Bear Tanking in 3.3 and beyond!!

Updated: February 3, 2009

I wrote this as a guide for every cub out there who wants to learn to be a Bear!! I will include Gearing, Specs, Rotation and threat issues and Stat conversions.

Table of Context:

Part 1: FAQs
Part 2: Basic Stats and the Benefits they provide
Part 3: Specs, Glyph, and Idol choices
Part 4: Rotation, Cooldowns, and Threat Generation
Part 5: Consumables, Gems, Enchants, and Profession Bonuses
Part 6: Macros
Part 7: Gearing for ICC 10 / Toc 25 without raiding?!?!
Part 8: Q & A

What's New?
Patch 3.3.2 - Nothing major changed for the bears, just some new loot to lust after!!
Part 2: Updated information on Expertise caps for heroics and for raids

Part 1: FAQs

These are the currently most common questions asked in our forums about bear tanks.

Who is Alamo?
Alamo teechs u 2 play DURID! For more information see the link!
http://www.wowwiki.com/Alamo

Can a Bear be a main tank/ do they make good tanks?
Absolutely!! When WotLK was first released the developers made it a core goal to bring all tanks in line with each other and for the most part do away with gimmicks that didn’t allow certain tanks to perform. Ghostcrawler, beta forum CM extraordinaire, has posted a big (well, big for a blue post) overview of some of the goals and decisions for tanking in Wrath. It goes something like this:
• All four tanking classes should be viable.
• Tanking should be "a little more fun."
• Most characters in tanking classes (Warriors, Druids, Paladins, Death Knights) should be able to tank a normal five-man just fine, with heal specs (for Druids and Paladins) being the exception.
• Heroics and raids will require investment in tanking talents, but all tanking classes should be able to tank them if appropriately specced. Ghostcrawler notes that this is a change of strategy for Blizz; previously, for instance, feral druids were positioned by the devs as being better off-tanks than main tanks. Now, he says, "If nearly all guilds want the same class as their MT, we've failed."
This is great news for us and so far has definitely proven to be true. A bear is completely capable of tanking all content currently in game as a main tank or as an off tank!!

How much Defense do I need to be crit Immune?
NONE!! Druids don’t use Defense or resilience to become crit immune in PvE. We have a talent called Survival of the Fittest (SotF). This talent reduces the chance to be critically struck by 6% and a raid boss only has a 5.6% chance to crit you! So we are crit immune through talents. Defense is still a decent avoidance stat but it’s not a must have stat for a bear to tank like it is for all the other tanking classes.

Do weapon and enchant procs work in bear and cat form?
Yes! Ever since patch 3.0 druid have been able to benefit from weapons that have a proc or from proc based weapon enchants such as Mongoose.

Does my weapon skill out of form affect me in Bear form?
No. You are always at the equivalent of maximum weapon skill while you are in bear or cat form.

I heard that Bears can't use potions, is that true?
Nope!! Ever since 3.0 the developers have blessed us with the ability to use potions while in form!

Can I still be a Hybrid bear and cat?
Depends on the content… There are specs that will allow you to perform adequately as a tank and as a cat but when it comes to progression content (first kills) you have to give up too many dps talents or too many tank talents to really maximize either role. The name of the game in Wrath is specialization, especially when it comes to tanking. The Feral tree has been changed so that you pretty much have to choose to have a bear or a cat spec to truely maximize either role.

What Addons do I need for tanking?
Any raider worth their salt will be running Deadly boss mods or Big Wigs. These addons will help you know when to expect big damage or other significant events while tanking in raids.
As a tank you also have to have Omen threat meter. Since WotLK, the designers in blizzard now allow Omen threat meter to get exact numbers on threat levels for a target. Previously they were just estimations. As a tank, you have two main jobs. Keep the attention of all the baddies and not die. Omen help you make sure you are doing part one.

Am I ready for Heroics, Raids, etc?
Do you have quest blues from icecrown and stormpeaks? If yes, then you're good to tank Heriocs
Do you have iLvl 200 blues? If yes, then you're good for Naxx.
Do you have iLvl 200 and 213 epics? If yes, then you're good for Ulduar.
Do you have iLvl 219 and 226? If yes ,then you're good for tanking ToC
Do you have iLvl 232 and 245? If yes, then you're good for tanking ICC
If no to any of those. you are not geared for tanking said instance.

There are also a few good sites that can give you a general idea of your readiness for raiding.
be.imba.hu
www.wow-heroes.com

Where can I find more information about Bears?
wowthinktank.blogspot.com - Great blog with math to back up the information
The Druid Wiki: http://druid.wikispaces.com - Druidism at it's best
Elitist Jerks Druid pages: http://elitistjerks.com/f73/ - Great detailed posts
RAWR: www.codeplex.com/Rawr - For gearing questions
www.tankspot.com - For good how to videos for encounters
http://druid.wikispaces.com/ToskksDPSGearMethod - Toskks gear analyzer. For the kittys, not us bears.

Patch 3.3
Icecrown Radiance is nerfing my dodge by 20%!! That means Druids are dead doesn't it?
Not at all. Actually we should be affected LESS than any other tank. The idea behind the debuff is that they can tone down the damage per hit and we will just be hit more often. This is a actually a very good thing for raiding in general. It should end the days of getting randomly instagibbed and allow for a less bursty raid environment.

The key to remember is that druids are likely the least affected tank by this debuff not the most. All tanks capable of tanking in ICC will have >20% dodge. This means that they are losing the same amount of avoidance as we are. WE WILL BE FINE. Amazing even. I look forward to seeing each of you as we battle the Lich King in ICC.

http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2009/10/general-druid-icewell-radiance-bears.html
Is a fantastic in depth look at how bears will fare in the new raiding environment!

Part 2: Basic Stats and the Benefits they provide

For tanking, you have two main jobs. Not die, and keep the attention of all the mobs. So we are going to look at survivability and threat stats seperately.

Suvivability stats -

Stamina - This is our number one stackable stat. For almost every situation this is the best stat to stack on your gear through gemming and trinkets.

Armor - Armor reduces the effects of physical damage. Finding rings and necks with bonus armor will greatly increase your survivability and generally become best in slot for us. This bonus armor isn't multiplied by Dire Bear, but it's still very strong.

Agility - This is the best scaling avoidance stat. Generally speaking you will get enough from your gear and don't need to worry about trying to stack extra.

Defense and Dodge - you will end up with these stats on the tanking rings, necks and cloaks. They both offer some benefit, but you should never go out of your way to stack either.

Threat Stats -
Found this math from Kalon (Fellhoof) in his blog wowthinktank.blogspot.com

Here's how adding 100 of any given rating (except AP, since that's 2 AP points for every one rating point) increases that base TPS:

100 expertise (below soft cap): 296.26
100 hit: +164.32 TPS
100 expertise (till hard cap): 147.3
100 armor pen: 129 ****
100 haste: 68.12
200 AP: 57.5
100 crit: 52.12

So, as you can see, Expertise and Hit are far superior to anything else in terms of threat. Shoot hard for getting to expertise soft cap of 26 (6.5%) and over 200 hit and if you need more threat, then keep stacking either to there respective caps. I suggest stacking it by seeking out gear with those stats rather than gemming for it.

Source: http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2009/09/druid-some-sample-values-of-threat-per.html

****Armor pen for bears - http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2010/01/druid-threat-value-of-arpen.html
(Armor pen value on the chart has been adjusted, but is actually a moving target... as you get more, it's value goes up. At lower gear levels it's below haste in value, but as you reach 245+ gear levels it passes haste.... in fact as you close in on hard cap it becomes competitive with expertise but we won't be anywhere near that.)

Stamina Vs. Agility.... Which to Stack!!!

Lets look at my gear and Swap every single gem to Agi, ignoring the meta and all. W/ my JC bonus.
I am going to use rawr for this.I am stacking purely stam. I don't have a single non blue or hybrid gem. And I am using duel stam trinkets.

Currently, If i strip every buff i don't provide myself with (so only improved MoTW)
Dodge - 44.357%
Health - 49762.02
Fully buffed w/ 25 man buffs
Dodge - 49.196
Health - 61642.02

Now the swap to pure Agi
Dodge - 49.008
Health - 41452.02
Fully buffed w/ 25 man buffs
Dodge - 53.815
Health - 52502.02

Conclusion
Unbuffed - I picked up 4.651% post DR dodge at the cost of 8310 HP!!
Buffed - I picked up 4.619% post DR dodge at the cost of a ridiculous 9140 hp....

It's simply not worth a RNG based 4.6% dodge for over 9000 HP!!


Think in terms of percentages, because that's what your healer is looking at.
I get hit with my 62K HP for 18k. That's 29% of my HP so my bar drops by 29%
On the other side, I am gemmed for Agi and at 52500. I take the same hit and now I just got hit for 34.2% of my total health.
So, basically I am taking 18% more of my total HP per swing just to save 4.6% damage overall...

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What each stat actually provides for us in bear form/spec.

The rest of this section will touch on the basic stats that you will be looking for and the benefits they provide you in bear form. All of the conversions are assuming you have a proper bear spec including HotW, SotF & Imp. MotW talents. And the numbers in (brackets) are with blessing of kings. (source: http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t36999-feral_druid_numbers_updated_3_2_2_a/) Special thanks to Rarebeast from EJ for this info

Strength – provides attack power
1 Str = 2.37864 AP (2.616504 AP) (Cat)
1 Str = 2.1624 AP (2.37864 AP) (Bear)
1 Str = 2.292144 AP (2.5213584 AP) (Bear with PotP)

Agility – Main tanking avoidance stat. We are in love with you.
1 Agi = 1.18932 AP (1.308252 AP) (Cat only)
1 Agi = 0.0129744% (0.01427184%) Crit
1 Agi = 0.0225641% (0.0248206%) Dodge
1 Agi = 2.1624 (2.37864) Armor

77.075 (70.068) Agi = 1% Crit
44.318 (40.289)Agi = 1% Dodge

Stamina – Provides health, a major tanking stat.
1 Sta = 10.812 (11.8932) Health (Cat)
1 Sta = 14.8665 (16.35315) Health (Bear)

Intellect – Practically useless for tanking.
1 Int = 19.4616 (21.40776) Mana
1 Int = 0.00778464% (0.0085631%) SpellCrit

125.458 (116.780) Int = 1% SpellCrit

Intellect also increases the amount of health & mana regen you get from Spirit - not very important for ferals

Spirit – Even more useless than Intel for tanking.
Spirit increases you’re out of combat health regen and your out of 5sec rule mana regen - not very important for ferals

Crit Rating – Crit does provide us with increased savage defense procs.. But, don’t stack it, it will come on your rogue leather and weapons most likely anyhow. (Also a decent threat stat)
1 CritRating = 0.022% Crit
45.91 CritRating = 1% Crit

Dodge Rating – We get more dodge from agility, but not a bad stat to pick up on gear. (never gem for it)
1 DodgeRating = 0.0220982% Dodge
45.2525 DodgeRating = 1% Dodge

Haste Rating – Strong single target threat stat... no mitigation use. Only Maul will scale off of it... but maul makes up a pretty hefty chunk of our total damage/threat
1 HasteRating = 0.03965% Haste
25.223 HasteRating = 1% Haste

Hit Rating – lowers your chance to miss. Our hit cap is 263 (8%) or 230 with a Draenai.
1 HitRating = 0.030% Hit
32.79 HitRating = 1% Hit

Cap vs Level 80 mob = 5% Hit = 163.95 Hit Rating
Cap vs Level 81 mob = 5.5% Hit = 180.34 Hit Rating
Cap vs Level 82 mob = 6% Hit = 196.74 Hit Rating (Heroics)
Cap vs Level 83 mob = 8% Hit = 262.32 Hit Rating (Raid Bosses)

Expertise Rating – Best threat stat per point up till 6.5% then it’s equal with hit.
1 ExpertiseRating = 0.0305% reduction in dodge & parry chance
32.79 ExpertiseRating = 1% reduction in dodge & parry chance

Cap vs Level 80 mob = 5.0% (Dodge) / 5.0% (Parry) = 163.95 (20) / 163.95 (20) Expertise Rating
Cap vs Level 81 mob = 5.2% (Dodge) / 5.2% (Parry) = 170.5 (21) / 170.5 (21) Expertise Rating
Cap vs Level 82 mob = 5.4% (Dodge) / 5.4% (Parry) = 177 (22) / 177 (22) Expertise Rating (Heroics)
Cap vs Level 83 mob = 6.5% (Dodge) / 14% (Parry) = 214 (26) / 460 (56) Expertise Rating (Raid Bosses)

The 10 Expertise we get from Primal Precision is equivalent to 81.975 ExpertiseRating so subtract that from the above figures if you have that talent. (which you better)

Defense Rating – Gives a chance for the mob to miss us – (actually starts to pass Agility as a pure avoidance stat at around 50% dodge due to Diminishing returns) Agility is still a better all around stat due to the armor and crit rating it provides up till around 60% dodge
1 DefenseRating = 0.008% dodge and 0.008% chance to be missed and 0.008% reduced chance to be crit (Crit reduction not needed for PvE if you have SotF )
122.96 Defense Rating = 1% chance to dodge and 1% chance to be missed and 1% reduced chance to be crit (Crit reduction not needed for PvE if you have SotF )

1 DefRating = 0.64 DodgeRating (counting misses as dodges)

ArmorPenetration Rating – threat stat.. will come by default on our main gear pieces
1 ArPenRating = 0.07145% ArmorPenetration
13.9957272 ArPenRating = 1% Armor Penetration

ArPen cap (100%) = 1400 ArPen

Resilience – No need for resilience in PvE
94.27125 Resilience = -1% chance to be crit, -2.2% crit damage, -1% all damage & -2.2% mana drain reduction

1414.06872 Resilience = 33% reduction from crit damage = the cap for this part of resilience's effect

Regular (white) Armor – With the changes to druid armor since BC you are in no danger of hitting the armor cap anytime soon and can stack it wherever you can find a place. It’s a phenomenal mitigation stat.
Includes non-bonus armor from all slots except rings, trinkets, neck & weapon. All armor from rings, trinkets, neck & weapon as well as armor patchs & any bonus (green) armor on items & armor from Agi receive no bonus from SotF, Thick Hide or the metagem

1 Armor = 6.251 Armor (Bear)
1 Armor = 6.8761 Armor (Bear with Thick Hide)
1 Armor = 7.013622 Armor (Bear with Thick Hide & Armor Metagem)

Damage Reduction from Armor % = Armor * 100 / (Armor + (467.5 * AttackerLevel - 22167.5))

DR% for Lvl83 Boss mobs = Armor * 100 / (Armor + 16635)

Armor cap (75% DR) for Lvl83 Boss mobs = 49905 Armor

Part 3: Spec, and Glyph choices

This section will touch on the appropriate specs and a brief explanation

The cookie cutter bear spec is going to look like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0ZxGGscrzceRcczVkbAczb:z0ncMz

This spec gives you the top threat producing and mitigation talents. It should be your standard tanking build. (The 5 points from Master Shapeshifter can be moved into Feral Aggression if you are responsible for providing that debuff)


The Max Survival spec would look something like:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0ZERGscrdceRcczVkbA0z:z0ncMz

With this spec you give up a fair amount of AoE threat so this build wouldn’t be good for general purpose / add tanking, but gives added survivability by picking up Feral Aggression and lowering the cooldown on our only interrupt Bash.


For max threat (only use if you way out gear the instance)
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0ZxGMsfrzceoc0uqkbEczb:zN0cMz

I wouldn’t suggest this build for much more than goofing off in heroics after you are in t9 badge gear or better. You give up a fair amount of mitigation but pick up the ability to cat dps decently and do significantly more dps/threat in bear. You would use KoTJ on CD with this build. NEVER USE IN PROGRESSION RAIDING.


A decent semi hybrid build looks like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0ZxGGsfrzceRccuVkbA0z:z0ncMz

This build is the perfect Off-Tank build. You are giving up MSS for KoTJ and Shredding attacks. Shred is your main cat damage ability and KoTJ offers a good bit of energy regen allowing you to do decent cat dps for playing in heroics or lower lvl raids. I use this as an off tank build because it gives me added dps in cat at the cost of threat in bear (which I rarely have a problem with anyhow) so I am not losing any survivability.


Glyphs:

There are really very few good Feral Tank glyphs available.

Glyph of Maul: Your Maul ability now hits 1 additional target
A must have... Takes your highest threat ability and doubles the number of people it hits. A must for aoe threat, and a great glyph in general

Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration: While Frenzied Regeneration is active, healing effects on you are 20% more powerful.
Gives you another dependable Cooldown to use when you are expecting heavy damage, be careful on the useage of this one as it can drain your rage quickly if you aren’t main tanking big hits. (also works better proactively than reactively)

Glyph of Survival Instincts: Your Survival Instincts ability grants an additional 15% of your maximum health.
This is a very solid glyph as it buffs your go to, reactive oh !*@% button.

Glyph of Growling: Increases the chance for your Growl ability to work successfully by 8%.
Growl is actually considered a spell so it’s based on the spell miss chance.. this glyph will give your growl ability hit cap if you are at the melee hit cap. Good for situations where missing a growl means wiping your raid. If you take this one, then swap the maul one for it. Just remember to swap back to maul before trash/heroics.


Minor Glyphs:
There are two glyphs that directly help you while tanking.

Glyph of Challenging Roar: Reduces the cooldown of your Challenging Roar ability by 30 sec.
Best of what’s around for minor glyphs, brings the CD of Challenging roar from 3min to 2 and a half…

Glyph of Thorns: Increases the duration of your Thorns ability by 50 min when cast on yourself. This helps to guarantee you will have thorns up the entire duration of a fight.


While we are on glyphs, Acornbrain of the Scilia server mentioned he had read an article on Felhoof's blog (http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/2009/04/generalglyphs-are-new-flask.html) about using glyphs just like we use flasks.

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Q u o t e:
I have Frenzied Regen and Survival Instincts glyphed almost permanenetly. Maul and Growl I interchange. A glyphed maul is dangerous when your raid is using CC (e.g. Faction Champs. trash leading to Vezax, IC, etc), but is useful on Cat Lady, Twins and maybe Jaxx when the Mistress is up. It is useless on a single boss. Growl is useful on Gormok and Faction Champs to reduce taunt misses.

---

This is very good advice. And taking into consideration the low cost and high utility of adjustments like this.. I would suggest it to all the bears out there.


Idols:
Currently as you get into endgame raiding you will have a few viable options. Below is a review of each.

Raiding Option:

Idol of the Crying Moon: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50456 (BiS)
Equip: The periodic damage from your Lacerate and Rake abilities grants 44 Agility for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.
220 Agility * 1.1 (kings) * 1.06 (SotF) *1.02 (motw) = 261.6504 Effective Agility
5.460532 Dodge pre DR
523.3008 Armor
3.139805% Crit

Heroics Options:

Idol of Mutilation: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47668
200 Dodge rating = 4.42% dodge

Idol of the Corrupter: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45509
153 Agility * 1.1 (kings) * 1.06 (SotF) *1.02 (motw) = 181.965 effective agility
3.797% dodge
363.93 armor
2.18% crit

So you lose 0.623% dodge...
but you gain roughly 364 armor and 2.18% crit (savage defense)

So Idol of Corrupter is actually stronger for tanking than the Mutilation idol.

Pre-Heroics Option:

For starting off as a new tank there is a great idol available for doing PVP dailies in Grizzly Hills. It buffs the base damage of both Swipe and Maul and will help your threat starting off.

Idol of Perspicacious Attacks: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=38365
Increases the damage dealt by your Maul ability by 120 and Swipe ability by 24.

Idol of Terror: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33509
65 Agility * 1.1 (kings) * 1.06 (SotF) *1.02 (motw) = 77.3058 Effective Agility
1.613339% dodge (Pre-DR)
154.6116 armor
0.92767% crit

The Idol of Terror is available by using Badges of Justice that come from Outland Heroics/raids.

Part 4: Rotation, cooldowns, and threat generation


I am going to start this section with a brief description of each of our threat producing abilities that are worth noting.

Maul - A strong attack that increases melee damage by 578 and causes a high amount of threat. Effects which increase Bleed damage also increase Maul damage.
That means that mangle increases its damage. You should have it glyphed and be specced for Rend and Tear. With a Mangle and a lacerate on a target, Maul will be the highest threat ability you have. It’s also not associated with the GCD. It executes on the next melee swing (replacing the “white” melee hit with a maul instead.) A best practice is to have it macroed to all your other abilities so that it is constantly qued up and you produce maximum threat.

Mangle - Mangle the target for 115% normal damage plus 299 and causes the target to take 30% additional damage from bleed effects for 12 sec. Also affects Mauls damage. This ability should be used every cool down for max threat.

Faerie Fire (Feral) - Decrease the armor of the target by 5% for 5 min. While affected, the target cannot stealth or turn invisible. Deals [AP * 0.15 + 1] damage and additional threat when used in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form. This abilitly deals almost the exact same amount of threat as Mangle, and should be used every single cooldown as part of your normal rotation for proper threat.

Lacerate - Lacerates the enemy target, dealing 88 damage and making them bleed for 320 damage over 15 sec and causing a high amount of threat. Damage increased by attack power. This effect stacks up to 5 times on the same target. Keep lacerate at 5 stacks and refresh when it has less than 3 seconds left for max threat. With the talent rend and tear, it buffs Mauls damage and with Primal Gore talent has a chance to crit and provide you with a Savage Defense proc.

Swipe - Swipe nearby enemies, inflicting 108 damage. Damage increased by attack power. Hello AoE threat. Macro Glyphed Maul to this ability and mash as fast as you can on AoE pulls. You should tab target through the mobs to make sure they are all getting some love from your maul as well. On single target you want to use swipe as a filler when Lacerate is fully stacked, Mangle and FFF are both on CD.

Growl - Taunts the target to attack you, but has no effect if the target is already attacking you.
It functions just like the Warrior's Taunt, which operates in the following manner:
1: sets your current threat equal to the highest player on the mob's threat list.
2: forces it to attack you for 3 seconds
As Taunt, Growl can be resisted by the mob, and certain mobs are also immune.


Rotation and common Mistakes

AoE threat – The key to AoE threat generation for a feral tank is combined use of Swipe and glyphed Maul. I like to keep a little ahead of my dps so I can get a couple strong swipes in before they start in. Best practices is to que maul up and charge in, FFF while charging and smack your target with Mangle on arrival. Then you can spam your swipe/maul macro and tab target your secondary targets. It’s a very good practice to use raid icons so the dps can focus the target you have the most threat on.


Single Target threat – The key to strong single target threat is keeping FFF and Mangle on cd and make sure you are keeping a full stack of Lacerate up and Maul qued up at all times. The only time Bears seem to have threat problems is in the first few seconds of a pull. I overcome this by using FFF till the boss becomes attackable, then immediately smacking them with Mangle, after that I will lay a single lacerate down and then berserk and mangle/maul macro till berserk is over giving me a good threat lead. After that I work on stacking my lacerate to five always using mangle and fff as soon as they come off cool down. Once you have lacerate stacked to five you only need to refresh it when there is about 3 seconds left and you will use swipe as filler. Maul should be qued up as close to 100% of the time as possible.

After you get your lacerate to 5 stacks your rotation will look something like this
Mangle
FFF
Swipe
Swipe
Mangle
FFF
Swipe
Lacerate
startover (you will actually have time to lacerate again if it gets parried without losing your stack)

Use of Cooldowns -

We have 3 major cooldowns. Barkskin, Survival Instincts, and Frenzied Regeneration

Barkskin - The druid's skin becomes as tough as bark. All damage taken is reduced by 20%. While protected, damaging attacks will not cause spellcasting delays. This spell is usable while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, feared or asleep. Useable in all forms.
Barkskin is on a short CD, only 1 minute, and should be used anytime heavy damage is expected. Smart useage of this will greatly reduce the strain on your healers. The glyph for it is useless in pve.

Survival Instincts - When activated, this ability temporarily grants you 30% of your maximum health for 20 sec while in Bear Form, Cat Form, or Dire Bear Form. After the effect expires, the health is lost. When glyphed it will increase you health by an amazing 45%!! This is the oh Sh-T button of choice. If you are about to die this is the one to hit, it can save you from immediate death. Longer cooldown though (3 min) It also works very well with Frenzied Regen because that talent restores health based on max HP.

Frenzied Regeneration - Converts up to 10 rage per second into health for 10 sec. Each point of rage is converted into 0.3% of max health. This is a very effective CD when Glyphed. The glyph is a near must have. The glyph causes all healing to be increased by 20% while Frenzied Regen is active. Making it a great CD to live through very healing intensive moments.

As a general rule of thumb it's best to use your cooldowns seperately rather than blowing them all at once. This gives you the most time to live overall. But if you hit that moment of OMGHEMUSTDIENOWORIWILL ... Well, blow them all and become nearly invulnerable.

Part 5: Consumables, Gems, Enchants, and Profession Bonuses

Food Buffs
(Foods all conversions include the kings buff and have been rounded down)

Blackened Dragonfin – 40 Agility and 40 Stamina (654 HP, 0.99% dodge, 0.57% Crit and 95 armor)

Fish Feast -80 Attack Power, 46 Spell Power, and 40 Stamina. (654 HP and 80 attack power)

Rhinolicious Wormsteak – 40 Expertise Rating and 40 Stamina (654 HP and 1.22% expertise)

There are a ton of different buff foods available but these three are the only ones you should ever even look at as a bear. The Blackend Dragonfin is by FAR the best bear food available. The only time you should substitute anything else is if you are being cheap and can’t resist the free fish feast in front of you. The Rhinolicious Wormsteak is a better food than the Fish feast for us… but honestly, if you are going to buy your own food, buy the Blackened Dragonfin.

Potions

Seeing as we have been blessed with the ability to use Potions while in bear form… This section will address what’s available and what you get out of it. Remember you can only use 1 while in combat.

Runic Healing Potion – Restores 2700-4500 Health (the stereotypical Oh !%## potion)

Indestructible Potion – Increases armor by 3500 for 2min. (3500 armor roughly equal to 2.38% Damage reduction) (More on fun uses for this in a moment)

Now the Indestructible potion is an interesting Potion… On one hand it’s a little mathier to figure out its benefits and two you can sort of abuse the 1pot per combat rule. If you use one just before entering combat you can theoretically have 4minutes of uptime on the armor bonus.

Math behind Indestructible Potion… Standard boss attack speed is 2.0. I have 56.427% Avoidance after DR. That means over 2 minutes I am taking around 38 mitigated hits. The average melee hits for me in ToC 25 are around 20K (I have 66.58% damage reduction from armor). That means, pre-mitigation, they are swinging for around 60k. So we take the 2.38% additional damage reduction times the 60k unmitigated swing means we are shaving off roughly 1428 damage per swing over about 38 swings. Based on those numbers, I am saving roughly 54,264 health from white melee hits alone. A fair bit more than the health from a runic healing potion. And if we are able to get a full 4 minutes out of using two pots then that number doubles to 108,528 health saved. (plus the damage reduction from special attacks that armor has an effect on)

There is an argument for saving your pot CD for a health pot in a bad situation. But the armor pots deliver a lot more mileage. You could also use an armor pot at the beginning of the fight and still have your pot cooldown for a Health Potion later instead of double armor.


What to gem:

Agility, Stam, or combined! The decision on what to stack, stam, agility or balanced is determined by the content you are running. If you are doing hard modes and deep progression it’s usually best to stack stamina.

Nightmare Tear: +10 to all stats - unique and prismatic. This is a great gem for us. Use it to grab a socket bonus you really don't want to miss.
Delicate Cardinal Ruby: 20 Agility
Solid Majestic Zircon: 30 Stamina
Shifting Dreadstone: 10 Agility and 15 Stamina
Meta Gem: Austere Earthsiege Diamond: 32 Stamina and 2% increased armor value


What to Enchant:
This is assuming you don’t have any profession buffed enchants.

Head: The tanking helm enchant from the Argent Crusade is the only choice.
Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector – 37 stamina and 20 defense.

Shoulders: The shoulder enchant comes from PvP
Greater Inscription of the Gladiator - 30 Stamina and 15 resilience

There is also an alternate from Sons of Hodir
Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle - 20 Dodge rating and 15 defense rating

Chest: Powerful Stats - +10 to all stats is the best of what’s around

Belt: Add a buckle and drop any one of the gems we talked about into it

Legs: Frosthide Leg Armor – 55 Stamina and 22 agility is absolutely amazing for us

Boots: We actually have two good options. Either Greater Fortitude – 22 stamina… or Tuskarr’s Vitality which provides minor run speed increase and 15 Stamina

Bracers: Major Stamina – 40 Stamina is the cat’s meow.

Gloves: Major Agility- 20 agility is the best option early on. As your gear improves into ICC gear the DR we are experiencing on the dodge from Agi at this point causes the Armor enchant to become the better choice.
Glove Reinforcements - 240 armor

Cloak: Major Agility- worth an additional 22 agility
Enchant Cloak Might Armor - 225 armor to cloak

Weapon: This one has brought about some debate lately. Mongoose or Blood Draining.

Mongoose - On fights that I have a boss on me the entire fight I see about a 45% uptime on Mongoose.
120 Agility = 2.978% dodge, 1.71% Crit and 285 Armor
2% haste = 2% haste (threat, yummy maul)

Blood Draining - Permanently enchants your weapon to sometimes grant Blood Reserve when striking an enemy or inflicting damage with bleed attacks. When you fall below 35% health, Blood Reserve restores 360 to 440 health per stack and can crit. Lasts 20 sec.
Blood Reserve Buff stacks up to 5 times with a 10sec ICD between each stack. Receiving the heal removes the buff (all stacks) but doesn't affect the ICD for the buff.
Blooding Reserve has a 50% chance to apply 1 stack per attack. (Lacerate ticks count towards this)

Blood Reserve Heal:
One stack: 360 to 440 healing
Two Stacks: 720 to 880 healing
Three Stacks: 1080 to 1320 healing
Four Stacks: 1440 to 1760 healing
Five Stacks: 1800 to 2200 healing

Both enchants are worth looking at. Mongoose will result in less damage taken overall and will reduce more damage than Blood Draining will heal. On the other hand, Blood Draining is there when you need it most. It's consistent and much more predictable. We have had some very good discussions about the two and either choice you make will benefit you.

For Tier 10, I am rolling Blood Draining.

Profession Bonuses
(all conversions include the kings buff, only take into account the gain from a non profession based bonus and have been rounded down)

Jewelcrafting – Very Flexible, Allows you to equip 3 Dragon’s eye gems that are much more powerful than standard epic gems. (They are no longer prismatic)
3X Solid Dragon’s Eye - 63 additional stamina (1030 HP)
3x Delicate Dragon’s Eye – 42 additional Agility (1.04% dodge, 99.9 armor, and 0.599% crit)

Blacksmithing – Allows you to add two Blacksmith only sockets to your gear
2x Solid Majestic Zircon – 60 Stamina (981 HP)
2x Delicate Cardinal Ruby – 40 Agility (0.99% dodge, 95 armor, and 0.57% crit)
2x Shifting Dreadstone – 20 Agility and 30 Stamina (0.496% dodge, 47.5 Armor, 0.285% crit and 490 HP)

Leatherworking – You get a much improved Wrist enchant
Fur Lining – 102 Stamina. A 62 stamina increase over the standard tanking bracer enchant (1013 HP)
OR a resistance enchant worth 70 additional Resistance to a specific type of magic… could prove very useful in Icecrown.
But you also get a couple of other raid worthy perks from LW.
Drums of Forgotten Kings – 8% to all stats for the entire raid for when your pally is MIA (doesn't stack with kings)
Drums of the Wild – Useless to a druid LW because you will always have Gift of the Wild. (doesn't stack with Mark/Gift of the wild)

Mining – Flat stamina bonus
Toughness – 60 stamina (981 HP)

Enchanting – Gives you the ability to enchant your rings
2x Enchant Ring – Stamina -60 Stamina (981 HP)

Inscription – Gives powerful shoulder enchants
Master’s Inscription of the Pinnacle – 60 Dodge rating and 15 defense rating
An improvement of 40 dodge rating over the Son’s of Hodir enchant (0.88% dodge)

Alchemy – Mixology - You receive an increased effect and duration when you drink any elixir or flask you are able to make.
Flask of stone blood – gives 650 more hp and lasts 2 hours instead of 1.

Tailoring – Special Tailoring only cloak enchants
Swordguard Embroidery - Embroiders a magical pattern into your cloak, causing your damaging melee and ranged attacks to sometimes increase your attack power by 400 for 15 sec.
You have to give up 22 agility for this enchant… Terrible profession for us…

Herbalism – Lifeblood, self heal
Lifeblood – 3600 healing over 5 seconds. Scales slightly with Max health, and isn’t affected by the GCD… Good to macro with Barkskin. Not worth a profession slot based on this bonus alone. (You may still want it for the ability to pick herbs.. but never pick herbalism for this heal.)

Skinning – Critical strike rating increased
Master of Anatomy – Increases your Critical Strike Rating by 40 (0.88% crit)

Engineering – harder to explain
Mind Amplification Dish 45 stamina, eight more than Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector at the cost of 20 defense rating. Plus mind control!! - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=67839
Flexweave Underlay – 23 agility and parachute to cloak… So 1 more agility and a parachute..
Reticulated Armor Webbing - Permanently inserts reticulated armor webbing into gloves, increasing armor by 885. - http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=63770
Healing Injector Kit - With patch 3.2.0, Engineers receive 25% bonus healing when consuming a Runic Healing Injector which is 675 - 1125 extra HP - http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37567

Part 6: Macros

I mentioned Macros that add Maul to each of your abilities. Here are those macros. Use the ? icon and copy and paste, it will automatically fill in the correct picture of the ability and show the cooldown like normal. I will also be adding more macros as I think of them / as people remind me ;)

Mangle:

#showtooltip
/cast Mangle (Bear)(rank 5)
/cast [nomod] !Maul

Feral Faerie Fire:

#showtooltip
/cast Faerie Fire (feral)
/cast [nomod] !Maul

Lacerate:

#showtooltip
/cast Lacerate
/cast [nomod] !Maul

Swipe:

#showtooltip
/cast Swipe (bear)(Rank 8)
/cast [nomod] !Maul



For marking your targets I suggest Keybind the raid target icons to your Numpad.. or you can use this

This next macro sets whomever you FFF to have the Skull Icon.

#showtooltip Faerie Fire
/cast Faerie Fire (Feral)
/script SetRaidTarget("target",8)
/startattack


For emergeny rage generation when you can't afford the cost of the debuff from enrage you can spam this: Press it twice and you will get a quick 20 rage without the armor debuff. (It will only cancel the debuff if you do NOT have T10 4pc, with this macro if you have your 4pc bonus equipped it will not cancel!! Thanks Yawning)

#showtooltip
/run if not UnitBuff("player","Enraged Defense") then CancelUnitBuff("player","Enrage") end
/cast Enrage

Walk up to a vendor and open it up the click this next macro to sell every gray quality item in your bag... Nothing to do with tanking.. but great for getting rid of a bunch of stuff when soloing as a bear!!

/script for bag = 0, 4 do for slot = 1, GetContainerNumSlots(bag) do local name = GetContainerItemLink(bag,slot) if name and string.find(name,"ff9d9d9d") then DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Selling "..name) UseContainerItem(bag,slot) end end end

Part 7: Gear list with out using any raiding!!
UPDATED FOR 3.3!!!

This gear list is NOT A BiS. It's not intended to be an end all gear list. It's just an example of what's possible without raiding. It is not a perfectly balanced tanking set (though it’s pretty close now). It's not the best of what's available because it includes 0 raiding to acquire. It can be a very strong reference to use when trying to fill in a few spots without raiding. And you can use the full gear set and successfully tank 25 ToC and 10man ICC.

Also take note that while I list the badge cost of the gems and Orbs they are attainable with gold alone.

GOAL: To be able to tank 25 ToC / 10 ICC without raiding!!!
*All gems for the gear listed I've put in brackets next to the name.

Triumph Badge Gear: Alliance, replace the word Runetotem’s with Malfurion’s
Runetotem’s Headguard of Conquest (Austere Meta, Nightmare) = 50 Triumph Badges
Runetotem’s Legguards of Conquest (Shifting, Solid) = 50 Triumph Badges
Runetotem’s Handgrips of Conquest (Solid) = 30 Triumph Badges
Runetotem’s Rainments of Conquest (Solid, Solid) = 50 Triumph Badges
Duskstalker Pauldrons (Solid) = 45 Triumph Badges
Clutch of Fortification = 35 Triumph Badges

Conquest badge gear:
Idol of the Corruptor = 19 Conquest Badges
Shard of the Crystal Forest = 19 Conquest Badges
Belt of the Twilight Assassin = 28 Conquest Badges

Gear from gold:

Footpads of Silence (Solid, Shifting) = 6 Runed orbs, etc
Bracers of Swift Death (Solid) = 4 Crusader orbs, etc

Gear from Dungeons (H) = Heroic:

HoR:
(H)Orca-Hunter’s Harpoon (The hit is nearly all wasted with this gear set. I would suggest trying for an Onyxia run in 10 or 25 to pick up Reclaimed/Reinforced Thunderstrike)
Eerie Runeblade Polisher (This cloak is the best available without raiding. Though, I would suggest saving badges of Frost for Sentinel’s Winter Cloak - 50 Emblems of Frost)

ToC:
(H)Mark of the Relentless (solid)
The Black Heart (for most situations I value this over the Brewfest stam trinkets, but for fights where EH>All like heroic NrB, I would go for the brewfest trinkets.)

AN:
(H)Essence of Gossamer
(the Brewfest Stam trinkets are significantly stronger than this option. So if you picked up one of those, replace this with that.)

Gemming required:
1x Shifting Dreadstones
11x Solid Majestic Zircon
1x Nightmare tear
1x Austere Earthsiege Diamond

Enchants required:
1x mongoose enchant
1x 22 agi to cloak
1x 10 stats to chest
1x 20 agi to gloves
1x 40 stam to bracers
1x 22 stam to boots.
1x 10,000 honor for gladiator enchant to shoulders.
1x frosthide leg armor
1x Arcanum of the stalwart protector from argent crusade revered reputation

Total HP and avoidance and mitigation completely raid buffed:

51979.85
51.660% avoidance
87.895% mitigation
89.771% savage defense uptime absorbing 1901 per swing while up.
88.787% total mitigation
Damage taken vs a boss hitting for 65,000 (Heroic T8 hardmode) every 2seconds: 12.105%


Optional gear for the obsessive compulsive:
Darkmoon Card Greatness = The avoidance, extra crit and armor are pretty awesome for heroics and certain fights, and it keeps 33%+ uptimes! The cost - 3500 Gold+
Glyph of Indominability =1792 Armor and 512 Dodge rating for 20sec every 2min. Great use and huge amounts of armor, even though trinkets don’t get the bear multiplier, this is still an excellent trinket that really shines on heavy physical fights. The cost - 50 Emblems of Triumph


Total badges required for actual gear:
260 Emblems of Triumph
66 Emblems of Conquest

Badges for gems and runed orbs:
60 Triumph for Crusader Orbs
108 Conquest for Runed Orbs
230 Heroism for gems

Wowhead Comparison link:
http://www.wowhead.com/?compare=48191:46161:45509:46159:45821:45838:40722:45555:45564:47243:47216:47522:37784:37220:48976:48988;40130:40130:40130:40130:40130:40119:40119:40119:40119:40119:40119:40119:49110:41380&weights=Druid%20-%20Feral%20(Tanking);21:42:45:22:41:117:20:119:103:97:77:96:123;100:72:70:65:25:16:10:6:5:4:4:3:-100



Grim's ICC Shopping List - What I think is in my reach and I want!!
http://www.wowhead.com/?compare=51140:51142:51143:51144:50001:50333:50185:50023:48027:50466:49895:51925:50456;50361:50344;50178;40119:40119:36767:36767:36767:40119:41380:40130:40130:40119:40119:40119:40119:40119:40119:40119:40119:40119:40119:40119

Gear Weightings
Shamelessly copy and pasted from Kalon's blog http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/

http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4&filter=qu=4;ub=11;cr=131:123;crs=1:4;crv=0:0;gb=1;gm=4;wt=21:22:45:42:117:119:20:41:97:103:77:114:96;wtv=100:75:70:55:30:25:17:12:8:8:7:7:6

Weapon Weightings
http://www.wowhead.com/?items=2&filter=sl=17;ub=11;cr=123;crs=4;crv=0;gb=1;gm=4;wt=21:22:45:42:117:119:20:97:103:114:77:96:41;wtv=100:75:70:55:30:25:17:8:8:7:7:6:6

Part 8: Q & A


Time for the Critique and any more questions you may have or want to see added.

FIRST

LOLOLOL

Fingering that sticky request button already. Time to replace that older Bear sticky with this one...

Neat. I'll have to read through this when I'm done farming the BRD boss... want mount!

Sticky please!

Shoulders: Honor pvp
Greater Inscription of the Gladiator - 30 Stamina and 15 resilience

can be good too

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Q u o t e:
Shoulders: Honor pvp
Greater Inscription of the Gladiator - 30 Stamina and 15 resilience

can be good too

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good catch. I had it on my scratch notes, must have forgotten to type it in lol. It's in now

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Q u o t e:

It's in now

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that's what she said

nice post, sticky plz

nice guide grim glad to see you finally did a sticky guide

Sticky!