Bear Tank Questions

Hello there, I am coming back to WoW after being gone awhile and decided to run a Bear Tank. I just hit 40 and am planning to start running dungeons more. Looking over past threads I still have a couple of questions.

1. Weapon: Is it better to go the slow but high damage vs the faster but lower damage?
2. I have been gearing agility and stamina. What agility cap should I be working for?
3. Should I have Maul macro-ed behind each of my talents (Mangle/swipe/etc)?

Any other suggestions would be welcomed. Thanks

1. highest wep dmg you can get that has agi and stam on it (staff/polearm)

2. keep gearing agi and stam, there is no cap to reach other than what you feel comfortable with.

3. no, keep maul seperate in times of low rage for other abilities. maul is there only if you are at high rage.

Regarding #1:

Weapon damage has nothing to do with it. Only Weapon DPS does. Any weapon a Bear uses will get normalized to 2.5 attack speed.

If you can page between a bar that has Maul macroed behind everything else and a bar which doesn't in combat you should be free to macro, but being stuck Mauling all the time is going to be quite a hindrance to your ability to tank.

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Originally Posted by Tengenstein

If you can page between a bar that has Maul macroed behind everything else and a bar which doesn't in combat you should be free to macro, but being stuck Mauling all the time is going to be quite a hindrance to your ability to tank.

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or just do the old warrior trick of binding it to mousewheel and spin your mousewheel like crazy while tanking.

i couldn't stand that, i tilt my mousewheel for strafing and so would invariably end up CLeaving or HSing. but yeah its a great way to play, especially if you can unlock the mousewheel for freespinning.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tengenstein

i couldn't stand that, i tilt my mousewheel for strafing and so would invariably end up CLeaving or HSing. but yeah its a great way to play, especially if you can unlock the mousewheel for freespinning.

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Using a mod/nomod macro so that you can turn it off by holding down a modification key is the "right" way to do it.

Honestly, druids have so few abilities in bear for there is really no reason to not have it as a separate key completely. I have had maul at 2 since I can remember and never had it in a macro

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Originally Posted by Darksend

Honestly, druids have so few abilities in bear for there is really no reason to not have it as a separate key completely. I have had maul at 2 since I can remember and never had it in a macro

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Some of us can't reach half of the keyboard with one hand.

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Originally Posted by Katarn

Some of us can't reach half of the keyboard with one hand.

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I was going to type this before but didn't for some reason, guess I will now though:

1: thrash
2: maul
3: lacerate
4: mangle
5: pulverize
6: bash
7 (alt-1): feral charge
8 (middle mouse): growl
9 (e): FFF
10 (q): demo roor
11 (alt-2): enrage
12 (z) survival instincts

skullbash is r on a bar that doesn't change for form because I have a macro that fills in cat bash in cat form and bear bash in bear form:
/cast [stance:1] Skull Bash(Bear Form); [stance:3] Skull Bash(Cat Form)

berserk doesn't break fear anymore so no reason not to click it

challenging roar is alt-3

stampeding roar isn't important enough to keybind but I have it at alt-4 even though I click it every time I use it.

I have 3 buttons on my mouse at my mousewheel (mx-518) the one above is barkskin, the one immediately below is frenzied regen, and the bottom one is swipe.

And TBH that's really all you need to tank.

Missed:

Rebirth, Roots, Hibernate, clickable trinkets, shapeshifting, zerk.

my keybinds for bear are:

~ : bear wall
1: demo roar
2: pulverize
3: fff
4: mangle
Q: growl
E: lacerate
R: berserk
mousewheel up: thrash
middle mouse: swipe
mousewheel down: maul
mousebutton 4: skull bash (shift modifier bash)
mousebutton 5: enrage (shift modifier thorns)
V: charge
G: frenzied regen + lock stone
shift-R: barkskin
shift-V: b-rez
shift-S: stampeding roar
shift-x: challenging roar

way less keybinds compared to the other tank classes. i have almost double the keybinds on my prot warrior even though most are just situational abilities.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Katarn

Missed:

Rebirth, Roots, Hibernate, clickable trinkets, shapeshifting, zerk.

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i click usable trinkets for the most part. shapeshifting i do through oPie addon, F1 pops up the shapeshift ring. roots and hibernate i never use, either because i'm bad or don't see the point in them since most things in raids are immune to them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Katarn

Missed:

Rebirth, Roots, Hibernate, clickable trinkets, shapeshifting, zerk.

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rebirth: click it

who uses roots? but if you must know it is 3 when I shift out since my main bar changes

again who uses hibernate but if you must know it is "Z" when I shift out and my bar changes

only 1 of the 5 trinkets I use is clickable, and I have that bound to shit 1 I think but I havent used it in so long because I usually use double agi trinkets

shifting is mouse 7 and 8 and shift mouse 7

and I already mentioned there is no reason to bind berserk anymore

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berserk doesn't break fear anymore so no reason not to click it

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For people that don't have multi-button mice, or use the mousewheel for zooming, there are problems.

I'm not arguing that in an ideal world you wouldn't have a different button for Maul altogether. However most people don't live in an ideal world.

just use a shift modifier on your mousewheel for zooming if you are constantly changing your zoom mid-fight or use - and = for zooming if you don't adjust it all the time