Suggested PVE tank build?Follow

By current build is more of PVE dps and while I do ok with some raids up to Kara, I suck at some higher raids and someone suggested I have my talent tree checked to favor tanking.

Any suggestion? TIA

Tavarde's tank build misses Berserk which is teh ******** for tanks. It also has Predatory Instincts which does nothing in bear form.

I would recommend something like this.

Now for the fun part where I explain why.

First Tier:

Feral Aggression: Is a waste of points. FB has no place in a serious cat PvE rotation beyond low energy times in a DPS cycle when neither Rip, Rake, SV or Mangle needs refreshing or is in danger of falling off when at low energy. Low means <40.

Ferocity: Take all 5 points. Helps in all forms. Strong talent.

Second Tier:

Feral Instinct: The Swipe damage is great for AoE. Swipe is a good attack. At high emough AP it does more threat than Lacerate. The stealth part is more for leveling.

Savage Fury: Increases Maul, Rake and both versions of Mangle damage. More damage equals more threat. Threat is your job. Take the points.

Thick Hide: This is big armor boost as it stacks favorably with the dire bear armor bonus. If you are capped or close via armor, slowly add points till you hit the cap. This is an edge case and does apply to the OP but is something to keep in mind at higher tiers of raiding and gear.

Third Tier

Feral Swiftness: Adds dodge. Take it you need the dodge.

Survival Instinct: A great oh **** button. Take it.

Sharpened Claws: Gives 6% crit and leads to an awesome talent

Fourth Tier

Shredding Attacks: A good place to take points but for this we are going minimalistic so skip for now.

Predatory Strikes: A big source of damage and leads to a better talent. You have no choice but to take it.

Primal Fury: Gives rage on crits and you crit a lot. Infinite rage on Swipe spam is because of this talent.

Primal Precision: Gives expertise. Reduces boss parry chance which is good as parries cause them to hit faster and harder after. Also reduces mob dodge chance also a good thing. Take it.

Fifth Tier

Brutal Impact: Decrease Bash cd and increases the stun. Bash should be a valid raid boss interrupt now so this talent is better but take it in Northend. You can spend the points better for now.

Feral Charge: Again can be skipped for now. Awesome talent. You will come back for it.

Nurturing Instinct: A PvP thing. Skip it, worthless for tanks.

Sixth Tier

Natural Reaction: Adds rage on dodges. You will dodge a lot. This is a good talent get it.

Heart of the Wild: Gives you increased AP which is good. Also gives you more stamina which is more HP. Take it.

Survival of the Fittest: This talent is great. But due to tBC gear you may be uncrittable or close to it with gear. Optimize your best tank gear ignoring chance to be crit. Put points here to make the difference. I use 2 points here as I have defense and resilience on other gear. That other gear is the best in slot for other reasons. If I lose uncrittable staus I will respec the point back in here. Being uncrittable is very important. If you can be crit you can't tank.

Assuming you need 3/3 in SotF for the purpose of this post.

Seventh Tier

Leader of the Pack: Increases crit. For you and the party. Take it.

Improved Leader of the Pack: While the talent is great it is not core. Skip for now.

Primal Tenacity: PvP talent, skip it.

Eighth Tier

Protector of the Pack: Take it. Huge mitigation talent. They are removing the party mechanic so it will get better.

Predatory Instinct : Only works in cat form. Skip it.

Infected Wounds: Great talent. Should work on most bosses. Skipp for now as we are going minimalist.

Ninth Tier

King of the Jungle: Limited benefit to bears. Way better places to spend points. Even at 80.

Mangle: The best talent for ferals. Take it.

Improved Mangle: Take all the points. Gives you a Mangle-x-x-Mangle rotation. More Mangle is more threat.

Before we can go to the next talent you need to spend a point. I recommend either SA, BI, IW or FC

Tenth Tier

Rend and Tear: A great boost to Maul. The points here get you to candy. You do like candy don't you?

Eleventh Tier

Berserk: This is the love child of Mangle. Take it. You can really mess things up and add crazy threat with this talent. Plus breaks fear.


The rest of the points are from the resto tree. You can take them being 2/2 IMotW & 3/5 Furor, 5/5 Naturalist.

Alternatively, you can flesh out feral with SA, BI, IW or FC.

Lastly, you will also desire OoC at some point but don't rush.

Final 80 tank build.


That is enough typing for now. Any questions will be answered at another time.

kthnksbi

Yea I wasn't incredibly impressed by Berserk, to be honest, which is why my current lv 70 tank build skips it. Mind you, at 80 I plan on getting it without a doubt.

As for Predatory Instincts I do agree it isn't optimal entirely for a bear tank build but I like the 30% reduction in AOE damage.

Also, Maybe I am misunderstanding Horsemouth but did you think my spec included Feral Aggression? It doesn't, I think it is a waste of 5 points as well. I've always put 5 of 5 into Ferocity. Though I am finding lately since patch 3.0 that my Ferocious Bites hit for a very decent amount even with only 1-2 combo points (I've crit up to 9k with 5 combo points) and in most raids I use FB over Rip on trash as the stuff lately dies too fast to make Rip really worth the use IMO. I am thinking there is a possibility that at lv 80, in tier 7/badge gear dps cats will be prone to using FB more. At least on trash still, but we'll have to see.

Hopefully once I am level 80 I can re-distribute my points in such a way as to allow me to go back to having 5 of 5 Naturalist and Omen of Clarity in my tank build. It seems quite possible as I have briefly worked out a lv 80 dps/tank build that would allow me, at lv 80, to be the dps and tank I was at 70 pre-3.0 without requiring a spec change. As it currently stands I have to respec depending on whether I am tanking or dpsing because there just isn't enough talent points to get everything I want to optimize both roles at the same time.

For the last time PI only works in cat form. They even updated the tool tip. It dose nothing in bear form.



Oops. Should have ben 2 Savage Fury, was late when I wrote it up. I would take the point out of Shredding Attacks, the 1 rage cost reduction from Lacerate seems the least beneficial.

Depends on how reliable the interrupt from Bash is and if gear we will use anyway has defense. If the gear has defense and we get 1.6% crit reduction worth then take it from SotF, if the Bash interrupt doesn't work on raid bosses can take it from there.

edit: If Predatory Instincts worked in bear form it would be insanely OP. 30% less damage from AoE effects is huge. Especially, since AoE is usually magic damage and not mitigated by armor. 3k goes to 1.1k. That is a big jump with out even including PotP's reduction in damage. With PI working like that in bear form we would be the only tanks for all raid bosses that deal large portion of their damage via AoE, like dragons. It was so OP that making not work in bear form was needed.

Edited, Nov 9th 2008 2:59pm by Horsemouth

Thanks for clearing that up about that one talent. I did not notice that it only affected cat form. Three more points FTW!

As far as I know from what I have read the crit bonus is also just for cat form. Haven't tested it by any means but should be a just for kitties talent now.

meow