Just read a post from the Shifting Perspective guys. Which in turn caused me to read this thread from the o-boards .
I have noticed I am usually the only bear tank in LFG on my server. Most druids seem to be Balance or resto now with a smattering of kitties. I have yet to be rejected for being a bear, so that is also encouraging. I also feel that I don't suck. My friends and guildies seem to like me to tank for them, ya sh*t can get hectic but I pull it off by managing CDs and being aware of the situation. Positioning is second nature to me by this point. I have noticed less easily noticeable LoS opportunities but they are there if you look and communicate with the group.
Have any of you been shot down for being a bear tank? Do any of you healers reading hate healing bears? What are some opinions from you all that have been raiding more than I; not at all yet :(. I mean sure I highly doubt we would have issue single target but I mean for the rest of the time. The trash which honestly is most of the instance/raid. What are other members of the Alla pack noticing?
I feel good about my bear tanks ability to tank the hell out of everything. Am I missing something?
Just in case the sky is falling, which I doubt, remember this bit of sage wisdom; NOW BARE DURIDS IS CAN TANK GOOD!
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Bear tanks suck?Follow
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
I guess it's personal experiences and perspective. I've been doing a lot of guild runs; I haven't had any problems. Quite a few of my guildies prefer me as a tank. Because of that, I would be inclined to say bear tanking is fine, but that could be because my guildies aren't idiots. You know, when it matters, I mean.
MT of my guild is a bear. we've run just about every heroic instance, done naxx 10, and naxx 25, all with him MTing with some occasional OT and he does not only "fine" but "great".
Good. Glad to hear that nothing is wrong. I didn't really think anything was wrong.
Serves me right for reading the wowinsider guys.
Serves me right for reading the wowinsider guys.
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
I have tanked, healed and kitty'd in raids & heroics and have been well accepted in any role - although tanking has mainly been with guildies.
I haven't healed a bear tank though, and I suppose that would be the big test - seeing whether there is much difference between similarly geared tanks.
I haven't healed a bear tank though, and I suppose that would be the big test - seeing whether there is much difference between similarly geared tanks.
I have MT'ed most of naxx 10 and every single heroic in wotlk and i have yet to get any complaints. I have to turn down invites on a daily basis. So i would have to say no, there's nothing wrong with bear tanking in general.
personaly i havent had a problem with aoe tanking as druid just make sure mobs are on front and have peeps hold aoe for like 1-2 swipes. havent had a healer have a problem healing me or running oom unless they are undergeared. i tank pugs non stop since i only raid with guildies and when i do raid it's to tank 10mans. i've made a few peoples friends list for tanking so i dont see how they can say no one likes us as tanks.
I MT naxx10 and naxx25 and i can tell you, that warris and palas with the same gear-level
are getting alot more damage than i do.
Best example is Patchwerk in naxx(25):
One warri is MT cause the MT gets the least damage.
And another warri and me are the hateful-strike-tanks.
Damage on me per strike: 17k-20k
Damage on warri per strike: 23k-26k!!
(No i dont get hit more often then the warri^^)
I have to say, that im going on max. Mitigation and not avoidance.
Sitting at 41k hp, 38k armor and with only 41% dodge raidbuffed .
But with the DR on dodge i find it easier to achieve the armor than max dodge.
And it works out fine for me.
So i think druids are the best-mitigation-tanks out there right now.
I hope the patch wont ***** the armor too much.
Edited, Dec 17th 2008 9:16am by druidserg
are getting alot more damage than i do.
Best example is Patchwerk in naxx(25):
One warri is MT cause the MT gets the least damage.
And another warri and me are the hateful-strike-tanks.
Damage on me per strike: 17k-20k
Damage on warri per strike: 23k-26k!!
(No i dont get hit more often then the warri^^)
I have to say, that im going on max. Mitigation and not avoidance.
Sitting at 41k hp, 38k armor and with only 41% dodge raidbuffed .
But with the DR on dodge i find it easier to achieve the armor than max dodge.
And it works out fine for me.
So i think druids are the best-mitigation-tanks out there right now.
I hope the patch wont ***** the armor too much.
Edited, Dec 17th 2008 9:16am by druidserg
I am hearing good things.
Just wanted to check in with the pack.
Had a bunch of down time at work and the wowinsider & o-boards links had me worried. Glad to know it was not at all valid as that also meshes with my experiences.
Just wanted to check in with the pack.
Had a bunch of down time at work and the wowinsider & o-boards links had me worried. Glad to know it was not at all valid as that also meshes with my experiences.
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
I ran 1-70 as feral and never had any problems pre Wrath. I just respec'd a couple days ago to resto since I've been tanking a lot on my DK and wanted something different.
I haven't healed any druids in instances as of yet, but I can tell you that as soon as I do, you'll hear from me. I always appreciated their large HP pool before because using a 3 stack of blooms, rejuv and a regrowth on them, I never had to worry much when they took a damage spike. I'd just pop another regrowth to top them off and let my hots do the job.
I think it's more the changes in how people have been healing that makes them not like druid tanks, more than druid tanks themselves. Between our high dodge and huge mitigation, even when we do get hit a few times in a row, we had such a hp pool that it didn't matter if we weren't at 100% in the next second or two.
I actually healed a warrior(in Wrath greens/blues) the other day in regular nexus and he was annoying in the spike damage he would take, so I'm looking forward to seeing how other tanks will hold up in the same situations.
I take everything on WoWInsider with a grain of salt and I don't even both with the o-boards unless I'm bored out of my mind. From time to time you catch a golden nugget, but most of the time they are both just *********
I haven't healed any druids in instances as of yet, but I can tell you that as soon as I do, you'll hear from me. I always appreciated their large HP pool before because using a 3 stack of blooms, rejuv and a regrowth on them, I never had to worry much when they took a damage spike. I'd just pop another regrowth to top them off and let my hots do the job.
I think it's more the changes in how people have been healing that makes them not like druid tanks, more than druid tanks themselves. Between our high dodge and huge mitigation, even when we do get hit a few times in a row, we had such a hp pool that it didn't matter if we weren't at 100% in the next second or two.
I actually healed a warrior(in Wrath greens/blues) the other day in regular nexus and he was annoying in the spike damage he would take, so I'm looking forward to seeing how other tanks will hold up in the same situations.
I take everything on WoWInsider with a grain of salt and I don't even both with the o-boards unless I'm bored out of my mind. From time to time you catch a golden nugget, but most of the time they are both just *********
My bear-ly(lulz) wrath-geared 72 bear is already pulling 1200 TPS in instances pretty effortlessly, and having no real problems with damage input that I can tell...so unless stuff gets way harder past Azjol-nerub to the point that my stats aren't scaling with it, I have a hard time believing that we suck.
I'd agree bear tanks are fine. Hell, I've even had my healer start dpsing on trash during heroics since I wasn't taking enough damage to need them to focus on keeping my health up. But as always, a good tank depends as much on skill as mitigation. For multimob tanking, druid skill sets don't quite measure up to the other tanks so you end up with people crying foul, even though druids are still quite capable. I suppose it just boils down to that other tanks need less skill to have 4+ mobs stick to them.
As more general mitgation, it seems bears still take the least spike damage out of all the tanks as well as having the biggest health pools. This seems to make bears fairly easy to heal and gives more room to use big heals without risking overhealing. Also being crit immune with just talents is icing on the cake. You know that a bear tank will never take crits regardless of gear. Other tanks can't say the same and I've seen many get passed over because they havn't got enough gear to be crit immune.
As more general mitgation, it seems bears still take the least spike damage out of all the tanks as well as having the biggest health pools. This seems to make bears fairly easy to heal and gives more room to use big heals without risking overhealing. Also being crit immune with just talents is icing on the cake. You know that a bear tank will never take crits regardless of gear. Other tanks can't say the same and I've seen many get passed over because they havn't got enough gear to be crit immune.
SirJac wrote:
I'd agree bear tanks are fine. Hell, I've even had my healer start dpsing on trash during heroics since I wasn't taking enough damage to need them to focus on keeping my health up.
"...what was that? Was that...was that a holy fire hitting the boss? Wtf, there's a SW:P on him too??"
"Dude, you weren't taking damage, I was getting bored...you want me to stop dpsing, stop dodging 12 hits in a row. I mean, you have the nerve to dodge 12 in a row, then get hit by 17. What the hell. I'd appreciate a little consistency. You never take my feelings into account."
"Sorry, man, I...I never knew...I barely even glance at my health, I just trust you to keep me up. But I get worried when I see you tossing smites around...will it make you feel better if I check my health more often, and sit down to eat a crit if I notice I haven't been taking much damage?"
"You would do that? For me? Really?"
"I'd do anything for you. You're my healer."
"Anything?"
To be continued...
Probably not as funny as I think it is. Oh well.
anonymosity wrote:
SirJac wrote:
I'd agree bear tanks are fine. Hell, I've even had my healer start dpsing on trash during heroics since I wasn't taking enough damage to need them to focus on keeping my health up.
"...what was that? Was that...was that a holy fire hitting the boss? Wtf, there's a SW:P on him too??"
"Dude, you weren't taking damage, I was getting bored...you want me to stop dpsing, stop dodging 12 hits in a row. I mean, you have the nerve to dodge 12 in a row, then get hit by 17. What the hell. I'd appreciate a little consistency. You never take my feelings into account."
"Sorry, man, I...I never knew...I barely even glance at my health, I just trust you to keep me up. But I get worried when I see you tossing smites around...will it make you feel better if I check my health more often, and sit down to eat a crit if I notice I haven't been taking much damage?"
"You would do that? For me? Really?"
"I'd do anything for you. You're my healer."
"Anything?"
To be continued...
Probably not as funny as I think it is. Oh well.
No, it's quite funny. You had me at the "You never take my feelings into account" and "Will it make you feel better if I sit down and eat a crit". :P
I had this problem come up in guildchat two nights ago. A guildmate of mine (Death Knight) was complaining about a bad bear tank in a run. My guildmates starting posting his gear and alternatively laughing and cursing at him. Some pieces were like the Crystal-Infused Tunic... the third best pre-tanking chest you can get right now (and what I have until I get enough emblems for tier 7, personally). Their comments were along these lines:
"OMG, look at this! No wonder he sucks he has no tanking gear!"
"Look at this! (Item) It's all about AP!"
"WTF, he has all DPS stats and no defense!"
I took a good ten minutes to set them straight. My comments were accurate (so far as I know):
"Guys, I have gear like that; hell, I have that same chest piece. Druid tanking gear IS DPS gear for the most part. We just try to get high stamina values on our gear if possible."
Response: "Dude, what? You must get crit like crazy then. You need defense."
Me: "Defense is a poor itemization stat for a druid. We don't have a shield to block with or use a weapon to parry, so two of the prime uses for defense are worthless for us. Dodge is a lot better, but very tough to find on normal gear outside of instances. He might still be gearing up."
Response (same Death Knight): "Defense sucks, numnuts? You must get crit all the time. What a noob."
Me: "Defense doesn't suck dumbass, it's just not as good. Druids focus primarily on stamina, then armor (which is going to be harder to get after the nerf next patch), then dodge and agility, then AP, crit and STR... DPS stats. Defense is nice if we get it, but a waste to aim for. Our high armor and hp is the best part of being a bear."
Response: "I think bear tanks are on the way out."
Me: "Sigh..."
Response: "Ok, I'm going to try to tank now!"
The group fell apart 10 minutes later :-P I brought up the point that, until the patch, druids will tank better than death knights (due to poor defensive stat itemization on DK items, lack of tanking sigils, and reliance on cooldowns). The DK wasn't very happy. A few people in my guild supported me though because I've always rocked at instances :)
"OMG, look at this! No wonder he sucks he has no tanking gear!"
"Look at this! (Item) It's all about AP!"
"WTF, he has all DPS stats and no defense!"
I took a good ten minutes to set them straight. My comments were accurate (so far as I know):
"Guys, I have gear like that; hell, I have that same chest piece. Druid tanking gear IS DPS gear for the most part. We just try to get high stamina values on our gear if possible."
Response: "Dude, what? You must get crit like crazy then. You need defense."
Me: "Defense is a poor itemization stat for a druid. We don't have a shield to block with or use a weapon to parry, so two of the prime uses for defense are worthless for us. Dodge is a lot better, but very tough to find on normal gear outside of instances. He might still be gearing up."
Response (same Death Knight): "Defense sucks, numnuts? You must get crit all the time. What a noob."
Me: "Defense doesn't suck dumbass, it's just not as good. Druids focus primarily on stamina, then armor (which is going to be harder to get after the nerf next patch), then dodge and agility, then AP, crit and STR... DPS stats. Defense is nice if we get it, but a waste to aim for. Our high armor and hp is the best part of being a bear."
Response: "I think bear tanks are on the way out."
Me: "Sigh..."
Response: "Ok, I'm going to try to tank now!"
The group fell apart 10 minutes later :-P I brought up the point that, until the patch, druids will tank better than death knights (due to poor defensive stat itemization on DK items, lack of tanking sigils, and reliance on cooldowns). The DK wasn't very happy. A few people in my guild supported me though because I've always rocked at instances :)
LockeColeMA wrote:
Response: "Dude, what? You must get crit like crazy then. You need defense."
Me: "Defense is a poor itemization stat for a druid. We don't have a shield to block with or use a weapon to parry, so two of the prime uses for defense are worthless for us. Dodge is a lot better, but very tough to find on normal gear outside of instances. He might still be gearing up."
Response (same Death Knight): "Defense sucks, numnuts? You must get crit all the time. What a noob."
Me: "Defense is a poor itemization stat for a druid. We don't have a shield to block with or use a weapon to parry, so two of the prime uses for defense are worthless for us. Dodge is a lot better, but very tough to find on normal gear outside of instances. He might still be gearing up."
Response (same Death Knight): "Defense sucks, numnuts? You must get crit all the time. What a noob."
You should have linked SotF and shat on them. People need to learn about other classes before flaming people who play said classes.
*Edit*: Unless they are asshats. Feel free to flame us all you want.
cwutididthar?
Edited, Dec 17th 2008 6:28pm by anonymosity
With Response making such stupid and inaccurate comments no wonder he couldn't tank for beans.
Glad no one is having any issues with bear life. I personally haven't had any problems which is why I made the thread to see if I was in lalaland or something.
I feel I will always be a better tank than a DK. Or a warrior or a pally. ;P
RAWR
Glad no one is having any issues with bear life. I personally haven't had any problems which is why I made the thread to see if I was in lalaland or something.
LockeColaMA wrote:
I brought up the point that, until the patch, druids will tank better than death knights
I feel I will always be a better tank than a DK. Or a warrior or a pally. ;P
RAWR
Hellbanned
idiggory wrote:
Drinking at home. But I could probably stand to get laid.
I have had similarly disappointing experiences to the O-boards posts and the first page you linked, and here's the deal.
I feel I do ok - When I started heroics I was very worried that I wasn't geared enough and would be too much of a mana sponge even though the normal instances seemed far too easy. (I even started a thread here about it and got the go ahead to start them) I thought I was doing fine, getting hit for between 3k and 4k per direct hit, dodging more than 1/3 of the incoming attacks with 56% armor mitigation and 12% from talent. Which seemed fairly normal to me. I do have some (some, not constant by any means) trouble with large groups holding aoe aggro, but that's 4 or more at a time when the dps can't concentrate on one, they have to get all 4, so when Berserk is on cooldown I'm screwed.
But... after doing heroics with certain healers they seemed less and less willing to group with me again, one citing that I take too much damage and runs take too long to complete. One dps deathknight even blamed me for 9 successive wipes on Loken in Heroic HoL because of all the crazy amount of melee damage i was taking from the boss (hits of 5k-6k - but then again, he wiped us multiple times cause he couldn't figure out how to turn and run without his keyboard and got hit in the lightning over and over again.)
The thing is is that even though I can stack and stack armor on other slots, like rings, neck cloak or trinkets, right now is seems such of a waste because of the upcoming changes that haven't gone live yet. In the meantime, sure it's hurting us, but we're not incapable.
I am going to switch to resto eventually then I'll know the other side of this whole... thing, but I have just been trying to finish the Loremaster Achievements first which seemed like it wouldn't be a chore at first, and now it's rapidly turning into one.
I feel I do ok - When I started heroics I was very worried that I wasn't geared enough and would be too much of a mana sponge even though the normal instances seemed far too easy. (I even started a thread here about it and got the go ahead to start them) I thought I was doing fine, getting hit for between 3k and 4k per direct hit, dodging more than 1/3 of the incoming attacks with 56% armor mitigation and 12% from talent. Which seemed fairly normal to me. I do have some (some, not constant by any means) trouble with large groups holding aoe aggro, but that's 4 or more at a time when the dps can't concentrate on one, they have to get all 4, so when Berserk is on cooldown I'm screwed.
But... after doing heroics with certain healers they seemed less and less willing to group with me again, one citing that I take too much damage and runs take too long to complete. One dps deathknight even blamed me for 9 successive wipes on Loken in Heroic HoL because of all the crazy amount of melee damage i was taking from the boss (hits of 5k-6k - but then again, he wiped us multiple times cause he couldn't figure out how to turn and run without his keyboard and got hit in the lightning over and over again.)
The thing is is that even though I can stack and stack armor on other slots, like rings, neck cloak or trinkets, right now is seems such of a waste because of the upcoming changes that haven't gone live yet. In the meantime, sure it's hurting us, but we're not incapable.
I am going to switch to resto eventually then I'll know the other side of this whole... thing, but I have just been trying to finish the Loremaster Achievements first which seemed like it wouldn't be a chore at first, and now it's rapidly turning into one.
have you seen some of the things certain druids have been "suggesting" to buff druid tanking? possibly the most imbalanced one was an aoe 5s roar to "help pull casters". my guess is there are a lot of ****** druids who expect to have loot handed to them on a platter and decided to tank for it. now theyve realized that, yeah, it takes a bit of doing to do right, and they want blizz to easy mode it more for them.
druid tanks right now are just fine. after the patch, theyll probably continue to be just fine. they may even be better depending on how things go.
druid tanks right now are just fine. after the patch, theyll probably continue to be just fine. they may even be better depending on how things go.
I'm only 73 at the moment and have only been casually leveling with my hubby. I have yet to step in to a wrath instance yet. (Partly because I will not step foot into a party until I feel I'm gear enough for it and because I really dislike PUGing. "Fun" for me is playing with people who are sharp and good at their class) So the article gave me pause when I read it. GhostCrawler had made me feel pretty good about Bears for Wrath after all despite some work still needing to be done.
I feel better reading the comments here that the case does mostly seem to be more about the lazy-itious that seems to infect some (and usually loud) portion of the community. (_ _);
I feel better reading the comments here that the case does mostly seem to be more about the lazy-itious that seems to infect some (and usually loud) portion of the community. (_ _);
I died a little inside when I read that thread from the o-boards.
Tanked Heroic AN tonight... you all can read the discussion on the front page about what a pain that place can be. Even better, did it with "Response" from my previous discussion. We wiped twice; once because of that annoying bug where two groups of enemies come before the first boss instead of one, and the second time because "Response" accidentally hit Army of the Dead on Anub'arak and made two members and yours truly eat a Pound (for those who don't know, Pound is a -normally- relatively easy to avoid cone attack that does 18k damage, a dot, and stuns for 4 seconds. The DPS died instantly).
After the group, I called him on it in gchat:
Me: So "Response", what do you think of bear tanks now? :-P
Response: "I don't usually take back things I've said, but..."
Guildy1: OMG, you're actually apologizing!?
Guildy2: LOL, he must have rocked!
Response: You did a really damn good job.
Me: Thanks! You just got stuck with a bad tank before. It sucks getting a bad player, but it doesn't mean the class is bad :)
After the group, I called him on it in gchat:
Me: So "Response", what do you think of bear tanks now? :-P
Response: "I don't usually take back things I've said, but..."
Guildy1: OMG, you're actually apologizing!?
Guildy2: LOL, he must have rocked!
Response: You did a really damn good job.
Me: Thanks! You just got stuck with a bad tank before. It sucks getting a bad player, but it doesn't mean the class is bad :)
Nothing wrong with druids. It's the general AOE mentality, the strange need to rush that's ruining things - not only for bear druids.
I'm glad that I am getting to focus a little more on my priest right now, and also have my DK toy for distraction. Otherwise I'd probably scream about the big irony about druids brought to us by the most recent patches (and those soon to come)
Let's see... we went almost 4 years without crowd control in instances, regardless of how people were whining and begging. The last dungeon brough to us before WoTLK, Magister's Terrace, seemed a whole lot like a "In your face! Eat this, you furry, feathery beast!" No way to get through that place without a bunch of sheeps and saps, especially on heroic difficulty. Guess I wasn't the only one sorta worried about the instances in the expansion.
The big surprise then... Roots finally working indoors! Oh, and the trees amongst us would finally get an AOE heal!
For what, though? Now that we CAN root mobs, even hibernate thanks to the amount of dragonkin, it's simply no longer required or even wanted. Same thing with pallies. 60 second crowd control without any use for it really.
I'm not enjoying 5-mans now. I'm dragging my sorry **** through it because it's decent XP, but other than that it's just not what I think it should be - used to be.
What's Blizzard doing about all this? Rather than beefing up the instances somewhat, they're introducing swiping cats, so they too can join the AoE madness. Very much like handing out healing-reducing abilities to just about everybody not too long ago.
Meh... just seems like I can't stack enough spirit. Damn them all to hell!
Edited, Dec 18th 2008 4:09am by Kanngarnix
I'm glad that I am getting to focus a little more on my priest right now, and also have my DK toy for distraction. Otherwise I'd probably scream about the big irony about druids brought to us by the most recent patches (and those soon to come)
Let's see... we went almost 4 years without crowd control in instances, regardless of how people were whining and begging. The last dungeon brough to us before WoTLK, Magister's Terrace, seemed a whole lot like a "In your face! Eat this, you furry, feathery beast!" No way to get through that place without a bunch of sheeps and saps, especially on heroic difficulty. Guess I wasn't the only one sorta worried about the instances in the expansion.
The big surprise then... Roots finally working indoors! Oh, and the trees amongst us would finally get an AOE heal!
For what, though? Now that we CAN root mobs, even hibernate thanks to the amount of dragonkin, it's simply no longer required or even wanted. Same thing with pallies. 60 second crowd control without any use for it really.
I'm not enjoying 5-mans now. I'm dragging my sorry **** through it because it's decent XP, but other than that it's just not what I think it should be - used to be.
What's Blizzard doing about all this? Rather than beefing up the instances somewhat, they're introducing swiping cats, so they too can join the AoE madness. Very much like handing out healing-reducing abilities to just about everybody not too long ago.
Meh... just seems like I can't stack enough spirit. Damn them all to hell!
Edited, Dec 18th 2008 4:09am by Kanngarnix
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