Druid tanking halp!

[mistawac]

Well this is my first melee class and first class to not rely on mana. I've got an 80 Priest, 67 Shaman (elemental) and 63 Huntard. This toon was even Boomkin until I dual spec'd recently. I'm having a little bit of difficulty trying to learn this character on my own because I'm getting beaten on the entire time and have to basically protect the entire party. This doesn't leave much room for trial and error.

I'm trying to find a good guide on bear tanking, like what gear to focus on. Dodge, stamina, expertise, defense - it's all jibberish to me. I also need to know what addons make my life easier because keeping aggro on four or more targets right now is pretty much impossible to me. I can barely hold three targets!

Someone please help me! I'm really confused with this spec, but I really want to learn it. I've always wanted a tank toon and I finally have a viable candidate. I just need some pointing in the right direction.

Edit:
Also maybe a little help on a rotation. I can't really seem to be able to figure a good rotation out that holds aggro. I tried swipe, swipe, swipe, maul, swipe, swipe, but I lose aggro quickly with that. I also tried hitting one at a time with lacerate then berserk then swipe then mangle, but that really takes too long. By then I've lost aggro.

Double Edit:
Sorry, lol, just thought about adding this. http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...ath&cn=Mythran
That's mostly just for talent spec. I'll probably have my leveling gear on at the time you see it, but if you could take a look at my feral spec and maybe offer any pointers that'd be great

[Harmacy]

What level is the weapon you're using?

I remember trying to tank in Outlands with a mid-50's quest reward staff, and getting absolutely owned. The moment that I got that staff from the final boss in Ramps, I was able to mindlessly mash Swipe and have impeccable AoE threat. This is because a weapon constitutes so much of your attack power, and thus threat. If you are still using a weapon from Outlands, look up quest rewards for agility staffs or polearms at your level on Wowhead or someplace.

I'm far from an expert on Druids (mine is sitting pretty at 67 I think), but I know that expertise is a fantastic stat for bears. You should respec into Primal Precision for that free 10 expertise. That alone would make a lot more of your attacks connect.

[mistawac]

I'm using the Hatebringer in tank form. I have it gemmed with a Shifting Dreadstone, Glinting Ametrine, and a Regal Dreadstone.

[Harmacy]

Well, http://www.wowhead.com/item=24461 has 263 feral attack power. http://www.wowhead.com/item=36878, a quest item from Borean Tundra, has 775. That's 3x as much AP, which would boost your threat by a metric buttload.

BTW I like the dedication to your toon, but definitely save the epic quality gems for when you're 80. Not worth it on stuff you'll replace in a few levels, just get some cheap green or blue quality gems instead (probably green, those cost at most 1g piece).

[mistawac]

Well I missed the opportunity or that weapon. I chose the caster one instead, not really sure why I did that, guess I was banking on the Hatebringer. So I'm trying to figure out here what I should be stacking and I'm understanding so far that Agility and Stamina are the only two stats I should worry about. As for extras I aim for Attack Power, Expertise, and Hit Rating. Is that right? What about haste, crit, defense, and dodge? Are those tertiary concerns?

[Harmacy]

Just remembered that there's a Druid columnist over at Wow.com who wrote a "Bear 101" series of articles

http://www.wow.com/2010/02/17/shifti...ives-bear-101/

This should explain it better than I can, and she's amusing too!

[mistawac]

OMG Thank you! Just finished reading that and it was EXACTLY what I was looking for. I'm headed in-game now to finalize my addons and UI then give my new-found knowledge a little bit of testing.

Thanks again!!

[Charonites]

Taking a good look at your talents should give you a good idea of what stats you need to focus on.

Stamina, ofcourse, is important and paramount to anything else, a tank needs to have high health.

Survival of the Fittest 3/3 will make you crit immune, this is why Druid tanks do NOT NEED Defence, but getting defence on trinkets, rings and necklaces is still nice as having more defence then what you need is even more mitigation in the form of DODGE for Druids.

Natural Reaction shows you that for Rage generation, you need Dodge - Agility gives Dodge, so does actual dodge rating - so you know that you need both Agility and Dodge gear.

Savage Defense shows you that you need to be critting alot, and having high attack power. Agility and Crit Rating gives crit chance, so that you can proc your Savage Defense, and Agility and Attack Power gives you more attack power, which will increase the effectiveness of Savage Defense - therefore, this tells you need even more Agility, but also need Crit and Attack Power

Primal Precision shows you that whilst you DO need Expertise, you don't need as much as this gives you 10 Expertise for free, not Expertise RATING, but EXPERTISE.

Primal Fury shows you that you gain 5 rage everytime you crit - so crit in itself becomes an effective Rage generator, as mentioned before, Agility and Crit Rating gives crit chance.

As far as rotation wise, Feral Instinct shows you that Swipe is a good damage dealer, and is your AoE threat dealer - this is increased by attack power, so Attack Power increases the effectiveness of this talent even further.

Primal Gore shows you that you want your Lacerates to be critting when they tick, so you want to critting, so you need crit - the ability itself will show you you need Attack Power, making Agility even better, Crit Rating and Attack Power. The fact that Lacerate stacks to 5, alerted me to the fact that it's the Druid equal of Sunder Armor for Warriors, and should be kept up at 5 stacks at all times - but once you've reached 5 stacks, you don't need to spam it, simply re-apply when its about to come off and it should stay at 5 stacks - I find it's easier and more rage-effective to only focus on Lacerate stacking on bosses, on trash it's less effective and can be largely skipped.

I also keep Demoralizing Roar up at all times just for added measures, but some people don't bother.

Glyph Maul and ALWAYS be using it, and keep Mangle on cooldown - and you're a tank, don't focus on Rotations, you don't have one - it's a priority system you want to be following.

Single target - Maul always, keep Mangle on cooldown, and try to keep Lacerate stacks on 5.

Two-target - Maul always, keep Mangle on cooldown, Demoralizing Roar, if it's two targets, its probably trash, so don't bother Lacerate stacking, but if excess rage, you may aswell try.

Lots of targets - Swipe all the time, keep Maul always (Maul isn't on the GCD so you can que the next Maul directly after the last and it won't effect your other attacks), keep Mangle on cooldown, Demoralizing Roar (and keep it up), use ALL your Rage on Swipes until enemy is dead.

Hope that helped.

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Also maybe a little help on a rotation. I can't really seem to be able to figure a good rotation out that holds aggro. I tried swipe, swipe, swipe, maul, swipe, swipe, but I lose aggro quickly with that. I also tried hitting one at a time with lacerate then berserk then swipe then mangle, but that really takes too long. By then I've lost aggro.

You're problem here is that Maul is ON NEXT HIT, and Swipe is INSTANT, meaning that you can Swipe every time the GCD comes off, so you're first 3 Swipes there are fine, but then you're waiting on a Swing timer for Maul.. so you're GCD's are going to waste. If you're continuely hitting both Maul and Swipe, you're using every single GCD on Swipe, and every single Swing-timer cooldown on Maul, vastly increasing both your AoE and Single Target threat generation. The only time you want to be using your GCD for anything else other then Swipe in an AoE situation is to use Mangle.