Tanking Druids in Cataclysm

[medloh]

Speaking of Swipe and its new 6 second CD, whats the best AOE rotation now when, for example, you're trying to keep aggro on 10+ fire elementals?

Swipe, new AOE bleed (can't recall name), Spam Demo Roar until Swipe and AOE bleed is off CD?

[bavarcarus]

I guess I don't quite understand how druids are supposed to tank very well at all anymore. We are losing about 60% of our armor and our main AE threat and damage ability in swipe. Savage Defense won't proc as much as it used to either. What am I missing here?

Go read the changes...

SD procs half as often but absorbs over twice what it used to and has been reworked to scale with gear.

As has been said, swipe has been buffed and put on a CD. We also gained an AOE bleed.

As far as the armor, I didn't realize we were losing so much of it. I'm sure blizzard decided they didn't like bear tanks and just made it so we take twice as much damage as the other tanks.

---------- Post added 2010-10-12 at 02:22 PM ----------

Swipe, new AOE bleed (can't recall name), Spam Demo Roar until Swipe and AOE bleed is off CD?

Blizzard expects dps to pull aggro when AOEing, they said the groups they want aoe'd down will not hit hard enough to take out a dps in a hit or 2 and we're supposed to burn through it. For groups of 4 hard hitting mobs we're supposed to single target, and possibly cc one of them (sounded like it's possible that the healing required might give the healer aggro if you don't cc).

[Purrfunctory]

Go read the changes...

SD procs half as often but absorbs over twice what it used to and has been reworked to scale with gear.

As has been said, swipe has been buffed and put on a CD. We also gained an AOE bleed.

As far as the armor, I didn't realize we were losing so much of it. I'm sure blizzard decided they didn't like bear tanks and just made it so we take twice as much damage as the other tanks.

All tanks lost extreme amounts of Armor due to the removal of Defense Rating. Although Bears never stacked Defense Rating specifically we had a lot from the various pieces we shared with other tanks (necks and rings) and the loss of armor on trinkets affected us as well.

[Niter]

All tanks lost extreme amounts of Armor due to the removal of Defense Rating. Although Bears never stacked Defense Rating specifically we had a lot from the various pieces we shared with other tanks (necks and rings) and the loss of armor on trinkets affected us as well.

It is not just that. They have completely removed the extra armour some items had. I am not sure if that was a bug or not, but on the PTR my Glyph of Indomitability gives absolutely no armour.

For groups of 4 hard hitting mobs we're supposed to single target, and possibly cc one of them (sounded like it's possible that the healing required might give the healer aggro if you don't cc).

I just hope that when the dungeons and raids go live, that we have SOME CC to do. If we need that in every single pull or if people simply insist on applying CC everywhere because they think that makes them look cool and skilled, I am going to be a bit bored of tanking. Even though I never really liked the AoE fest we had through WotLK, I do not miss instances like Shattered Halls and others. CC is nice, it is good to use it here and there, but the last thing I want is depending on lousy DPS to CC stuff all the time, and CC makes runs go much slower, which is not something I am keen on. I wish we could simply avoid CCing more often than not by using ours tools: Bear Charge, Bash, Skull Bash, Nature's Grasp even. That would make my job more interesting! =D

[Jankomatic]

I didn't mean swipe was completely gone, it was on a 6 second cooldown like you guys stated, but that means you can't spam it at all to maintain taunt on 4+ things. Does it do enough damage to equal not being able to hit it 3 times like you normally could in that time frame? It doesn't seem so on Beta. The armor loss is huge, I don't know how you can make it up some other way. Before if you had about 8k armor normally, in bear you would have about 37k armor. Now if you have 8k armor you will have about 18k armor. You are losing your armor of agility, but you get more AP for your savage defense. I didn't like SD to begin with, if something hits you for 90 damage it still eats your 2.5k shield so if the shield is a lot bigger the small damage still eats the whole thing.

[bavarcarus]

I just hope that when the dungeons and raids go live, that we have SOME CC to do. If we need that in every single pull or if people simply insist on applying CC everywhere because they think that makes them look cool and skilled, I am going to be a bit bored of tanking. Even though I never really liked the AoE fest we had through WotLK, I do not miss instances like Shattered Halls and others. CC is nice, it is good to use it here and there, but the last thing I want is depending on lousy DPS to CC stuff all the time, and CC makes runs go much slower, which is not something I am keen on. I wish we could simply avoid CCing more often than not by using ours tools: Bear Charge, Bash, Skull Bash, Nature's Grasp even. That would make my job more interesting! =D

Hmmm, I've managed to avoid the implication that requiring cc means having higher demands on dps intelligence. I can't imagine getting dps that will/can handle CCing a mob, keeping it CC'd and not accidentally breaking cc over and over through the random dungeon finder. ATM all I expect a mage to do is press blizzard, and I've come to terms with that lol. I recall TBC heroics where I spent entire pulls on my mage spamming my sheep focus macro because some dumb dps thought sheep meant kill. I really am getting sad thinking back to trying to manage 10 mob+ LOS pulls with mixes of regular and elites threaded dangerously close to other groups.

---------- Post added 2010-10-12 at 04:03 PM ----------

I didn't mean swipe was completely gone, it was on a 6 second cooldown like you guys stated, but that means you can't spam it at all to maintain taunt on 4+ things. Does it do enough damage to equal not being able to hit it 3 times like you normally could in that time frame? It doesn't seem so on Beta. The armor loss is huge, I don't know how you can make it up some other way. Before if you had about 8k armor normally, in bear you would have about 37k armor. Now if you have 8k armor you will have about 18k armor. You are losing your armor of agility, but you get more AP for your savage defense. I didn't like SD to begin with, if something hits you for 90 damage it still eats your 2.5k shield so if the shield is a lot bigger the small damage still eats the whole thing.

Last I heard bears were soloing lvl 80 heroics on the ptr...

[Niter]

Hmmm, I've managed to avoid the implication that requiring cc means having higher demands on dps intelligence. I can't imagine getting dps that will/can handle CCing a mob, keeping it CC'd and not accidentally breaking cc over and over through the random dungeon finder. ATM all I expect a mage to do is press blizzard, and I've come to terms with that lol. I recall TBC heroics where I spent entire pulls on my mage spamming my sheep focus macro because some dumb dps thought sheep meant kill. I really am getting sad thinking back to trying to manage 10 mob+ LOS pulls with mixes of regular and elites threaded dangerously close to other groups.

I feel the same. At least we have Entangling Roots to use some CC if the mob is not a caster and we can use Insect Swarm, Moonfire and Hurricane if we need a little edge. It is kinda clunky, but it worked in TBC for some measure. I just hope we are not forced to CC everything, Some people crave for that, but I doubt they are going to be fine with it when they are running the same heroic for the 10th time.

Last I heard bears were soloing lvl 80 heroics on the ptr...

I know I have. Maul still hits 2 mobs and that is nice. Swipe crits for good amounts, we actually got a new defensive CD and I. LotP is kind of OP right now. I managed to solo Forge Of Souls without dying once, and some other instances before ToC that were not very challenging. Thorns is also excellent for hurting packs. We are in good shape, even though I think that the damage done by tanks so far are not nice. I think it is more interesting to have better damage instead of more threat % tied to our skills.

[Tharkkun]

I advise everyone to get in there today/tomorrow and test the changes on live. At this rate it sounds like bear druids have 10k armor, lost health, lost avoidance, now get hit twice as hard as other tanks, lost cooldowns, lost aoe tanking, etc. If you believe that's all true then I have some land I want to sell you also.