Hiya *wave*, long time resto druid first time tank. Currently I am building a tanking set for my druid and am at an impasse. I have acquired many different items in my days as a resto druid and have pieced together a set/spec from my knowledge of tanking. If you could take a gander at my armory, much appreciated.
My questions are,
- Am I ready to main tank any content other than heroics?
- If answer to question one, is true, does my spec need to be tailored to fit that, if so how?
Thanks for any feedback!
P.S. I do have RAWR, and I do use it, but Mathematics only matter on paper if the structure can't stand on its own
Info: With just paw in bear form I have
HP : 30.5K
Dodge : 41.5
Def : is Caped
Hit : 254 (Usually always have a Dranei in the group)
Last edited by Arowsol; 07-24-2009 at 03:46 AM. Reason: Should have shfited before loging.
You could definately venture into Naxx I'd say. Spec is the same as I use. Only thing I'd switch if I were you is the Mangle glyph. It fills very little purpose (pretty much no purpose) for tanking, as it is mainly a dps cat glyph (if no trauma bot available) or pvp-glyph. I use Glyph of FR but the SI-glyph is also a good choice.
Fully buffed and shift into bear form, how much HP do you have? Around 33k?
Last night I did an OS 10 8-man, 36.5. I was OT, are party make up had 2pallys, 2Shamans, 1Mage, 2rogues, and myself. Other than kings and sanc, I had no other real stamina buffs. I think with a lock and a priest it should get higher pretty easy and warrior with comd. shout.
You should be good for Naxx. Like the other poster, I'd say change glyphs - Mangle as a tank is essentially useless, since you mangle on CD not on expiration.
I suppose if you were multi-target tanking you COULD tab-mangle-tab-mangle-tab-mangle three different mobs, but why would you need to? Either DPS is heavy on the same [marked] target you are on [boss add/major trash] or it's spread out pretty evenly [no marks]. If the DPS is heavy on the wrong target, it's a self-correcting problem [except for his repair bill of course].
Personally, I like the glyph of growling. True, some bosses [Gluth and others that must be taunted] have [reportedly] lowered chances to be missed, but the glyph slot is imo worth the piece of mind. Glyph of SI would be another good choice, though imo if standard SI [+30% health] plus other mitigation [bubble/whatever] isn't sufficient to help, you probably shouldn't be tanking that boss - or you need better heals.
Edit: Oh yeah, and I'd guess that a druid "tanking full time" is pretty rare - Given the massive variability of the number of tanks needed per boss in U25, some tanks are almost always needed to go DPS/heals. Personally, I probably spend as much or more time DPSing than I do tanking; this last Tuesday was very possibly the first time I've used a completely role-appropriate flask on a bunch of bosses. [That is, I usually pop a endless rage and end up tanking at least a few fights, or a stoneblood and end up DPSing a few].
Last edited by Viridios; 07-24-2009 at 08:37 AM.
One thing you might think about, I don't know how long that character has been 80, but I redeem my stone keeper shards for BOA honor tokens that you can right click on and gives you 2k honor. There are some nice pieces you can get that way without BG grinding, I know the deadly bracers are comparable to the thrusting bracers out of Nax 25. Also I picked up Titan-Forged Helm from Wintergrasp, which is nice and looks like Hanibal Lector from Silence of the Lambs. I'd keep the helm you have now if you ever go cat.
One spec change suggestion: I don't think this is worth going to the trainer for immediately but if you find yourself respecing, I'd recommend putting the two points in feral aggression elsewhere. With only two points in there I believe the payoff is minimal. There is one of three places I'd put them 1) Shredding Attacks (more for when you jump to cat when your target dies and you're helping with another tanks target) 2)Brutal Attack 3) King of the Jungle on this one it'd be nice to take either a point out of Imp Leader of the Pack or Improved Mangle to get three points. Again this is more for when you target dies and you jump on another target in cat it's nice to have that energy boost with Tiger Fury.
Regardless I think a lot of druids more informed than me have said and I agree that even with all five points in Feral Aggression the increased Demoralizing Roar is not worth it.
Last edited by Bludzooka; 07-24-2009 at 09:38 AM.
awesome, thanks for the tips!
You gain about 1% mitigation per point in Feral Aggression. That's certainly more benefit then you'd gain from going with Master Shapeshifter, where the first 3 talent points don't really do a whole lot for you.Originally Posted by Bludzooka
I too am a resto/feral druid, but you might want to ask yourself if you want to be a pure bear/tree or all 3 (cat/bear/tree). I find in many fights, raids ask me to go cat, and even if they don't, if I finish up my target first, I will go cat and finish out, greatly speeding things up. Personally, I prefer being hybrid feral.
For Glyphs, agreed, Maul is useless. Go for something else, perhaps survival instincts?
For talents, I agree, demo roar is really nice but there are far more critical talent points to be spent. Personally I would allocate the 2 points to finish out Furor. I currently also have 3/5 furor and I am getting seriously ticked with it, I've had a record 7 consecutive shifts in and out of bear form without proccing the rage, and it really pissed off the raid.
I find your agility to be extremely low, because you gemmed exclusively for stam, and even bypassed agi gem bonuses. While we do get huge bonuses for stam, we also get huge bonuses for agility, not only in the form of dodge, but crit (Savage defense, an important part of mitigation), and to a minor extent armor. AFAIK, nobody gets better agi->dodge conversions than us druids. Should be going for 1k agility at least. If you have set bonuses giving agi or stam, go for them, ignore the rest. In that respec, agi/stam (purple) is your friend. When it comes to yellow, as you have correctly figured out, Hit is a bit of an issue for us and is a good candidate, although some prefer crit (again for savage defense, but I get all my crit from talents, agi, and whatever is pasted on the rogue gear we are forced to use).
H AN's Essence of Gossamer is orgasmically godly for us druids. And then start dreaming of Heart of Stone. Happily we are in the same realm, I'd be happy to help you run for it. And perhaps we can hit up Squirrellara for total druid owneage....
Err.. did you mean Mangle? Personally I find Maul to be a wonderful glyph the 99% of the time it doesn't make me steal adds/break cc.
As for Demo roar.. yeah, I gotta change that myself. Not sure what I'll do with the points though; I find that Furor is mostly useless [am I unusual for only getting benefit from it during fights via powershifting? Or is it just that some of the people in my guild like to pull early, so I've been trained to be ready? [this week: Freya, 1 elder, 3 trash pulls in the conservatory, Hodir, General, Sartharion and Yogg.]
On the Feral Aggression talent, again I've seen the math cited (I'm not going to claim I've worked the numbers) that the amount of ap reduced on a mob with Feral Aggression vs. without is not significant enough to spend five points on. I believe I saw it in Darksend's guide. Nevertheless, in addition to that, I also compare specs and I don't see any ferals in the top guilds nor do I see it in the cookie cutter bear build. Maybe we're all missing the boat but that's what I base my advice on.
The three options as to where to put the extra points were just my suggestions from what I've found useful in tanking in raids.
It is an amazing talent, we just simply do not have the points for it. That said ret pallies get it for almost free next patch so it is no longer a big deal
Really, Squirrellara is in my guild. Whom might you be?
And I do have the trinket you reference here. Other than a stam bonus I guess I didn't see a real purpose to it. :? I am infact ignorant to the idea. I am a healer *wipes-brow* I make the health bar try to stay at 100% all the time. I guess my thinking is I have the Valor of the First War and figured the +dodge would be better to miss than have them shielded. I figure I could replace the alch trinket.
While Stam isn't better than everything, it as a general rule is one of the best stats to gear for. You are correct in that the shield effect is far weaker than the Valor medal, but you still need the stam to take the hits that don't get dodged. Healers can have lag / other people they are healing.
Okay, so I got into a discussion when I was fixing to tank an EOE 10 man, it came into to play that 28K armor is not enough to tank. Fully raid buffed I was sitting at 37K hp 43%dodge and 28K armor. I was tpold my stats weren't sufficent, and was asked to heal. Which to be honest I'm cool with, I just wasn't sure if these stats were to low... Sorry I just figured it would have beeb okay
They probably decided that based on old information. Pre-armor nerf, they are generally correct. Post-armor nerf, I'm alternating Heroic MT [tanked Keepers, Antechamber and Siege, though for IC I haven't tanked Steelbreaker] - with 27.5k armor, 39% dodge, 36k health [unbuffed]. Buffed, around 29k armor, 47% dodge, 43k health. The other druid tank has pretty similar stats.
Dont listen to them really. That should be more than enough for any pre-ulduar 10-man content. Thats enough for naxx-25 I'd say.
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