Monday, April 16, 2012

Bear Tanks Need Help

Currently working on my 2nd druid...

I try to tank instances while leveling up, because xp is fast in a 5 man. The problem is that people are still wanting to do mass aoe and bears, especially low levels, have CRAP for aoe threat. No Lacerate until 66, Thorns pops you out of Bear Form and wastes any stored rage you have, and Swipe is on a cooldown. Yes I remind people to focus on the skull mark (I have a macro that auto skulls my focus target). Most pulls are not single target and people have forgotten how to use CC abilities.

Can we please just have 1 small change: make Thorns useable in any form, just like Barkskin?! This would save on wasting rage as well as giving bear tanks some much needed aoe threat as Thorns can be reapplied every 25 seconds (glyphed), even during combat.
A better change would be to move Lacerate way down the level tree. Or just straight up swap Swipe and Thrash.
My short list:

Swipe needs to move down into 15-20 range.
Lacerate needs to be in the 20s.
Thrash needs to be in the 30s.
Natural Reaction and Nurturing Instinct need to swap places.
Glyphed Maul needs to hit 3 targets.

Which would give us our full set of commonly used tanking abilities by 41 along with a 2nd AoE by 40. Right now we don't get our last tanking talent until 51, Lacerate at 66 (we actually get Pulverize before we can Lacerate...), and Thrash at 81.
Low level bears are fine, ill tell you what I do I start pull on 1 target with faerie fire then click the other and put taunt then click the other and mangle and with mual glyph you can click the other target and mual and attack 2 targets. The thing is maybe 1 or 2 targets may be on dps for 1-2 sec but once you cycle thru all the mobs they will all be on you. Just keep cycling threat among the mobs and you should do good and if most of the dps is attacking a certain mob foucus on that plus ull have created threat for the other mobs since u do what I said with the cycling. I personally dont use tab either because it can target a mob 50 yds away so i click its working great for me :).
I did 1-85 in instances without a single issue, you don't need rage for swipe if you use thorns, no one at lower levels or even higher levels can out threat thorns with occasional swipes.
Well it actually depends on how used to tanking you are. I never thought druids needed help with tanking. Infact i think that is the only thing i thought was good about them lol.
Druids dont need help..locate your tab button and use it...If your a "clicker" youll always need help at any class..
I've quested and instance tanked my way up to level 41 with little to no issues. The only real problem I've had is when Hunters and Mages (why always those two classes?) decide to pull larger groups when I have no rage.

Relying solely on AoE to tank is lazy tanking, and probably leads to producing sub-par tanks.
For low level bear tanking I found feral farie fire worked really well for threat. I also used the maul gylph that lets you hit another target for 50% damage. Taunt is on a low CD so use that alot to pull off any mobs you lose. Tab + mangle works the best. I use show enemy name plates and just click on the mobs nameplate to target them instead of tabbing myself. I never had much of a prob tanking low level even if someone else pulled a big group and got a bunch a threat. Lower level dungeon elites aren't to hard hitting and most players can survive a mob hitting them a few times before you get it off them if they decide to pull aggro from you.

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