The Bear Guide - Cataclysm Edition

[zaneosak]

After all the bickering in this thread have any of you actually done a ICC25 Heroic run yet and tested whats ideal? I have been curious for my alt bears sake and my MT in ICC25's sake, so we have little problems seeing we only raid 3 hrs a week.

Can you explain why you let lacerate tick 2-3 times before pulverizing? Is it just to get some free mangles with the new berserk talent before lacerate falls off?

Has anybody actually tried ICC trash with aoe tanking w/o CCing and letting the dps go crazy with aoe? I heard swipe threat is pretty high right now even with 6 sec cd.

[Ferakahr]

I've been having a pretty easy time in heroics as a bear. With thorns dealing so much damage now and having such a high uptime with the glyph aoe tanking has been a breeze. With the amount of time it usually takes to kill mobs/run to the next pack thorns should still be up or just be coming off cooldown.

[Cyphran]

I threw myself into a random ICC pug that went 10/12 before people bailed at Sindy (ohhh, Ice is crazy hard... sigh)

Anyway...

The other tank was a DK, single target, I never had any issues topping him. I accidentally pulled once or twice due to overthreating him. As far as AoE was concerned, he would lay down DnD and pop his blood boil and then Id run around feeling like a limp noodle for pure lack or rage. Id honestly have to taunt a mob to get it to wail on me a bit before I could start laying in with any kind of real threat rotation.

Mechanics:
I like the Berserk change. Those extra Mangles are great.

I tab target when I need to, I kept a 3stack lacerate up often enough.

Pulverise is still confusing me a little. It was critting in ICC for 6-8k... most of the time I believe I had a three stack... but more times than Id like to admit I found myself spamming Pulverise. [To be fair: I moved my buttons to accommodate Pulverise, so where before I was Lacerating on 3, now I Pulverise on it. Still trying to break my fingers auto-response]

Vengeance... now most of the time I hardly noticed this, the ICC bosses don't hit so hard, and with the -20% debuff gone I'm rocking 55% dodge. However, on some trash packs I could get the Vengeance buff Over 8000ap (more than doubling my feral bear ap)... and then the 22-24k Mangles started laying in.

As others have said, not being able to swipe more than once per 6 seconds makes those extra add pickups a little harder. If I was tanking a 4-6 of mobs and Vengeance wasn't stacking to very high levels, the DPS would inevitably pull one away from me. 2-3 mobs were never an issue to hold though. I was unaware that the maul macros still worked, and Ill look into throwing that into my Lacerate. Even with the nur to the glyph, it'll still add some nice free aggro on adds.

[Koumaru]

Last time I checked the beta, thrash and swipe were on the same cooldown. So that means you can do 1 or the other.

If it shares a cooldown with Swipe, there's no reason for both of them to exist. If your statement is correct, I hope it's a bug. We have one real AoE threat move at level 80 compared to 2-3 for the other tanks, so why would giving us a second one be so overpowered?

On the Thorns topic: I haven't paid attention to the numbers my Thorns effect is putting out when I prebuff it while tanking. I know it scales with either spellpower or attack power, whichever is higher. But it can't be cast in bear form, so is it benefiting from my 6k+ AP in bear form or the paltry 900 AP I have in caster form? Is its damage value determined upon cast or calculated on the fly upon actual delivery of damage based upon the stats of the player with the Thorns buff on him/her?

[Zapadlo]

If it shares a cooldown with Swipe, there's no reason for both of them to exist. If your statement is correct, I hope it's a bug. We have one real AoE threat move at level 80 compared to 2-3 for the other tanks, so why would giving us a second one be so overpowered?

On the Thorns topic: I haven't paid attention to the numbers my Thorns effect is putting out when I prebuff it while tanking. I know it scales with either spellpower or attack power, whichever is higher. But it can't be cast in bear form, so is it benefiting from my 6k+ AP in bear form or the paltry 900 AP I have in caster form? Is its damage value determined upon cast or calculated on the fly upon actual delivery of damage based upon the stats of the player with the Thorns buff on him/her?

Good point, last night in HC my thorns were hitting for 2.2k which is a tad ridiculous (in Strat). Is it nerfed now?

[bavarcarus]

I started getting the hang of aoe tanking with a cd ability in icc25 last night. I wish I had a warrior tank so I might be used to the idea a bit. I think the tricky part is keeping pulverize up while hitting swipe every CD and tabbing though targets as well as keeping an eye on rage to know if you can be using maul (glyphed). It certainly looks doable as it is, and I certainly need some practice with it.

oh, and I totally forgot to start using thorns.

[dombow]

I started getting the hang of aoe tanking with a cd ability in icc25 last night. I wish I had a warrior tank so I might be used to the idea a bit. I think the tricky part is keeping pulverize up while hitting swipe every CD and tabbing though targets as well as keeping an eye on rage to know if you can be using maul (glyphed). It certainly looks doable as it is, and I certainly need some practice with it.

oh, and I totally forgot to start using thorns.

Thankfully I made a warrior a few weeks ago and was able to start comparing them and made it a bit easier to adjust to new bear tanking. It was pretty easy in icc10 reg last night to do.. I just need the enemy nameplates back to make targetting easier to apply my lacerates and mauls. Also thankfully, I run with my brother a boomkin and best friend a resto druid. I make them thorns me lol.

[Koumaru]

I just need the enemy nameplates back to make targetting easier to apply my lacerates and mauls.

The bugged nameplates have been the biggest thorn in my side while tanking since the patch. When those are fixed I can focus more on being the thorn in the side of my enemies. Literally.

Fix my V-bars!

[Noobity]

What you guys who are disappointed with tanking don't seem to understand is that we're not tuned for tanking the current level content anymore. Wotlk instances were mainly aoe fests and as such we were more than capable to handle the tanking with spammable swipe and on next attack maul. Since the change, aoe tanking for all classes is diminished because blizzard is getting away from the desire to have crazy aoe tanking fights. We're going to struggle a bit with threat in these instances, without a doubt, but at this point nobody is close to dying due to the increases in stats in general, and improvements to healing. I'm not trying to say that I'm an amazing tank, or one that isn't having problems with the current content because of the changes, but I just think you need to look at what these changes are tuned for, and look forward to the implementation of the fights that we will end up more capable to handle.

All this to say: Don't be discouraged by the ability to tank or not tank current heroics. Struggle through them if you want to keep doing them, or bench the tank for the next month and a half. I honestly think this is a positive step for tanking and the game in general and I generally think that we'll all be happier for the change come december 7th (or 8th if you're like me and think there's no way in hell the servers will be up and stable on day 1).

[Roose]

If it shares a cooldown with Swipe, there's no reason for both of them to exist. If your statement is correct, I hope it's a bug. We have one real AoE threat move at level 80 compared to 2-3 for the other tanks, so why would giving us a second one be so overpowered?

Checked beta and they do share a CD now. I am guessing this came when they nerfed swipe a few days ago because I know that they did not share a CD when I last tanked anything.

With swipe/thrash on a 6 second CD it really feels like warrior tanking in BC before shockwave. That is not a good thing. However, I was able to do BC heroics with that poor excuse for aoe threat, so I am sure that I can adapt to a single aoe on a CD again.

It really is a leap backwards instead of a step. Swipe spam was bad, but the other extreme is not the answer. Every other tanking class has more than 1 aoe threat grabber on a reasonable CD. WTF do you use to pick up adds and such when swipe is on CD? All other options are on much longer CDs.

Make thorns castable in bear form and it would help solve a few problems. You simply can't single target groups of adds and I have already seen a few instances where several groups of adds come out at the same time.

Guess I need to post this on beta forums too.

[Ormula]

Wow. I am absolutely in love with the new bear tank system. We actually have to look out for things. I agree, it feels almost exactly like BC warrior tanking. It's going to really push us to the limit, and I can't wait for max level in cata.

[dombow]

The bugged nameplates have been the biggest thorn in my side while tanking since the patch. When those are fixed I can focus more on being the thorn in the side of my enemies. Literally.

Fix my V-bars!

/whole-heartedly agree

[Koumaru]

My great disappointment is that if the shared cooldown is intended, Thrash is pretty much just a minor upgrade to Swipe. And Thrash is our new level-81 ability.

Stampeding Roar at 83 is enough of a joke already; I don't want boomkin satchel charges at 85 to be the only nifty ability to look forward to on my druid in Cataclysm.

Unlink the cooldowns or just give us something new at 81. If they want us to be the absolute worst tank for picking up adds, fine (well not really), but don't screw us twice for it.

[exochaft]

After all the bickering in this thread have any of you actually done a ICC25 Heroic run yet and tested whats ideal? I have been curious for my alt bears sake and my MT in ICC25's sake, so we have little problems seeing we only raid 3 hrs a week.

Can you explain why you let lacerate tick 2-3 times before pulverizing? Is it just to get some free mangles with the new berserk talent before lacerate falls off?

Has anybody actually tried ICC trash with aoe tanking w/o CCing and letting the dps go crazy with aoe? I heard swipe threat is pretty high right now even with 6 sec cd.

Alright, I'll start with your post because it's the easiest to address.

In all honesty, once you get a 3-stack of lacerate, you might as well let it tick once before you Pulverize. In order to maximize the possibility of free Mangle procs, you use Pulverize just after a Lacerate tick. Once you use Pulverize, next GCD is putting up a Lacerate, pretty simple.

Since we were doing most of the trash before they hotfixed locks/mages, it was a little rough. However, if you did pop thorns before a pull (yes, it uses your Bear Form AP value, not caster) and get the first Swipe in on everything, you're generally fine. If you get a TotT from a rogue, even better, because the threat may be temporary, but the threat done from successive Swipes as your Vengeance builds up will easily beat that threat. My only problem was.... locks spamming Searing Pain on targets I wasn't focusing, not much you can do about that! If you're wondering damage-wise, I was able to get up around 18-20k Swipe crits with high enough Vengeance.

Since 4.0.1 came out, I haven't been playing on the beta the past couple of days. However, I just logged on to test this out: Thrash and Swipe are on separate cooldowns still. They both have a 6sec cooldown, that might have been the confusion, but they don't lock each other out when you use one.

*edit* - Just some minor bear stuff I might as well throw in. Since we can't delve into the resto tree much, I've been playing around with 3/3 Fury Swipes and 2/3 KotJ. Here was my damage from our first night of raiding (which is very similar to our second night):

23.1% Maul, 19.5% Mangle, 18.1% Melee, 16.4% Swipe, 11.5% Lacerate, 4.6% Fury Swipes, 2.8% Pulverize, 2.7% Rocket Pack (okay, I like to spam it on gunship), 1.1% FFF, and there's other minor damage. If you're curious about the Fury Swipes and Pulverize damage, keep in mind, I'm veeeeeery religious about keeping the crit buff up at all times with Pulverize, so you can assume that I used it mostly at the proper times (even on trash).

[Sledfang]

Not bad... I personally wouldn't advise reforging and crit on your gear to Mastery, i read that at 85 a feral's crit chance is floating around the 30% mark where as on live at the minute the average is at or around 55-60% in raids. Savage defence relies on your crit chance to proc, reducing your crit is counter-productive. I do agree with you on the haste though, especially because you'll have an abundance of it now Arp has been converted.

I'd personally go with This spec as the 'go to' spec for bears. I actually can't see any point in spending the points elsewhere... Everything in there is practically mandatory to tank successfully.

I dont think this discussion is only about level 85 bears.

[Koumaru]

*breathes a sigh of relief*

Thank you!

Hey Exo, if Thorns uses your bear form AP, does its damage update dynamically as Vengeance stacks? If another druid buffs you with Thorns when you're at the Vengeance cap, will it deal damage per 12k+ AP?

[Muezick]

when i start losing threat i'll change my rotation OP

and i dont really give a shit what you think of me. LOWL

read as much negativity in my post as you want, fact is, there wasn't much. YSODEFENSIVE?

why dont yall spend more time laughing, lifes a big joke, enjoy it.

but now we are getting off track, so if you want to respond to me more, do it in pm

----------back on track------------

Unfortunately, the only place i can really test my TPS is vs our(My guilds) fury war(because he's pro as fuck), and they got nerfed into the ground.

i will say this though

my average item level is 257, healers say im easier to heal (I love mastery so much, my savage defense proc sheilds absorb as much as 10k damage in ten mans) i ALMOST want to wear attack power trinkets just so that will go up even more

i have basically been face rolling, hitting random buttons for groups, enrage, swipe, pulverize i keep threat pretty good, for large groups, it's typically pop enrage and swipe, and if that isn't enough use ur aoe taunt, thats what its there for. i do find myself using it a lot more now tho, thats for sure, which i like.

and to that massive faggot who was all like "because pulverizing without lacerate is pro right?"

Yes it is, its 15 range, spammable, crits for 3k, if everything else is on cooldown and i absolutely need to generate some threat, there it is. alternatively, if im feeling lazy, i can spam it for shits and giggles later in the fight becuase my threat is way the hell ahead of everybody elses



I will admit this, I was wrong about the faerie fire, that 15% armor redux is pretty sick, i need to go fix my spec, i feel kinda dumb for that -.-;;

no hard feelings yall, im just blunt =)

[exochaft]

*breathes a sigh of relief*

Thank you!

Hey Exo, if Thorns uses your bear form AP, does its damage update dynamically as Vengeance stacks? If another druid buffs you with Thorns when you're at the Vengeance cap, will it deal damage per 12k+ AP?

If I could get the rest of the druids in my raid to not tunnel-vision on their own pewpew, I could give you a better answer. All I can tell you is that when I put Thorns on my other tank last night, the damage was fairly steady and consistent. Honestly, I wasn't paying attention to exactly how it acted (I'm dealing with "special" ppl that can't function in a raid with the default Blizz UI and all their addons broken, that took most of my attention ), so maybe someone else can shed light on this. All else fails, I'll test it out next raid.

[Hegar]

Im usually pretty open-minded to changes and whatnot but after having been a bear for the past year and then playing last night in heroics, I really really am not having much fun as a bear right now. I am hoping things get normalized and/or fixed for lack of a better word soon. I also can not wait for level 81 to have thrash. Really though I cant wait for Cata so that we have new dungeons. Convincing randoms in wotlk dungeons to wait on dps or to CC because im not instant AoE aggro sucks =[

I've found a macro that deals with this problem.

/w <healer's name> If you see any DPS pull agro from AoE, please don't heal them! It'll help them prepare better for cata.

But yeah, AoE is a bit annoying. Swipe to pick them up, then tab lacerate while spamming maul, and basically fish for beserk procs from heaps of lacerates, hope that you can get a mangle of on any low-threat targets before they run out of range to go nom nom on the mage.

But i can live without monster aoe threat. I'm just loving the monster single target threat we have at the moment. I can pull agro off any tank in my guild without trying, without taunting, in so little time.

Needless to say all the other tanks are getting shat off when i decide half way through a fight i'm gonna take their mob off them :P

[Roose]

Since 4.0.1 came out, I haven't been playing on the beta the past couple of days. However, I just logged on to test this out: Thrash and Swipe are on separate cooldowns still. They both have a 6sec cooldown, that might have been the confusion, but they don't lock each other out when you use one.

I sure hope that you are right and I just had a brain fart because I could swear that they were on same CD when I tried it earlier. For some reason I can't get beta to run now and double check.