Bear tanks, Gone in Cata?

[pzijderv]

devs: our nerfs will block the sun!
druids: then we shall tank in the shade!

[Deleted]

I sure hope bears are fine, but by the looks of it devs are coming to their senses much faster than before when it comes to balancing, so we will be alright.

[Kujako]

Druids are incredibly awesome in raids at 85. Every Al'Akir video I've seen has a Druid tank on the main boss.

Willing to bet all those videos are pre-nerfs.

That being said, only time will tell how we'll work out in the long run. The change I'm most concerned about is savage defense no longer triggering off of periodic damage. That was a major contributor to our survivability.

[NaaBcAke]

Troll posters are as viable as ever.

This.

People shoud realise, that there is reason why Bear HP is reduced....it's not some random decision lol, they were too strong on beta raid testing, read a bit before you cluelessly whine next time.

[Polarthief]

Bear tank will always be viable and if they're not viable, they will be fixed
but Im not sure what you mean with

Tell that to the bears of Icecrown Citadel.

[frester]

devs: our nerfs will block the sun!
druids: then we shall tank in the shade!

hehe, true that

this is beartanking!!!

[Barawr]

Tell that to the bears of Icecrown Citadel.

He can because there were plenty of bears in ICC . . .

[Shamslam]

Tell that to the bears of Icecrown Citadel.

Because no one used bear tanks? Viable doesn't mean "Paragon didn't use one," viable means it's possible to use it and still succeed. Hell the runs I'm in always seem to go smoother when a bear is MTing.

[Kujako]

Because no one used bear tanks? Viable doesn't mean "Paragon didn't use one," viable means it's possible to use it and still succeed. Hell the runs I'm in always seem to go smoother when a bear is MTing.

Well by that logic we where "viable" in vanilla. But I for one would hate to be returned to that state again.

[Deleted]

Tell that to the bears of Icecrown Citadel.

I am our guilds main tank, i coped quite well compared to the other classes that failed before me. Bears are perfect for the LK fight.

[jearle]

I've been following the Beta boards concerning the tank issue and they are changing the classes to bring them all in line. The druid and dk changes were necessary as they were both way ahead of other classes.

They will do their best to balance as time goes on, just play the class you enjoy. Bear tanks are awesome, stick with it if you like it.

[Xelestial]

Tell that to the bears of Icecrown Citadel.

What? We used a Bear from beginning to end and it was fine. Bear/Pally, sometimes Bear did adds and sometimes Paladin did. LK fight ended with the Bear tanking.

[Tharkkun]

Yup bears are totally dead. Useless. Feeble. Re-roll another class today. /sarcasm off.

[Meleti]

Threads like this are silly.

[bluejoker000]

My main's a druid tank. What people forgot is that there is a good reason why bear druids had more HP than other tanks. Every other tank has at least 2 forms of mitigation (i.e. dodge, block, parry). But, druids are the only tank class with 1 (dodge). Druids have always had more hp than other tanks, because they get hit more frequently. Also plate gear for tanks always had more stamina than leather of the same ilvl. By nerfing a druids stam, increasing the length of swipe, and reducing the overall damage of swipe by 20% druids are no longer ideal tanks. Granted this might change at 85, but we're not 85 yet.

[Kujako]

My main's a druid tank. What people forgot is that there is a good reason why bear druids had more HP than other tanks. Every other tank has at least 2 forms of mitigation (i.e. dodge, block, parry). But, druids are the only tank class with 1 (dodge). Druids have always had more hp than other tanks, because they get hit more frequently. Also plate gear for tanks always had more stamina than leather of the same ilvl. By nerfing a druids stam, increasing the length of swipe, and reducing the overall damage of swipe by 20% druids are no longer ideal tanks. Granted this might change at 85, but we're not 85 yet.

Druids have dodge equal to other tanks dodge and parry combined and we have savage defense to match block. Giving all tanks roughly the same health and armor is fine, if dull.

[AetherMcLoud]

Well by that logic we where "viable" in vanilla. But I for one would hate to be returned to that state again.

That's not logic, that's hyperbole.

Bears weren't viable in vanilla as raidtanks by any definition. Nobody raided with a druid as their main tank because back then warriors were tanks, noone else. It just happened to be that druids and paladins had tankspecs that probably were good enough for 5mans but even then you prefered a warrior with his various cooldowns and aggro skills.

Bears in ICC, while surely not the best of the 4 tanks, were close enough to all the others that lots of raiding guilds had one as a maintank (mine for example did and he took us from the start to the lich king finish without problems). Lots of raiding guilds also had a warrior/paladin/DK maintank. Tanks were close enough balanced that all 4 classes were viable throughout wrath. Just often 1 class would shine much brighter than the other 3. DKs at the start (esp. for 3D) and Paladins at the start of ICC.

If you base your definition on "they weren't used in worldfirst kills" then no tank but 1 was viable.

[Kujako]

That's not logic, that's hyperbole.

Bears weren't viable in vanilla as raidtanks by any definition. Nobody raided with a druid as their main tank because back then warriors were tanks, noone else.

I was one of two tanks for Molten Core & Blackwing Lair back in the vanilla days. Not saying it was easy going, but it sure was fun.

Can't find any of the old MC screen shots off hand. But here's one where I managed to break 20k armor!

[AetherMcLoud]

Goddamn ugly nightelfbear :P

That aside, IIRC in vanilla barkskin wasn't castable in feral forms and of course there was no survival instincts and frenzied regen didn't give you a last stand.

Also, I was the only shadowpriest in my raid in my vanilla MC & BWL raids. Doesn't mean that shadowpriests were a viable raidspec (I was brought for the 15% buff to warlocks and to heal and dispell on bosses mostly while keeping the 15% debuff up).

And who maintanked all the hard bosses in your raid back then? The warrior I suppose?

Also, meh your were alliance, you had fearward which helped for a lot of bosses that feared constantly (and therefore required warriors for the 30 second fearimmunity on horde side).

[utopianh]

It was ridiculously hard to become crit immune, and impossible to avoid crushing blows as a feral in Vanilla; despite massive armor and great threat, Ferals were generally Trash tanks exclusively in Vanilla, but we did have our uses. I mean sure, there's a video of a Feral tanking Nefarian, but that's like saying that Rogues were viable tanks in BC because of all those videos of rogues tanking raid bosses by getting hit immune.