Help with making my bear a better ICC tank

Hello,

I am currently looking for help on getting my bear up to par.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...thon&cn=Kelset

My bear is an alt, and since wrath I have been using the limited badges I was getting to help get orbs for my main (a lock) for the crafted gear.

Recently we have had a shortage of tanks for ICC 10 & 25, so I was asked to help with that on my bear.

I am currently at 100 frost badges on my warlock, and 65 frost badges on my bear.
I can include triumph badges if needed.
I am looking at dumping the badges from my lock to primordials and getting the crafted boots for my druid.

What I am looking for is help with gear upgrad choices, with what to prioritize for upgrades
(I have had no luck for feral gear from VoA - keep seeing caster healer or dps drops for druid)
Also any advice to help with threat generation, ICC geared dps pull off me farily easly if I am not carefull (DK's are most common for this)

I know my professions are not the best for tanking, but I still use this toon for farming.

I have Maul macroed to my attacks when I have rage to spare, but when low on rage I just use abilitys without Maul.
I use Mangle when ever off CD, I do my best to keep 5 stacks of lacerate up, use FF when off CD, and swipe when ever not doing something else (unless there are adds like blood beasts)

I am also currently using agility food, but can change to other type if it will help increase my threat
I am also willing to adjust my talents if needed as well.

Thanks for any and all help.

You should have 3/3 Feral Instinct. This is a huge talent for bears, especially given the amount of AoE threat/damage that goes around in fights. I'd give up mangle or imp lotp for that. That will help your trheat quite a bit. Otherwise - you just need to prioritize getting a better weapon. It's as simple and as lame as that. The 2pT10 will help some too.

Try to buy an Ikfirus sack for the chest. Do pick up a Glyph of Indomitability. Then start picking up Tier10 pieces. I'd go for the shoulders or gloves first (depending on how lucky you feel on VoA).

Shoulder first since his current shoulder is already offset. Then likely head for the two piece leaving legs and gloves for last since either could drop in VoA if you get lucky. Chest you would skip for the BoE chest, Ikfirus's Sack of Wonder (Gunship 25 or on the AH for more money than you can probably afford). Under no circumstances should any druid spend emblems on Saronite before getting set pieces. All three specs would priorize set pieces higher than off set.

Threat is more spec and proper technique (granted you are greatly limited by the effectiveness of your weapon as felhoof pointed out). You should never have to gem or enchant for threat, doing so typically means you are doing something wrong.

There are several alternative enchants that would be better for you (yield more effective health). 225 armor on cloak is better than 22 agility. 18 stamina armor kit on gloves is better than 15 expertise (since you are already over the soft cap and ICC bosses aren't parry hastable anyway). Chest is fine at 10 all stats, though if you're purely tanking another 18 stamina armor kit or even the 275 health enchant would likely be better for a pure tank. You shouldn't use a pure red cut either to meet your meta requirement, instead use a Shifting Dreadstone (10 agility, 15 stamina).

I just got the shoulders, and have the mats now for the crafted boots.

as for the weapon, anything that I can farm for outside ICC ? one I had before was the polearm off 10man ToC anub.

Thanks

25man ony has a great weapon. This drops http://www.wowhead.com/item=49496 and its on use makes you this http://www.wowhead.com/item=49497
Either can be used for tanking but exp is generally considered a tanking stat so you can of course pick and choose.

Lightborne spire is better than the above. It's better than anything outside of ICC and for tanking it's about as good as anything you'll find in ICC 10 normal save the tainted twig from LK directly.

I agree with the equipment recommendations of Quin. Go with the shoulders, then the head piece while hoping for a drop in VoA. I hope you didn't spend your druid's frost emblems on Saronite.

Since Maul is the biggest threat generator for bears I would look to maximize its use. As you already have it macro'd to your other abilities the next step would be to make sure you have enough rage to use it consistently. In any scenario, you want to max out both Ferocity and Feral Instinct. Ferocity will reduce the rage cost of your abilities by 25-33% and combined with OoC should significantly increase the amount of rage you have available to maximize your use of Maul which it sounds like is a current problem.

In that respect, I would suggest dropping the 5 points from Natural Shapeshifter and Master Shapeshifter. Look to put 1 of the 5 points into OoC and find points from other parts of your tree to fill out the remaining deficiencies in Ferocity and Feral Instinct. An alternative to taking points from ImpMangle and ILotP is to drop the 5 points from Feral Aggression and place them into Ferocity. If there is another way to get the AP debuff on your target I would definitely go without FA. Whether you get the points from FA, ImpMangle or ILotP will depend on your raid composition some, but maxing these stats looks like the quickest way to increase threat from a spec point of view.

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In any scenario, you want to max out both Ferocity and Feral Instinct. Ferocity will reduce the rage cost of your abilities by 25-33% and combined with OoC should significantly increase the amount of rage you have available to maximize your use of Maul which it sounds like is a current problem.

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I seriously doubt it's a problem, especially with his gear. Not having ferocity is fine on single mob tanking. You have more than enough rage.

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Originally Posted by Wachabe

In that respect, I would suggest dropping the 5 points from Natural Shapeshifter and Master Shapeshifter.

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While I agree that feral should generally have Omen of Clarity, I disagree that you should ever drop Master Shapeshifter. Currently the OP has two separate tanking specs and it basically looks like one is for boss tanking (improved AP debuff) and the other is for trash or off tanking (invests in reduced ability cost instead of improved AP debuff). Master Shapeshifter should be in all specs except for maybe a feral cat druid that is crit capped.

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Originally Posted by Kelset

I have Maul macroed to my attacks when I have rage to spare, but when low on rage I just use abilitys without Maul.

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This is what I was basing that recommendation off of. I was reading that he was not overflowing with rage and trying to help find a solution. I did not even take a look at the second spec, either. I will humbly defer to the expertise and knowledge of Fel and Quin as I am far from an expert.

I must admit that my own spec is a work in progress and have respecced 3 times in as many months trying to find what complements my raid composition best and works for me. I know that without OoC I had rage problems at times that could turn into threat problems if they went on too long. As previously suggested, a new weapon did wonders to resolve any threat problems. I've been running without NS and MS lately because our raid composition seemed to need the benefits of ILotP and Infected Wounds more than I needed the extra damage and threat of MS.

Well, I don't like running without ferocity - as a main tank it's fine, but as an offtank or doing heroics or really anything with adds it's just...ugh. It feels horrible. But for main tanking I did something very similar to that (maximal single target threat + debuffs) and it worked fairly well.

I don't recommend it if you can't adjust a bit on the fly, but it's not too bad, and with the 4pT10 being so strong anyway rage isn't quite the issue it could be.