Need help with Druid Tanking.

[Fetzie]

Only white hits can become crit capped below 100%

[Quinafoi]

Even in the yellow attack case, increasing Critical Strike by 1% has a larger impact than increasing Hit by 1% on the proc rate of Savage Defense. Increasing Hit will increase your DPS by more than increasing Critical Strike, but non-crits don't proc Savage Defense.

[Gregasaurous]

Even in the yellow attack case, increasing Critical Strike by 1% has a larger impact than increasing Hit by 1% on the proc rate of Savage Defense. Increasing Hit will increase your DPS by more than increasing Critical Strike, but non-crits don't proc Savage Defense.

In my head the math there makes sense. Lets say you have 30% crit chance, If you were to increase your hit rating (for simplicity's sake) by another 1%, it just means 1 more time out of 100 you attack lands. Now, that 1 extra attack has a 30% chance to crit. (Special attack, not white hit) You get more bang for your buck by just increasing crit giving all your other hits a better chance to crit.
Yeah there are gearing thresholds where X amount in accordance with Y amount is best, but I don't think being capped is anywhere on that chart.

So, here's what i would do to with some of the reforges here:
Neck: Hit to Dodge.
Shoulders: Expertise to Dodge
Back: Haste to Dodge
Wrist: Haste to dodge
Hands: crit or expertise to dodge, i would assume reforge out expertise but i'm not 100%
Waist: Expertise to Dodge (somebody double check that)
Legs: Hit to Dodge
Feet: (Lavawalker > Earthen Vitality??) Hit to Dodge
Ring 1: Haste to Dodge

That's about it. Now i don't actually play a max level feral druid, so somebody feel free to double check all of that. But from the looks of that you will still have a ample amount of hit and expertise after those changes. And gain some avoidance and get some more savage defense procs.

[Theotherone]

I would say Assassians Step > Lavawalker or Earthen Vitaltiy for a bear; don't bears want Agility over mastery or stam?

[Quinafoi]

I would say Assassians Step > Lavawalker or Earthen Vitaltiy for a bear; don't bears want Agility over mastery or stam?

That's correct, wherever Agility can be had, it should be.

[Gregasaurous]

Yeah, forgot there was one for boots ^^ Derp.

[captanmurdoc]

no love for the stam stacking bears in this thread

[Aggathon]

no love for the stam stacking bears in this thread

I was wondering about that, a lot of DS fights seem really geared towards EHP... I just don't know crap about bear tanking.

[Gregasaurous]

I was wondering about that, a lot of DS fights seem really geared towards EHP... I just don't know crap about bear tanking.

I think that due too cd's and savage defense mechanics and how the DS fights worked out EHP was deemed sub-par next to agility by the majority of the bear tanking population. I do know druids though who like to throw in both stam trinks from DS with their agility stacked gear for certain fights. So, yeah, i don't know the in depth theory crafting on that one.

[Fetzie]

Before we started getting stacks of Power of the Aspects, stamina stacking was pretty viable. But nowadays with tank damage so low (the only things that can really kill a tank right now are derping Heroic Will or derping a CD choice at madness) you are better off sticking to agility and helping the raid kill stuff faster.

[Krow]

Very interesting discussion and thank you for all the positive comments. I must admit I thought stamina/dodge enchants where better for bear tank then AGI.....As focus is always on survivability...or have I misunderstood that?....I will of course re-enchant shoulders/legs and head to AGI.

The mouthy rogue was upset that I was not pulling my add into onslaught in LFR....But the video stats that as Tank you do not have to....maybe in 10man DS normal/hc...I guess....but have not been to DS normal.

[Tengenstein]

Agility provides DOdge and Crit wich both provide survivability, and that survivabuility will also decrease the healing you require, stamina does not decrease the healing you need.

as for pulling the add into the onslauhgt, if you've got the health to survive, and you really should have enough, why not? it de creases raid damage and increases raid DPS.

[Gregasaurous]

as for pulling the add into the onslauhgt, if you've got the health to survive, and you really should have enough, why not? it decreases raid damage and increases raid DPS.

That^^ Granted some DPS only care because they want to pad meters, but you really should be making it as easy as you can for your DPS to do their job. Which is to kill those adds ASAP. Be careful not to cleave people with the Dreadblade though.

[Fetzie]

This goes for all tanking:

Keep those mobs standing still. Feral druids and sub rogues will wish the seven hells upon you if you keep twitching the mob so that they need to keep re-adjusting (they have to stand right behind the mob to do damage).

[Tengenstein]

Um i can backstab practically side on on gunship. I'd guess that the rogue was most likely combat, and the other add was being taken to onslaught, yes?

[sifuedition]

I'll bet Teng is right here. He just wanted blade flurry to cleave. Me personally, in normal mode it depends on the add I have when I tank. If I have the dreadblade, I don't move him. Why risk a cleave if I don't have to? If the onslaught is right beside me or behind me, then easy-peazy move him into it without cleaving anyone. In LFR, it doesn't matter much. The cleave damage is laughable anyways. On general principle, I say no reason the tank should ever move them in lfr. The dps requirements are low enough, just leave them as immoble as possible (they tend to reposition a bit after charges, not much you can do about that). Wether its dps lost because they ran to the onslought and out of range of the mobs or dps lost chasing the mobs, it's about the same difference.

[Tengenstein]

I much prefer to move them into the onslaught on LFR: I've had enough wipes becuase it usaully works out that the two half decent healers and the few competent DPS are the ones trying to soak it and dying while the rest just sit on the mobs DPSing blindly. Nah I'll tow the mob and the idiot raiders into it.

[Theotherone]

I no longer go into Onslaught in LFR on any toon anymore unless I have a good defensive cooldown available; it's a freaking death trap. I'm finding people realize that you can ignore Onslaught in LFR because the boat has so much health and as a reslult the good Doobies who pay attention to mechanics die in the fire.

Just a bit of an observation, see if you can find a Normal DS group to tank for - LFR is now the almost exclusive realm of the bad and the ugly (the good are absent); what everyone predicted has come to pass, the raiders are geared and not interested in VP anymore; so LFR is now a wipefest on certain bosses. Normal DS is straight forward to tank, drops better gear, and the people in it are there to win, not just mindlessly zerg a boss.

[Tielyn]

No matter where you go, there's always a critic. At the end of the day, though, just check the meters:
a) are you in the top 2 in damage taken?
b) was the only person pulling off of you the other tank?

If the answer to a and b is yes, then you're doing fine with respect to threat.

As far as survivability goes, anything you dodge does 0 damage to you, so the more you dodge, the less damage you take. If you do get hit, having Savage Defense up at that moment is a good thing -- and the best way to keep SD up (at least until Pandaria) is to keep Pulverize rolling on the boss, and to have your crit up there in order to make sure it procs (it procs on half your normal crits and 100% on Mangle crits with your 2T13 there. On an average raid night, my SD absorbs is up in the millions at the end of the night.

One really weird survival trick (no, it's not Acai berries) therefore is to hold your Berserk until you have Pulverize(3) up, wait for an incoming heavy damage period (such as Morchok's soft enrage) then pop it and spam Mangle -- you'll have 25 seconds of high melee damage absorption as every crit will proc Savage Defense for ya.

You do need some minimum level of health, though. About 160K seems to be the bar, even if you have to use stam trinkets to get there, otherwise DS Pong (Zon'ozz) will one-two combo you when he does his Psychic attack followed by a 7 stack melee hit. The agi trinkets increase your dodge, but do nothing for magic damage, of which there is quite a bit of.

I pull my add into the Onslaught and out the other side if I have time. It makes the melee move in there with me if they want to keep hitting it.

Also, don't pay attention to my spec/loadout as much -- I'm an abearation (sic) bearcat that goes DPS when we have two DPS-specless tanks and emergency tanks when one or both of them die. But it works well for me.


-Tielyn

[Theotherone]

So I tanked Ultra last night on my bear (Monday night get as far as you can in alt, alt, alt run) since I excell at pushing a button, and there were times durring the fight where' I'd just be totally raged starved, I go through a streak of dodges and generate no rage at all; even after tauting him. Is this normal for a bear on physical fights, to go through these rageless periods? What do you do besides hit Enrage or Beserk (the one that gives the rage free Mangle)? Gray buttons suck.