What to look for in heroicsFollow

My feral is dipping his fuzzy toe into heroics. I tanked part of a HMech pug the other night and it went fine, though the pug fell apart so I didn't really get to test myself. I meet the basics for tanking low-level heroics I believe (14k health, 22k armor, 25% dodge, should go up to 29-30% when I finally finish enchanting gear). My guild is finally inching toward heroics too so I hope to be running them fairly steadily in the next couple of weeks.

What, if any, heroics should I be running for feral-oriented drops? I was lucky and got the Thoriumweave cloak in my Mech run. Anything else out there I should focus on? Also, I know I'm only at the starter level for these and figure I shouldn't tank anything beyond Mech/Coilfang/Ramps w/out better gear.

Badges go to idol and the tanking ring eventually, yes?

Look at that, armory is up during maitenance. I thought that didn't happen.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Icecrown&n=Naturecow

Problem is I logged in PvP gear. I wasn't intending this to be an audit-my-tank-gear thread but I'll log out in it tonight and have at it.

For a starter druid tank, I would say stay in Ramps, Mech and Coilfang heroics. Maybe BF and the first tanaris heroic (cant remember the name), but these are a litlle more dificult.

Ramps is easy. The only difficult part is the pull with 4 caster and 1 melee. You want to bring some CC for a starter pug, so mage/rogue/hunter are your friends here. Particularly mages. You can bring a spriest to MC too, maybe.

Mech is easy too. Not too much CC needed, but you will want a mage and maybe a hunter too, for the gauntlet. Things can get pretty messier there. A lock would be a third fine choice, for some banish on the demons.

Coilfang's heroic are needed so you can get rep to get the tank staff(Earthwarden).
SP is pretty easy and quick. You will likely need at least one mage/rogue/hunter though, for some CC. I would recommed you to read some strategies about that heroic, because there are several pulls you can just go through. The worst pull there is, probably, those after the second boss. Use extensive CC here, even your hibernation.

Underbog is longer, gives more badges and may wear a PUG off, and its a litlle trickier. You will need at least 2 CCs here for some pulls. I wont get in too much details here, its a really long heroic, so I recommend you to read some strategy.

SV, IMHO, is easy too. But, some ppl thinks its one of the hard heroics. You will need a mage/lock/hunter to do some AoE dmg and some kiting for the second boss (the mechanic one). One of them have to be focusing on the adds. Some ppl like to bring a lock for the first boss, so you banish one of the elementals, kill the other and focus on the boss, to get the elemental despawned when the boss is killed. I think its a valid strategy, and make things easier, but not really needed. The third and last boss is a wuss, once you know how to do it. You have to tank him by the side of one of those aquariums and once it becomed active, everyone has to dps the aquarium, even you. When the aquarium is destroyed, kite the boss till the next one. Aside that, its a tank/spank boss.

For what to spend in badges, I would say go for the idol, then ring and bracer or cape(depending what gives you better stats, choose one to go first), they are the best you can get.
I would say you buy from AH the Necklace of the Deep, the Belt of Natural Power and the famous druid trinket, Badge of Tenacity.
Get them gemmed/enchanted and you will be better.
Once you have Earthwarden (or if you get to meet the minimuns for kara without him), start OTing in Kara, so you can get better equipment and badges.

Oh, and this has to be stressed, read strats, talk with people who did those instances before so you learn the tricks on doing heroics, yada yada yada...

Good luck.

Thanks all. And I've got earthwarden, so if I never run SV in either mode it will be too soon.

That'd be great, because my dps set is hurting and there seems to be an odd surplus of tanks of my server, so I often find myself called in to do damage rather than take it.

Well you're way over on uncrittable so if you can lose some defense or resil somewhere to an upgrade of something else I'm sure you already know that.

You want to have 14k hp unbuffed if you can in bear so gem for stam till you get it, then go for agility. I recommend +12 (or better) stam, +8 ( or better) Agil in all slots. Skip the +crit gems as you're meant for soaking and the + crit rating isn't going to help that.

Agility on cloak and gloves, stam on bracers and boots (the boars speed is nice for dps having to switch targets but if you're getting beat you're prolly not moving much. The flip side is you can pick up mobs getting pulled off you faster, but that's what charge is for :-) )

+ stats on chest and either of the cobrahide on your legs like you have.

Also you can get the SSO head enchant if you get high enough on your dodge and want more stam, it also gives resil to help with uncrittable when you upgrade a few pieces and get closer to going below the uncrittable mark.

Hope that helps some. I logged in kitty gear so can't help much with the armory today lol.

Basically the enchants like you already know you need and just going after some badges for the tanking rings, idol of terror, etc...

Edited, Aug 6th 2008 10:59pm by Galenmoon

Thanks all; I think only used the +crit gems to gain the slot bonuses when useful. I recall reading that once you get over 14k sta in bear to gem for agi, and I do need to up that dodge. So I'll probably err on the side of agi enchants.