing 20,000 HP fully raid buffed, that's a potential 1200 HP heal every 6 seconds, as well as giving your party members the chance to heal themselves a little as well. A Very Important Talent.
Primal Tenacity: Improves your chance to resist Stun and Fear effects by 5/10/15%. Very useful for remaining in control of your character, although it can be a bad thing to resist Fear if you're not tanking and you pass the tank in agro, as there's nothing he can do about it while running around in fear! Also great in PvP. It's not a must have now with the 2.3 change to agro lists being maintained while Feared, but still a pretty good talent.
Predatory Instincts: Increases your critical strike damage bonus with melee attacks by 2/4/6/8/10% and your chance to avoid area of effect attacks by 3/6/9/12/15%. Again, more damage is good for both Bear and Cat, as is the chance to take less damage from AoE. A Very Important Talent.
Mangle: Requires Leader of the Pack. Bear form version causes 115% normal damage plus 155.25, Cat Form version causes 160% normal damage plus 264. Both debuff the target causing the target to take 30% additional damage from your Shred ability and all Bleed effects. Mangle (Bear) has a very high amount of innate threat as well as high damage, and is considered by some to be the Druid version of Shield Slam because the threat it produces is so good. Also increases the damage done by your Lacerate ability by 30% since it's a Bleed, as well as Rogue's Rupture/Garrote, Warrior Deep Wounds/Rend, all Bleed effect weapon procs, and stacks with Warrior talent Blood Frenzy. Six second cooldown, 15 rage after talents, A VERY IMPORTANT TALENT.
Now on to the Restoration Tree...
Furor: Gives you a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to gain 10 Rage or 40 Energy when shifting into Bear, Dire Bear, or Cat Form. Essential solo/PvP talent, but also useful in raids when taking a healthstone/pot (yes, it can be safely done), or leaving Cat Form to Innervate / spot heal. The 10 rage is also great to combine with Enrage for a pull, go Bear and pop Enrage for 30 rage on pull. That's a Mangle + a Lacerate/Demoralizing Roar. Loads better than Improved Mark of the Wild regardless (which any Restoration or Balance Druid is going to have anyways), and thusly A Very Important Talent.
Improved Mark of the Wild: Imrpoves the effects of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells by 7/14/21/28/35%. At max rank (340 armor, +14 all stats, +25 all resists) this gets increased to (459 armor, +18.9 all stats, +33.75 all resists). As the Armor does not get multiplied by Bear / Dire Bear Form, and the resist does not stack with Auras, Totems, or Shadow Protection, the biggest benefit of this is the stat gain. Not a great talent, but those non-Ferals neeed something to put 5 points in the first tier right?
Naturalist: Reduces the cast time of your Healing Touch by 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5 seconds and increases damage done by all physical attacks by 2/4/6/8/10%. More damage is good, so A Very Important Talent.
Nature's Focus: Gives you a 14/28/42/56/70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting Healing Touch, Regrowth or Tranquility. Has nothing to do with Bear Tanking or Cat DPS, and if you're popping out of Cat Form to use Tranquility you should be using Barkskin anways for 100% immunity to interruption from damage.
Natural Shapeshifter: Reduces mana costs of shapeshifting by 10/20/30%. Essential PvP talent, but not needed for Bear Tanking, even using the Bear Pot macro you'll regen the mana spent shapeshifting well in advance of your potion cooldown being over. Not an essential talent to PvE Bears/Cats.
Intensity: Allows 10/20/30% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting, and causes your Enrage ability to grant 4/7/10 Rage instantly in addition to the rage over time. This is a great talent, allowing in conjunction with Furor to be able to start a pull with 34/37/40 Rage. However, it is not the most important of talents, so only put points here as you are able, for example if you're at the armor cap and are removing points from Thick Hide, or have decided that you no longer need the improved stun duration from Brutal Impact.
Omen of Clarity: Chance on any melee attack to enter the Clearcasting state, reducing the mana/rage/energy cost of your next damage spell, healing spell, or melee attack by 100%. Free attacks are good, it's a self-cast buff that lasts 30 minutes, making it A VERY IMPORTANT TALENT.
That's all the farther I'm going with talents, there's nothing deeper in Restoration that relates to PvE tanking, and thanks to patch 2.0 there's no longer any Feral talents in the Balance tree.
Example Talent Builds:
"Cookie Cutter" Feral PvE Build Armor Cap Feral PvE Build Bear Attack Rotations, Macros, Enchants, and Gems Oh My!
Everything you do in Bear Form revolves around the 6 second cooldown of Mangle, and keeping 5 stacks of Lacerate on your target. When tanking a single target, the ideal method is to pull with Feral Faerie Fire, Mangle, Lacerate three times, Mangle, Lacerate two times, Demoralizing Roar, then settle into a rotation of Mangle x1, Lacerate x3 substituting one Lacerate whenever you need to refresh Feral Faerie Fire and Demoralizing Roar. Just by using Mangle, you've already passed 1.5 seconds of the 6 second cooldown of Mangle from the Global Cooldown (henceforth the GCD). Each Lacerate uses up 1.5 seconds due to GCD, meaning that 1.5 sec from using Mangle + 4.5 seconds from 3 Lacerates = Mangle off cooldown, Mangle again!
Maul: Maul is a high threat move with the same innate threat as the Warrior Heroic Strike. However, given the static 2.50 attack speed of Bear Form, you do not want to eat up all your autoattacks with Mauls, unless you're receiving tons of rage from damage taken. If you're not sitting at 40-50 rage or higher on a regular basis, then don't use Maul. You're already using 15 Rage for Mangle or 13 Rage for Lacerate every 1.5 seconds, which is almost twice as fast as you're able to Maul (every 2.5 seconds, as it turns your next autoattack into a Maul).
However, it is an excellent rage dump for fights where you have tons of rage to spend, as well as something a smart Druid will work into his damage around the same time as re-applying Feral Faerie Fire (since it has no rage cost) or in place of a 3rd Lacerate once you're in the phase of maintaining 5 stacks instead of building 5 stacks. Maul is also independent of the Global Cooldown, because of it's on next melee swing nature, same as Heroic Strike. This means you can "queue' Maul up to happen any time you want, even while using other abilities.
Lacerate: It's use in the rotation is mentioned above, but here's an explanation of how it works. It causes initial damage, followed by a bleed effect that lasts for 15 seconds. In order to allow Druids to better tank mobs that are immune to Bleed effects (such as Elementals and Skeletal Undead), the majority of the threat is front loaded onto the initial damage of Lacerate, although the Bleed effect still causes considerable threat, and increases a Druid's success at tanking a Fear based encounter on a creature that's not Bleed immune, due to the 2.3 change of the agro list being maintained while feared. Since the agro list is being maintained, you're still generating threat while your Lacerate is ticking on the target. Damage from Lacerate is also increased by 30% from Mangle.
Swipe: As you can see from the discussion following this post, there comes a point when due to your AP scaling the damage of Swipe and Lacerate being unaffected by AP, that Swipe ends up passing Lacerate in TPR (Threat Per Rage) which is right around 2300 Attack Power in Bear Form (mathematically this is about 240 for Swipe, but it's before Armor Mitigation and comes down to 225-230 after). Once you've reached that point, you want to begin replacing Lacerate in your attack rotations with Swipe unless you're in a position where you'd break essential CC. Due to the gear level required to reach this point (Mix of T4/T5 + Vindicator's + Wildfury Greatstaff), if it's a Heroic you're probably better off with 2-3 creatures beating on you anyways for Rage.
Mangle: I covered it's description in the Talent section above, as well as it's place in Bear attack rotations, but I just wanted to re-itereate the importance of this ability. It's innate threat is very good, it's damage is high, it's a great and necessary tanking tool that no Feral Druid level 50 or higher should ever be without.
Feral Faerie Fire: Covered it above, but just reminding that it's free threat with a zero rage cost on a 6 second cooldown. Once you have your 5 stacks of Lacerate running you can easily work this in every other rotation to get some free threat and keep the debuff applied. Remember, a Balance Druid will make this unusable by you, and the 3% melee/ranged hit is far more important than the amount of extra threat this gives you.
Demoralizing Roar: It doesn't do much, but making a creature hit for any less of an amount is a good thing, as well as the fact that it's threat is modified by Bear Form. Keep this up and refresh it every couple of rotations.
Macros: I'm not a macro expert, but there are 3 macros that I use in Bear Form while tanking so I'll list them:
#showtooltip [nostance] Faerie Fire; Faerie Fire (Feral)()
/cast [nostance] Faerie Fire; Faerie Fire (Feral)()
/startattack
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
This shows/casts Faerie Fire while in caster form, and shows/casts Feral Faerie Fire while in Cat/Bear Form, as well as starts my autoattack going. The last line is just to avoid error spam in case I happen to double tap the macro.
#showtooltip Mangle (Bear)()
/cast Mangle (Bear)()
/cast Maul
/startattack
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
This shows/uses Mangle, while queueing Maul for my next autoattack. I don't recommend using this if you're not tanking encounters where you're having loads of excess rage. Also starts autoattack in case Mangle should Miss.
#showtooltip Super Healing Potion
/cancelform
/use Master Healthstone
/use Super Healing Potion
/cast [nostance] Dire Bear Form(Shapeshift)
This is the infamous Bear Pot macro. It was possible to use prior to 2.3 with a boss that didn't attack incredibly fast, but thanks to the "autoshifting" change of 2.3 you can switch forms so fast while using a Healthstone/Potion with this macro that you're in little to no danger of being hit while in caster form unless you're lagging severely. Also don't recommend using within a few seconds of any possible character impairing affects going off during an encounter. This macro will use the Healthstone first, or the healing potion if no healthstone is available or is on cooldown. I chose to show the Healing Potion cooldown, as with multiple Warlocks in the raid you can end up with 3 different Healthstones to use.
Enchants: Most of this is pretty self-explanatory, but here it is anyways:
Head: Glyph of the Defender (Revered Keepers of Time) +16 Defense Rating and +17 Dodge rating
Cloak: +12 Agility
Shoulders: +15 Defense Rating and +10 Dodge Rating (Exaled Scryers) or +15 Dodge Rating and +10 Defense Rating (Exalted Aldor).
Chest: +6 All Stats (101HP, 6.8 Agility)
Wrist: +12 Stamina or +12 Defense Rating if you're having trouble staying crit immune.
Gloves:+15 Agility
Legs: Clefthide (+30 stamina +10 agility) or Nethercleft Armor (+40 stamina and +12 agility)
Feet: +12 stamina
Weapon: +35 Agility
Rings: (Enchanters only) +4 all stats. (x2 rings for a total of +8 all stats)
Gems: For socketing gems, you want to stay within the bounds of the fact that the majority of your socketable items will be on gear that doubles as DPS gear, so you do not want to inhibit your ability to dps while wearing some of the same gear pieces. Also keep in mind that matching the sockets is only important if the socket bonus is worth getting.
Red Sockets - Shifting Nightseye (+4 Agility and +6 stamina)
Blue Sockets - Shifting Nightseye (+4 Agility and +6 stamina) or Solid Star of Elune (+12 stamina)
Yellow Sockets - Glinting Noble Topaz (+4 Hit Rating and +4 Agility)
Now you might say "well what about +defense, there's Thick Dawnstone (+8 Defense Rating) and Enduring Talasite (+4 Defense Rating and +6 Stamina), Mystic Dawnstone (+8 Resilience Rating) and Steady Talasite (+4 Resilience Rating and +6 Stamina)". The reason is you don't want to put a +defense/resilience gems in the same chest you're going to be dpsing in as tanking. The Glinting Noble Topaz has stats that are beneficial to both tanking and DPS, perfect for the dual nature of Feral druids. However, I highly recommend Enduring Talasite to those of you that are in the Heavy Clefthoof stage of your gear.
Feral Gear And You
I'm not going to touch on rating feral gear for tanking, as to be quite honest Emmerald over in Europe has done quite an amazing job of putting together spreadsheet generated webpages covering nearly every slot and even differentiating lists between regular mitigation and high end mitigation which places more focus on soaking hits than avoiding them (handy for encounters that focus on magical damage instead of physical).
Emmerald's Feral Gear Guide Relics: These are not actually covered by his guide, but they do play an important role in tanking.
Idol of the Wild: Increases the damage dealt by Mangle (Cat) by 24 and Mangle (Bear) by 51.75, obtained from Colossal Menace quest in Hellfire Peninsula. This Idol is going to last you a long time, and by all rights should not be an Uncommon quality, but Rare as not only all other Idols Rare or better, but it's utility is that great as well. A must have for beginner Bears.
Idol of Ursoc: Increases the periodic damage of your Lacerate by 3 per application. Hardly a significant damage increase to Lacerate ticks, and is a flat damage increase not a scaled damage increase (by putting the increase prior to AP calculations it would thus scale your damage of Lacerate), and even more useless since the bulk of Lacerates damage was moved to the initial application, not the Bleed tick. It is affected by the Mangle debuff, but means it's an additional 19 damage per tick at 5 stacks instead of 15. Bad Idol, hope it sees some love.
Idol of Brutality: Increases the damage of your Maul ability by 50 and your Swipe ability by 10. If you're not starved for rage and able to spam Maul for a rage dump, this is a great Idol and easy to farm at 70 (Magistrate in Stratholme), also good for aoe-swipe tanking. If you're in a rage starved situation, stick with Idol of the Wild.
Idol of the White Stag: Your Mangle ability also increases your attack power by 94 for 12 seconds. Not very beneficial to tanking, you can build more threat out of Brutality or Wild. Excellent soloing Idol though.
Idol of Terror: Your Mangle ability has a chance to grant you 65 agility for 10 seconds. Has a significantly high proc rate (45%), refreshes it's duration if it procs again before duration ends. Buff provides 4.4% Dodge and 2.6% critical strike chance. Excellent Idol once you're out of the Heavy Clefthoof set and your gear is contributing a lot more to your damage generated. Until then stick with Wild or Brutality.
Vengeful / Merciless / Gladiator's Idol of Resolve: Your Mangle ability grants you 34 / 31 / 26 Resilience rating for 6 seconds. Not that great for tanking, although it grants resilience you shouldn't be needing the proc from this Idol to become crit immune.
