Any Beta Bears?

[Seraphk]

I was wondering if there are any beta bears that can explain their experience with tanking in Cata.

With the re-introduction of minor CC and aggro management, I anticipate returning to full time tanking come Cata. Having played a Feral Druid since vanilla, I may just be in need of change, but very few of the new bear tanking mechanics seem interesting or fun. Thus, I really just want some first hand beta bears to give their opinion on tanking.

Most notably: How does the rotation feel in single target situations? How is Thrash / Swipe holding up in AoE aggro situations? Is the new Frenzied Regen + Barkskin + Survival Instincts a good combination of survival tools compared to other tanking classes? Can you Detonate Mushrooms while in form?

As with WoTLK, I am strongly considering DK over my Druid. I ended up dropping DK and going back to my Druid in WoTLK, but with a dedicated tanking a tree + dedicated Unholy pet/DPS tree... The DK is looking pretty good (not to mention they seem to be the only tank class retaining all of their AoE DPS/aggro skills)

I'm trying to decide, while also prevent dropping, my first class to 85 within the first 6 months of Cata, when progression opportunities are most competitive. I watch videos on YouTube quite a bit, but they're usually done by people that seem rather inexperienced or just plain terrible tanks that do not know the fights or how to adapt well. Which, that's the thing... All the videos with Druid tanks seem rather messy while all the DK/Paladin videos look controlled & simple. This has made me even more insecure about the situation when my mind was originally set on Worgen Feral Druid.

Thanks

[Madsen]

Single target I've not quite got the hang of what order to press skills so it's a random mash of mangle, swipe, lacerate and feral faerie fire (and maul but it's off the gcd). I tried pulverize for a while and felt it took up too much of my rotation so I dropped it.
Rage is not an issue for me atm. I am in mostly heroic icc loot and an 83 blue weapon and I have 25% crit in bear form with agility gems. Not sure if this is intended. FFF went up to 5 minutes this build which I assume is a bug since it's still the same as sunder armor.
Swipe scales incredibly well with attackpower and does a ton of damage. Aoe tanking is very easy. I've done all instances except grimp batol (which almighty totalbiscuit crowned the hardest instance ever) and I've not really had to cc once. We 4manned tol'vir.

Frenzied regen now acting as our last stand is cool but it's still on the gcd which frustrates me. I seem to recall survival instincts being on the gcd in start of wrath (or was it barkskin?) which got changed later on. Having a 60% shield wall is great, especially since we didn't actually give anything up to gain the skill.

[Class Not Skill]

There's a brief overview for Bears in this thread: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ws-amp-Insight Some of the information is outdated, such as mangle having no cooldown where the latest beta build has slapped back the 6s cooldown.

You'll also find videos regarding other specs and answers to some of your other questions.

[exochaft]

The feral druid style is taking some time to get used to because Blizz keeps changing things on us, so if you find the rhythm in one build, it changes in the next. Plus, the random bugs don't help.

I've had some success with working Pulverize into the rotation w/o much difficulty on single target rotations, mainly because our crit is really low compared to what we're used to on live (aka, Pulverize makes more of a difference on beta than on live). It was more along the lines of FFF -> Mangle -> get 3 lacerates up -> Pulverize -> get lacerate back up... of course, you will run into some downtime after restacking Lacerate to throw in other moves, I'm still getting a feel for threat on certain moves to figure out the higher priority in certain situations. The trick to Maul, since it's off the GCD, is to use it just before you use Pulverize so you can get another Lacerate back up and exploit Rend and Tear. Should mention that if you use Pulverize in your rotation, you'll never have to refresh a 3-stack of Lacerate, so that's a plus!

Now, this could all change, because each beta iteration has changed things around a bit. With the recent push, Mangle has the 6 second cooldown again (which I don't mind, keeps me from pushing it and not pooling rage for Maul in certain situations), FFF is back up to 5min duration but won't apply more than one stack at a time regardless of spec, and a slight intention/unintentional nerf to Berserk most people haven't noticed: Berserk in bear form does not remove the cooldown from Mangle. With the fluctuation of abilities and glyph passes coming up soon, we can't say we have a concrete rotation down.

And just to throw it out there for you, if you try to place/detonate mushrooms, you leave feral forms.

---------- Post added 2010-09-11 at 09:41 PM ----------

Forgot to mention the AoE aspect:

As was stated earlier in the thread, our AoE moves scale ridiculously well with AP right now. The easiest indication is not the difference between Swipe/Thrash damage as you level, it's very prominent between the damage on a pull and the damage after Vengeance has begun to stack up. Keep in mind, Vengeance is adding thousands of AP... when I'm soloing and attempting some AoE grinding w/o getting over my head, I've seen Vengeance around 4k AP, and suddenly you notice your Swipe is critting for 6-7k versus 2-3k. Vengeance will be up to 10% of your HP bar in terms of AP, and at lvl 85 in greens/blues obtained from up to Deepholm (TH/Uldum not itemized yet), you'll be sitting at 90-100k in bear... so your max total Vengeance AP will be around 9-10k AP.

Just so you know, since it really hasn't been discussed at great length, Vengeance actually decays over time. I haven't done exact math yet, I've been tempted to, but the actual value will fluctuate over time of the fight depending on how much damage you take. The reason the math is semi-difficult is that the tooltip for Vengeance, like many of the stats on the char screen, does not update dynamically (aka, you have to constantly refresh the tooltip/stats screen), so this could lead to math errors.

[Seraphk]

Thanks for the answers.

I wasn't aware of the FFF change back to having to re-apply it. I was quite excited that they allowed it to be talented to where you set it & forget it -- It reminds me of the days when I would Warrior tank & had to Sunder Armor... It wasn't fun.

The Berserk thing might just be something they haven't noticed. But, it was ridiculous opening threat in WoTLK to the point where you could almost fall asleep after doing it cause nobody would touch your TPS. So, the only concern really is AoE aggro, but you make it sound like Thrash / Swipe scale quite well with Vengeance.

All-in-all, I guess I might have to wait until closer to launch to decide between the two. There's always going to be a preference for Feral Druids with how long I've played them. But, DKs are just looking too good to be true right now.

I really wish we could use mushrooms in some tactful manner. I was looking forward to finding uses for them as a Feral Druid.

[quiz]

Going for Feral / Moonkin in Cataclysm but since i still don't have a beta key.....