Feral tanking and threat

[Dannyst]

Hey guys,

I want to know how feral get their threat, is it built in the bear form (like 45% threat for every damage, like Frost Presence for DK or Defensive stance for warrior) or it's only by abilities with a coefficient (like Maul= DamagexCoef+High threat bonus)?

Thanks.

[Seonho]

Basically, dps as much as possible. It has nothing to do with bear form, just the attacks made in bear form.
For example, look at the feral tier gear. It has loads of atp and other dps stats.
For AoE tanking swipe however has a quite big threat increase now compared to the dmg of it.

...or it's only by abilities with a coefficient (like Maul= DamagexCoef+High threat bonus)?

Thanks.

So this is quite true.

[mgp84]

Maul and Lacerate have Threat Modifiers applied to them. Lacerate has the biggest one of all; but it does not scale as well as Maul+Mangle.

[Dannyst]

So then auto attack dont get threat boost ?

[Solux]

It can sort of be found in www.wowwiki.com/Threat/ but I'll run you through the basics and find what I can, as the Wowwiki stuff is for BC.

Bear form has an inherent 45% threat modifer. Every point of damage you do gives 1.45 threat, which is what you mention as the DK threat.

After that 1.45x damage, there are other multipliers depending on ability.

People have mentioned only 4 of the 5 major threat generators for Druids and skipped one of the biggest. Feral Faerie Fire is a must have for a tanking druid and does an obscene amount of threat when applied. Hit it whenever it's off cooldown as it's a fairly big threat boost and costs you no rage.

Maul is a big threat increase, but it sucks rage out of you, so it shouldn't be used in situations where you're having trouble generating rage. I can post the actual mechanics, but the net effect of a maul, if it doesn't crit is to subtract 40 rage. That said, it is fantastic for Multi-mob tanking with the glyph as each maul hits 2 targets at once.

Mangle is a bear's bread and butter at any time. Mangle whenever you can, though it will be taking a 16% damage hit in the next patch, it's still solid threat generation without too much rage cost. If you're limited in rage, don't maul at all, just mangle, lacerate and faerie fire. Berserk will also be fixed next patch meaning Berserked Mangles will properly hit up to 3 targets.

Lacerate is something which depends on your style a great deal. It puts a chunk of threat in upfront and can be spammed, the bleed stack adds up a bit, but isn't really substantial damage and therefore I find it's not always worth using for threat. There is a point at which swipe overtakes lacerate for threat generation as well and there lacerate ceases to be worth anything. I reached that point in BC, so I got used to not using it most of the time. Where Lacerate really shines though is in limited rage situations, it's a cheap hit for a decent amount of threat and helps hold the mob while you dodge everything.

Swipe is obviously the thing for Multimob tanking, especially since it has no cooldown and with a decent crit rating, which most of us have thanks to agility stacking, can easily return more rage than it uses on big pulls. Note: Swipe has been hotfixed and I didn't find that info anywhere, thank you arel00 and Beasty.

Obviously, Growl is a taunt, but there is a special problem with it, since it's a spell. Getting the glyph is recommended for grabbing threat as it eliminates the extra 8% required for Growl to hit. Ideally, you shouldn't ever have to Growl, but there's always one Mob that doesn't get grabbed properly or one silly DPS. Thorns should be kept up at all times as extra threat does help, glyphing it means needing to cast it less.

I'm having trouble finding the threat coefficients for the Level 80 abilities as everything seems to be stuck in BC.

General formulae:
Demoralizing Roar - ~50 Very small amount of threat on application, but it is there.
Faerie Fire - (AP*0.05+1)*1.45 + constant + bonus for bear form use = ~1500 threat
Maul - Damage*1.45*Mangle bonus*Rend'n'Tear bonus*Savage Fury bonus + constant
Mangle - Damage*1.3*Savage Fury bonus*1.45
Lacerate - Constant + 0.2*damage done.
Swipe - Damage*1.5*1.45*Feral Instinct
Thorns - Damage*1.45

Base Damage is affected by +50% of level per point of Predatory Strikes to 150% of level at 3 points, by 2% for every point in Protector of the pack, up to 6%, 2% per point in Naturalist, up to 10% and 2% per point in Master Shapeshifter up to 4%. This adds up to a possible 20% damage boost on top of a constant of 120 bonus AP for a Level 80. King of the Jungle also provides a temporary boost of 5% AP per point while enraged, to 15%. Crits add significant damage and return rage with the right talent points, so any crit increasing talent affecting bear will also increase threat dramatically.

Threat rotations:
Highest Threat rotation on a single target if you can manage it is Maul every attack, Mangle whenever it is off cooldown, Lacerate to a full stack and refresh just before it runs out, Faerie Fire every cooldown.

High threat, limited rage: Same, but don't Maul ever and Lacerate every GCD not used for Mangle or FFF.

Groups: Similar to highest threat but use Swipe whenever possible. I do this by clicking swipe and hitting hotkeys for other abilities, since swipe does not have a cooldown. Glyphed Maul hits 2 targets and is great threat. Berserked Mangle will now hit 3 next patch as it should.

To learn more about Bear Tanking, I throughly recommend finding the most aggro-happy DPS you can and get them to try and pull aggro off your designated targets. It will teach you very quickly to push your threat and push buttons like you're playing a fortissimo piano piece. I learned tanking from a Fire mage, an Enhancement and an Elemental Shammy in BC. I'm still working out who the LK aggro hogs are. Bears can get some of the fastest up-front threat and can seriously push the threat with high Attack Power, which is good for all the DPS.

[arel00]

Correcting only two things: Bearform threat bonus is now 45%, FI was reworked and its bonus included in the form.

Swipe recently received a 50% threat buff.

[Solux]

Thanks, Arel00, Although I haven't seen that Swipe threat increase come through yet, which is why it says next patch. I need to fix that whole post, since there are a whole lot of Talents which affect various threat generators I forgot to include. That's what I get for getting confused while reading too many pages with out of date information. I have now fixed the post with talents.

[Dannyst]

Thanks a lot for the answers guys.

[Beasty]

Swipe did indeed get a hotfix increasing its threat.

Also stacking lacerate is totally worth it if you weigh it up, not keeping that dot up or only losing 1 or 2 GCD's every 15 seconds to do so?! The bleed also produces threat now too.

[bushidox]

solex,

nice bit of text on druid tanking, however if im not mistaken feral feary fire is on the global cooldown with all the other abilities (correct me if im wrong ofc). i have kinda slacked on my druids lvling for a while so im only 75, but i dont seem to have any problems with rage on my own lvl range, (dunno how that is on lvl 80). but with all the rage i have wouldnt it be better to use every global cooldown either on mangle, lacerate or swipe? (instead of pushing through a faery fire). so what im saying is does the threat of the feary fire surpase those skills?(lets say im talking average gear, half heroic blue and half 10 man nax epic)

thanx in advance

[Solux]

Thanks, Beasty. I've seen patch notes for 3.0.8 which had it in, glad to know it's been fixed since the threat got reduced in 3.0.2. I'll fix the post.

As for the Lacerate threat, I only find it's worth it on a long fight as you lose 4 GCDs to apply the full stack of lacerate. However, that's my tanking style. I should have the bleed damage threat in there, as it is 20% of the total bleed damage. I'll also only do that when I have to and I have the opportunity, if the DPS are threatening to overtake me, another tick of lacerate won't outdo a mangle, though I'll have to see with the damage reduction to Mangle.

@ Bushidox:
You're correct, it is on the Global Cooldown. However, Feral Faerie Fire is the best threat per rage you can get, it's free. I'm also fairly sure it does more threat than a full stack of lacerate if used every cooldown and is much easier to apply, but I could be wrong there, those numbers are tough to find. It also boosts all your other abilities' threat by reducing the mob's armor and is worth using just for that. It's less worthwhile if you have a warlock casting curse of recklessness, but their curses are frequently better off used elsewhere, the only other thing that can reduce armor is a Hunter with the right pet, which is a wasp or worm, which is rare. So yes, it does surpass another lacerate, its threat is so heavy, it's almost worth skipping a mangle for, a swipe would be tough to call, since anything you're swiping is likely to be dead fairly quickly and therefore might not need another threat booster and DPS booster on it.

[Loriden]

To learn more about Bear Tanking, I throughly recommend finding the most aggro-happy DPS you can and get them to try and pull aggro off your designated targets. It will teach you very quickly to push your threat and push buttons like you're playing a fortissimo piano piece. I learned tanking from a Fire mage, an Enhancement and an Elemental Shammy in BC. I'm still working out who the LK aggro hogs are. Bears can get some of the fastest up-front threat and can seriously push the threat with high Attack Power, which is good for all the DPS.

Frostfirebolt mage without a doubt, their spiky threat gen will keep you on your toes. Next patch, spec infected wounds and have a TtW fire mage try and pull. Another contender is a hunter.

[arel00]

The rotation, assuming unlimited rage (true on most bosses), turns out to be priority based, following this order:

- Demoralizing Roar enough to have it up (stating it first since dead tanks do zero threat )
- Maul. Always. More than always. Even more than your autoattacks (lolwut)
- Mangle every time it's ready
- FF every time it's ready
- Lacerate just enough to keep it up
- Swipe every free GCD

The starting order opn the pull is a bit different btw: FF->Mangle->Demo Roar->Lacerate up to 5. While Mauling. Once stakced Lacerate go for the priority list.

[Tumatauenga]

given full rage, i've noticed that bears are approximately equal to warriors except they have at least twice as much crit chance from agi stacking.

double damage = double threat

at least that's my conjecture.

[Solux]

You're not quite right there, Tuma, since both classes have a few threat components as constants which don't double with crits. I'm not 80 yet, so I'll have to see how I compete with Warriors in Naxx, but I'm hoping it'll be favourable, with me not doing so much more threat I have to stop attacking as I have had problems with that before. The Warrior cycle seems a good chunk more complex than the druid's too, since there's so many mitigation abilities to keep up as opposed to druids who have one and that can be done for them if there's a warrior around.

[Nepenthes]

Number one piece of practical threat advice: Make macros so that you are *always* using maul.

/cast Swipe
/cast !Maul


/cast Mangle
/cast !Maul


...and so on. Combined with glyph of maul this puts out a huge pile of threat and having the macros means you aren't having to constantly hit the maul button each attack.

If you're ever rage starved (some caster mobs do it) use a /sit macro... the next attack on you will crit, which is worth a lot of rage.

[Solux]

Willingly taking a crit doesn't seem like a good way to tank to me, but I like my healers. It also means you're constantly pouring out rage, which is fine if you happened to get a dodge streak, but not fine if you're helping level people up in your guild and suddenly getting aggro pulled off you by the ne other high level person who came along to help.

Personally, I don't advocate Macros for doing anything they're not vital for, it's no substitute for being able to react with your own brain and you don't learn as much about what you're doing. An example of a vital Macro would have been the one to take a potion and get back into bear form in BC.

[thonga]

just a little FF reminder.. if yuo got a Battlechicken in raid, then you only use FF once, for the pull.. the balance FF overides yours, so you cant apply later on..

[arel00]

just a little FF reminder.. if yuo got a Battlechicken in raid, then you only use FF once, for the pull.. the balance FF overides yours, so you cant apply later on..

Which has currently an issue with spriests' VT too. Unintended, since it should only overwrite the Imp FF, but worth mentioning. Thanks for bringing it up, remimded me to post it.

Sidenote: dodge streaks are not that much of a burden now luckily. It's 3 rage every dodge, 13 if you have a prot pala and Sanctuary in raid (which I do )

[malagorica]

Arr m8 i think there is no problems maul,lacer,mangle and noone can get your aggro