Thread: Bear Tanking

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  1. #21
    Well Like I said at the start, I'm currently cat, because I didn't think I was ready to tank. After what I've heard here though, I'm going to swap my gems, and enchants out to tanking and go ahead and make the swap. Thanks much for all of your advice.

    One last question: What is your opinion on macroing Maul to every ability? I was trying it and found I had a SLIGHT bit of threat trouble if the others jump directly in immediately before I get to hit anything, but aside of that I thought it was working. I was also doing a regular dungeon with 3-5k dps, so I don't think that would tell me much, haha.

  2. #22
    Deleted
    Heh, checked that Sejta armory link. 160k hp unbuffed in caster form...
    Try to aim for that in bear form + MotW and you'll be fine.

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Barawr View Post
    He didn't say that . . . He said 1000 stam for 1 agility. He was just making a point to not overlook areas where using a hybrid gem is beneficial.
    I know he was making an extreme example. But I was trying to put it into the context of the op's problem which would result in more of a 1 to 1 stat point comparison.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yoshimiko View Post
    Well Like I said at the start, I'm currently cat, because I didn't think I was ready to tank. After what I've heard here though, I'm going to swap my gems, and enchants out to tanking and go ahead and make the swap. Thanks much for all of your advice.

    One last question: What is your opinion on macroing Maul to every ability? I was trying it and found I had a SLIGHT bit of threat trouble if the others jump directly in immediately before I get to hit anything, but aside of that I thought it was working. I was also doing a regular dungeon with 3-5k dps, so I don't think that would tell me much, haha.
    Maul is now slightly below thrash in terms of threat/rage. I suggest taking a look at this.

    http://theincbear.com/4-1-what-in-the-fu-changes/

    It talks about the changes made during 4.1 and it mentions the Maul + Thrash macro. Maul is simply a rage dump which you use if you have rage to spare. As it stands though Thrash is better now in terms of generating threat. I do about 8-9k dps now days in my tanking gear (I would post my armory link but I'm in kitty spec/gear atm). Course I don't CC either so that may have something to do with it. They made a lot of changes in 4.1 to increase bear damage.
    Last edited by lizon; 2011-05-10 at 04:08 PM.

  4. #24
    Well, for those of you that have tanked Nefarian heroic, you'll know that stacking Stam is not a bad way to go.

    You can't use a CD on every Electrocute, and you have to be aware that you can get a breath at the same time as an electrocute without having any CD's ready. In this kind of situation, you can easily take up to 200k magic damage in less than 2 seconds.

  5. #25
    I'm not going to sugar coat this, but I just looked at the classes in your guild that I understand. If the 10 people I looked at are representative of the knowledge base in that guild, you can safely ignore advice from anyone in the guild. You've got:

    - resto druids stacking 40 spirit in red slots
    - fury warriors not reforging out of haste and actually gemming into haste and 40 mastery
    - DKs that don't seem to know any enchanters
    - resto druids choosing living seed and blessing of the grove but putting 0 points in swift rejuv
    - prot paladins reforging into hit and expertise cap

    And it just goes on and on and on. I'm not saying don't play with them. Heck, my guild is FULL of people like that and we only have like 20 people with any idea of what they are doing, but I like the people. I'm just saying you need not listen to them.

  6. #26
    Do NOT macro maul to everything, mate.

    In heroics, due to your dodge and savage defense, you will not be taking all that much damage, and you will be rage starved. If you macro maul to everything, then you may get yourself into situations where you need rage, but do not have it because you are spamming maul when it is not appropriate.
    Also, it takes the fun out of it if you make it a macro :P It feels good to push buttons and see damage happen :P

    ---------- Post added 2011-05-10 at 11:07 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by mechaj View Post
    I'm not going to sugar coat this, but I just looked at the classes in your guild that I understand. If the 10 people I looked at are representative of the knowledge base in that guild, you can safely ignore advice from anyone in the guild. You've got:

    - resto druids stacking 40 spirit in red slots
    - fury warriors not reforging out of haste and actually gemming into haste and 40 mastery
    - DKs that don't seem to know any enchanters
    - resto druids choosing living seed and blessing of the grove but putting 0 points in swift rejuv
    - prot paladins reforging into hit and expertise cap

    And it just goes on and on and on. I'm not saying don't play with them. Heck, my guild is FULL of people like that and we only have like 20 people with any idea of what they are doing, but I like the people. I'm just saying you need not listen to them.
    This is not helpful. Keep this kind of stuff to yourself.

    Carry on, OP. Good luck with your bear adventures.

  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by lizon View Post
    I have both trinkets personally but I use the agility one as my primary tanking trinket simply because I gain so much avoidance and mitigation with it. Bears get enough stamina from their gear alone to tank appropriate content. So if he's in all 346 gear then he has enough stamina on that gear to tank raids. In my tanking gear I got about 145-155k health with all of my raid buffs and flasks and such (depending on comp of course), and I find that to be more that suitable.

    The OP was saying that his GM wants him to have 160-180k hp's which is overkill for the content that he's doing and would hurt the raid more than benefit it. It's a simple matter of someone who doesn't understand bear tanks trying to give out bear advice.

    @OP
    Get Tia's Grace It is the best trinket for bear tanks outside of heroic raiding.
    It is as though you don't actually read what I write. I'm not advocating he stop using the agility trinket, but I am advocating he use the stam one instead of the hit trinket. He is light on health because he's made some poor choices in a few areas. I could give a damn what the GM says. I'm going to give this guy reasonable information regardless of that.

    ---------- Post added 2011-05-10 at 04:12 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Moonlapse Vertigo View Post
    This is not helpful. Keep this kind of stuff to yourself.
    I disagree that it is not helpful. If his concern is appeasing his GM or his guild on the application of theory of his class, then the knowledge of that guild is DIRECTLY relevant to the conversation. I believe that concern is where this thread started.

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by mechaj View Post
    It is as though you don't actually read what I write. I'm not advocating he stop using the agility trinket, but I am advocating he use the stam one instead of the hit trinket. He is light on health because he's made some poor choices in a few areas. I could give a damn what the GM says. I'm going to give this guy reasonable information regardless of that.

    ---------- Post added 2011-05-10 at 04:12 PM ----------



    I disagree that it is not helpful. If his concern is appeasing his GM or his guild on the application of theory of his class, then the knowledge of that guild is DIRECTLY relevant to the conversation. I believe that concern is where this thread started.
    I do appreciate the information, but you're looking at my kitty gear & enchants saying I made poor bear tanking choices. I use an agi/mastery trinket, and the alchemist stam trinket for my bear set. I'm not severely worried about appeasing their requirements, but their numbers just sound...well shit 180k is ridiculous to have pre-raiding unbuffed. With the info I've gotten in here, I feel fairly confident that my gear is capable of tanking though.

    Thanks everyone for the wonderful advice.

  9. #29
    I wish I had known that, it would have made many of your decisions make more sense.

  10. #30
    160k for normal mode raiding is BS.

    You can kill all normal mode stuff with 150 or less.

    If you're just starting out, ~130k is a more accurate number. But even if you only have 125k you'll be fine.

  11. #31
    You don't want to "stack" stam OR agi. You want to have a nice mix of both. Basically, just follow your gem bonuses. For red use 40 agi, for blue use 60 stam, for yellow use either 20dodge/20agi or 20dodge/30stam, depending on where the rest of your gear is.

    For enchants, agility when its available, stam when its available, mastery if neither is available.

    Reforge every piece of gear you have to dodge. Reforge haste first, then exp/hit, whichever you have the most of. Crit is your last choice to reforge, only reforge crit if the piece of gear is crit/mastery(you should look for pieces of gear with these stats).

    Do not macro maul to anything, that has not been viable since they "normalized" rage. You'll find that nowadays maul won't find its way into your rotation very often, because you just won't have enough rage.

    Your "rotation" should be something like this:

    1. Keep demo roar up (ignore if someone else has an equivalent debuff up).
    2. Mangle every time its available
    3. Keep FFF at 3 stacks.
    4. Keep at least one stack of lacerate running for beserk procs
    5. Thrash
    6. FFF on CD.
    7. Lacerate.
    8. Pulverize at three stacks of lacerate.
    9. Maul if you are at high rage.
    10. If nothing else is available, swipe.

  12. #32
    10. If nothing else is available, swipe.
    This will never actually happen :P

    Pulverize buff is behind Mangle and ahead of FFF 3x.

  13. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by Katarn View Post
    This will never actually happen :P

    Pulverize buff is behind Mangle and ahead of FFF 3x.
    I know.

    I would agree with you if it didn't require 3x lacerates to get there first. Its actually fairly easy to maintain once you get up and running, but at the start of the fight, there are other things more important.

  14. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by iceberg265 View Post
    I know.

    I would agree with you if it didn't require 3x lacerates to get there first. Its actually fairly easy to maintain once you get up and running, but at the start of the fight, there are other things more important.
    You can get Pulverize up before FFF3x if you don't have FA.

  15. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by Kawaii View Post
    Well, for those of you that have tanked Nefarian heroic, you'll know that stacking Stam is not a bad way to go.
    Did it with 179k HP buffed on our first kill. What was that you were saying?

    You can't use a CD on every Electrocute, and you have to be aware that you can get a breath at the same time as an electrocute without having any CD's ready. In this kind of situation, you can easily take up to 200k magic damage in less than 2 seconds.
    Barkskin, TB Trinket, Survival Instincts, Frenzied Regen, and Externals. Yeah. You can have a cooldown up for every electrocute. If you don't, that's not smart planning. Or... "Hey, I'm not going to have something up for the next Electrocute. Extra healing." You'd be surprised how much that works.

  16. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by Katarn View Post
    160k for normal mode raiding is BS.

    You can kill all normal mode stuff with 150 or less.

    If you're just starting out, ~130k is a more accurate number. But even if you only have 125k you'll be fine.
    Yeah I started TB with 125k. 5mans at 115k. Now sitting at 170k for Heroic Halfus and Chim and normal Nef doing adds.

    It's so hard to drill the stamina mentality out of people's heads. We have 2 ferals in the 10mans run outside our 25's and they blindly stack stamina.
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  17. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by Dyzon View Post
    You're also talking about a high-end progression guild. This is possibly the worst argument ever and I fail to see how it makes sense for a standard guild. There is a point to be said about magic being unmitigated by AGI, but there isn't nearly as much magical damage this raid tier as there was in past tiers. Truth be told magic isn't technically mitigated by anything other than talents and CDs. HP just gives you time to live. Bottom line is you need HP to survive ~3-4 hits of a raid boss (unhealed) which for 10n is about 150k. Much more and you are sacrificing our best stat AGI for HP that is going to complete waste. Unless of course you're in a bleeding edge progression guild - vastly undergeared for content and with amazing healers and DPS. Ultimately the only tank that can even put up the STAM stack argument is DK, and even then it's a pretty crappy argument (it just means you don't know how to use DS).

    Sure the STAM AGI argument is more complex than that, but just pointing to a high-end raider doesn't end the argument magically. I mean if you want to point to things that are completely asides, like a high-end raider, you could also say gemming AGI makes you a far better OT, since on fights where you can't tank or only tank half of it, you're gimping your cat DPS. It too doesn't really have a true place in the mitigation talk.

    I typically mix a couple of STAM gems to get to a comfortable level, with AGI+STAM gems if the socket is worth it, and mostly straight AGI gems.

    Edit: I was too slow...
    1. Sejta / Ensidia main tank do it too not just sejta
    2. There is no magic damage in this tier?! Lets go over this. Magmaw/Omnotron/Mal/Atramedes/Nef/Ony Ok now lets look at BoT VnT/AC/Cho'gall/Sinesta. Throne Ice/wind guy/Alk
    So lets count 11/13 have magic damage tech you add halfus for the fire balls but thats mehh

  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by edanna View Post
    1. Sejta / Ensidia main tank do it too not just sejta
    2. There is no magic damage in this tier?! Lets go over this. Magmaw/Omnotron/Mal/Atramedes/Nef/Ony Ok now lets look at BoT VnT/AC/Cho'gall/Sinesta. Throne Ice/wind guy/Alk
    So lets count 11/13 have magic damage tech you add halfus for the fire balls but thats mehh
    Heeeeey and none of that magic damage needs stam stacking! None of it.

  19. #39
    The way you handle magic damage is with proper use of CDs NOT by simply stacking enough stamina to eat it all and force your healers to heal it up.

  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by Barawr View Post
    The way you handle magic damage is with proper use of CDs NOT by simply stacking enough stamina to eat it all and force your healers to heal it up.
    Ok you say this yet have you done them on heroic? Are you going to CD EVER nef flame and such. Do you think when like 15-20% of the whole fights damage could be helped threw stamina?

    1 Stamina Provides 1.7 HP/1.7AP/ vs 1 Agi=Under .001 dodge 2 AP Like .001 crit

    Stamina also provides a steady income of damage rather than spiky damage for instance. Boss Swings hit you for 50k 2 secodns late hits you for 50k. Now if your stacking avoid 50k 2 seconds later and healer is timing a divine light / HT / Greater healer to top you off with but OH WAIT you dodge it now all their mana is waste. I'd rather heal a stamina stack bear over a Agi stacking bear j.s

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