Thinking of trying a bear

[Nobleshield]

Like the title says, thinking of trying out a big furry lovable ferocious bear, as they seem kind of fun and I distinctly remember the bear I used to run with doing insane DPS as a tank - almost equivalent to what a mainspec DPS could pump out. I haven't leveled from scratch since Cataclysm came out so I have some very basic questions:

1) Is it feasible to tank low level dungeons as a bear? I recall that Swipe, I think, was made low level in an early patch so bears had some kind of AOE in leveling dungeons. Anything I should be aware of? When I leveled my Warrior in 4.0.3 (I think that was it, the patch that added the Cata talents but didn't change the world yet) it was ridiculously easy.

2) Thinking far in the future, I see many bears recommending to dual spec Feral and go Bear/Cat, I guess so you can reuse the same gear in a pinch. I was thinking of going Bear/Boomkin so I could try out a ranged caster as well (I'm used to having two sets of gear so that's a non-issue), since I don't care for healing and that way I could switch to DPS for DPS fights. There shouldn't be any issue with that other than having to get two sets of gear, right?

3) I've seen it recommended frequently to have a "hybrid" Bear spec that looks like it combines some Bear/Cat talents; I think this is what the bear I used to run with used (crit heavy? I'm not 100% sure what he did) to get such crazy DPS on swap fights. Is that something worth looking into so I can drop to kitty when not directly tanking a boss or mob and get a bunch of extra DPS output, or is there another way of doing that?

4) As a Warrior I always have issues with multi-caster mobs since I have no way to reliably deal with it short of respeccing Gag Order every time I want to do a dungeon. As I understand it bears have even less ways to deal with casters. How does a bear handle a typical pull with 2+ casters in 5-mans, besides the obvious using CC or having a DK deathgrip or strangulate or whatever?

[FourDoorsDown]

Assuming by "bear" you mean a druid bear and not a large hairy gay man, I'll be happy to help =D

1. When trying to level a bear a while back, I remember it was more difficult than tanking as a warrior when leveling, but I think they changed some things in 4.3 to make it easier. Either way, it's possible and I doubt you'll have a problem with the low level dungeons (expecially if you have heirlooms)

2. I could do the dual cat/bear thing, but you'd be sacrificing some survivability by reforging to mastery or crit instead of dodge (In my opinion). Personally, I keep my off spec as balance so I don't have to keep track of two different sets of gear with similar stats.

3. Pretty much answered this one with #2 =D

4. Caster puls are going to be harder on a bear, what I recommend doing is intterupting one, then swipe/thrash on the way over to the other one and hopefully you'll have things in a group before the first one starts casting again.

Hope I answered your questions, and correct me if I said anything incorrect.

[Veroly]

i made a resto druid a little time ago and intended to roll as resto as i love healing on a druid but after seeing how Op the druid 4 bit was " sadly is nerf'd" and being in a 25 man hardmode guild. i changed to feral, and am loving tanking on the druid i take less damage " well feels like it" than my 210k unbuffed full ctc'd paladin tank. " which makes me rather sad" while my druid is running 220k hp with mark and 55% dodge with the trinket from Hour of twilight proc'd, while i do have 3/5 T13 most of my gear is below fantastic. this is my personal thought but I am loving tanking on my bear, but like everything everyone has their own thoughts and choices but id say give it ago Its very fun and aits a change from the whole sword and board.