Bear tank question

[tunguska]

For bear form tanking, +agility is BIS enchant.

For cat form DPS +weapon damage is BIS enchant.

Crusader proccing in cat form is not blizzlike, but +weapon damage being applied to your muliplier is.

[Nikespb]

For bear form tanking, +agility is BIS enchant.

Ty, captain =) But there is no agi enchant yet. Other ideas?

[Doofoos]

Dinged few hours ago was looking for 1.4 pre-bis for bear tank, and found Sakuraba list! I decided to add more useful information to it! (using 1.12.1 database, so information might be inaccurate)

Head: Bone Ring Helm (BoP from Rattlegore - Scholomance)
Neck: Amulet of the Darkmoon (1200 Darkmoon Faire Prize Tickets)
Shoulders: Atal'ai Spaulders (Random bonuses BoP, mini bosses - Sunken Temple)
Back: Cloak of Warding (Craftable BoE by Tailoring, must be unavailable yet, pattern drops at Dire Maul)
Chest: Warbear Harness (Craftable BoE by Tribal Leatherworking 275)
Wrists: Malefic Bracers (Random BoE drop - Scholomance)
Hands: Slaghide Gauntlets of the monkey (Random bonuses BoP, Urok Doomhowl - LBRS)
Waist: Serpentine Sash (World drop, BoE)
Legs: Warstrife Leggings (BoP from General Angerforge - Blackrock Depths)
Feet: Ash Covered Boots (BoP from Archivist Galford - Stratholme Live)
Ring: Ring of Protection (Quest reward from Hidden Treasures)
Ring: Thrall's Resolve (Quest reward from [H] The Princess Saved?)
Trinket: Smoking Heart of the Mountain (Craftable BoP by Enchanting 265)
Trinket: Mark of Tyranny (Quest reward from: [A] General Drakkisath's Demise / [H] For The Horde!)
Weapon: Warden Staff (World drop, BoE)

(send me a message if you find broken \ inaccurate link)

[Sakuraba]

As for my list: Please cross-check other sources as well. It was very quickly put together and not intended as some "official pre-raid bis" list.

Also, i have yet to see Malefic Bracers and i fear it may not be available yet.

I decided to use pvp-bracers and pvp-cloak instead of malefic (shadowcraft may also be an option) and cloak of warding.
The darkmoon neck is not out yet and i am using the pvp-neck instead.

[justclassic]

Hey dear feral-tanks,

Im also part of our awesome crew

Some of your Items arent in the game yet :

DM-Neck
Cloak of Warding
Ash Covered Boots
Malefic Bracers


Some other great choices are:

Stoneshield Cloak (very high armor)
Band of the Great Tortoise (armor ring for aliance Druids)
Dawn Treaders (dont know if yet implemented, CRAFTED)
Golden Mantle of the Dawn (dont know if implemeted, CRAFTED)
Cloudrunner Girdle (high Armor Belt)
Lava Belt (very expensive, very amazing, CRAFTED)
Medallion of Grand Marshall Morris (Also great for Druids, has 15 defrating in 1.4)

so far justclassic

[Viorus]

You're welcome.

There's a few misconceptions about feral druids that people keep using against those who want to play this spec.

Bears can't tank
This is untrue. While bears do lack tanking cooldowns and crit immunity, and should therefore not MT raid bosses under normal circumstances, bears are pretty sturdy. They have way more health and armor than warriors, which easily compensates for the lack of block and parry. Bears are plenty tanky, and there's a few fights in vanilla where you want a bear tank for mechanical reasons. Any raid guild that doesn't have a feral druid will eventually reach a point where they ask themselves "damn it, why didn't we have a feral druid?"

Cats do no DPS
Cat DPS is fine in 1.12.1. It's not up there with rogues and mages, but you know what else isn't? Almost everything. Feral DPS is on par with hunters and other average DPS specs. It's better than ret/enh, spriests (especially with an 8 debuff cap), arms warriors etc. Up until BWL, it's probably better than fury warriors as well. Feral DPS is at least 75% of the top tier DPS specs, assuming you can powershift properly (i.e. spend all your energy and then shift out of cat form and back in, to get +40 energy from Furor, before the next energy tick). Note that vanilla ferals don't use their DoT attacks because they suck, and therefore take up no debuff slots.

Ferals steal rogue gear
Well, there are items that both classes would want, but not any of the important ones. Feral druids don't use normal weapons and obviously won't take rogue tier pieces, and after MC, there start to be feral-specific items which further diminish the overlap between the two classes. Rogues should want the raid to bring a feral druid instead of another rogue. Druids won't steal your daggers and swords or your Nightslayer Shoulder-bra.

Hybrid specs give up something from each role
Not for druids. The spec outlined previously gets all the relevant talents for both roles. While it's true for other classes that you can't get a spec that fills two roles 100%, druid is the exception. It's not a half-assed DPS or half-assed tank, it's as good as the class can be at both things. It's the pinnacle of versatility in vanilla WoW.

^ This sums it up perfectly. Just make sure you get as much stanima, armor and agility as you can so you can take a beating.