Druids and MT

[dambros]

Hello there,

I'd like some information about druids main tanking endgame.

Are druids able to MT endgame 25man content like Naxx, Sart, Malygos, etc?

I've never played a druid myself but I really want to learn about them and who knows make a druid myself mostly for tanking ans soloing.

Thanks in advance for the replies and sorry for the english.

[Degrador]

Are druids able to MT endgame 25man content like Naxx, Sart, Malygos, etc?

Yes, they are perfectly capable of being MTs and in some cases preferable (eg, Patchwerk as hateful strike tank, Sarth 3D, etc.).

[dambros]

Being a dps forever I really want a tank and don't know what to choose since I'm gonna focus in PvE mostly...

[saibot]

bears are great tanks i am one myself. i tank 25 man sarth and heroic nax with no issues. The bad thing is, shitty feral tanks that still gear defense gems are giving us a horrible rap on my server. If u know how to tank feral bears are awesome. if u cannot grasp how to feral tank its epic fail. druid tanking is imo one of the easiest classes to tank with.

[Nirual]

The nice thing about bears is that you never have to worry about defense at all while our guilds DK tank just barely gets crit-immune without any two-handed defense weapons.

Get a nice feral staff (or any twohander with comparable stats next patch), melee leather, some tanking trinkets and you're good to go, at least for heroics.

[Degiance]

Druid tankin is fun when you know it.
But its still bound to certain items that are a must have otherwise you arent suppose to tank at all. (or it hurts while doing it)
Although next patch its going to be like it should be fast effective fun with less ouchies on the way. (i wish i hope by the bear spirit)
We just need a tankin idol and maybe a new glyph then it should be smooth operation all the way.
And only after that its gona depend more about the others that are with you and what they do not you in anyway ^^

[Nesariel]

Like any tanking class, with a druid it's much more about SKILL than it is about the class.

Yesterday we had a feral druid with us in Naxx10, and he DPS'd while doing Kel'Thuzad. Then there was a bit of a fuckup, and both our tanks died. The druid shifted to bear and continued to tank both KT and both guardians until we finished. Yes, that's some OP tanking.

[dambros]

Thank you everyone for the replies.

It's great to hear things like that. I pretend to roll an ally druid on a new server so I can get the 2% dodge from Quickness.

I know druids are avoidance tanks, and there are fights that requires specific abilities to keep up alive (like a bubble to protect yourself from X spell). Without those, is it still viable?

;D

[Dooudad]

Thank you everyone for the replies.

It's great to hear things like that. I pretend to roll an ally druid on a new server so I can get the 2% dodge from Quickness.

I know druids are avoidance tanks, and there are fights that requires specific abilities to keep up alive (like a bubble to protect yourself from X spell). Without those, is it still viable?

;D

both alliance and horde druids are able to survive no bubbles required. as far as an avoidance tank, we are to some extent though we are ment to be a medigation tank.

[Yeran]

While a feral druid is definatly a viable MT I think he fits into the OT role much better for some reasons.

Your cat DPS while tank-specced is above the numbers tank-specced warriors or paladins could hope for (thats my expirience with 2t6). Let those tank the 1-tank-fights, which will also allow you to freely use brezz and innervate.
Additionally in those 1-boss-fights you have an easier time saving the day after the MT died as you are crit-immune in your DPS equip (and your armor will further be boostet next patch).

So you probably wont tank malygos in a progress raid until something goes wrong (aka MT down). Still I really enjoy my OT role, as it means some variantion (there are enough fights that require more than one tank).

[Dooudad]

While a feral druid is definatly a viable MT I think he fits into the OT role much better for some reasons.

Your cat DPS while tank-specced is above the numbers tank-specced warriors or paladins could hope for (thats my expirience with 2t6). Let those tank the 1-tank-fights, which will also allow you to freely use brezz and innervate.
Additionally in those 1-boss-fights you have an easier time saving the day after the MT died as you are crit-immune in your DPS equip (and your armor will further be boostet next patch).

So you probably wont tank malygos in a progress raid until something goes wrong (aka MT down). Still I really enjoy my OT role, as it means some variantion (there are enough fights that require more than one tank).

that of corse depends on the gear of the other tank/tanks. i wouldnt give up mt just to have some one who didnt have 1/2 a chance of downing the mob as the tank. *shrug* sorry if i get you wrong just sounds like you dont want to mt and think that all other druids should follow suit.

[wingcommander]

Completely agree, although I can MT all the current content I usually don't purely because an equally geared tanks (not druid) can't dps as well as me without respeccing. Our feral gear is in essence close enough dps gear apart from enchants/gems.

In full dps spec with master shapeshifter I was doing around 3.1k+ dps.

In my hybrid tanking/dps gear without switching gear I can still get 2.2k dps in cat form in tanking gear and 2.8k dps in hybrid spec with 4-5 armor switches to dps gear.

The numbers are not the highest, but compared to the rest of the raid and the fact I am far from bottom in damage done, is pretty good for me.

Key talents for OT spec imo are.
Shredding attacks (dps),
PotP (tanking, and pvp ^^),
king of the jungle (general all round + pvp burst)
infection wounds (pvp, some pve uses)
Skip natural reaction for hybrid spec.
Get omen of clarity from restoration.

I can pvp/dps/tank quite well with this spec. The main thing is, if I was to DPS and only DPS i would spec that way or if I was going to tank and only tank I would spec differently. I'm not going to respec for 300 dps within the same raid and shouldn't need to when i'm already at 2800 in hybrid.

I was suprised that some guildies spent 500 gold respeccing this week. Something which i'm gladly don't have to do.

Also, whilst measuring your damage output, sometimes don't just look at DPS of a fight, but also at damage done. Like in malygos, you can rake/5 cp rip before he vortexes, where MOST of the raid can not dps during vortex. This will bring your average dps down, but the damage done will be in a higher place than your dps. Like dodging flames in sarth you can do the same, the other dragon/heigan in naxx (forgot name) etc as other examples. Dropping bleeds before having to move away to dodge/imrpove you damage done significantly.

Gone a bit off topic ... to round off I can MT most things, but usually OT and DPS in a SINGLE hybrid spec doing each sufficiently well in each area to be above the average in the raid average. However, at the end of the day it depends what you guild wants out of you. Hope that helps.

[kemosabe]

Completely agree, although I can MT all the current content I usually don't purely because an equally geared tanks (not druid) can't dps as well as me without respeccing. Our feral gear is in essence close enough dps gear apart from enchants/gems.

In full dps spec with master shapeshifter I was doing around 3.1k+ dps.

In my hybrid tanking/dps gear without switching gear I can still get 2.2k dps in cat form in tanking gear and 2.8k dps in hybrid spec with 4-5 armor switches to dps gear.

The numbers are not the highest, but compared to the rest of the raid and the fact I am far from bottom in damage done, is pretty good for me.

Key talents for OT spec imo are.
Shredding attacks (dps),
PotP (tanking, and pvp ^^),
king of the jungle (general all round + pvp burst)
infection wounds (pvp, some pve uses)
Skip natural reaction for hybrid spec.
Get omen of clarity from restoration.

I can pvp/dps/tank quite well with this spec. The main thing is, if I was to DPS and only DPS i would spec that way or if I was going to tank and only tank I would spec differently. I'm not going to respec for 300 dps within the same raid and shouldn't need to when i'm already at 2800 in hybrid.

I was suprised that some guildies spent 500 gold respeccing this week. Something which i'm gladly don't have to do.

Also, whilst measuring your damage output, sometimes don't just look at DPS of a fight, but also at damage done. Like in malygos, you can rake/5 cp rip before he vortexes, where MOST of the raid can not dps during vortex. This will bring your average dps down, but the damage done will be in a higher place than your dps. Like dodging flames in sarth you can do the same, the other dragon/heigan in naxx (forgot name) etc as other examples. Dropping bleeds before having to move away to dodge/imrpove you damage done significantly.

Gone a bit off topic ... to round off I can MT most things, but usually OT and DPS in a SINGLE hybrid spec doing each sufficiently well in each area to be above the average in the raid average. However, at the end of the day it depends what you guild wants out of you. Hope that helps.

What we are all wondering Mister Wingcommander is what your specc is like? if you could post an armory link I'd would be very much appreciated, thx in advance!

[dambros]

You question that is intrigating me for a while... would a DK do a better job than a Druid MTing?

[xebtria]

all tanks are for 95% of all things perfect. warrior, druid, deathknight, paladin, all of them are doing pretty well.

as mentioned before, there are some "special" fights, where a huuuuuuuuge load of health is needed. like sarth 3d, patchwerk hateful tank etc. for those is a druid due to his incredible high hp pool superior to the others. but for nearly all the rest, every class should do its job well.

[Yeran]

@Doodad:
Of course thats just my situation, but I guess its not to far off to assume many 25 raiders will have their core players which show up almost every raid and therefore have similar gear.

@dambros:
At some fights he would (sartharion 3 drakes is favoring DK in my opinion due to his anti-magic cooldown abilities), at some he probably wont. As blizzard is constantly tweaking things I wouldnt base my choice on the current state of the game alone.
If you would do so you had to try leveling an protection paladin, as they are said to have the best scaling right now.
But as already said: in a strongly progress orientated guild a druid is more likely to be in the offtank role. But thats mainly because he is better at THAT job than the other tanks.

[Kajak]

But as already said: in a strongly progress orientated guild a druid is more likely to be in the offtank role. But thats mainly because he is better at THAT job than the other tanks.

This is the total truth. All tanking classes are currently fine to tank for all content. If you see or hear about a lot of druid OT's do not assume it's because they can't main tank. They can, exceedingly well. There are just generally more druid offtanks because they generally are the best at offtanking, though nowhere near bad at maintanking..

[wingcommander]

What we are all wondering Mister Wingcommander is what your specc is like? if you could post an armory link I'd would be very much appreciated, thx in advance!

I'll post my talent tonight, it doesn't work at work :/

But remember its HYBRID. So if you want to focus or repsec for individual things, you won't spec like this. I take this spec to be above average in anything I'm doing (so i don't need to respec every day). I have a bigger slant on pvp/dps than tanking. It might be that my gear is helping a bit.

Some of the key talents my hybrid spec has.
Resto:
Furor;naurilist;omen

Feral:
with 60 points to spend you can almost get everything.
I don't have Natural reaction.
I don't have primal precision.
I don't have brutal impact.
I don't have thick hide.

choices that might not be common to all feral specs that I take
Infected Wounds (pvp semi tanking useful)
Shredding attacks (dps pvp)
Kinig of the Jungle (pvp dps)
Imp Mangle (good for everything)
Imp LotP
PotP (Tanking, will be great for pvp in the next patch too, remove the party thingy)

Don't think my armory is going to be useful, I'll post a link tonight and see what its showing. I change my gear all the time. I have 20 slot bag of gear I keep using/changing into. I also got my deadly gladiator chest too! Woot!

[Deleted]

But remember its HYBRID. So if you want to focus or repsec for individual things, you won't spec like this. I take this spec to be above average in anything I'm doing (so i don't need to respec every day). I have a bigger slant on pvp/dps than tanking. It might be that my gear is helping a bit.

Meaning your post is completely redundant, since this is a discussion about main tank spec.

[Dooudad]

I'll post my talent tonight, it doesn't work at work :/

But remember its HYBRID. So if you want to focus or repsec for individual things, you won't spec like this. I take this spec to be above average in anything I'm doing (so i don't need to respec every day). I have a bigger slant on pvp/dps than tanking. It might be that my gear is helping a bit.

Some of the key talents my hybrid spec has.
Resto:
Furor;naurilist;omen

Feral:
with 60 points to spend you can almost get everything.
I don't have Natural reaction.
I don't have primal precision.
I don't have brutal impact.
I don't have thick hide.

choices that might not be common to all feral specs that I take
Infected Wounds (pvp semi tanking useful)
Shredding attacks (dps pvp)
Kinig of the Jungle (pvp dps)
Imp Mangle (good for everything)
Imp LotP
PotP (Tanking, will be great for pvp in the next patch too, remove the party thingy)

Don't think my armory is going to be useful, I'll post a link tonight and see what its showing. I change my gear all the time. I have 20 slot bag of gear I keep using/changing into. I also got my deadly gladiator chest too! Woot!

would have to disagree with the inflicted wounds being labled simi useful. even as just ot you will have many situations where you are not in range of the other tank's slow spell, and not every raid will have dk dps. 20% slow on melee is still one of the best things you can do to a mob other then keep it off the healers.