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Leveling Bear Druids in 4.0.1Follow

#1 Oct 22 2010 at 8:42 PM Rating: Good
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With the new patch, bear tanking has changed heavily. I had my new ally druid up to 75 before the patch, and after reading up on doing my new spec tree, I set myself up, tried to tank with the changes made, and couln't tank multiple mobs at all!

I knew I couldn't spam swipe and maul (gyph of maul rocked) anymore, and tried everything I could. I looked at the Druid must read thread, and was wondering, what are you guys doing to tank multiple mobs? Any tips would be greatly appreciated! I'm perfectly fine when tanking a single big mob, it's when you have to tank five or so smaller mobs at the same time that I have problems with threat going all over the place. It makes it hard to keep AoE spammers safe.

Again, any advice that can make me better, I'd really appreciate!

Thank You!



*edited to add "Bear" to subject

Edited, Oct 22nd 2010 10:46pm by ShillelaghNSheild
#2 Oct 23 2010 at 9:01 AM Rating: Excellent
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Just tell people to single target one add down before they aoe. Swipe may not be spammable, but it hits pretty hard, so it's not all that bad.
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#3 Oct 25 2010 at 11:47 AM Rating: Decent
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Xsarus wrote:
Just tell people to single target one add down before they aoe. Swipe may not be spammable, but it hits pretty hard, so it's not all that bad.


If it gets really bad. Make a macro to display that message at the beginning of each group.

I'm only level 40 so I'm not sure how useful any of my advice will be to you but this is what I do in AoE situations where every jerk has to attack something different then everyone else. Since attacking the tanks target would be too simple.

When you have a lot of rage(More then 45):

Charge in and use demoralizing roar and as soon as everything is close enough hit swipe. Then start clicking on the mob nameplates and rotating around using FFF, maul and mangle. Swipe every time it's up.

When you are very low on rage(Less then 30):

Don't charge, but use FFF on the closest target(because thats the one your group is most likely to attack if they are single target) Then as soon as the rest of the group is in range demoralizing roar. If you have the rage by now use swipe. Then continue with the above steps of tabbing and rotating maul, mangle and FFF.

Just remember to keep taunting anything that gets away. I know it's frustrating but you'll get the hang of it.
#4 Nov 04 2010 at 11:38 AM Rating: Good
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Blizzard screwed up Bear tanking enough to make me essentially not play anymore. Tanking is what I did and now it's horrible. Really, really horrible. It's not so much the lack of spammable Swipe, but more that you can't get any initial AOE in before the DPS or healer pulls aggro. Death Knights can still throw down Death & Decay or a Blood Boil. Paladins still have Consecrate. Warrior are sort of in the same boat, except their Shockwave is raping the face off my Swipe.

Druid tanking should get better at level 81 when we get Thrash, but to put us in this position for 80 levels is just a slap in the face. What, were Druids too good at AOE tanking? Compared to Paladins and Death Knights? Really? I mean, most Druid tanks I know were complaining about Swipe not being enough to hold aggro against stuff, so their reply to this concern was to nerf Swipe?

The logic... I don't see it.
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#5 Nov 04 2010 at 12:01 PM Rating: Good
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Since I came back I did several randoms heroics for JP and some pugs. I never saw a feral tank again. Not once. To be honest neither tank nor dps. Only druids I see are resto and balance, like myself. Wonder why.
#6 Nov 04 2010 at 12:56 PM Rating: Good
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Kitty DPS was hurt a bit with the lack of expertise from talents, but it's not that bad. In full PvP gear (stam gems and survivability trinkets) I still pushed 3k DPS in Culling of Stratholme, getting as high as 8k DPS on Mal'Ganis.

If I had 3k gold, I'd totally regem/talent/glyph to DPS and go rape some stuff. Right now I'm desperately trying to farm enough Honor for a PvP weapon. Only 1k to go. Smiley: banghead

Random BG seems to be SotA all the time and Horde fails miserably there on my server.
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#7 Nov 04 2010 at 1:11 PM Rating: Excellent
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Honestly I haven't had any trouble holding aggro in heroics. I still chain pull. Typically charge - maul - swipe - swipe and run to the next group. Not much pulls off if anything. Swipe was hugely boosted, so you can't hit it as often, but it does way more threat.
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#8 Nov 04 2010 at 1:25 PM Rating: Good
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Once you're running, it's not hard, no. Whenever you have to stop and then pull a group at 0 rage... that's bad. Didn't help that my first time tanking with the new patch was in Trial of the Champion. Group pull upon group pull with rage-dumping pauses every time. I'd move towards one group, pull with Feral Faerie Fire, reach the group, use Demoralizing Roar, Swipe, get a heal from the healer and instantly lose aggro to everyone.

And it's not like I'm wearing bad gear or anything. I tanked most of ICC25 and my average item level in my tanking gear is 265. It just gets me every time. I pull a group and before I can secure aggro, I lose it. Not being able to spam Swipe was just lol in Pit of Saron. The bit where you have to run through the tunnel and pick up mobs on the go. Usually I'd run and spam Swipe, but with Swipe on a cooldown and Demoralizing Roar being pathetic TPS, I lost aggro to everyone. Eventually I just pulled two at a time and slowly chewed my way through it.

At least everyone has 30k+ health now, before buffs.
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#9 Nov 04 2010 at 3:50 PM Rating: Good
Yeah, the CD on swipe really messes with my head. I very rarely tank and the few times I have recently haven't been too bad except for when the last mob in a pack takes a while to get near me - I either swipe early and miss him then have to be quick to taunt him off the healer or DPS or I wait a bit longer to swipe and risk losing the whole pack.

If I ever get Halls of Stone for the random daily, i'm just going to drop group - that gauntlet will just be too painful.....

#10 Nov 04 2010 at 4:03 PM Rating: Good
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The worst part is the near worthlessness of tab targeting in many five mans. It doesn't always cycle through all the mobs and often goes to ones not in range.

The health bars are also fairly clunky and I'm going to get Tiny Plates up and running in the next day or so to see if they help.

The lack of focus firing by DPS is a huge problem now. They are not used to it any more. Since nothing can seriously kill them in five mans these days they have no reason to bother. Hopefully Thrash and Cata will change this but seriously level 81 for Thrash? Like seriously?
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#11 Nov 04 2010 at 4:29 PM Rating: Good
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Horsemouth wrote:
Hopefully Thrash and Cata will change this but seriously level 81 for Thrash? Like seriously?


Quoted for truth and enhanced for emphasis.
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#12 Nov 12 2010 at 6:11 PM Rating: Decent
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To be honest, I enjoy tanking on my druid more so now than ever before. Yes, swipe has a CD- but it does MASSIVE damage, I am often up above 9k dps while tanking in ICC on trash pulls, and I have no problem keeping agro. Our main tank group for ICC10 is prot warrior and me (bear) and he is just as geared as I am, both have 264 weapons and most armor is 264. My dps is on average 2k higher than his on trash, and usually 1500 more than his on boss fights. I find my single target dps is insane also. Also- I very rarely use Demoralizing roar more than the initial pull to get the group all grouped together. After I rush in with FFF and Demoralizing roar, I use Swipe whenever off CD, then use mangle/maul as long as rage is building up enough.
#13 Nov 26 2010 at 5:18 AM Rating: Default
DPS tend to get very lazy these days, when it comes to aggro.
Not a few don't pick their cc/aggr reducing talents anymore, but spend them on more dps.

If someone gets killed they blame the tank or healer.... suck

Its the easy heroics perhaps? People run around like zombies; no time to waste; the big battle for the top-spot dps; no looting! Go-Go!
#14 Nov 26 2010 at 5:45 AM Rating: Good
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Monomatapa wrote:
DPS tend to get very lazy these days, when it comes to aggro.
Not a few don't pick their cc/aggr reducing talents anymore, but spend them on more dps.

If someone gets killed they blame the tank or healer.... suck

Its the easy heroics perhaps? People run around like zombies; no time to waste; the big battle for the top-spot dps; no looting! Go-Go!


There are no aggro reducing talents any more.
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