Druid Tanking!

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Lance

Druid Tanking!

#1 » Post by Lance » 09 Apr 2011 14:41

Hey Everyone! My names Lance and i moved here recently from Retail after Cataclysm hit. I noticed no one has made a druid tanking guide, which is a shame. I was a druid tank on retail so i'll post a few tips i've picked up along the way for you guys to see. If anyone can add to my guide i would be much appreciated and if you have a different way of tanking please say so because all critisim is great.

Lets start off with Talents, the easiest thing to get right when druid tanking. In my opinion there is no perfect talent tree, because all talents are useful in different ways. Simply i will just name every talent that is useful to druid tanking in some way and i will give reasons why you should get it. It is your job to make your own talent tree. :D

Balance Tree

There are no useful talents in the Balance tree. Genesis does not effect rip damage and Brambles is not worth it.

Feral Tree

Teir 1 Talents
Ferocity ?/5 Reducing the amount of rage you need for Maul, Swipe and Mangle. Very useful if your are often low on Rage or if you like to spam Maul for extra threat.

Feral Aggression ?/5 Increases the Attack Power reduction of Demoralizing Roar by (8/16/24/32/40)% If you are offtank in any raid and you have lots of monsters beating on you this talent really shines, the less damage they do the better your healers can heal you.

Teir 2 Talents (Requires 5 points spent in Feral Tree)
Feral Instinct ?/3 Increases damage of Swipe. Seeing as swipe is the only 360 damage doing aoe that druids posess the damage of it is very crucial. If you are Main Tank in every raid you can skip this talent but it is crucial for the Offtank or the flexible Tank.

Savage Fury ?/2 Increases damage of Mangle and Maul. A very good talent to take since Maul and Mangle are your threat makers.

Thick Hide ?/3 Increases the Armor Contribution from your armor. Very nice addition to the already over armored Dire Bear Form. With this talent you can easily hit the Armor Cap of 32000. Thats 70% Phisical Damage reduction. Pretty good for any tank.

Teir 3 Talents (Requires 10 points spent in Feral Tree)
Feral Swiftness ?/2 Increases your chance to dodge. Since Dodge is your only form of Mitigation other than Absorbs and Armor this is a nice talent to take since it doesnt suffer from diminishing returns.

Survival Instincts 1/1 Gives you 30% extra health for 20 seconds. A perfect ability for any tank taking lots of damage. If you fear getting one shot boosting your health with this will guarentee a survival of at least 10 seconds, add some rage and Frenzied Regeneration your going to get massive heals and big Survivability. A must have.

Sharpened Claws ?/3 Increases your critical strike chance. This is an ok talent for druids, more crit means more chance to do more damage. I think its just a filler though to get to Teir 4 Talents that tree off it.

Teir 4 Talents (Requires 15 points spent in Feral Tree)
Shredding Attacks ?/2 Reduces the cost of your lacerate ability by 2 rage. Personally i wouldn't take this one. If your going to use lacerate on a boss then its most likely you already have heaps of rage and will keep it. If you lacerate alot though and your scared of not having rage then take it.

Predatory Strikes ?/3 Increases your Melee attack power. This is a big upgrade to your Damage and more damage means more threat.

Requires Sharpened Claws in Teir 3
Primal Fury ?/2 Gives you rage whenever you get a critical hit. Again if your like your rage take it, but if your staying on 100/100 rage for most of a fight you can think of leaving this talent for a bigger upgrade.

Requires Sharpened Claws in Teir 3
Primal Fury ?/2 10 Expertise. If you need Expertise then grab it. If your capped(56 expertise) then leave it out for a better upgrade.

Teir 5 talents (Requires 20 points spent in Feral Tree)
Brutal Impact ?/2 Increases the stun and reduces the cooldown of bash. If you bash foes alot then take it, but i rarely use stuns in PvE as Bosses are immune to them.

Feral Charge ?/1 Charge into an enemy. Good if you need to intercept a liaison monster off your healer or dps. If your a really good tank however you will never need to use this and might need the points somewhere else. Really this one is just preference.

Nurturing Instinct 0/2 A druid tank never falls out of Bear Form, so this is useless.

Teir 6 Talents (Requires 25 points spent in Feral Tree)
Natural Reaction ?/3 Increases your dodge and gives you rage for dodging, i would take this talent because of the rage, the dodge is just a much needed bonus.

Requires Predatory Strikes in Teir 4
Hear of the Wild ?/5 Increases your stamina and since bears are known as Meat Sheilds or Unmoveable furry walls Stamina is a great addition to our already bulky health.

Survival of the Fittest 3/3 Increases ALL your Attributes by 6%, Reduces the Chance you'll be critical hit by melee attacks by 6%!!!( THATS DEFENCE CAPPED!) AND increases your armor by 33%. This is one of the great parts of being a druid tank, you will never fear being critted by mobs with this talent. Grab it or strugle for survival.

Teir 7 Talents (Requires 30 points spent in Feral Tree)
Leader of the Pack 1/1 Increases Melee Critical Chance of everyone in the raid. If you don't have this you aren't a feral tank.

Requires Lead of the Pack in Teir 7
Improved Leader of the Pack 2/2 Heals you every time you crit. The less healers have to heal you the better, but this effects everyone! So even dps benefit!

Primal Tenacity 0/3 This does not affect Bear form at all, so its useless.

Teir 8 Talents (Requires 35 points spent in Feral Tree)
Protector of the Pack 3/3 Increases your attack power and reduces the damage you take by 12%, Win.

Predatory Instincts 0/3 Also does not affect Bear Form.

Infected Wounds ?/3 A good debuff for your main target, slowing its attack speed means you take less damage.

Teir 9 Talents (Requires 40 points spent in Feral Tree)
King of the Jungle ?/3 If you use enrage alot in fights then this is something to consider, especially if you have the Icecrown Citadel set bonus.

Requires Leader of the Pack in Teir 7
Mangle 1/1 Your big theat maker, should be used every cooldown.

Requires Mangle in Teir 9
Improved Mangle ?/3 Reduces the cooldown of Mangle. Good but there is a bit of theory crafting as to how much points should be spent into it. I'll discuss this further in the guide.

Teir 10 Talents (Requires 45 points spent in Feral Tree)
Rend and Tear ?/5 Increases Damage done by your Maul on bleeding targets. Mangle + Maul = Big damage with this, its a good idea to take it.

Requires Rend and Tear in Teir 10
Primal Gore ?/1 You can crit with Lacerate. Good for Lacerate users, Big threat and Big Hits.

AND FINALLY!!!!
Teir 11 Talents (Requires 50 points spent in Feral Tree)
Berserk 1/1 Gives your Mangle the ability to hit 3 targets and have no cooldown!!! Massive threat booster! Very good when you need to build up threat at the beginning or if you need to finish of the boss.

Restoration Tree

Teir 1 Talents
Improved Mark fo the Wild ?/2 Increases your Stats and makes your buff better, a good choice for most druids but if you have a raid team with more druids then you can skip this one.

Nature's Focus 0/3 Useless, you don't cast spells in Bearform.

Furor ?/5 Gives you rage when you shapeshift into Bear. This is mainly a filler but can be used for extra rage building before the boss fight.

Teir 2 Talents (Requires 5 points spent in Restoration Tree)
Naturalist ?/5 Increases the damage you deal, pretty good for feral druids.

Teir 3 Talents (Requires 10 points spent in Restoration Tree)
Intensity ?/3 More rage. If you need it take it.

Omen of Clarity ?/1 Gives you the chance to give yourself a free move without a rage cost. Good if your low on rage.

Natural Shapeshifter/ Master Shapeshifter 2+3/2+3
This is probably the talent you get if you need to use up some talent points. You can get a 4% damage increase for 5 talent points. Its your decision to see if its worth it but i normally leave it out.

And thats it for Talents Folks!

I'm a bit sleepy now so i might head out but i will start on the second part of my guide tomorrow maybe.

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Warpath

Re: Druid Tanking!

#2 » Post by Warpath » 09 Apr 2011 23:06

Im leveling my druid atm, hes going to be a dudu tank at 80 :D

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Spidro
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Re: Druid Tanking!

#3 » Post by Spidro » 12 Jun 2011 01:56

My druid is a tank already and I believe I'm doing pretty good.. Tanked wholle ICC10 mostly as MT all the way up to blood queen (and we downed it :>)

I didnt rly take a good look at the talents cuz it's kinda annoying having to take a look at them all when it's not on armory or something... You can check my talent tree tho in Happymeal's armory.

Also.. I could use some addon to measure the % of threat... anyone knowns? :o
You can't hit what you can't see.

Spidro - LvL80 Orc Rogue
Happymeal - LvL80 Tauren Druid
Cheeseburger - LvL80 Tauren DeathKnight

i'm lovin' it

I will be back.

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Tuffeyy

Re: Druid Tanking!

#4 » Post by Tuffeyy » 12 Jun 2011 02:47

Omen is useful for aggro on your current target

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Intervention
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Re: Druid Tanking!

#5 » Post by Intervention » 12 Jun 2011 03:37

I also suggest tiny plates when you are tanking mobs.
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Frewdis
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Joined: 22 May 2011 22:56

Re: Druid Tanking!

#6 » Post by Frewdis » 31 Jul 2011 22:11

Well this hasn't been updated, with any thing more talents so guess maybe i post a little more.

Rotation

Single target
If you put talents into improved mange rotation will be
Mangle > 1 > 2
Were 1 and 2 are either, Lacerate, Faerie fire, swipe our Demoralizing roar
Lacerate should be used till there is 5 stacks on the target
Faerie fire whenever its off cool down demo roar is still on target and lacerate has 3+ sec
swipe if faerie fire is on cool down
open will most likely be something like
Mangle > FF > L > M > L > L > M >L > L > Then Berserk and mangle will need to use lacerate once to keep the stack up

Multi target
is just swipe swipe swipe break the button

For all maul should be qued up at all the times or a much as possible, easier to macro it to other attacks such as

/cast Mangle (Bear) --> or another attack
/cast !Maul

Find is most of the time good enough to just have it macroed to Mange

Glyphs

Major glyphs
Glyph of Mangle - Increases mangle damage by 10% ( would say this is a must)
Glyph of Maul - Maul now hits 1 extra target ( these not really necessary for single target but is almost must for any aoe)
Glyph of Survival Instincts - Survival Instincts ability grants an additional 15% max health
Glyph of Berserk - Berserk last 5sec longer
Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration - Well Frenzied Regeneration is active healing effects are 20% more powerful

Minor glyphs
any minors are good would recommend taking
Glyph of Unburden Regrowth
Glyph of Challenging roar
Glyph of Dash or Glyph of Thorns

Enchants


Helm - Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector (Argent crusade revered) +37 Stam +20 Def Rating
Shoulders - [Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle] (Sons of Hodir Exalted) + 22 dodge +20 Stam
Back - Enchant Cloak - Major Agility +22 Agi
Chest - Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats +10 all Stats
Bracers - Enchant Bracers - Major Stamina +40 Stam
Gloves - Enchant Gloves - Major Agility +20 Agi
Legs - Frosthide Leg Armour +55 Stam + 22 Agi
Boots - Few options here would recommend using Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality +15 Stam and movement speed increase( belevie its 8%) other options are Enchant Boots - Superior Agility +16 Agi and Enchant Boots - Greater Fortitude + 22 Stam
Weapon - Mongoose - occasionally increase Agility by 120 and attack speed slightly ( Has close to 100% up time while attacking 3+ mobs)

Enchanters will want to enchant rings with Stam +30 on both
Leather Workers have Fur Lining - Stamina +102 Stam for bracers
Scribes get Master's Inscription of the Pinnacle +60 dodge +15 Def rating for shoulders


Gems
Meta - Austere Earthsiege Diamond + 32 Stam +2% Armour value form items
Blue - Solid Majestic Zircon +30 Stam
Red - Shifting Dreadstone +10 Agi + 15 Stam
Yellow - Not going to recommend anything for this none of the gems for here are the greatest for bears

Jewel craters can use 3 Solid Dragons eye +51 Stam

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OkweL

Re: Druid Tanking!

#7 » Post by OkweL » 08 Sep 2011 09:36

An example of druid tank, I haven't saw yet anyone stacking so much stamina.
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/3015 ... 120728.jpg

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FauX

Re: Druid Tanking!

#8 » Post by FauX » 17 Sep 2011 18:39

I would like to post some of my macros i use.
/cast Faerie Fire (Feral)
/cast !MAUL

#showtooltip
/cast Mangle (Bear)()
/cast !Maul

#showtooltip
/cast Lacerate()
/cast !MAUL

#showtooltip
/cast Swipe (Bear)()
/cast !MAUL

basicly just all the threat gen spells macroed with maul
also Im using an addon pack called LUI which makes seeying which targets ive got agro on quite easy. Think the addon is called Caelnameplates.

Keybinding the single target and aoe taunts help alot when dps are pulling adds .

Hit rating is very important for those taunts to hit but this should not be a problem as most if not all t9 gear have +hit on it making hitting the cap easy.

As for gemming , u cant go wrong with gemming agl but i suggest stacking stam in every slot you have.

Also dnt be scared to use your 0H$h1t spells when u see the raiding taking alot of dmg and the healer is struggling the cds are short :)

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-

Re: Druid Tanking!

#9 » Post by - » 18 Sep 2011 13:08

OkweL wrote:An example of druid tank, I haven't saw yet anyone stacking so much stamina.
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/3015 ... 120728.jpg
WoW.......... Now that's a tank.

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Bluebell
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Re: Druid Tanking!

#10 » Post by Bluebell » 24 Sep 2011 10:08

Teh_owner96 wrote:
OkweL wrote:An example of druid tank, I haven't saw yet anyone stacking so much stamina.
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/3015 ... 120728.jpg
WoW.......... Now that's a tank.
Jaraxxus would still 1 hit him
Why join the winning side if you can change the winner?

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-

Re: Druid Tanking!

#11 » Post by - » 25 Sep 2011 00:00

I'd like to see that some day.

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