Bear using Kitty to Drop Threat

[grizlee]

Hopefully this isn't too dumb a question but I've been wondering. In a situation where you have to taunt a boss back and forth between tanks, would it be beneficial to go kitty to help the other tank out (ie drop threat faster). My thinking on the benefit would be increased DPS and decreased innate threat. My concern is that you'd be in a tanking situation and loosing your bear armor bonus goodness.

So bad idea? Does anyone do this? Tried it?

[geeksbsmrt]

I do it all the time on the second taunt on Festergut. I tank in bear and take the boss second. By the time my the first tanks stack drops off I am usually at 9. This is very bad if he is trying to over aggro me. After the taunt off me I immediately drop to kitty and cower. From there I white attack for 15 or so seconds then go into a DPS rotation for 15-30 seconds depending on the other tank then back to the front and bear to close the aggro gap. It is a bad idea to do on say Saurfang or any boss with a multi-target ability.

[Griff]

Admittedly, I'm not really all that up to speed on druids, but what would happen if the healing team dropped the ball with the other tank after the taunt and you suddenly had primary aggro again as a kitty. Not sure how many of your survival/defense talents are carried into cat form but it sounds, to my relatively uninformed ear, like a recipe for potential doom.

Wouldn't it be easier to just take your foot off the threat gas pedal as a bear for a moment?

[Raysere]

Most bosses that require tank swaps require them fairly often, with the exception of Festergut. It's not really worth the effort to shift to cat form as, in tank gear/spec you'll struggle to deal any meaningful damage before you need to tank again, and you'll have your debuffs fall off in the process. If you're being taunted off by your co-tank, take your hands off the keyboard and count to three, then do whatever you want until it's your turn to tank again. You''ll be rage-limited so be careful when you maul, make sure you keep your debuffs rolling.

[Metasynaptic]

issue with this is that as kitty you lose the defense etc that bear gives you. If there's a miss taunt while you are in kitty, or you generate too much threat, you will probably get 1 shotted.

[amazon_jade]

"Wouldn't it be easier to just take your foot off the threat gas pedal as a bear for a moment? "

^^

Bingo. Anticipate when the switch will occur. It's a 2 way street- he has to taunt, but you have to let him take it back. Just imagine if a boss was down to 25% and the bear died, because he decided to go kitty rather than just melee and drop threat ahead of time, and wiped the entire raid.

[Metasynaptic]

Yeah I'd be pretty worried if I saw a bear tank suddenly go kitty before the taunt, ... wipe incoming.

After the taunt... basically should be auto attacking until the other tank has a good threat lead.

[grizlee]

The issue you bring up is what I was concerned about. Thanks for the thoughts.

[reek]

personaly I just stop doing my rotation for a few secs and then slowly start it up again.I hate cat/kitty in all regards, if I am needed as a tank then I will be on my druid in bear form if I need to dps I will bring a dps class my hunter.If the fight needs one tank I will be backup in bear form my threat will be just behind the tanks. So he dies I dont need to shapeshift+taunt before a melee or range or healer is dead.

[felhoof]

You can do this only in a few situations, but it can be really useful for things like Saurfang and Festergut, and situationally useful on LDW. It's a bit dangerous, but most of the time you do it after the taunt. It's not too bad and as soon as you see the aggro loss you switch to cat and go to town.

It's especially fun on Festergut given how much damage you can do as a cat.

[joe1010011010]

on my warrior when i tank fester for example i have been known to go arms wile im waiting for my stacks to fall off, and i just have to really watch my threat because of the mechanics of that fight (the buff you get increases your damage and therefore more threat) the beauty of that fight is that say the other tank does die, so what, thats usually a wipe any ways, even if the original tank does pick it up again, the buff will just be refreshed and you'll blow up any ways

but for any type of tank trying to do more dps on "off times" it really depends on the lenght of time that you can be "non tank" for saurfang for example its simply not worth it because in 20 seconds yoll be expected to resume your normal job, festergut, its closer to a 2 minute window so its more worth your time