Tanking the low level instances?Follow

Well, I am fairly new to druid and currently a Level 17 Tauren.
Today I was called upon to tank for a WC group, this was my first time i've tanked in WoW (although I've done it for aaaaages in FFXI so i know the basic principles) but i was totally overwhelmed!

I would growl one mob, gain its attention, hit it with everything i have, and then lose it again to the rogue/lock/mage 5 seconds later

Basically, I need some advice with tanking, does it get easier later on? what abilities should i use to keep hate? Should i Enrage to get more rage for more hate, or should i keep my defense up?

I'm going to be speccing Feral for now (currently got 7 points in it)

Many thanks in advance

At that level the only real hate building move you have is Maul, so use it as much as you can. The thing with Maul is that it is somewhat of a rage sink. You will go through rage very quickly spamming maul so try and work it in every couple of swings. Druid tanking revolves around damage and more damage. You don't have as many hate building moves as a WAR does so you need to make sure you are pouring on the damage to help with that. Feral Instinct will definatly help you if you don't already have it.

Also as having mentioned you are a FFXI vet let me point something out you may not be aware of. (I myself made this mistake for a long time after starting WoW) Growl does not = Provoke.

Growl is not a hate builder, more like a hate equalizer. It essentially makes your hate a little higher than anyone else in the party. for example using simple numbers. You have 10 points of hate on said mob and a mage has 8. The mage drops out a Fireball crit which pushes them up to 15 points of hate. You growl the mob and It gives you 16 points of hate drawing his agro back onto yourself. I don;t know the numbers exactly, and I'm sure the guys on here do so if sommone wants to follow up with an exact formula please do. I just know that's basicly how it works.

So in your post you said how you agro a mob and then Growl it. Well that Growl is doing nothing for you since the mob's attention is already on you. Instead wait till somone shoots over you in agro then hit Growl. With a good party I rarely ever need to hit my growl key as I start with agro and keep it.

Also try and start the fights with agro. I know this is hard at your lvl so it may not be doable but once you get FeralFF you should be the one doing the pulling. I was in a party the other day where the druid would pull with moonfire and drop into bear form. Maybe this isnt worth the trouble but I've found that in bear tanking I'll take every advantage I can get to grab more agro.

This ended up being alot longer than I planned so hope you got something out of my wall-o-text.

i would think at level 17 you were one of the lower levels in the group ? if so it would be difficult to be a main tank anyway , i think druid at lower levels is not a good choice as a main tank in a group i only have a level 22 at the moment and still do not think i could hold enough agro compared to a warrior but at least at 22 it starts to get easier as i am finding

the trouble at your level if the mage nukes he hits a lot harder than you can same with the lock , and the rogue can easily take agro off of you as well

as has been said you needed the others to work with you letting you gain the agro and them healing and doing damage over time

a better role at your level would be working with a warrior letting them hold the agro and you using spells then shifting to bear , but better when you get cat form as that is a real dps machine and will outdo a warriors dps easily

as you have found out druid is not an easy class to master , hehe i love it though with all the different ways i can kill or sneak around mobs and pick off the ones i want and it sure does get easier as you level but is very much equipment controlled as to which form of attack works best

If you're level 17, I suggest putting 5 talent points into Ferocity and 3 into Feral Instinct. It's increase your DPS (and thereby your hate) as well as your overall hate generation in Bear form.

A bit OT, but EtherealSin, your siggy is effin hilarious...