2.4 How to Gear a Feral Tank in Outlands

"What gear do I need to get?"

This is a question I see fairly often from druids that have just hit 70 and are getting absolutely decimated in 5 mans, heroics or even Karazhan. There are some great resources out there for gearing up at 70, such as the Big Bear Butt article (Big Bear Butt Blogger: Druid tank starter gear at 70) and there's a post on the WoW Forums (which I won't link) about it, but preparing your feral druid for tanking is a process that you can start well in advance of 70. The focus here will be on being heroic/kara ready at 70, but I'll be including gear that will make the trip less painful, although there's not a whole lot of choices.

I will be breaking this into several steps, first: Pre-70 gear, then 70 gear, finally Heroic/Karazhan and then "moving beyond".

I am also attempting to minimize RNG luck in this list, which may be evident by the large number of badge/quest rewards on it. If you get a lucky break, by all means, take it.

Updated: 6-12-08.
Started trying to unify the list formatting and also add enchant/gem suggestions. I apologize about the horrible white text on the enchants/armor kits, but honest, there's nothing I can do about the link colors! >_<


A forward:
As a Druid, your Survival stat emphasis is on Stamina and Armor. Therefore, your bias towards tanking gear should be to look for gear with Enhanced Armor and Stam as a starting point. When you begin entering into heroics and raid instances, you will be adding on crit immunity in addition to your other survival stats, while continuing to pile on armor and stam. For all slots not specified when leveling, you can't go wrong with improved armor and stam. In the absence of an enhanced armor choice, get an item with as much Stam and Agi as possible.

Pre-70:
There are a few pieces here that you can get which will last you for a while, or pieces that you can buy for use later.

[item]Charm of Alacrity[/item] Fairly easy to get starter tank trinket from a solo HFP quest. If you're not a JC this can last you all the way to 70, so keep it!

[item]Jerkin of the untamed Spirit[/item]: A pretty solid starter chest piece.
- [item]Heavy Knothide Armor Kit[/item]

[item]Idol of the wild[/item]: Your basic starting idol. You'll be using this for a while.

[item]Mok'nathal Clan Ring[/item] Get two of these ASAP. they drop off the last boss of normal ramparts, which is a good instance for practicing your multi-mob tanking in anyway.

[item]Bogstrok Scale Cloak[/item] Best tanking cape you can get shy of level 70. Best run slavepens/Underbog as much as you can anyway, you'll need exalted Cenarion Expedition for your intro tanking weapon. it's debatable, but you may feel compelled to put +12 agi on this if you get it early enough in your tanking career. I personally would not, but you will be using this all the way until 70.

[item]Braxxis' Staff of Slumber[/item] Best tanking weapon before [item]Earthwarden[/item] at 70. There are usually a few on the AH for cheap, if not, open every instance treasure chest you can get your hands on in the 60~64 level range. I got mine my second SP run from the chest right inside the door. Put +35 agi on this as soon as you get it, it is worth the enchant.

[item]Mark of the Ravenguard[/item]: A fairly easy, level 65 quest to go kill the first boss in regular sethykk halls.

[item]Leggings of the Sly[/item]: BoE lv 65 item. fairly nice if you get them, I had these drop off the first mob I killed in Nagrand. These will help you tank instances while you're getting to 70.
- [item]Clefthide leg armor[/item]

[item]Heavy Clefthoof Boots[/item]: Your staple druid tank boots. Lv 69 BoE crafted. get them from /trade, AH them, level LW and make them, whatever ya gotta do. All solid stars of elune, get +12 stam from an enchanter.
- [item]enchant Boots - Fortitude[/item]
- [item]Solid Star of Elune[/item] x2

[item]Iron Band of the unbreakable[/item]: Off Lt. Drake in old hillsbrad. A sidegrade to your Mok'nathals that offers a little more avoidance in exchange for a pinch less armor.

The following two items come from the "Cipher of Damnation" Questline, Lv 68, starting w/ "Hand of Gul'dan" in Shadowmoon Valley. They are your best choice for pre-raid tanking gloves, and if you so choose you can do the quest at 68 or 69 w/ a few friends.

[item]Umberhowl's Collar[/item]
- [item]Enchant Bracer - Fortitude[/item]

[item]Manimal's Cinch[/item]

[item]Badge of Tenacity[/item]: A BoE item you can purchase on the AH for massive amounts of gold or wait until 70 and go farm them

Pre-70 Profession Gear:

Depending on your professions, there are some extra perks you can snag.

Jewelcrafting [item]Figurine - Dawnstone Crab[/item]: An excellent survival trinket that will last you to 70 and heroics, providing a comparable effect to [item]Moroes' Lucky pocket watch[/item].

Enchanting [item]Smoking Heart of the Mountain[/item]: A good substitute until you can buy/get your [item]Badge of Tenacity[/item]. Not worth getting if by some fluke you already have [item]Mark of Tyranny[/item], which you could also get some friends and go get.

Level 70, pre-raid gear

[item]Thoriumweave Cloak[/item]: A great starting point since it gets you the Sha'tar rep you need for some other purchases that are incoming. Don't worry about the loss of Defense... you won't need it.
- [item]35432[/item]

[item]Dragonhide Spaulders[/item]: Requiring only honored with Sha'tar, these shoulders will last you for a while. Having more armor than any of your other non-epic tanking shoulder choices, they also provide a hefty chunk towards crit immunity. You might even be able to hit honored through sha'tar faction quests in SMV if you go searching. Again, Solid stars.
- [item]Inscription of the Knight[/item]
- [item]inscription of warding[/item]
- [item]Heavy Knothide Armor Kit[/item]
- [item]Solid Star of Elune[/item] x2

[item]Dragonhide helm[/item]: Lower City, Honored. If you've been keeping up on your quest chains and did a few Auch instance runs, you'll be able to buy these as soon as you hit 70. Get a +18 stam meta and Solid star in this.
- [item]Powerful Earthstorm Diamond[/item]
- [item]Solid Star of Elune[/item]
- [item]Glyph of the Defender[/item]
- [item]Glyph of the Gladiator[/item]

[item]Heavy Clefthoof Vest[/item]
- [item]Solid Star of Elune[/item] x3
- [item]heavy knothide armor kit[/item]

[item]heavy Clefthoof Leggings[/item]
- [item]Solid star of elune[/item] x3
- [item]Nethercleft leg armor[/item]

[item]Verdant Gloves[/item]: From the old BT attunement questline, started by the tablets of Baa'ri in SMV.
- [ability=25080]Enchant Gloves - superior agility[/ability]

[item]Band of Determination[/item]: off vexallus in magister's terrace, you may have to DPS a few runs to get it, but this is a rather nice upgrade.

[item]Cloak of Blade Turning[/item]: Off Kael in regular magister's terrace.
- [item]35432[/item]

[item]Earthwarden[/item]: Grind rep until you have this, I personally chose Heroic SP/Heroic UB over Steamvaults. Easier to get Heroic SP/UB groups for some reason.
- [item]Enchant 2H weapon - Major Agility[/item]


Pre-raid profession:

Alchemy [item]Guardian's Alchemist stone[/item]: A decent tanking piece, but not the best for druids because of our pot limitations.

Jewelcrafting [item]Figurine - Empyrean Tortoise[/item]: An upgrade from your lionseye crab, obtained from SSO rep. Might have to wait until heroics before you can get the epic gems.

Heroics/Karazhan

[item]Violet Signet[/item] -> [item]Violet Signet of the great Protector[/item]: Second Best druid tanking ring in the game, when fully upgraded, and easy to get.
- Enchanters: [item]35446[/item]

[item]Idol of Terror[/item]: your first badge of justice purchase. Solid tanking idol, it's proc is basically a 5% avoidance proc.

A pause

If you are wearing the rank 1 Violet Signet, band of determination, Clefthoof set, 2 pieces of rep PVP gear, Badge of Tenacity, lionseye crab, earthwarden, and those quest pieces, you will have 13.2K unbuffed hp, 26K armor and just shy of 23% dodge + miss. This is enough for Karazhan, gruul, SSC and a fair part of ZA. From here you have only up to travel, but at this point you're raid ready, easily.

Continuing Kara/heroics

[item]Tree-mender's belt[/item]: Heroic ramps. fairly easy to get tanking belt.

[item]Belt of Natural Power[/item]: Crafted LW, BoE. Takes two [item]Nether Vortex[/item] to make and a bunch of primals. When you eventually decide your tree-mender belt has seen it's last, this gem will serve you for a while.
- [item]Shifting Shadowsong Amethyst[/item] x2

[item]stag-helm of Malorne[/item]: Your T4 helm, best tanking helm you'll get for quite a long time to come. should you find you have an inability to win/get this from Prince's smoking body in kara, your next best bets are the badge helm([item]Cowl of beastly rage[/item]) or the S3 helm.
- [item]Powerful Earthstorm Diamond[/item]
- [item]Steady Seaspray Emerald[/item]
- [item]Solid Star of Elune[/item]
- [item]Glyph of the Defender[/item] ( OK )
- [item]Glyph of the Gladiator[/item] ( BETTER )

[item]Mantle of Malorne[/item]: Your T4 shoulders, which are actually harder to get than your T5 shoulders, but I find maintaining your 2 piece T4 set bonus is nets more mileage in 5 mans and 10 mans, with a few exceptions. These come off of high king maulgar from Gruul, and you should try to get them as fast as possible.
- [item]Solid Empyrean Sapphire[/item]
- [item]Solid Star of Elune[/item]
- [item]Shifting Shadowsong Amethyst[/item]
- [item]Greater inscription of the knight[/item]
- [item]Greater inscription of warding[/item]

[item]Footwraps of wild encroachment[/item]: Badge gear, 60 badges my suggestion for your second badge purchase. If you have [item]Zierhut's lost treads[/item], drop this further down the priority list. hybrid gemming
- [item]Shifting Shadowsong Amethyst[/item]
- [item]Steady Seaspray Emerald[/item]
- [item]35398[/item]

[item]Band of the swift paw[/item]: Badge gear, 35 badges. Second set of tanking gauntlets in the game, replaced only by the T6 gloves in sunwell. Yes, you'll be wearing these that long. Gem these with a +15 stam gem at some point.
- [item]Solid Empyrean Sapphire[/item]
- [item]Enchant Bracer - fortitude[/item]
- [item]Enchant Bracer - Major Defense[/item] (If crit immunity is an issue)

[item]Handwraps of the Aggressor[/item]: Badge gear, 75 badges. If you have your T4 gloves, these can move down in the priority a bit, but you'll still want them sooner or later. These are your T6 equivalent gloves and worth the upgrade, I personally gem mine +5 resil, +7 stam, since crit immunity becomes a problem later on.
- [item]Steady Seaspray Emerald[/item]
- [ability=25080]Enchant Gloves - superior agility[/ability]

[item]Tameless Breeches[/item]: Badge gear, 100 badges. T6 equivalent legs, kinda hard to pass them up. Gem as you see fit, you have alot of play here.
- [item]Shifting Shadowsong Amethyst[/item]
- [item]Steady Seaspray Emerald[/item]
- [item]Nethercleft leg armor[/item]

[item]Embrace of Everlasting Prowess[/item]: Badge gear, 100 badges. T6 equivalent chest. Worth the time to farm the badges.
- [item]Shifting Shadowsong Amethyst[/item]
- [item]Enchant Chest - Major Resilience[/item]

[item]Slikk's cloak of placation[/item]: Badge gear, 35 badges. Once you have the other badge loot, this is actually a slight avoidance boost.
- [item]35432[/item]

[item]Brooch of Deftness[/item]: Badge gear, 35 badges. Worth it as soon as you begin to feel missed mangles/parries are starting to cause you threat gen issues. Bump it up or down the list as you see fit.

[item]ring of the Stalwart Protector[/item]: Badge gear, 60 badges. A bit of a ripoff, in my opinion, but eventually the extra dodge stam and armor will pay off.
- Enchanters: [item]35446[/item]

[item]Necklace of the Juggernaut[/item]: Badge gear, 25 badges.

Beyond:

At some point, you will eventually want to get your [item]Commendation of Kael'thas[/item] out of Magister's terrace, you will probably get [item]Moroes' lucky pocket watch[/item] off of Moroes. Should you venture into serpentshrine cavern, [item]Wildfury Greatstaff[/item] will drop off almost anything you kill in there at some point.

Past this point, you've almost run out of upgrades. From here all that's left are your T5 head and shoulders, T6 gear along with the [item]Pillar of Ferocity[/item] and eventually sunwell gear.

Objection! [item]Pillar of Ferocity[/item] is hardly an upgrade over [item]Wildfury Greatstaff[/item]. >_> 21 stamina and 50 armor < 54 dodge rating. The only thing I'd use the Pillar for is threat, and even that is questionable.

uh... it's got a higher item level and we can pretend it's an upgrade? ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alent

uh... it's got a higher item level and we can pretend it's an upgrade? ;)

---

:p

Seriously, the Pillar is the worst itemized Feral weapon ever.

Norrath, the good thing about the Pilar is the increased TPS using a tanking weapon. Comparing Wildfury and Pilar is like comparing [item]The Unbreakable Will[/item] and [item]The Brutalizer[/item] for warriors: they are two tanking weapons, but one is more threat oriented than the other.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Narshe

Norrath, the good thing about the Pilar is the increased TPS using a tanking weapon. Comparing Wildfury and Pilar is like comparing [item]The Unbreakable Will[/item] and [item]The Brutalizer[/item] for warriors: they are two tanking weapons, but one is more threat oriented than the other.

---

Your analogy doesn't fit.

Pillar of Ferocity can be used as a threat weapon, true, but that does not really matter. Pillar of Ferocity is the only Feral weapon in T6 content. The best overall tanking staff is still Wildfury Greatstaff.

The Unbreakable Will and the Brutalizer are equal ilevel weapons. Wildfury is T5, Pillar is T6 -- and Wildfury is still the better overall weapon.

There is no tanking weapon in Sunwell, either -- so druids killing Kil'jaeden are still using Wildfury Greatstaff for tanking encounters.
Well. That's not entirely true -- [item]Stanchion of Primal Instinct[/item] can be an excellent tanking weapon, if you can replace the armor on Wildfury with high-armor leather/trinkets. It is a lot of armor, however.

This looks good for now, I'll sticky it and let Ciderhelm be the verdict, this is gonna be useful for any Druid tanks who come our way, and we don't have too much in terms of druid information.

Try formatting the items in a unified method. All of them left margin with a ~ or -- or something, it makes for listing it much easier. You can give the analysis of them before or after them but it's easier on the eyes and for referencing when you format it nicely. For example check out Berg's or Polar's guides.

Whether you prefer the Wildfury Greatstaff and the Pillar of Ferocity will depend on your other gear and the encounter you're on, imo. Personally, I'm in the Pillar camp most of the time, except on a boss. First of all, I'm a stam whore, so the Pillar naturally has appeal. :D Really though, for most encounters I prefer getting whacked on and generating rage over dodging. The higher armor and threat generation is also very appealing. On a boss fight there is never a rage issue though, so Wildfury staff all the way.

Your gear review was almost perfect. I say almost because of the omission of arena gear. S3 (and, starting today S4) gear is a tanking druid's dream. Lots of stam, hit rating (woot) str and agi for threat gen, but also that critical stat that most gear is lacking: crit avoidance (defense normally, but resilience being an excellent alternative since none of our gear has defense after the clefthoof set). With 3/3 SotF, you still need an additional 2.6% chance to avoid being critically hit. 2 pieces of S3 gear (with the +35 res set bonus) is all you need. I personally use the helm and chest, fully socketed 15 stams.

I just gotta say I am rofl'ing over "Durkastan" name :)

Durk, my apologies for missing this reply, it's been a crazy week.

I intentionally omitted the S3 gear and the S4 gear because I want personal experience with it before I list it VS another piece of gear. I simply haven't PVP'd enough yet to have more than my S4 gloves and in my tier of content all of it is low on mitigation in comparison to other tier relevant gear.

This list is also a "growing" resource and I intentionally started it on the low end rather than the high end to help up and coming tanks - in T5+ content you will usually have a fairly good understanding of gear prioritization, but if you're a fresh 70 or you're in your 60's and don't know what to use it can be hard with the lack of dedicated druid information to figure out what's good and what isn't - I know I went through a really hard learning curve since my druid is my first/only 70.

First of all thanks for the great info. My druid isn't even in Outland yet but I've been planning in advance for quickly gearing him for tanking Kara and beyond.

Two questions:
1) I hate pvp'ing, so is there any reason to try to get 2 pieces or so of S2 gear for the resilience, or is the defense rating from other pieces good enough to attain "uncrittable"?
Or is it worth spending a week crossing my eyes at the computer screen and screaming wondering why Horde can't win a BG?

2) I noticed that the Heavy Clefthoof set says it requires Leatherworking 350. My druid isn't a Leatherworker so is it worth leveling that profession from 1-350 or are there supplements for those 3 peices that are worthwhile. (My rogue has 375 leatherworking so there's no reason besides being able to wear that set why I should have two.)

Crit immune before raiding/heroics is not that big of a deal. Until you're 70 I wouldn't even begin to worry about it. Early on as a 70, heavy clefthoof + Two piece reputation PVP will make you solidly crit immune. (something like 40 resilience overkill in fact.) As you grow into all raid gear, it will be harder and harder to be crit immune, but use rawr to see how much resilience rating (103 w/ no defense) or defense rating (177 w/ no resilience.) you need, and gem resil as appropriate. Mystic Dawnstones (+8 resil) are your friend in a pinch. :)

The "350 leatherworking" requirement on heavy clefthoof is for the +20 strength set bonus, the armor itself does not require leatherworking of any level.

Alent, I am a bit befuddled by your opening post, is this gear for a druid to search for at 70 and post, or is this pre 70?

Edit to add: by sheer stroke of luck, some doofus was selling 2 of the 3 clefthoof pieces yesterday, fully gemmed with +12 stams, and I snatched them up for a total of 300G. Am I the doofus or is he? Also, am I going to want to swap any of the gems out?

It starts basically as a lv 58~60 stepping into hellfire, continues through the Pre 70 experience and into introductory raiding at 70.

I've left out most raid gearing because at that point it's strongly preference based... anything in particular you want clarification on?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alent

It starts basically as a lv 58~60 stepping into hellfire, continues through the Pre 70 experience and into introductory raiding at 70.

I've left out most raid gearing because at that point it's strongly preference based... anything in particular you want clarification on?

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Just an answer on the clefthoof set, if I overpaid and might want to re-gem them. Its in my post above.

No on the gems, at that point in your career the stam is vital. As for price... No, not really, depending on the going rate of clefthoof leather and gems on your server. As an LW myself I'm painfully aware of how many dead clefthoof you need for that set of armor. :)

If you haven't got better, finishing the set is decent enough, even without the LW only set bonus.

Farming for the clefthoof leg upgrades (at the time, for my MT) was enough to make me cry, and that was just farming enough to make he and myself one.


However, since they drop meat, I could farm pet food while I'm out there and train up my crossbow skill too. <-----now theres an idea....

Added this to the guides directory.

I would advise doing the odd BG or trying to get into an arena team as you break 70 when you aren't worried about defense. 70 = Clefthoof + .5 pvp vendor shoulders + sso glyph + earthwarden (eventually) and you will be well beyond uncritable. All that changes as you move into T4/badge gear. I would caution against getting the band of the swift paw (wrists) for that reason. They are great but as you progress out of clefthoof especially you need pieces with defense/resilience and bracers are one area where it is more advantageous to do it then others. If you are swimming in badges you can buy the veteran's(?) for 25 badges and save 10 but even then that is 1/4 of the badge chest or legs which are great items. S2 bracers and shoulders are "cheap" and good items in their own right allowing you to spend your badges elsewhere. I don't think it is mentioned but the cape of the resolute is a nice crafted purple that while taking a lot of mats it gives you a lot of gearing options.

I first want to state that I enjoy this guide. I am sure it will help in my desire to be a raiding bear tank.

I am approaching 70, and could purchase Dragonhide Helm - Item - World of Warcraft

the from the vendor, but why do that when you can also be a pimped out tank in a much better item...

Stylin' Purple Hat - Item - World of Warcraft


This purple with zebra striped pimp hat gives you crazy stam, and great agility (which helps with dodge, ap, and defense), sure you lose some armor, but the stam and agi makes up for it.

You are going to be shopping for a LW anyway for your Heavy Clefthoof stuff...You might as well go for broke and make a fashion statement at the same time. (This hat is better than some epics for Bear mitigation according to the ultimate bear gear list... Feral Bear Tanking Gear List)