WotLK Tanking Essentials?Follow

Talents that a cat build wouldn't necessarily take that you must have for bear:

Survival of the Fittest, Protector of the Pack, Natural Reaction, Feral Instinct, Thick Hide

DPS gear is "viable" to a point, some gear will be better suited than others thanks to bulk quantities of Agility and Stamina where many straight DPS pieces frontload a ton of AP/Hit/Crit and eschew those base stats somewhat.

For single target threat generation, your highest TPR abilities are Maul > Mangle > Lacerate > Swipe > Everything else. For multitarget, yeah you're gonna be Swipe spamming to kingdom come, with some Maul thrown in for good measure on main target/targets that are at risk of slipping away. However, though Maul is higher TPR, you'll generally find yourself better off by making sure you're using Mangle every time its CD is up, with Lacerate in between those CDs, only using Maul as your rage allows (which, given the rage bonus talents we get, is quite often). Keeping up FFF and Demo Roar is good too, for obvious reasons.

Swipe gets theoretically better at 6k AP, which I don't see happening even at Ulduar level personally >.>

If I had more T7.5 gear it would happen.


Bare bones tank build.

Need to put 3 points in feral to get Rend and Tear then Berserk. Resto needs 2 more points in first tier, either 2/2 Imp Mark or filling out Furor, then Naturalist and Omen of Clarity.

Assuming Imp Mangle and Imp Mark for increase threat and raid utility, you get this.

This would be a bares bones tank build. But the last 3 points in Feral do have some leeway as do the last 2 in the first tier of resto. The places I put them are for a tank first and primarily build. If you cat it up often you may want to think about Shredding Attacks and Predatory Instincts at this juncture.

Still have 9 points to spend around. Imp Leader of Pack is strongly recommended as the solo utility is very high, the heal is meh but helps.

Infected Wounds is recommended as well as the debuff should always be up on a boss and you can't rely on someone else to apply it for the most part.

Still have 4 points, Feral Charge is way too usefully to pass up so it gets a point.

The last 3 points usually get spent on Brutal Impact, Shredding Attacks and King of the Jungle in some mix.

The feral tree is very flexible.

You could do something like this and tank while still having strong DPS in cat form without losing out on that much of what makes you a viable tank.

My Tank Build Galenmoon (We have 3 resto droods and 2 boomkins that always bring IMP GoTW so I don't have to pick it up)

My DPS Build Galenmoon


Link in Sig if you want to see my tank set to go with tank build.

Everything else has been pretty much gone over.

Good luck.

I can your point on the Master Shapeshifter for a pure tank build. I like it because I spend most of my time raiding as a Cat and the 4% crit is very nice to have. Like Galenmoon I typically raid with Boomkin and Resto Druids so I don't need the Imp MoW and put the five points in Furor.


Edited, Mar 20th 2009 10:01am by Lastar

Yeah, I took the point in KoJ because I think I use my bash almost never honestly and even when I do, it's not something I usually HAVE to do, just helps out. I couldn't decide where to drop that extra point so I just threw it in KoJ just for the extra damage during enrage and the little extra energy if I go kitty.

As far as IMP Mangle. I always take it for the simple reason of bosses like Thaddius, where you might not always be able to stand behind and not having IMP mangle can really hurt a raid if they're just getting to the point of enough dps to drop the boss. Especially if he's turned towards you the entire fight because the tank always has the same polarity as you.

Or Razuvious with a lot of melee(where it's hard to see the boss, let alone tell which way he's facing.
Unless your two priests are standing side by side (which they never do >.<) I spend way too much time repositioning for a shred when I can just mangle spam and never have to move. I actually saw an increase in my dps from just mangle spam on that fight.

As far as the 2% from Imp MotW after the next patch. I'd love to have it, but with the overabundance of droods in my guild, I don't ever have to worry about someone else giving it to me. I'm really only even worried about it in 25's and we'll always have one there.

I don't even care if I get buffed in heroics and in 10's it's not that big a deal anymore. Hell, I Tank heroics and OT Naxx in my kitty spec with my tank gear on :P. I even soak Hatefuls on Patch that way in 10's.

Can't wait for GOOOOOOOOORE! :P

You're right, I misread it when I was scanning through the changes. Doh!

I'd go ahead and throw 2 points into it, taking them from Furor once the patch hits. Until then, my build would stay the same.

Damn me and my inadequacies :P

I could have handled the rude...it's the anything that scared me.

Horse, do you ever DPS in your current tank build? While I don't expect you'd be topping charts, are you pulling your own weight?

I ask because I've got a similar line of thought, I like tanking AND dps AND healing and want to dual spec feral+resto. I *want* to be able to MT, so a hybrid build is no good. My guild has a surprising number of tanks and healers though, so if a mostly tank spec sacrificing KotJ/PI/MS can still do respectably in raids then I'll feel much better about putting that resto spec in and still being able to DPS now and then.

Edited, Mar 20th 2009 3:11pm by Norellicus

Just want to clarify... bosses are not immune to this effect?

Aka Thunderclap, JotJ, Icy Touch.

Edited, Mar 23rd 2009 8:42am by Norellicus

The key to AoE threat generation with a druid is to give them a head's up when you first start the instance if it's a PuG group or if there are people you aren't used to running with.

I tell everyone, Gimme 3-4 secs to build up aggro, then go to town if you're going to AoE. If you're going to single target, I'll mark Skull as first kill. The cool thing about swipe is that it turns the mobs reddish when you do it. Tell them to wait till they see the mob turn red, count to 3-4 and then AoE away.

Say you run into a pack, keep skull targeted, spam maul and swipe, throw a mangle onto skull after 3-4 swipes and then just continue to swipe/maul. Most times this is plenty to keep mobs glued to you. You can also throw a Demo roar if you feel the need. Tabbing sometimes makes you lose time on your swipe/maul spam because the mob could be just out of range, or you could just be picking your finger up to hit the tab button and not still spamming away. That second can count in the long run.

If you notice people are pulling off mobs other than the first kill, and they aren't doing an AoE, that's them just attacking randomly. It takes real laziness to not target the tank and hit F to assist if the first kill is down. If you notice they are pulling off of you with AoE, a lot of times, this is a gear issue more than a skill issue. Yeah, you can tab/lacerate to add the bleed damage in, but that lowers the amount you will be spamming swipe as you tab through targets. If you are undergeared, or the DPS is overgeared, then you'll get some mobs coming off from time to time.

I used to not really worry about it, as long as it wasn't multiple mobs popping off me at the same time, just taunt them back, throw a maul/mangle/swipe straight onto them as they get back and you won't have any more problems usually out of that one.

Obviously it's easier to tell guildies to throttle back until your gear improves than it is in a PuG, but if they wanna finish it, you're the tank, that makes you defacto boss of the instance. Tell them how it is, and let them know you won't taunt off if it happens repeatedly. It's their repair bill. I've let mobs pwn people plenty of times and then just taunted back when it was done.

That being said, can you link us your armory with your tank gear on and give us a heads up on what types of multi pulls you're having problems with? Some instances have mobs that are very tricky to keep glued to you.

Don't worry though, it gets easier. At this point I could have my dog sit and spam maul/swipe while I go get another beer and never worry about anyone pulling off me.

I have a Bear, 2 Cats, a Bird, and a Sealion. Isn't that enough? :)

Galenmoon, you are on fire today. :)