A few questions for the bears out there

I have played a prot paladin for all of wrath, and have decided I will probably be switching mains to my bear for cataclysm. I love to tank but want to try something a bit different and have always enjoyed playing my bear.

So basically...what I'm curious about is how bears are holding up compared to the other tank classes in the beta as far as threat/survivability, all that good stuff.

I'd appreciate any input!
As of patch 4.0.1 bear tanks are overpowered, or at least a lot better than they used to be.
Bears are definitely in a good place on live right now, I'm more curious about how they're doing in the beta, since that is as close as we have now to what they'll be like in cata.
Does anyone else have trouble keeping aggro in large pulls now that Swipe is on a 6 second cool down?

Does anyone else have trouble keeping aggro in large pulls now that Swipe is on a 6 second cool down?

If your dps go nuts before you've done 2 swipes, yes. But that's intended. Blizzard wants to make AE pulls a little more difficult.

I still contend we should get thrash before 81 to keep us more inline with other tanks. My paladin has shield, hammer, wrath, and consecrate and one of those is on a 3 second cooldown. But even with all of those, my paladin needs to work harder at AE threat than before. A nerf to swipe would probably go along with that. But that kind of makes sense. Swipe is so strong that it's our 2nd best single target threat move. It only needs to be that way because it's our only AE threat move.

Swipe currently does HUGE threat compared to other tank AEs. It is enough assuming your dps give you a few seconds before they AE. Tabbing around mangles and lacerates also helps a lot. ThreatPlates helps identify which mobs need that attention.

If dps don't give you a few on trivial mobs, they can tank a few mobs. If they don't give you a few on raid style mobs, they'll learn after repeated repair bills.
True. Seems like DPS are to used to the tank and spank way of running. And they all seemed to get a big boost to damage making it even harder to keep aggro.

I'm really looking forward to getting Thrash. Seems like it's Swipe with bleed effect. Should really help out so long as it's not on the same cool down as Swipe...then I'm respecing into Moonkin!
Savage defense is going to be pretty friggin' good even after the (hefty) nerf it's already had on beta because it's still the only defensive mechanic that scales with vengeance, meaning it sort of double scales with gear (AP and health). They've also nerfed bear health down to being equal with the other tanks, which was sort of inevitable.

As for aoe threat, it should be less of an issue in Cataclysm thanks to a new emphasis on CC, but thrash will also help us out substantially.

Short answer: bears are great.
For AoE pulls, I use my FFF/Charge macro on one mob, then swipe to get some initial aggro, demo roar for a little more threat, then maul one of the guys I haven't hit.

From there I'm swiping on cooldown and tab targeting others as I see my threat on them dwindling.


The only issues I have are with adds, but I'm always watching for those ;)