Hello,

I am just wondering the usefulness of the new "King of the Jungle" talent near the bottom of the feral talent tree for WotLK. I am a feral tank, and I just can't imagine that too many Bears need to pop enrage in combat? Is our rage getting nerfed, or is this a talent the bear should probably avoid?

And if you would go without it, where would you put the points?

Here's my optimal build....but I never know weather to favor TPS or mitigation, because I just don't know where the bear stands on either in practice.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents2.html?tal=00000000000000000000000000005030 32130322210353120333013010055030120000000000000000 0

Assuming that you want a build focused purely on tanking, I'd suggest not putting 5 points into Natural/Master Shapeshifter. 5 talent points for 4% more damage is just not worth it, especially when there are many other talents that give you more bang for the buck.
I am still not sure about Improved Mangle... the TPS increase you gain from that talent isn't that big actually, so there may be 3 points to be gained there.

With these points freed, you should definitely put 2 into Savage Fury - 20% more damage for Maul and Mangle is huge.

Another 2 could go towards Shredding Attacks - Lacerate is your main rage dump ability which you use on almost every GCD - saving rage there means more rage for Maul/Mangle.

Also you could go for Rend and Tear. 20% stronger Mauls are nothing to sneer at. But I am not so sure about that one - I'll still have to do some theorycrafting regarding this talent.

Another interesting idea is to go for 2/2 Improved Mark of the Wild and only 3/5 Furor in the first Tier of the Restoration tree. If you only intend to use it for tanking, 60% chance for 10 rage is good enough, especially since you simply can shift again should it not proc.

I essentially agree with Abies; however, I'm still of the mindset that I can successfully skip Shredding Attacks with a build solely for tanking.

See this. (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents2.html?tal=00000000000000000000000000005032 32130322210353110330313510055000000000000000000000 0)

As for King of the Jungle, I haven't been entirely sold on that either. Situational? Yes, a little. Will we actually need Enrage in combat for Rage generation? Highly doubtful; however, using it in combat can temporarily boost our damage. Additionally, I was talking about the usefulness of Berserk coupled with KotJ yesterday with a friend:

"I think at first glance, Berserk seems condemned to the realm of multiple mob/trash tanking; however, it also erases your GCD on Mangle for 15 seconds. This sounds like it could be incredibly useful, even while single tanking. Though Maul has had its threat/damage multiplier increased, being able to Mangle spam for 15 seconds on a single target doesn't sound like anything to sneeze at. Efficient? Maybe not, but if you hit Enrage (and also have the KotJ benefit working there), wind up a Maul, and then hit Berserk for initial aggro? Sounds good to me."

Note that Berserk does not reset your Mangle cooldown. So, don't use Berserk while tanking unless your Mangle is off cooldown, otherwise you will waste a few seconds of Berserk's 15s waiting for Mangle's cooldown to expire.

@Runyarusco: Hm, your build has some points in it I would put differently.

First, you did not take OOC - this is a really important talent.
Second, you did not take Infected Wounds. Reducing your target's attack speed by 20% is pretty huge, I wouldn't want to miss out on that. Of course if you are sure that you have somebody else with a similar debuff in your raid you can skip it.
Third, there is only one point in Improved Leader of the Pack. Many tanks underestimate the amount of healing it generates. From logfile analysis of BT raids I've main tanked I know, that 20-30% of the healing I've received came from Leader of the Pack. That is a lot. Also the other tanks in my group got around 10-15% of their healing from it (Prot warriors don't have much crit).


Yes I agree that one can skip Shredding Attacks, it is a matter of personal taste an playstyle. But compared to e.g. Brutal Impact it is more worthwhile IMO.

Oh, and Bersek doesn't erase your GCD on Mangle, it still has the 1.5 second GCD like everything else. It removes the 6 (4.5) second cooldown. I'm sure that's just a typo, just don't want anyone to be confused.

So, taking some of your notes mixed with my playstyle, here is what I came up with.

1) I love the MotW swap for <% on Furor....I almost never powershift for the 10 rage, just enrage or carry your rage from the previous pull (<--habitual chain puller, mages hate me, ironic, cause my main is a mage)

2) I am avoiding R&T only because I don't now, nor expect to use Maul in the future, lacerate = more hate and shorter CD on Mangle seems more useful. (mostly playstyle I think)

3) Since I was dumping Master Shapeshifter, I also dropped Natural shapeshifter. I know mana is tight, but again, I don't shift that much in raid. Solo PVE, I am gonna have it rough.
* allowed me to pickup Predatory Insticts (mitigation)

4) I kept Infected wounds, only because, even with excellent DPSers an untimely crit can lead to an early aggro yank. So, I really like the idea of the targets being perminently slowed. Gives me more time to hit my taunt before they are out of range, and more time to chase down those who are out of range.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents2.html?tal=00000000000000000000000000005032 32132322210353120333013012035001100000000000000000 0

Powershifting is dead. Furor behaves differently for cat now than it use to.

In 3.0 Maul is the uber threat attack especially with RnT. Rage is barely an issue in 3.0 (at least on the PTR) due to increase tank DPS and the several rage feedback talents/buffs. The only reason to use lacerate is to keep the mob bleeding for the RnT maul buff.

I think we will all find subtle changes to our tanking rotations in 3.0 over what we do today.

Our group PvE DPS rotations have undergone major changes.

First, you did not take OOC - this is a really important talent.
Second, you did not take Infected Wounds. Reducing your target's attack speed by 20% is pretty huge, I wouldn't want to miss out on that. Of course if you are sure that you have somebody else with a similar debuff in your raid you can skip it.
Third, there is only one point in Improved Leader of the Pack. Many tanks underestimate the amount of healing it generates. From logfile analysis of BT raids I've main tanked I know, that 20-30% of the healing I've received came from Leader of the Pack. That is a lot. Also the other tanks in my group got around 10-15% of their healing from it (Prot warriors don't have much crit).

Yes I agree that one can skip Shredding Attacks, it is a matter of personal taste an playstyle. But compared to e.g. Brutal Impact it is more worthwhile IMO.

Oh, and Bersek doesn't erase your GCD on Mangle, it still has the 1.5 second GCD like everything else. It removes the 6 (4.5) second cooldown. I'm sure that's just a typo, just don't want anyone to be confused.

In actuality, I misclicked, and this is the build (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents2.html?tal=00000000000000000000000000005032 32130322210353100330313510055000100000000000000000 0)I've been fiddling with on beta. It's essentially the same, except that there should have been 0 points in ILotP and 1 point in OoC--my mistake. I think you could argue shifting points between Brutal Impact and Shredding Attacks, but I'm interested in seeing how the spell interrupt component will play out.

Additionally, I had originally created a build in favor of Infected Wounds and later took it out. Why? Imp TC blows it out of the water, entirely. I suppose if you don't know that you're going to have a Warrior in your raid composition, you might want to pick it up and hope that it works on all raid bosses. Seeing as how my fiancee plays a Protection Warrior, I feel like we'll probably have it covered.

As for Improved Leader of the Pack, this post pretty much details why I've opted to leave it out (http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t26297-druid_feral_talents_abilities_-_wotlk_preview_discussion/p104/#post919301).

As for Improved Leader of the Pack, this post pretty much details why I've opted to leave it out (http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t26297-druid_feral_talents_abilities_-_wotlk_preview_discussion/p104/#post919301).The post linked above is about a proposed changed to iLotP, not the current implementation of iLotP.

The post linked above is about a proposed changed to iLotP, not the current implementation of iLotP.

"This and the whole bear self healing as a serious mechanic is one of the worst ideas I've seen."

"This and the whole bear self healing as a serious mechanic is one of the worst ideas I've seen."Right, he was referring to someone else's idea to buff iLotP such that it, in effect, became the durid's analog to a warrior's shield block. It was not directed at the current version of iLotP.

Blizzard has done a great job of forcing us to actually make some decisions in our tree. Unlike today's tree which has almost no options.

Do I take iLotP to help healers who are going to be short mana in the XPac?

Do I take iManlge for the extra DPS?

Do I take IW for tanking? Or will most boss mobs not be affected by it?

Brutal Impact? Just for PvP? Or will I need it in PvE?

RnT ain't just for cats, is it?

Master shapshifter, is it worth 5 points?

Darn Blizzard! I rolled my druid for two reasons, 1-I wanted a tank and 2- decided to stop QQing and just get my own! They are OP!.....now I guess I will have to settle for just the prior.

"This and the whole bear self healing as a serious mechanic is one of the worst ideas I've seen."

The part that I agree with most is the final assessment ( coming from a healer PoV )
The bottom line of these suggestions is that you gain practically nothing. You can't ditch a healer if you've got a Druid tank over another. You can't have healers relax on you more because the unpredictable nature of it. The sole idea behind this seems to be that vs an extremely hard hitting boss once in a blue moon you'll get a proc at the right time and possibly save your life. Healers as you well know aim to time their heals on such fights to land after hits like these, and in succession. 99% of the time though its going to be covered by healers or just line up completely wrong wtih the hit taken.

I like that we're being forced to decide what's important in terms of talents, and not just in the traditional HERE IS A GIANT QUADRATIC EQUATION type deal; I think there really are some six of one, half dozen of another situations that will end up being tailored to our specific raid role (i.e. whether IW is worth it if you do or don't have a Warrior, etc.). I do think that we'll find Master Shapeshifter less useful point-for-point v. than say, Naturalist, but as I mentioned earlier, Brutal Impact is definitely up in the air (and it kills me not picking up Shredding Attacks). Having tanked on my Warrior extensively too, I really enjoy(ed) being able to Spell Reflect and Shield Bash when the situation called for it, and it was a lot more often than not (which has been a part of what informed my Brutal Impact decision).

I'm really interested in seeing what happens to PotP, especially since we're already seeing armor reduced down to what, 370%? I know I'm probably quoting the wrong number there, but I know it's not at 400% in beta.

I've barely (no pun intended) even looked at cat DPS.

I would drop MS and pick up SF and KotJ personally, unless you want some PvP utility for frequent shifting. SF will give you more threat gen per talent point overall than MS, and KotJ is a nice threat boost in emergency situations. Also, as tlbj has pointed out, with KotJ you can take some points out of Furor and pick up iMotW. I also personally love IW, as I think it should be included in our mitigation theorycrafting unless it has been confirmed NOT to work on bosses. For levelling it is a must have for me, though.

Blizzard wins with the Feral tree. I was skeptical when info started coming out of the beta that we were going to end up as competetive tanks. But it's obvious now that there are at least 4 competetive, viable ways to spec a bear tank, each that fits a different playstyle or guild/raid makeup. There is even a build out now where according to some serious quadratic formula theorycrafting it is estimated that we can get 90%-ish of the potential of both bear and cat form.

I know that within a day of release of LK someone at EJ will conclude that X spec is "the" tank spec and anyone who specs differently is dumb, but they will only be right for their situation. Ghostcrawler has posted repeatedly that they wanted players to have more choices and not be 'forced' into a cookie-cutter spec to be competetive. I think they've done a good job.

Switching gears a bit, as a casual BG PvP'r, I tried IW on the PTR. It rocks. And really annoys the other players. Sometimes, I just ran around hitting everyone with 2 mangles and let someone else take them out since they couldn't move or attack (as fast).

Plus with the boost to Mangle and Rake, you can mangle*2, rake a player and do quite a bit of damage.