I started my druid with the goal of being a bear tank. However, and probably like many of you newer druids, I leveled as a cat and upon hitting the OL had basically 0 bear time. Even after reading many threads on the subject of tanking and how to handle multi pulls as a druid for example my first three tanking experiences (Ramps and BF x2) were eye openers. While I consider myself a good player there is a decent learning curve playing a bear let alone in a group setting. Heck even if you have some bear time, moving from solo bear to group bear/tank requires a paradigm shift imo.

What I was hoping to create with this thread is a collection of little tips and tricks people have used to make tanking a bit easier. If there is a thread that already has these or has them started feel free to point it out.

- Turn on enemy nameplates. Aloft is an addon that was suggest to me here and on tankspot.com. Allows you to customize how the nameplates are displayed. This lets you see the health of the mobs around you.

- Bind raid icons to buttons. I chose F9-12 which defaults to bag slots; used control/alt to get them all in.

- HUD mod. This was more of a personal preference. I installed ArcHUD and then trimmed it down to just show rage. This puts your rage next to your toon so you don't have to look up on the corner or down at your action bars. I will confess that in the frenzy of my first couple instances I didn't even see it lol. Don't know if this will get better as the fights "slow down" or if the red just blends into the scenery too much and I need to change the color.

- Slow down. This one has been hard for me growing up kitty. Bear fighting is slower than cat and frankly as bears we just don't have as many buttons to push - especially because we don't get lacerate until 66.

- Linked to the one above take your finger off maul. I will get better at this but I have rage starved myself wanting to click *something.* It certainly has its place but for just learning, so far, I have dorked myself up using it too often.

Both the last two probably fit under a "Rage management" header and that is one tip that I am sort of looking for. What is a good way to start getting a feel for how fast rage comes in? What I mean is a warrior grows up looking at their rage bar. Not so when growing up as a cat. In the end it probably comes down to doing some PvE questing in bear.

Anyway, anyone have any tips they picked up along the way that made their life easier?

I've been a main tank for over 2.5yrs.
First thing is to work on getting geared up. You need to reach 415 defense and lots of health and armor and dodge.
In time you want to reach the 75% damage reduction cap also.

I'll try to write how to get and hold aggro maybe tomorrow if I have time.

A must is a threat meter for sure!

Windsaber

Swipe is not enough at higher levels to maintain aggro on multiple mobs. It is sometimes acceptable to spam, but usually you need to lacerate/mangle/maul each mob to keep their attention. This is normally only applicable when fighting 3 or more mobs at heroic levels.

Having a auto-switch macro that takes you out and puts you back into bear is ideal. This will get you out of snares and slowing effects while generating rage if you have furor.

If you're out of rage and waiting, either use powershifting (see the above point) or do faerie fire.

Use maul only when you have 50 or more rage and are gaining rage.

Use demoralizing roar whenever it's on cooldown.

I wrote up a feral guide aimed at experienced WoW players who are new to the druid class. Perhaps you can find something good in there :>

http://thedruidsgrove.org/wow/forums/showpost.php?p=149021&postcount=3


-Annikk

Indeed it is good as are the other posts and the collective knowledge one can parse by reading several of the tanking based threads on this site. What I had hoped to focus in on with my post though is that stage between hitting OL/60 and 66 where you are basiclly in bear form for the first time and being the group tank BUT you don't have lacerate yet. Probably more emphasis on the lower end of that level spread when you are on the steepest part of the tanking learning curve. The stage where the fight seems to be happening at warp speed. Most "how to tank" threads assume you are level 70 / already have all the tanking abilities. Little things like you posted in another thread about adding /startattack to a mangle macro cumulatively add up. Turning on nameplates can make a difference from the standpoint of helping you be situationally aware especially if you come from a non melee DPS background where the fight was always out in front of you so to speak.

It is those little things I hoped to collect if that makes sense. For example from your post:


Finally, Enrage. Though it seems a bit counterintuitive, enrage is best used _just_ as a mob starts hitting you, rather than 10 seconds prior to pulling. By lowering your armor slightly, it increases the damage you take from the first hits (this is no problem as you start on full health), granting you more rage and thus allowing you to generate more threat.
In the middle of a fight if you find you are having to wait for rage to use more abilities, it's a good idea to use enrage.
If you are very low on health, or your healer is oom, it's a bad idea to use enrage.


Great tip. Hopefully this post/thread doesn't come off like a QQ because it certainly isn't intended to be the case. It is more like "Ok, you have been thrown into the deep end of the pool. Here are a couple little things you can try that might help you swim."