hello. first thanx for this Druid place. hopefully a place to chat with like minded furry folks...
ok, I find myself needing some advice on being a Bear! I am currently levelling my druid (currently lvl72) i rolled her in responce to the iminent release of cataclysm. i am 2nd in command of my guild and currently stand as guild main tank as a warrior. but i really do not enjoy doing anything else except tanking with a warrior and the prospect of another 5 levels of questing with him is quite frankly souls destroying..... so.. i gave it some thought and decided i would try my hand at levelling a druid to take his place. you know what. i dropped my lvl 72 rogue... druids can do most of that. i have dropped my 72 mage..... druids can do most of that. and my 80 shaman is growing bored in dalaran. why? well, you guessed it, druids can do most of that as well. looks like my lvl80 hunter may survive the culling :axe: he will rest in his pvp gear until cataclysm so i have 2 alts to take forward with the expansion.
any way enough boring history as to why i have reached this point.
i find i need some current advice on being a bear tank. things like:

1, rotations - round and round we go.....
2, MT or OT - if the suit fits.....
3, gear, (very dependant on gear i hear and it should be rogue?) - geifmedemepics......
4, gems and chants. - all that gliters.....
5. any useful titbits you think i should know....

i know i am asking a lot here. but even if you can point me to some info with links etc, i would apprietiate that.

many thx.

E

p.s. im levelling as a boomkin... its all about the control! ;)

I would definately tell you to check out the Feral Druid forum on the site at http://thedruidsgrove.org/wow/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=79 which is extremely helpful for many of your questions.

I personally have a feral (cat) and a boomkin, but have much more fun with the feral when leveling :wiggle:

Hi E!

I thought I had heard the pitter patter of new bear feet around here!

It sounds to me like you're looking for end game rotations/gear/etc etc. Am I right? Like Smart said, best bet is to read the Feral Forums- but I'll try and put something together for you if you like =) I lub mah bear!

i found levelling as feral (cat) was a piece of cake but thats yrs ago and stuff has changed so much so maybe oomkin is now viable.....

GL with what you decide.

Boomkin and kitty are both viable leveling specs- I just felt like I had less downtime with kitty/bear leveling versus boombudgie. Either are great though =) GL to you.

With the changes in innervate, I do find less down time for my boomkin when soloing than I used to. If I behave myself, I don't have to stop to drink very often now.

hi folks.
yeah your right im mostly looking for rotations now. i have had some rather nice stuff crafted for me including to 245 chest/bracers from a leather worker friend. as well as the rings and neck from a JC friend. so im well on my way with gear now. i hit lvl 77 this mornng and dual specced feral dps a little while ago. in comparrison (with better gear from heirloom stuff, shoulders, chest, staff and both trinkets for boomkin) i can kill faster with cat but i can almost fight continuosly in boomkin as long as im careful with mana. so i suppose im fifty fifty. i did have a look at the feral forums and didnt really find what i was looking for. soooooo... destinae.... if your happy to roll out another of your write ups for me... (the guild liked the Onyixia tactics) i would be very happy indeed.

thx in advance.

btw i found: http://www.wowwiki.com/Druids_as_tanks

is this valid info?

E

Actually, that article seems pretty much correct. (I'm skimming it quickly because I'm at work, but for the most part, seems alright).

I'm on my way out of the office to pick up my little one who's sick at school, but I'll post more when I can =)

It's a little outdated actually. With 3.3 and all the ICC plate gear with bonus armor, we lost our edge to armor. I find myself actually trailing behind plate tanks now in armor (wtf Blizzard).

Also please ignore the threat in caster form spiel. That was useful back in BC when swipe only hit three targets, maul only hit one, and everyone did 10x more threat so AoE tanking was actually difficult. Pre-Hotting yourself before pulls will not generate nearly the amount of aggro as a single swipe or maul will do. Rage is hardly an issue anymore either.

Reading this guide actually, it seems like it was written in BC with some Wrath updates. I'm actually in the middle of writing an uber bear guide for my guildies but here are some quick tips:

If you're having problems with threat, you need more hit/expertise

Stamina is your friend

Agility is your friend

Dodge gems are bad

Armor is your friend.

For AoE trash it's pretty much swipe/maul. If you're tanking anything that involves trash, Glyph of Maul is pretty win/must have. It only hurts us in fights like Saurfang really. A lot of people still tab lacerate, but I usually just maul and swipe spam and tab around because I don't feel like wasting the GCDs finding each mob to lacerate.

Single target tank rotation is pretty much: FFF off CD, Mangle off CD, lacerate at 5 stacks, swipe in between and make sure that you're hitting maul every time it's up.

thanx.
i will "Bear" that in mind....













sry bad jokes are my speciality :)

See, Sytaera is more on top of the game than I am. My guild doesn't raid and when we do, I'm in tree form. I had skimmed the article- and probably failed to mention that I had LOL'd at the "pulling with moonfire" thing.

It's funny because I used to do it a little bit in BC...and because my computer at the time was a sad excuse for a computer...I'd lag and be half dead before I got back into bear- much to the dismay of my healers. I currently pull with FFF or charge (charging in only situations where it's safe...there's a story behind that...involves Drak'Theron Keep (Heroic)...and a tragic wipe).

Sytaera, I'd <3 you if you'd post your bear guide here on the grove for us.

Curiously, does anyone even use Demo Roar anymore?

ok thx.
i also would be very interested in seeing that write up. please share it with us.

ehm, and to show my noobiness what does "FFF" mean?

FFF = Feral Faerie Fire.

Also yeah Destinae, I remember pulling 3+ trash packs with hurricane of all things back when it was on a one minute CD.

I posted my bear guide in the feral forum. I think I have a resto guide I wrote for my guild too if you guys are interested.

Demo Roar is good to keep up if no one else is keeping up. If you have ret paladins or prot warriors they usually keep up the Attack Power debuff and since it doesn't scale, the threat it causes isn't worth throwing it into your rotation.

I'm a bad bear then. I never ever use it. I suppose that's not a horrible thing considering the new guild has me on roster as heals, not tanking. =)

Still struggling on rocking the healing meters- but my conclusion is that it is gear based. When I get a few more upgrades, life will be great!