Druid tank (King of the jungle vrs improved mangle

[danimaldfa]

I was just curious if anyone knew which would be better to spec into ,when you have 4 piece T10 (12% damage decrease from enrage), King of the Jungle 3/3 or improved mangle 3/3.

Here is my character if you want to see my specs http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...n=Bloodysewati.

I am mainly curious if it has been theory crafted or not to which is the better dps/threat increase.

I have been noticing that threat isn't scaling as well as it should be with gear. I never used to have any threat problems and now it is getting harder to keep threat over the warlocks in my guild (in 10 man icc).

Thanks in advance for your responses

[Deleted]

I would say imp mangle, i like it when changing targets

[littlepiggy]

if you don't have threat problems and you're the only feral, you should consider switching imp mangle to imp lotp. in terms of which is more threat, MSS is more threat than king of the jungle with 4 piece so i think that means imp mangle is more threat

edit: why do you have 5/5 FA instead of ferocity? unless you have no one else that can do FA, it's useless

[danimaldfa]

yea I am not concerned with imp lotp. I have two tank specs one with imp lotp and one with out. Really just trying to figure out if I should switch to king of the jungle or not.

[xebtria]

if you don't have threat problems and you're the only feral, you should consider switching imp mangle to imp lotp. in terms of which is more threat, MSS is more threat than king of the jungle with 4 piece so i think that means imp mangle is more threat

edit: why do you have 5/5 FA instead of ferocity? unless you have no one else that can do FA, it's useless

on bosses, no tank which is equally equipped as the rest of the raid should have threat problems at all. on trash, especially on trash which is AoE'd down, threat could become a serious issue - KotJ helps here quite a bit.
in terms of ferocity vs FA - ferocity is even more useless, because ... when exactly do you have rage issues so less rage cost of your abilities would help? trash? no, when 10 mobs are hitting you constantly and you crit 5 times on every swipe, rage is no issue at all.
on bosses? they hit hard enough that you NEVER have rage issues. especially within ICC and 20% less dodge. than normal.

[danimaldfa]

FA is not useless at all. I main tank pretty much every boss in icc so being able to increase the attack power reduction of my demoralizing roar helps alot. In raids you have no need for rage abilities. One of my specs does have ferocity, ILoP, and omen , the only reason I need this spec is for heroics which I am barely getting hit. I never have problems with aoe situations, the problem is the warlocks even after a couple of seconds of me getting threat are catching up with me with in a 10 seconds or so. I don't know if it is just a threat problem do to threat for tanks not scaling well with gear (as blizzard has stated, which they intend to fix eventually) or if it is just warlock generate to much threat to begin with. Anyways I cant figure it out. So just looking for ways to maximize my threat.

[littlepiggy]

kotj is good for burst, but imp mangle is more threat overall. no tank should have threat problems, but a lot do so i had to throw that in there. most bear's don't use demoralizing roar (because ret applies it easily) so i'd rather have a rage reducing move. if you're ot'ing it can be hard to keep your rage up while using maul, and when you charge a boss and *dodge* *dodge* you can't have rage, so cheaper rage cost is more useful. if your mt then ferocity becomes less useful in the middle of a fight, but more useful than FA

[Richmond]

My 2 cents

King of the Jungle - In its original state (Untainted by 4pc T10) is actually reduced armor, so no self respecting Tank would spec into this. Now that we have 4pc T10, what is going to change? Nothing. Why would you use the new damage reduction ability you have, in conjuntion with a threat increasing ability? Why? Can you even think of a situation when the two of them would be used hand in hand?

"Right, i know the boss is going to hit me hard with his next ability, i'll pop Enrage and chain it with Barkskin" "Oh nice one, my already large threat lead has gone up slightly because i specced into KoTJ"

/sarcasm

The two options you have to improve your threat are Imp Mangle or Master Shape Shifter (MSS for short). Now i've seen spreadsheets and discussions into which is better and i've personally tried both of them (Imp Mangle for the longest time). And i've come to a personal choice that MSS is far superior, both for DPS and obviously threat.
This is mainly because to acheive maximum output with your Imp Mangle, you have to make sure you hit it on every cool down (Which trust me, you wont, they'll always be times when you have 2-3 seconds without pressing it). Plus Imp Mangle only hits 1 target still, but MSS 4% increase to all damage will hit every target you hit (Swipe? Glyphed Maul? Say hello)

To the point, i devalued Imp Mangle as soon as i switched to MSS because i like pulling a good 3.5-4k in HC's and a good 3k+ on raid Bosses. And ever since i macro'd Maul to all of my abilities, i've never really had a threat problems since (Hint to help your threat there).

Oh and speccing into KoTJ, just because you have 4pc T10 is retarded, IMO

[littlepiggy]

My 2 cents

King of the Jungle - In its original state (Untainted by 4pc T10) is actually reduced armor, so no self respecting Tank would spec into this.

i used to have KotJ because i was the *third* tank for ToC heroic 25's and would ot in 10's because i could do more damage when only one tank had to do anything. that being said I used to shift into bear until i got my 10 rage, enrage and wait for the debuff to just about expire and pull anub 10 (heroic), my healers finally asked why i waited every time and i told them i didn't want to run in with less armor. they told me to stop worrying about it and just pop enrage and pull

i'm not saying it's fine to have less armor, just my 2 cents and experience on that subject. imo it's more along the lines of being a junk bear talent altogether, even with t10.

[axxey]

The point all the MSS fans always brush over is the 5point investment for 2 points worth of goodness.

[Richmond]

The point all the MSS fans always brush over is the 5point investment for 2 points worth of goodness.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0ZxGGscrzceRcczVkbA0z

Check it, you have 5 spare points. Where would you spend them?

Say for instance, i did go for Imp Mangle, its all 3/3 or nothing when it comes to it. So i have 2 points spare. Where do i spend them?

Feral Aggression - Have a Ret pala in the raid? Then this is useless. Again, to actually notice a difference, you'd have to specc 5/5 in this.
Brutal Impact - Now this is what i spent them in when i had Imp Mangle, purely because the rest are pretty, meh. But the benefits of having a shorter CD on bash are very situational and no longer worth the investment now we're in ICC
Nurturing Instinct - Just no
Primal Tenacity - Just no again
Predatory Instincts - Cat only talent
King of the Jungle - See my previous post ^^ for reasons why i dont spec into this.

So a 5 point investment for 4% increased damage to everything or 2 spare points to spend in one of the above? Please tell me which of the above will out DPS/ threat (Sustained) MSS?

I will honestly respec out of MSS if you can give me a good reason that the above talents trump it in some way

[frester]

i'm MSS convert too, used to have imp mangle, but it's a waste of 3 talent points imo,
i usually start boss with berserk anyway so imp mangle is useless in that time
and then it's kind of hard to get mangle on every cd spot on as there more to tanking that dps/aggro.

and then there are those 2 useless points left anyway so why not just get MSS?

it's 4% for all your attacs be that mangle maul or swipe so it does help a lot.

and about KotJ i don't think that pairing survival cd with aggro cd is good (it may help but it won't be huge) and you will end up waiting to use it to mitigate damage anyway so why spend 3 points from i'm not sure where (and not imp mangle as you shouldn't have it in the first place)

[arel00]

With the introduction of the new Mangle glyph, Imp.Mangle will win hands down over KotJ.
Without the glyph, it's advisable not to mix up threat cooldowns with survivability cooldowns. You rarely use such things together.

MSS is considered as a 5 point investment. Period.
Anyone saying those who spec into it consider only 2 points is biased.
The point of MSS is that, on a threat-per-point choice between talents, 5 points there net you more than 3 into Imp.Mangle.

If you don't consider the glyph, I suggest to stick with MSS. If you do take the Mangle glyph, I suggest Imp.Mangle.

[fungicide]

kotj is good for burst, but imp mangle is more threat overall.

Can you please point me to the math for this? Thank you.

[bavarcarus]

I fuss around with specs quite a bit, have even tried Nurturing Instinct to see if I could provide any help to healers while queen was in the air (guild's havin a bit of trouble with her). I've never tried MSS though, just doesn't seem like much threat for 5 points and it doesn't help kittie when I'm not tanking.

I think KotJ and IM will help more than MSS and OOC when looking at all the things you're expected to do as a bear tank.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...rcarus&group=2

[Cheezee]

If you don't consider the glyph, I suggest to stick with MSS. If you do take the Mangle glyph, I suggest Imp.Mangle.

MSS will probably still be the better talent to take even with the glyph. Every move does 4% more damage and glyphed mangle should do 14% more damage vs mangle potentially hitting every 4.5 seconds for 10% more damage. I'm planning to drop my growling glyph for mangle and probably switch back to MSS when 3.3.3 hits.

[littlepiggy]

I've never tried MSS though, just doesn't seem like much threat for 5 points and it doesn't help kittie when I'm not tanking.

I think KotJ and IM will help more than MSS and OOC when looking at all the things you're expected to do as a bear tank.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...rcarus&group=2

just to throw this out there, the math between kotj vs mss, imp mangle vs mss and, kotj + imp mangle vs mss is herehttp://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...741521&sid=1#7

it doesn't ever show kotj vs imp mangle, but if someone wants to crunch the number's i'm pretty sure imp mangle will be on top whether you have the glyph or not. also you might notice the guy that says the number's are wrong, but he shows no mathematical evidence and playing style could change the actual outcome (as well as rng)

[exochaft]

I was just curious if anyone knew which would be better to spec into ,when you have 4 piece T10 (12% damage decrease from enrage), King of the Jungle 3/3 or improved mangle 3/3.

Here is my character if you want to see my specs http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...n=Bloodysewati.

I am mainly curious if it has been theory crafted or not to which is the better dps/threat increase.

I have been noticing that threat isn't scaling as well as it should be with gear. I never used to have any threat problems and now it is getting harder to keep threat over the warlocks in my guild (in 10 man icc).

Thanks in advance for your responses

Well, if those locks are on par with your gear, your threat issue would most likely be to trash and aoe. If it's single target beyond the first couple seconds, it's not the gear/spec, it's your bear rotation.

Strictly from the standpoint of Imp. Mangle vs KotJ, both have their pros and cons. I view Imp. Mangle as a most single-target fight talent, mainly since if you're working with quite a few targets, losing a GCD to Mangle a target instead of Swipe can be costly. KotJ (with 4-piece) would give you benefit in single-target and aoe applications, and you don't need to go 3/3 in KotJ to see benefits (unlike Imp. Mangle requiring 3/3 due to GCD restrictions).

With Mangle glyph changes coming out... eh, it depends what your goals really are. I generally run two tanking specs, the difference is Glyph of Maul and Glyph of Growl are interchanged. The Glyph of Maul is for aoe/add fights and Glyph of Growl is for taunt rotation fights where missing a taunt can cause wipes. Anyways, this would be the glyph spot to sub in Glyph of Mangle, but in both cases I'd feel remiss to make that substitution for the simple fact that Glyph of Mangle won't really help with adds nearly as much as Glyph of Maul and with single-target fights which almost always require taunt rotations. Beyond this scope, threat should not be an issue beyond the start of the fight, so the Glyph of Mangle will become rather lackluster at that point. You could keep stacks of glyphs to make substitutions on the fly, if you so wished, and change the glyphs every fight. Regardless, I don't think the changes in Glyph of Mangle should affect your choice of Imp. Mangle or KotJ.

I've personally gone the route of MSS and my spare point going 1/3 KotJ over putting it into OoC. MSS allows you to not put all your eggs into one basket in terms of where your threat is coming from versus relying on your threat increase coming from one move or only temporarily. If you're hardcore anti-MSS, your best bet would probably be 3/3 Imp. Mangle and 2/3 KotJ (nabbing those two points out of Furor), since that's the only way you'll come close to MSS threat in all tanking situations. However, the true benefit of not going MSS and KotJ+Imp Mangle is slightly better snap threat, but you lose the ability to use Enrage as a survival cooldown if you use it as a threat cooldown... besides, as things stand, MD/ToT/Beserk are pretty much the only burst threat tools you'll ever need.

[Deleted]

Imp. Mangle beats KotJ imo.. Less CD on a high-threat ability is nice for both single and multitarget tanking.

[axxey]

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0ZxGGscrzceRcczVkbA0z

Check it, you have 5 spare points. Where would you spend them?

Say for instance, i did go for Imp Mangle, its all 3/3 or nothing when it comes to it. So i have 2 points spare. Where do i spend them?

Feral Aggression - Have a Ret pala in the raid? Then this is useless. Again, to actually notice a difference, you'd have to specc 5/5 in this.
Brutal Impact - Now this is what i spent them in when i had Imp Mangle, purely because the rest are pretty, meh. But the benefits of having a shorter CD on bash are very situational and no longer worth the investment now we're in ICC
Nurturing Instinct - Just no
Primal Tenacity - Just no again
Predatory Instincts - Cat only talent
King of the Jungle - See my previous post ^^ for reasons why i dont spec into this.

So a 5 point investment for 4% increased damage to everything or 2 spare points to spend in one of the above? Please tell me which of the above will out DPS/ threat (Sustained) MSS?

I will honestly respec out of MSS if you can give me a good reason that the above talents trump it in some way

You spec http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=16968
and http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=48495

Suddenly you're a druid and not just a Warrior/DK/Paladin meat shield with fur.
Why be a druid if you're not going to play it as a druid.