Should I MT and RL as a Bear in Cata?

[Pelleas]

Hey guys,

Looking for your input on some dilemna I have on whether I should keep my Bear as my main char in Cataclysm.

Some context first: I only like tanking. I have a DK, Paladin, Warrior and Bear. Bear has been my main through BC and WOTLK. I have raided ICC25 with the 4 chars. I am also the Raid Leader of my guild. Dont like the DK that much and always prefered Bear because of its easier rotation which allowed me to also focus on my RL duties and check, while tanking, on my mates (X get out of the fire, Y needs a heal, Z move away from the raid - yes, we're a casual guild :P). I have also been teaming up with another Paladin tank as a OT/MT2.

On my last raids (since the patch) I got very dissapointed with my Bear. I found out I lost a lot of aoe threat and my Paladin pal ended up tanking most trash packs with me focusing on single-target. I probably do not master the rotation yet (its not that complex though).
I am frustrated that in order to maintain good threat in ICC, I need to use Berzerk and Enrage all the time (yes, gotta be careful with rage starved situation now), where on the opposite, when I play my paladin, I never-ever run out of mana and all my tanking skills hit in AOE (consecration, AS, HoR). I still find the Paladin has a better efficiency ratio (press less buttons for similar results than us Bears).

On my rotation, I have macroed Maul to Pulverize and Mangle and I use Mangle > Laceratex3 > Pulverize with adding FF and try use Sweep (6secs ugh, Paladin's equivalent on 3secs) on trash packs.

With our main buff being shared with other classes, the battle rez becoming cosmetic and Innervate as feral useless, I start to ponder what I'm bringing to my raid and wonder whether I should not be playing my Paladin tank (or War) instead.

This is not meant to be a QQ thread, I love my Druid and would like to trust my choice of playing her as my main char comes the Cataclysm. Please share your feedback!

[fews]

too soon to tell get them both to eighty-five, do some eighty-five raids, and then decide

[Deleted]

I love my Druid

play your druid

[Shinshiva]

Don't be down hearted with our AE threat. Of course we will have Swipe for nice snap threat etc. Thrash at 81 is going to be our "main" (loosely spoken) AoE threat move.
Imagine, if you will, that Blood And Thunder talent for warriors, but they just pushed it into a whole new move for Druids. This will do wonders for keeping targets on us instead of a target getting one Swipe hit then missing out on anything else for a while, which is why people are pulling off you (and me!! /grumble). I'm still going to play my druid in cataclysm (after I race change to troll!!) because they're just gonna be awesome!

Also, no QQ here or anything but: why is our maul cut down 50% for an extra target? Cleave gets 3 at full damage but our get clipped 50% for only one extra target? Is there a specific reason for this or have I lost my reading comprehension skills

[exochaft]

On my rotation, I have macroed Maul to Pulverize and Mangle and I use Mangle > Laceratex3 > Pulverize with adding FF and try use Sweep (6secs ugh, Paladin's equivalent on 3secs) on trash packs.

First off, I'd highly discourage using macro'd Maul to work in conjunction with anything. Due to the nature of Maul, it's not queuing in place of your next auto-attack, it's a rage dump... and you can end up not using an ability that's macro'd to Maul because you drained your rage. It shouldn't be much of a hassle to use Maul on demand. Plus, with how Pulverize works, if you're working on optimizing the damage done by Maul, you want to use Maul just before a Pulverize to allow you another GCD to put up a bleed so Maul will benefit from Rend and Tear.

Now, for trash packs, I wouldn't prioritize getting Pulverize (and the Pulverize crit buff) up since your gear most likely has a huge amount of crit... the tool is more geared towards 85 when our crit it's in the mid-20% range once you hit 85. If anything, tab-target and Lacerate multiple mobs when Swipe is on cooldown, because the individual bleed ticks independently can proc free Mangles via Berserk's passive effect. Having 3 or more targets with a Lacerate bleed effect almost guarantees non-stop free Mangles which will keep very good AoE threat on top of Swipe. Once you get Thrash, you'll have even fewer GCDs available to do non-AoE abilities, but Pulverize still takes the back burner in terms of what to use to hold threat on AoE trash (by the time you could get 3 Lacerates up on a target, you would have done two Swipes and two Thrashes, and your threat should be good by then).

[axxey]

Depends on the quality of your fellow tank, main tank is very important role for setting the pace and tone of a raid/instance. Everyone may bitch and complain about the fact but none of the other tanks come close to a druid in an offtank role.

[fuknfreak]

No matter how many people you ask for opinions and inputs, after all that, it will be what you decide, you mentioned that you love your druid, don't give up on him until you reach 85 and then according to blizzard, your class abilities are balanced. Right now at level 80 everything is unbalanced.

I've played tank on my DK/PALA/DRUID... I enjoy tanking on my druid more than the others.

[Deleted]

Don't base your tanking from what little AoE you can pull out of your hat at the moment. First off, you'll get Thrash at 81, and secondly, we're probably going to see more CC, which means fewer mobs to keep track off.

Also, Paladin tanking might get pretty boring, because it's so easy.

Paladins also tend to get angry if you grab aggro off them (I went bear and ninja tanked a VoA once - yes, my gear is sufficient), which is always fun.

[Christan]

ae threat gets a bit of help come 81 or 83 i forget, but an aoe bleed, and a glyph i think that inc damage from swipe on bleeding targets.
or maybe that was a talent...not seeing it atm but i am tired as hell.

the AE bleed though is called Thrash.

and pala's are amazing with aoe threat right now, dont worry your head to much about it

[Themessiah]

I have a similar dilema come Cataclysm, being raid leader and deciding which tank (minus the paladin option). However, I've decided to stick with the bear based on the fact that I understand the class better than the DK by a long way, and the fact I'm tanking aside a warrior (and 2 warriors might be a touch superfluous).

There was only ever two real considerations against my bear though; one that the raid set up may favour a DK, and two that I like getting to use big shiney weapons.

As for the rage problems, I have macro'd maul to FFF, but beyond that it is seperate. While I never seem to have rage problems, I think by macroing it to everything I would end up with said rage problems very quickly. It's 30 rage right? So at the start of a fight hitting it off every CD (via macro) will cost you the rage of the ability + 30. It's little suprise that I dont, but that you do have these rage problems.


Edit: I'm now playing with the DK and have noticed they have about 7 cd's and my Bear as about 3 (minus ICC 10 gear). I thus now hate you.

[The High Druid]

Play what you enjoy the most otherwise you'll burn out faster. If you are going to tank regardless and going to raidlead regardless you have to do what's fun, and it would be a big blow to the guild to loose it's main tank and raid leader at the same time if you did burn out.

As for macros just use:

/cast Mangle
/cast [nomod] Maul

or

/cast Mangle
/cast [mod:alt] Maul

Depending on your preference you can have maul tied to your skill automatically, and off when you press a mod key, or have it only tied when you press a mod key. That way you can easily take advantage of high rage levels. Oh and don't copy and paste those, they need the proper names of the spells which I don't remember right now.

[Kint]

I know that AOE tanking right now has changed, but you do not need to macro your maul to any other ability for the simple reason of rage management. Maul costs 30 rage now and with a 3 second cd cannot be spammed in all your macro's. In saying this there are some things that I would macro to your attacks. I tank with a macro using /startattack /cast enrage /cast maul /cast barkskin /cast nature's grasp, you always have rage for maul and still get a damage reduction of 10% through barkskin, both are on a minute cd and when you charge in most of the time the mob will hit you first (unless the heals use a strong hot or your dps is in a wotlk mindset and pops all cds for something in that group). If you come up to a mob and your enrage is on cd, that means you will only gain 10 rage if you did not keep rage from a previous mob (the last thing you are killing in a mob do not use spells unless it starts to get away, build up that rage!). Remember that if you do not have rage you can use your thorns to gain the initial threat and pop into bear to gain 10 rage before the next pull. Swipe used to be the big AOE spell, but now with a six second cd its a priority spell based on rage. I would use berserk only if you do not have enough rage at the start of a pull since mangle only uses 15 rage and will hit three targets. Play your druid if you like your druid, keep your crit at around 50% (counting trinket procs, mongoose ex.) but since blizz wanted more buttons to use for our furry butts we will not be able to tell how AOE tanking will be until the lvl cap when we gain thrash which adds a bleed on multiple targets. Oh and tab target a lot while using lacerate. Also remember the dps needs to learn how things used to be in a pull, you wait for the tank to gain aggro then dps. A few repair bills will be a great reminder for a dead dps and the group will have nothing to complain about if you pick that one mob up before they eat the heals up. Especially now that repair costs are closer to the cost for plate wearers. PLAY YOUR DRUIDZ!

[smokii]

Don't base your tanking from what little AoE you can pull out of your hat at the moment. First off, you'll get Thrash at 81, and secondly, we're probably going to see more CC, which means fewer mobs to keep track off.

Also, Paladin tanking might get pretty boring, because it's so easy.

Paladins also tend to get angry if you grab aggro off them (I went bear and ninja tanked a VoA once - yes, my gear is sufficient), which is always fun.

aye, paladin tanking has become a monotonous 5/6 button rotation now, CS every 3 sec with judgement/AS/HW as fillers and then ShoR to finish, pretty much the same for AoE except replace CS with HotR and ShoR with inq and then throw down a consecration every 30 sec, it's more boring now than it was with 96969.

so yea, stick with your bear, i'm actually rerolling to my druid to main tank in cata, my pala tank of 3 years is hitting the alt pile and going ret.

[xebtria]

play what makes most fun. blizzard already stated, that all 4 tanks will tank deathwing or any other boss (= they will balance them so neither of the 4 classes has any big advantages and/or disadvantages). so why choose the fotm-class (whatever it will be) when you can play what gives you the best game experience aka fun?

you love your druid, then play your druid. /thread.

[Netherwolf]

Stick with the druid =P
The problem you (and many others) have discovered is that we run around with abilities balanced for the cataclysm raiding environment while we're still in the AoE lolfest of ICC. Things *will* get better in cata, I promise!

When CC gets back, so does marking which means that you swipe + thrash to hold all mobs away from the healer and then focus fire on one mob at a time. This is emphasized by the aoe nerf some dps classes have experienced as well. As feral (cat) I reach higher dps numbers on trash by mangle+rake+4-5cp rip on each target rather than swipe. At least on groups of 4.

As for what you bring to the raid... 5% crit isn't that bad. And battle ress isn't really being cosmetic tbh, you just have to be more strategic about when to use it. As far as I know it's always been 30min cd (with the exception of 3.2 where they decreased it so guilds raiding ToC didn't have to wait for the cd to go off before their next attempt on the boss) so the only new thing is the "can only resurrect only player per fight in 10 man and 3 in 25 man". It's still useful though, just doesn't encourage druid stacking in raids.

Play the class you enjoy the most, best advice there is ^^

[Riavan]

DPS is also insanely high at the moment due to the current conversion rates for stats, ie, 60% crit now will be like 13% crit after the match.
I don't have a paladin at max level yet, but I find my warrior has trouble keeping threat in aoe also currently.

[dense]

while tanking seems reasonable, i would not suggest real life as a bear.

OT: i believe they wanted to nerf aoe threat in general, so i guess it will be more similar at 85. Also: in raids, you rarely need to tank a lot of mobs apart from adds. Adds are normally tanked by the 2nd tank. So, a druid - IF they have superior single target threat and inferior multi-target-threat compared to other classes - makes sense as a MT.

Also: play what you like, otherwise you'll just end up unhappy and changing mains later.

[jearle]

Also, no QQ here or anything but: why is our maul cut down 50% for an extra target? Cleave gets 3 at full damage but our get clipped 50% for only one extra target? Is there a specific reason for this or have I lost my reading comprehension skills

Because it scales with our attack power and hits like a truck. Comparatively cleave hits like a wet noodle and does not scale as well.

Druids rock, they suit the Bi-polar in all of us, and tanking now is more fun than it has ever been on a druid. When thrash comes into play at 81 it will be even better. Learn to tab target, spread around some lacerates and enjoy some free mangle procs.

---------- Post added 2010-11-10 at 01:29 PM ----------

@OP I raid lead and MT for my guild, you will get use to doing everything and it will be fine. Changing tanks is not going to make it any easier to do the multi tasking that comes along with the situation you are in.

[luvlist]

actually i have no problem with aoe threat at this point.. you need to use thorn smartly around the trash pulls..lacerate tabbing the way it supposed to in BC if you played that far back.

and as of single target,paladin and warrior's AP based skill is really high.. in much longer fight they will eventually take aggro off DK or druid tank(this has been confirmed and will be changed in cata)

but like some already said,aoe threat is nerfed all around each classes.and if some seems better,we need to watch 85 numbers before make any decision.They also encourage smarter way to do 5 and 10 man by waiting for threat,or CCing, or focus firing mobs

[Bytch]

If you seem to be losing threat alot, no matter your rotation, it may be the rest of the group putting to much dps or the other tank. Or healers too of course..lol. Only time I lose threat is when some nimrod thinks that being on top of the meters matters in raids.

---------- Post added 2010-11-11 at 12:20 PM ----------

Oh...Im Bear since nilla.