Is that it, or I dont know how to play druid tank?

[Tonymad]

I have a Prot Warrior and like to tank with it, but i started playing my druid, and rerolled it from moonkin to tank. But I feel kinda weird. I feel like i dont have any resource like warrior. For example: with warrior i have no problem tanking a lot of mobs. I know how to easily controll them all, stunning and stuff. With druid i cant do much more then swipe, and if any good dps starts to dps my offtarget, i lose agro.
Besides, a lot of ppl get pissed cause sometimes i have no rage to pull a group, and stand still untill cds run off. With warrior i just charge and start.
Is that it? Are druids lacking of resources, or am i just dumb and cant play druids?

[Deleted]

I don't know your level, biut I asume you're 80.

Yep, swipe is Atm our only AoE ability. Macro it with maul. Get glyph of maul. 2p tier10 is buffing swipe dmg by 20%. in cata we will get some kind of AoE bleed.

I usualy pull with Fearie fire feral and charge to the caster mob. You should have atleast 3 points in furor, so you can always shift to normalform
and then bear to get the 10 rage. There is rage potions out there aswel. I always got some
in my bags in case of ragestarved or when I use fenrized regen. I don't think we lack of resources. Selfheal, +30% hp (45% if glyphed), -20% dmg taken for 12 sec, probably a trinket and maybe 4p tier10.

[Dharmabhum]

You are right that druid bears don't have quite the same amount of control over mobs when compared to warriors. But what we lack in control, we make up for in moar dps and a cool furry butt. And if you're lower level, yea you'll have to work around rage problems but since you're coming from a warrior, you should manage just fine.

Also, Furor and a powershifting macro are your friends. I believe something like "/cast [stance:1] !Dire Bear Form" is what you're looking for, but I have like three stances built into that macro so I can't be sure if that's it exactly. But you should use it anytime before a pull when you don't have rage and Enrage is on CD. Its a quick 10 rage but its enough to get a charge in. Only downside is it consumes mana from our already small mana pool, so if 3/5 Furor is being unkind, you may OOM before you ever get the 10 rage. On the plus side, if you use the exclamation point in the macro and you're OOM, it won't just shift you out of bear and into "zomgcasterformmobsinmyface" form.

[arel00]

If you're coming from a warrior, you will feel extremely limited when tanking with a druid. Unfortunately, that's just how our buttons are (this is coming form someone who has all 4 tanks).

We'll get better hopefully in the future with that Trash stuff coming with Cata, but as for now... the only thing you can do to enjoy a druid, if you're used to that array of skills, is playing its hybrid value.

[Lotabeer]

As far as being rage starved, critters are your best friend. Meleeing them and or taunting them to stay in combat will keep your rage up. Also, towards the end of a pull (when mobs are dying), stop using maul or stop doing anything other than autoattacking really, that way you'll have a nice rage pool for the next pull. Not using maul in general is a good way to build more rage, since it's really a rage hungry attack (not only uses rage but robs you of rage gained from autoattack, obviously it's very high threat though).

I hear you on the dpsing of other targets causing you to lose threat... Neoswipe has helped a lot with this but still we're kinda gimped there, you pretty much have to change and taunt + FFF or a mangle (or a maul too if you can swing it). Overall we just dont have the controll of most other tank classes though, you're right about that.

[Duilliath]

I usualy pull with Fearie fire feral and charge to the caster mob.

In general, don't charge. Yer not a warrior. It's a common mistake, but whereas for Warriors charge generates Rage, it'll cost you Rage as Bear. And seeing how yer not getting beat on just yet, it'll rage starve you at the most awkward time of all.

As to the OP - ye, bears are limited. Just tab lacerates like you'd tab sunder/devastates. Spam swipe. Spam glyphed mauls. Should be fine anyway, especially if you're properly talented for improved swipe.

[Tonymad]

Just to know, i'm 80. Ty for the answers.
I like druids, but they're kinda weird. I'll try to get more gear. Maybe with more gear my swipe does more dps and became easier to hold agro.
About macros with Maul, i made them all. What happened? -100rage. lol. No rage to do anything, cause i was spending too much. Now i use only the swipe one.

[Oyra]

Tbh for aoe tanking I just spam glyphed Maul with swipe, works fine.

[MrKnubbles]

When you are Mauling, are you staying on one target until it dies or are you tabbing after each maul to make sure you keep cleaving different mobs instead of the same 2? That's what I do, plus if a dps starts pulling threat, do a quick Maul/Mangle for snap threat.

Also, for bigger pulls you can pop Berserk and tab Mangle for a 3 cleave and the whole group.

[snuzzle]

Yep, swipe is Atm our only AoE ability. Macro it with maul. Get glyph of maul.

This times 100.

Spam your maul+swipe macro, tab lacs if you're feeling froggy. Tab FFF on cooldown.

FFF is your friend. It's 100% free threat. It's yummy.

I have a macro that puts a Skull on the target I've Mangled. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not.

For your info, I have a druid bear main and a prot warrior off. My warrior is a lot of fun with her charging everywhere, tclap and shockwave. But my bear is great for mobility fights, I can position the mobs wherever I want by backing up and spamming Swipe. Both have their strengths and weaknesses and it will take you a bit to "settle in" to the bear way of things just like it took me a while to "settle in" to the warrior way.

[joshuatree]

I tank in PvP gear. self buffed, (motw only) I have 44k hp and ~40% dodge. I can tank toc/ony 25 fine. I have a maul/swipe macro so everytime I use swipe i also maul(glyphed so it hits 2 mobs) and I never have trouble holding aggro. The only times I am rage starved is on bosses where tanks have to bounce the boss back and forth. I get raged starved when I am the OT. to fix that I generally pop kitty form and just do kitty DPS until it is almost time for me to MT again. I then pop into bear form (3/5 furor usually gives me 10 rage, but if not just spam bear until it does), taunt, lacerate, mangle, lacerate, lacerate, lacerate, lacerate. with 5 stacks of lacerate i just keep those up, and spam mangle/maul as rage allows. If you are low on rage, but also need aggro, don't forget to spam faerie fire, it costs only 1 GCD, but causes a fare amount of threat.

[Feyrzhuk]

I don't play druid so I have no clue, but is it worth while to start your pull with Starfire -> Moonfire -> Bear Form -> Faerie Fire -> continue as normal? Just curious, it seems like this method would drop a huge threat bomb to start the pull with.

[sethers656]

I don't play druid so I have no clue, but is it worth while to start your pull with Starfire -> Moonfire -> Bear Form -> Faerie Fire -> continue as normal? Just curious, it seems like this method would drop a huge threat bomb to start the pull with.

lolno..... our spells do soooo little dmg its completely not worth doing...

to the OP, threat becomes extremely easy with good gear. when I do heroics/trash, I watch t.v. and spam my swiped button and do more threat than our warrior tank easy xD. Almsot as much as our pally.

[snuzzle]

I don't play druid so I have no clue, but is it worth while to start your pull with Starfire -> Moonfire -> Bear Form -> Faerie Fire -> continue as normal? Just curious, it seems like this method would drop a huge threat bomb to start the pull with.

Absolutely not. This used to be semiviable in TBC, but really it's just not worth it anymore. Mangle one, tab FFF, swipe, and you should be good to start.

[Deleted]

I usualy pull with Fearie fire feral and charge to the caster mob.

In general, don't charge. Yer not a warrior. It's a common mistake, but whereas for Warriors charge generates Rage, it'll cost you Rage as Bear. And seeing how yer not getting beat on just yet, it'll rage starve you at the most awkward time of all.

well, it interrupt spellcasting for 3 sec, gives a little threat I belive and cost 5 rage.. In FoS for example, the first pack after the 2 skeletons, I FFF one, the caster start casting shadowbolt or something, and bam interrupted. And I usualy dont have rage problems in 5mans cuz the packs is kinda close to eachother.

[Puri]

Thats funny, I played bear and then leveled and equipped a prot warrior. I find it ways easier to tank with the druid than to tank with the warrior - at least for multiple mobs. For single target, I really prefer the CDs and skills of the warrior.

I have much more rage issues (at the beginning of a fight) with the warrior. He only has bloodrage and charge to generate rage instantly, and (talented) shield block to quickly get good amounts of rage - but that works only if you got initial aggro and got hit. If another mobpack adds, and tc and sw are on CD and/or are even rage starved, you can taunt one and hope to get enough rage to single target tps the mobs quickly enough from your healers and DDs.

If I'm rage starved with the druid, I simply switch out of bear and in again, and I have enough rage to charge and swipe, so you can save your enrage just for the moments you really need it.

No doubt you can go afk after the tc and sw hits your mobgroup, the threat warriors create is quite insane. But swipe will give you enough aggro against aoe, and for single target trash damage maul and mangle are more than enough. So it might well be you have to taunt one back, but you can see quite fast if he has the iw debuff from any of your attacks, you won't lose aggro anymore. So you have no skill to wait for if you go chain pulling.

But for sure tanking as bear is boring as hell, you have almost no utilites except tanking, esp. compared to prot warriors. No (pratical) interrupts, no debuff posibility, one long CD stun, no intervene. And since the revenge change, a prot warrior in dmg gear easily gets 6-7k dps in heroics, where a druid in cat's gear only gets 4-5k - although the warrior then needs quite some heal, depending on how far away from crit immunity he dares to go.

[snuzzle]

well, it interrupt spellcasting for 3 sec, gives a little threat I belive and cost 5 rage.. In FoS for example, the first pack after the 2 skeletons, I FFF one, the caster start casting shadowbolt or something, and bam interrupted. And I usualy dont have rage problems in 5mans cuz the packs is kinda close to eachother.

True but it also stuns for the same duration. "Hey! Let me stun you where I don't want you anyway. That's real smart!"

It depends on the pulls, but usually when I am dealing with one caster in a pack of melees I will run up to the melees, swipe, then charge to the caster. But again, it depends on the pull. I have only found two pulls in 5 mans where I can't LOS the caster and they're far apart enough to be annoying, and that's the initial ramp in FOS. I play bear ping-pong there and it works pretty good. Charge on up, swipe, FFF the caster, run over to the other caster and Mangle it, back to the first caster, swiping all the while.

[SirLancelittle]

Not using maul in general is a good way to build more rage, since it's really a rage hungry attack (not only uses rage but robs you of rage gained from autoattack, obviously it's very high threat though).

Like many of the other ferals have said. It often doesn't feel like you have as much control. But there are some tips.

When you start a pull is the time you have the least rage. I simply use enrage for the very first pull. Then continue to pull subsequent mobs fast enough that I don't lose much rage between pulls. I also use Lotabeer's trick. Stop using maul near the end of a pack of mobs (you no longer need the threat) so you should have plenty of rage for the next group.

A druid with the proper glyphs should have a maul that hits 2 targets instead of one. This, at least, helps your aggro on two targets since maul is one of your highest aggro abilities. I also continuously switch targets (while spamming swipe) so that my maul keeps hitting a different set of two. This is enough to keep aggro even when people with much better gear are AOEing. The only time I really have aggro trouble is with better geared people who single target something other than my main target. If this happens I usually either resort to taunting occasionally OR focus their target (instead of expecting them to focus mine). Toss in a few mangles and that should be enough to keep aggro.

[Duilliath]

well, it interrupt spellcasting for 3 sec, gives a little threat I belive and cost 5 rage.. In FoS for example, the first pack after the 2 skeletons, I FFF one, the caster start casting shadowbolt or something, and bam interrupted. And I usualy dont have rage problems in 5mans cuz the packs is kinda close to eachother.

Charge creates no threat. What you might see is a white attack on the caster mob. Assuming enrage is on CD (as otherwise there'd be no reason to have rage issues to start with), you have 10 rage from shifting. Spending 5 a charge just makes harder to get a swipe + maul off.

And, as said, it's a general guideline. Interrupting caster mobs can be fine. Charging Marrowgar or something similar for no reason whatsoever is just daft.

[Cheezee]

Charging Marrowgar or something similar for no reason whatsoever is just daft.

That's probably a bad idea all around since you're likely to eat a melee swing + 300% damage cleave if the other tanks are far enough behind you.