Do you tank Heroics with DPS gear on your bear?

[tibben]

So I decided that since my ICC 10/25 Heroic gear is slightly more than adequate for 5 man Heroics that I would start using some DPS gear just to help speed up the run. Right now my stats (unbuffed in bear form) sit around:

33.9k Armor
7300 AP
269 Hit Rating
743 ArP (w/ Mjolnir Runestone equipped to hit hard cap)
56 expertise
47.2k health
49.6% dodge
I don't recall what my crit is...it's around 50% though.

I use DPS neck, cloak, weapon, one ring and one trinket (pretty much anything that has expertise or armor pen). Anyone else like to mix and match to get through Heroics a little quicker?

[The Cat]

I use full DPS gear. 99% Arm pen or whatever. I'm always 50% plus of the overall damage done.

[Deleted]

Depends. If it's the "easier ones" like UK, nexus, UP, ocolus or DTK I do it I'm it 40k hp then, ArP softcapped, 52% crit and alot of AP. if it's totc hc or HoS/HoL I do it with tank trinkets (key and heart). If it's the new ones (FoS, PoS or HoR) I do it in full tank gear (60k hp) to avoid ppl complaining.

My dps as tank in dps gear is around 3,8-4,2k.

[bavarcarus]

I have a ArP softcapped bear set that I use for heroics, I can do it in my full dps set depending on the healers but it takes away the option of doing large pulls. I'd rather have a bit more survivability to pretty much afk and mash swipe/maul.

[Astray]

Warriors can do that so bears should be even better at dps-gear tanking.

On my warrior, i use dps gear on the easier heroics an i take a look at the healer and inform him of what i am doing. Most healers are fine with it. The important thing at dps-tanking is the difference between tanking and being the dps with the most threat.

Bearform, Sword & Board, Frost-Presence = fine
Berserker-stance + TG, Cat-Form, Retpaladins = stupid

[Tarosaris]

Every instance, all cat gear. Maybe swap my idol since I won't be lacerating most trash.

Doing this helps in many regards; if you're lucky and get a few more very well geared DPS in the run, you being able to never lose threat just makes it go faster on top of yourself being highest overall damage on every pull. 20k+ dps on a set of 3 trash mobs with berserk up.

When my DBW procs I've had people ask if I'm just screwing around not tanking in a form...

[tibben]

I have a ArP softcapped bear set that I use for heroics, I can do it in my full dps set depending on the healers but it takes away the option of doing large pulls. I'd rather have a bit more survivability to pretty much afk and mash swipe/maul.

I also like this approach. Being ArP soft capped with trinket proc, hit cap and expertise parry cap basically means I never miss/get dodged/get parried and I put up some big numbers. My threat on aoe is ridiculous (considering the 2pc T10 for bears) and I can easily run 4k to 5k dps depending on the instance and group make up. I also like to change around my glyphs for instances (I carry stacks of glyphs on me for every purpose under the sun) and usually go with Mangle, Berserk, and Maul for 5 mans. Considering that my mitigation is still OP and I'm over 50k health I don't really need any tanking glyphs in heroics. I just think it's fun to be top dps as the bear while still providing more than adequate tanking stats so the healers can dps if they want or just /follow and go play Starcraft II Beta

[FOZZIEBEAR]

No, but I always mean to make a heroic tanking set that's mostly DPS gear, but I never get around to it

[Blizzyb]

I only have random pieces agi leather pieces socketed with stam for my heroics tanking set. Does going boomkin in VH count?

[Telaso]

Damn straight I do! If its something harder like the ICC 5 mans, I put on stam trinkets, also depends on the healer, if the healer is geared then full 93% armor pen tanking go!!

[Deleted]

100% arpen + dbw tanking ftw

[cuppa239]

i tank them in full dps gear and with dps spec. around 31k hp self buffed. never have any problems apart from the "omg look at his hp" comments

i do change to tank spec when i have that as my 2nd spec though. i keep switching 2nd specs between tank and balance

[erwin121]

You shouldnt on bear tbh, you can pull more and thus do more dmg (ofc the dpsers will do a lot more dmg aswell since their aoe is on more mobs, so your %dmg done goes down, so unless you are there for epeen, dont).

And a lot of healers can dps decent in the meanwhile aswell, which they wont if you are in dps gear pulling lots of groups.

[bavarcarus]

with many groups it's more of a pita to pull them to the next one than to wipe them out individually. If they're all melee without CCing mobs I'll pull them togather but I'd hate for something stupid to happen wiping us in a heroic.

[Dogfight]

Tanking in dps gear is awesome, you barely take any damage and you put out loads of damage

[axxey]

Full dps gear, 100% ArP, sometimes toss a stam trinket in if healer looks undergeared.

Only reason i switch to tank spec if i have it is glyph of maul.
You have cooldowns to use, they're far more useful for large trash pulls than any heroic bosses, make use of them.

[Nassam]

same as the others: tanking in full dps since quite a long time.

just taking my tanking stuff if it's HoR and the heal seems "undergeared".

when the heal is a guildmate, it happens i tank in cat spec/gear/form... it's quite fun

[SoulPoetry]

When my DBW procs I've had people ask if I'm just screwing around not tanking in a form...

i had hoped this would happen for lolz, even though i had it in the 2nd week of ICC i haven't had anyone say it =(

[Neotokyo]

still being new(ish) to bear tanking I'm not confident enough to do this, but may give it a go in an all guild run

[Crusoe]

I gemed my free T9 for the socket bonus and not strait stam. Agility in red, agility/crit for yellow and stam for blue. I am usually #1 or #2 on the damage meter.