Bear tanking basics?

[ace151slayer]

Hi all,

Gonna roll a druid, and I figure I'll eventually tank some 5 man's on my way so I was curious about any tips?

I know it's mainly maul and swipe, however I saw a druid player talking about casting hots on himself before going bear and pulling. Is this standard stuff?

anyone mind enlightening me as I have no expertise on druids.

Thanks

[macgarthur]

I've bear tanked vanilla, you basically never run out of mana because you're in bear form most of the time so you can easily cast a few HoTs on yourself right before a fight to give yourself a little heal boost. Other than that just maul and swipe, get the talents for improved aggro for bear form and stack the stamina.

[Bezawit]

You have pretty much covered the basics.

One thing I will add is if you have an abundance of rage, you can use swipe and maul at the same time. Bash can also be very useful to reduce the damage you take- especially on enraged mobs. Keep Demo Roar up and use FF on cool down since it generates threat and costs nothing.

[Viorus]

ROTATION - Always have demo-roar and FF on each of the mobs. Use swipe to maintain aggro on groups and change targets if there's more than 3 mobs (swipe can only hit a max of 3) When rage is crazy, spam swipe while you're maul spamming. ( you can swipe while the maul icon is in queue/highlighted )

TAUNTING - Use your single target taunt anytime you lose aggro on a mob. Only use the AoE taunt when it's an emergency because it has a 10 minute cool-down.

***Save Frenzied Regen for when you're healer is OOM / CC'ed.***

In general, healing yourself before combat is a waste of time. Let the group healer handle that job. Just make sure he/she is good to go before you pull!

[veles]

healing before a combat is not copmlete waste of time, cause you'll get healing threat on a mob or group of mobs instead of your healer. it's not much, but it's still helping.

[Kromulous]

I prefer pulling with Starfire, then casting Moonfire on the other mob (if there is one), and then shifting into bear. Helps on keeping initial threat against "over-eager" DPS. If you have mana you may as well make use of it. However, if your DPS can manage to understand the basics of not blowing their load at the start of the fight and focusing on one target a time, you can just stay in bear most of the time and pull with FF.

Regrowth and rejuv on yourself before a fight causes additional threat (as far as I know) and helps the healer keep a bit of mana. Though I'd say that's only advisable on tougher pulls and doing it every single pull is a waste of time / your mana.

Keep healing potions on hand for emergencies. If your healer goes OOM, you'll have a safer time shifting out of bear to innerv them if you use a healing pot.

[Aniva]

My biggest suggestions as a druid tank is proper marking. if you got a rogue hitting one thing and a Mage hitting another while the ret pally is trying to prove he can solo this mob and has no idea on how to control his threat things become difficult. And you end up chasing around 3 mobs around which isn't easy. Don't assume people will just attack your target (they won't). But once you mark it becomes easy. Dem shout helps gather groups with a couple swipes use FF on targets its builds a tiny bit of threat. Don't be afraid to ask a Mage to silence a caster so it will run to the other 2 mobs your tanking. Also boss"s like princess in Mara ask dps to wait a few seconds before you dps the knock back makes it harder to hold them. I've tanked everything but ubrs and that's just cuz I haven't ran ubrs yet. druids are great tanks not as good as warriors but imo WAY better than any pally tank. If you are serious about tanking you need to go enchanting to get BiS trinket heart of the mountain.

[Aniva]

One more thing do use your 10 minute CD taunt unless you really need it. Save for whenever the hunter backs into a pat u where trying to avoid or a warlocks imp not in passive pulls the whole room onto you or when your taunt is on cd and u can't get the two mobs with healing aggro off the healer and they are gonna die.

Bash this ability is great when taunt is on CD and u need to stop a mob from running towards the Mage bash them by the time the stun is over your taunt will be back up. Doesn't work on 90%of boss"s. If you have a rogue and they are cheap shot kidney shot u can lock down mobs as well if u time it right and watching defbuffs on the target.

And if anyone dies besides an aoeing Mage or warlock it's your fault and you should look at what you did wrong and try and fix it. Don't be afraid to bust out of bear and innervate an oom healer pot if needed and go back bear. Shit sometimes if I feel like I can I'll stone skin all at the same time. Can't tell you how many times I've saved a wipe because I noticed the healer was out of mana.

[Viorus]

One more thing do use your 10 minute CD taunt unless you really need it. Save for whenever the hunter backs into a pat u where trying to avoid or a warlocks imp not in passive pulls the whole room onto you or when your taunt is on cd and u can't get the two mobs with healing aggro off the healer and they are gonna die.

Bash this ability is great when taunt is on CD and u need to stop a mob from running towards the Mage bash them by the time the stun is over your taunt will be back up. Doesn't work on 90%of boss"s. If you have a rogue and they are cheap shot kidney shot u can lock down mobs as well if u time it right and watching defbuffs on the target.

And if anyone dies besides an aoeing Mage or warlock it's your fault and you should look at what you did wrong and try and fix it. Don't be afraid to bust out of bear and innervate an oom healer pot if needed and go back bear. Shit sometimes if I feel like I can I'll stone skin all at the same time. Can't tell you how many times I've saved a wipe because I noticed the healer was out of mana.

The hunter part made me lol. You hit the nail on the head, great advice!

[Viorus]

My biggest suggestions as a druid tank is proper marking. if you got a rogue hitting one thing and a Mage hitting another while the ret pally is trying to prove he can solo this mob and has no idea on how to control his threat things become difficult. And you end up chasing around 3 mobs around which isn't easy. Don't assume people will just attack your target (they won't). But once you mark it becomes easy. Dem shout helps gather groups with a couple swipes use FF on targets its builds a tiny bit of threat. Don't be afraid to ask a Mage to silence a caster so it will run to the other 2 mobs your tanking. Also boss"s like princess in Mara ask dps to wait a few seconds before you dps the knock back makes it harder to hold them. I've tanked everything but ubrs and that's just cuz I haven't ran ubrs yet. druids are great tanks not as good as warriors but imo WAY better than any pally tank. If you are serious about tanking you need to go enchanting to get BiS trinket heart of the mountain.

Yes, but too lazy to mark #FML