Spec / Tanking questions

Good day,

I have been a warrior tank since vanilla, and recently I was challenged with getting all the tanking classes to 85.

I have a DK, Warrior, and Paladin accomplished. I am now working on the druid and have a few questions,

1) from first appearances a druid can do all three roles with two specs. I cannot seem to find any feral cat talent that would appear to dramatically impact a MT bear from simply going into cat form and doing very respectable DPS, which frees up your dual spec for a healer spec. Am I wildly wrong in this?

2) I am level 58 on my druid and am having some difficulties. The warrior, for instance, has an instant attack (devastate) which I can spam as long as I have rage, plus several attacks on various cooldowns (Shield Slam, Herioc Strike). At level 58 with the druid, all my attacks are on various cooldowns. I have basically Mangle, Maul, and Feral Faerie Fire. I have come to the conclusion that Feral Faerie fire is actually a core part of a bear tanks rotation, am I wrong? Obviously Maul does not trigger the global cooldown so that is a great ability and unlike the warriors cleave/HS on same cooldown the bears swipe and maul do not share one, so that is interesting.

I am having some problems with holding pack aggro with only Demo Roar and Swipe since swipe seems to take forever to cooldown heh. I have glyphed Maul and that seems to help quite a bit. Any advice on pack tanking would be most appreciated.

Thanks for reading!

Hi there I am also a Druid tank been tanking since BC now there's been alot of changes and believe me I have experienced your problems in the past with multi add pulls. Little trick you can do to help with multi target threat try marking your targets n having the dps follow a certain kill order then you can pull your main target with FF tag it with a mangle n when the rest get to you swipe. Then proceed to tab targeting till u get a lacerate on each should help hold them to you n not the squishes swipe n maul when rage n CD permit them n you should be ok.

Does anyone have advice on range mobs? Like Vortex Pinnacle, Like every mob is ranged lol. And I am a Druid an they seem to be giving me the most trouble. Sorry if this has been covered,its really late an I'm lazy at the moment to look threw pages upon pages lol

Thank you for the response Gringore. I seem to be doing better now. I am level68 and have some more tools in my toolbox. Lacerate/pulverize is enabling me to have some instant aggro generation if needed. Berserk is so good that I get giddy when the cooldown is up.

I have also begun CC'ing myself with Root/Hibernate prior to a pull to keep something locked down combined with FF'ing one target then charging another etc... Seem to be getting into the swing of things. The Druid seems to be lagging behind in AOE tanking compared to the warrior and even farther behind the pally/DK, but the tools they have are very fun to use.

I am absolutely in love with how mobile and fluid the druid is.

To Erer, Depending on dungeon / layout you will have to LOS a lot of pulls. The other option for a bear is to keep FF'ign the ranged mobs to maintain light aggro on them. You won't be able to position them, but you will at least maintain enough aggro so they do not start pewpew'ing the healer. From my experience as a warrior in 85 dungeons, LOS is your best friend. Just make sure you communicate to the group.

yeh bahn i'm doing lvl 84-85 as just as tank to get a better feel of it an for most part some dungeons don't have enough los but yeh i found it easier to growl an FF both range an wait for the melee to come into range an swipe an that aoe bleed then maul an just sit an watch my treat plates as needed,mangle seems to keep enough aggro on the melee an lacerate so the talent over in resto that reduce magic damage helps alot with those kinda pulls,but if i have cc in the group i try an use them as much as possible

btw...is there an open forum or a forum period about what stats i need to be focusing on..i read on wow forums that agil/stam/mastery/dodge is what i need an how much hit do i need lol i'm new to druid tanking btw

@Bahn
Unfortunately, I'm not all that familiar with how things work around level 58 with the 4.0 changes. What I can tell you is that many druids were having a great deal of trouble tanking after the changes, even at 80. I guess if you can answer one question, I may be able to answer yours better. Do you have Lacerate yet? If so, I have found that tab > Lacerate works well unless it is a very large number of mobs (6+). You are, however, correct about Faerie Fire. It should be big part of your rotation on single targets. I find I don't really have time to use it on multiple mobs for anything more than pulling.

Regarding your question on being able to tank/dps/heal across 3 specs: Yes, it is possible, but you may lose some DPS or tanking ability depending on where you place your points. Currently, at 85, putting points only in feral, you are unable to max all feral talents. And there are 6-9 talents worth having in Resto as well. Doable? Yes. Recommended by me? Not really.

@erer
Stam and agi are going to be the primary stats you are looking for (for the most part, in that order). Regarding your best secondary stat, hit comes first until you are hit capped. Check the in-game pullout on your character sheet and look under the melee section. If you mouse over hit, it should give you your percentage to miss against different level mobs. They should all be at zero. Keep putting on hit until they are. After that, it really depends on your situation. If you are noticing that you take a lot more damage from caster mobs than melee mobs, I would go with mastery as it improves your damage absorption when you crit (and also helps against melee). Dodge helps more for melee, but also aids in rage generation if you are talented for it. I am, myself, trying to find a happy medium between the two.

Also, I posted on the end of the WotLK Druid guide that may help with other questions regarding rotations. If you want to see spec information, you can take a look at Fendicano on Earthen Ring if you would like.

http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.p...d-Guide/page11

well atm i'm focusing on that stam/agil an pretty much any haste i get i reforge into dodge,i believe its around 27% in bear which seems a lil low but i have a lot mastery which i might reforge a lil my hit is also way low,like around 3.60%,and trying the happy place with mastery an hit is a hard place for me at least to find

I did a little bit of poking around and wowhead has the following stat weights for druid tanks:
- Stam: 100
- Armor: 75
- Agil: 48
- Dodge: 41
- Additional Armor: 21
- Mastery: 16
- Crit: 13
- Str: 10
- Expertise: 10
- Health: 7
- Att Power: 5
- Hit Rating: 5
- Haste: 1

Judging off of that, agil and dodge should be primary stats after stam. Hit should be virtually ignored, and mastery/crit should be stats that you would pickup if the item was an upgrade, but reforge off for other stats.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

EDIT:
To be honest, I don't believe hit should be that low

@Fendi, I now have lacerate. with that, pulverize, and berserk I have found it SO much easier. I spread lacerate around to get the mangle procs and after getting a 3 stack pulverize off I find myself doing very well.

I have also started doing my own roots in WoTLK dungeons and that is helping a ton. I wish I could find a few good mages in that level range to rely upon.

I have done some more research on the whole "tri spec" idea, and it seems several people are putting it into practice. It really works out more towards them being a primary tank and secondary healer with the ability to do pinch dps if the raids are full. A few folks are reporting a 1500 to 2k dps difference between primary dps (i.e. someone specced properly) So, is it a ton, no, will it keep you from a main raid spot as dps, prolly.

Now to build a guild on my new server to start raiding!!!
oh, armory for anyone who wants to help me more ;) http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...oteja/advanced

Ok, here is the level 85 spec I am shooting for:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfMGo...kMcu:qr00azMz0

I seem to take huge damage when I pop enrage, so I didn't pick up king of the jungle or primal madness and instead spent those points to get perseverance from the resto tree.

Thoughts?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fendi

I did a little bit of poking around and wowhead has the following stat weights for druid tanks:
- Stam: 100
- Armor: 75
- Agil: 48
- Dodge: 41
- Additional Armor: 21
- Mastery: 16
- Crit: 13
- Str: 10
- Expertise: 10
- Health: 7
- Att Power: 5
- Hit Rating: 5
- Haste: 1

Judging off of that, agil and dodge should be primary stats after stam. Hit should be virtually ignored, and mastery/crit should be stats that you would pickup if the item was an upgrade, but reforge off for other stats.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

EDIT:
To be honest, I don't believe hit should be that low

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Where did you find this information at?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ashtanga

Where did you find this information at?

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I'd not base any lvl 85 gearing choices on that list. Most likely, someone, some day, some odd patch used those stat weights to calculate some score for some piece of gear.

Most likely is not correct.

Go here http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t110351-...4/#post1826023

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Originally Posted by Ashtanga

Where did you find this information at?

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I found the information on wowhead.com. It can be found by going to the item lookup tool (http://www.wowhead.com/items=2) and in the Stat weight section, select Druid, then Feral (Tank). Then, click the "Show Details" link and it will give you the weights as given per Wowhead.

Edit: I have confirmed that those stats are as of 4.0.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by erer

well atm i'm focusing on that stam/agil an pretty much any haste i get i reforge into dodge,i believe its around 27% in bear which seems a lil low but i have a lot mastery which i might reforge a lil my hit is also way low,like around 3.60%,and trying the happy place with mastery an hit is a hard place for me at least to find

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With hit, you only need around 5-6% to be extremely effective. I maintain a stupid crazy amount of threat with all my DPSers putting out 10-13k dps with me only having 6%.

Mastery is decent, but I reforged all my Main Bear gear into Dodge (My Cat/Bear gear still has Mastery, while my Bear Only gear is all dodge). Since my threat gen is a no-brainer, I'm not all that reliant on needing a constant gain in rage by being hit. I'd rather concentrate more heavily on avoid getting swatted around than trying to absorb a few extra percentage points of damage with Savage Defense, which relies on my critting an attack.

My Expertise is pretty high, sitting around 24 which is something like .25% to dodge vs Boss.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bahn

Ok, here is the level 85 spec I am shooting for:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfMGo...kMcu:qr00azMz0

I seem to take huge damage when I pop enrage, so I didn't pick up king of the jungle or primal madness and instead spent those points to get perseverance from the resto tree.

Thoughts?

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Eh, preserverence and stampede is a waste as a bear, imo.

Speccing out King and putting a point into Tiger is worth much more. Popping Enrage at the beginning of the fight grants ~36 rage and 15% more damage over ten seconds, which is more efficient than 30% boost in attack speed, to me.

And knocking off 6% in spell damage is just fluff. You're talking about shaving off perhaps 600-800 damage from a spell attack. Not even worth a flash heal of difference for the points wasted into that talent.

My build is as follows:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfMGf...kMcz:qr00azMz0

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Originally Posted by kittikat

And knocking off 6% in spell damage is just fluff. You're talking about shaving off perhaps 600-800 damage from a spell attack. Not even worth a flash heal of difference for the points wasted into that talent.

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Considering the mana cost of Flash Heal and its equivalents, this is a horrible metric to use. And your 600 damage number is pulled out of thin air - in reality, there are many raid encounters where the tank will be taking a fair amount of magic damage.

When healer mana is at a premium, tanks should be taking whatever precautions they can to ease that burden, especially since, like you said, threat generation is a non-issue for you. I don't think that 3 talent points for 6% reduction in spell damage is unreasonable.

Also, since your threat generation is "stupid crazy", why not get rid of your hit and expertise for more useful stats? And why take pure threat talents over decent survival ones? I really don't understand, not trying to flame but your logic makes no sense.

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Originally Posted by Ihastail

Considering the mana cost of Flash Heal and its equivalents, this is a horrible metric to use. And your 600 damage number is pulled out of thin air - in reality, there are many raid encounters where the tank will be taking a fair amount of magic damage.

When healer mana is at a premium, tanks should be taking whatever precautions they can to ease that burden, especially since, like you said, threat generation is a non-issue for you. I don't think that 3 talent points for 6% reduction in spell damage is unreasonable.

Also, since your threat generation is "stupid crazy", why not get rid of your hit and expertise for more useful stats? And why take pure threat talents over decent survival ones? I really don't understand, not trying to flame but your logic makes no sense.

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The Flash Heal reference was used because Flash Heal is in itself a waste of a spell to use because of the mana:heal ratio. Sorry you didn't catch that.

As far as spell damage goes, I ventured between the average 10,000-15,000 damage taken from a single spell (i.e. Maliorak's Arcane Storm, which he uses a WHOPPING 1.8% of the entire fight). 6% of that is 600-800 damage mitigated. Big whooping deal there. When you're sporting 170k health, 600 damage mitigation isn't even a sneeze of notice. 3 Talent points to get TO that amount of mitigation is laughable at best.

So for me, dumping 3 points into a talent which has a usage of maybe a grand total of 4-5% during a fight of perhaps 30% of all the boss fights would be just as wasteful as meta-gemming for Stam/2% Spell reflect.

My threat gen is stupid crazy and this is WITHOUT me gemming or reforging for hit.

Expertise is a large part of bear tanking. Since we have no way to parry or block, we must rely on dodge and the ability to soak damage. High expertise allows us to push down the Boss Parry % in order to avoid getting parry-gibbed.

A bear tank with no expertise is a bear tank who dies quickly.

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Expertise is a large part of bear tanking. Since we have no way to parry or block, we must rely on dodge and the ability to soak damage. High expertise allows us to push down the Boss Parry % in order to avoid getting parry-gibbed.

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I'm not sure that any bosses are parry hasted right now. At least not in the current content..... BC/Wrath parry hastes in dungeons I don't believe are any threat right now.

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Originally Posted by MellvarTank

I'm not sure that any bosses are parry hasted right now.

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Oh god. Please post proof of this! I would love you forever if this is true :D

...Well in ICC Sindragosa was parry hasted and so was Lady Deathwhisper(?? I think?)... maybe 1 other boss.... so that is 3/12 bosses that parry hasted...

In Cata I haven't seen any parry haste enabled bosses or reports of... I've seen speculation that their parry percentages are different, but no parry hastes. I'm also running with about 15 expertise (showing) and not getting gibbed.