Feral DPS to Tank switch, help!

Hello fellow players,

i have a problem. I used to be a feral dps in my guild wich im a part of for about half a year now, i rly enjoy this place, very good atmosfeer and very good tanks.

Recently, a couple of days ago, my officer let me switch from feral dps to feral tank, cause i really want to become a tank and he thinks feral tanks are good cause of there large hp pool. So i switched.

I really thought to myself, ok i've got to study tacts, watch some tankspot/bosskillers movies and after 6-8 hours of boss study from icc i thought to myself, ok, i think im ready.

What happend was that i made some mistakes, wich is normally on a first try but it wasn't the first guild try. It was really embarrasing and i was really disappointed about myself.

Now my question(s); what's the learning curve to know your mechanics? i play feral for about 10 months and my gear is pretty good! (tanking gear also) but yet i only done about 400-500 5-man dungeons and about 20-30 10-man raids.. barely have any 25-man experience. How do i explain my guild i want to learn the bosses and learn to become a good tank and a good addition to my guild?? I really don't know what to do, maybe join a starting guild at the bottom of the food chain or maybe just go back to dps (wich i rly don't want.) anyone have some advise for me?

thanks in advance,

grtz, a beartank

Jumping into raid tanking probably isn't the greatest way to learn how to tank. Not only are the fights more complex while you're trying to learn how to do what you want to do, you've also got many more people relying on you. Spend a couple days continually queuing for random heroics and you will get the feel of basic tanking. Carry some bad healers/dps to stress yourself a little more, learn your cooldowns and such. Once you're comfortable there, then you can start thinking about more complex fights where you can concentrate on what's going on around you rather than what you need to do to tank next.

Short answer - there's no simple way to do it, you need practice, and everyone is going to be different in terms of how long it takes to get used to tanking. The easiest way to get lots of practice in is heroics.

thanks for your quick answer. I feel really convident in just Heroics, there easy and even with a newby healer it's ok. The reason that i have a lot of exp in heroics is because tanking was my offspec.

I would suggest you make sure the GM/Raid Leader explains to the guild/raid that you are being asked to do this to help the guild. The guild should understand that tanking has a steep learning curve to get good. I ran boomkin/resto in vanilla and had the same issue when BC hit. I actually started tanking in Kara with quest tanking gear and it was painful for me and the guild. I worked hard to upgrade skill and gear a lot and once I had more exp it was easier for me and the guild. I would also suggest running as many 10 man older content that you can as a tank. Go to Naxx and run a wing or 2 and saph/kel. Do maly/sarth/toc/togc/uld HMs/voa these will all give you exp tanking different bosses with different mechanics. That is the real key. You have to get comfortable with how to tank not any specific boss strats.

thank you for your answer. I did practise a lot in PuGs and last night i was main tanking icc10. I had 70k hp! i've never seen that much before. I wasn't as nervous as before and i'm realy happy i made the decsision to switch to tank. It's a fun job and i succesfully tanked 8 bosses without making a mistake and even guided some dps!

Thanks for tips and i'll keep playing tank and practise a lot to match my idol warrior tank :p

I'm glad you've got the hang of it.

If you want to continue practicing, I'd suggest you do it in ToC10 or ToC25, rather than older raids. I've found when I go into Naxx (for the weekly), I am rage starved and feel more or less useless.

Now that you've got the basics, you can practice the more difficult parts of being a Feral tank - like putting FFF on all the Blood Princes, and switching to cat form on taunt-swapping bosses fast enough to get a rip on a boss and be back in place for your turn to taunt (I suggest making macros for this).

Best of luck :)