Bear Tank survivability issues.

[revilfour]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...tondo/advanced
To the furthest extent of my knowledge i am gearing, reforging, gemming and enchanting for BiS. I take allot of dmg in raids and heroics especially. I seem to be able to tank raids but not Zg heroics because i take so much dmg. What should i be doing differently? anything? any tips tricks or suggestions to my gear/spec to make me more of a mean shield?

[eternalwhitemoon]

1) Why are you using a DPS meta? I recommend Austere Shadowspirit Diamond (81 stam, 2% increased armor value from items).

2) I see pieces like your bracers and cloak, with crit/mastery, that don't have the crit reforged to dodge. Basically what I do is take the grossest stat of whatever piece it is, and reforge to dodge. If dodge is already present, I will reforge the grossest stat to mastery instead.

That said comparing you to my own bear alt I realized I never reforged my boots. D'oh!

[eternalwhitemoon]

Use Bear Form.

...how constructive!

By the way, in case you're not aware, it will show you out of form on the Armory, with out of form stats, regardless of how you log out in game. :P

[Embermoon]

Welcome to heroics. It's simply a fact of the damage scaling of the mobs. I could nitpick a few enchant/reforging things, but your biggest issue is your gear. In mostly 346 blues, ZA and ZG are going to tear you a new one. In those zones, you have to fall back on tanking 101 things, like:

- Make sure you reposition so that no mobs are hitting you from behind.
- Use CC heavily
- Know certain special mob abilities, like the flame casters' fireball volley, and their haste buff (that can be stripped after they cast their 1st volley)
- Use interrupts
- Move out of earthquake
- Move out of green stuff/fire

etc., etc.

Your post is a little bit confusing, because you say you take a lot of damage in raids and heroics, especially, but you seem to be able to tank raids, but not heroics. Where exactly are you okay, and where exactly are you having trouble? Please name specific bosses, or if it's just trash.

Also, who is healing you in your raids? Who's healing in the 5 mans? I always had an easier time w/ resto shams and holy pallies healing me, than I did w/ holy priests or resto druids. I can't speak for disc priests, as they don't seem to exist much in PvE anymore.

As for nitpicking your stats, consider reforging all your gear to dodge. If your issue is gear, that will help. I suspect your issues *might* be more along the lines of gear level vs. content, tactics, and the gear level and/or composition of your healers.

[Bigslick]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...tondo/advanced
To the furthest extent of my knowledge i am gearing, reforging, gemming and enchanting for BiS. I take allot of dmg in raids and heroics especially. I seem to be able to tank raids but not Zg heroics because i take so much dmg. What should i be doing differently? anything? any tips tricks or suggestions to my gear/spec to make me more of a mean shield?

I don't remember the JC level at which you can use Chimaera's Eyes, but if you can at your skill, pop 3 delicates in. Throw the agi/haste shoulder inscription on, put the 240 armor kit (BC LW pattern iirc) on your gloves, and get another agi trinket in place of Symbiotic Worm (Fluid Death, reforged to dodge, is amazing).

Also, as bears we have some very short survivability CD's. Use them liberally. At your gear level you should have no issues at all with ZA/ZG, provided you orchestrate some CC in appropriate places.

[Dathadr]

Welcome to heroics. It's simply a fact of the damage scaling of the mobs. I could nitpick a few enchant/reforging things, but your biggest issue is your gear. In mostly 346 blues, ZA and ZG are going to tear you a new one. In those zones, you have to fall back on tanking 101 things, like:

- Make sure you reposition so that no mobs are hitting you from behind.
- Use CC heavily
- Know certain special mob abilities, like the flame casters' fireball volley, and their haste buff (that can be stripped after they cast their 1st volley)
- Use interrupts
- Move out of earthquake
- Move out of green stuff/fire

etc., etc.

Your post is a little bit confusing, because you say you take a lot of damage in raids and heroics, especially, but you seem to be able to tank raids, but not heroics. Where exactly are you okay, and where exactly are you having trouble? Please name specific bosses, or if it's just trash.

Also, who is healing you in your raids? Who's healing in the 5 mans? I always had an easier time w/ resto shams and holy pallies healing me, than I did w/ holy priests or resto druids. I can't speak for disc priests, as they don't seem to exist much in PvE anymore.

As for nitpicking your stats, consider reforging all your gear to dodge. If your issue is gear, that will help. I suspect your issues *might* be more along the lines of gear level vs. content, tactics, and the gear level and/or composition of your healers.

As said above, reforge your worst stat to dodge on all your gear. Other than that, your meta gem should be stam+ 2% armor, and you should enchant your sholders.

ZA/ZG have alot of things you need to cc/kick and not stand in while tanking. Make sure your avoiding excess damage and you should be fine.

[revilfour]

I have trouble in heroics not raids. In Za i had a bitch of a time with Jan'alai <Dragonhawk Avatar>, I just took to much dmg with the adds that came out and we wiped like 5 times before calling it. In heroics i bring along my trusty tree friend who can heal me through it all, or could untill just recently. He allways goes oom after each pull. and for raids i have a druid and Hpally for healz on me. What healz should i choose for heroics? And here is my problem, Blizz nerfed our AoE aggro so they are pushing us away from Off tanks. But at the same time we dont out migitate or really bring anything more to the table than other tanks besides our high dps. I know that high end guilds run a Bear as MT cuz the scaling moves are extreemly strong with high end gear, but why are they nerfing that now? why is the state of bear's so weak atm?

[Stannislaus]

First off, you're missing a shoulder enchant.

Second, you should never put anything other than a 40 agi gem in a red socket.

Third, reforge to dodge always. You're not going to find leather with dodge on it, so every piece should be reforge-able. Prioritize getting pieces of gear with crit/mastery, reforging the crit to dodge. If you pick up a piece with mastery/x or crit/x reforge the x to dodge. If you pick up something with neither crit nor mastery, reforge the haste. If by some miracle you end up with a hit/expertise piece, the choice is yours (probably whichever you have more of).

My druid atm is ilvl 354 with 34% dodge, 31% crit 15.25 mastery.

I was tanking the Z's as soon as I had the required ilvl and, barring a few awful runs, things have been smooth, gear has been plentiful and a lot of stuff has crit/mastery (neck, ring, staff) though with several Jindo kills I have yet to see that staff drop.

Good luck!

[Blizzcon2011]

Yeah as a healer blizzard really needs to buff druid avoidances and such, iv seen a bear tank with over 180hp get killed in 3 globals in stonecore.

[Deleted]

Second, you should never put anything other than a 40 agi gem in a red socket.

Says who...?

[frownface2000]

Yeah as a healer blizzard really needs to buff druid avoidances and such, iv seen a bear tank with over 180hp get killed in 3 globals in stonecore.

^ That coulda been because he was stam stacking, though. some people are still locked in the Wrath mentality of STAM STAM STAM, which just isn't true anymore.

I actually joined a PuG raid the other day, and got on vent to hear some guy saying "as a tank you should NEVER gem for ANYTHING except Stam and Mastery." and I became very sad, because that simply is not true.

Once you have about 165k hp, stacking avoidance or threat (hit/exp cap) is WAY more important than raw stamina. Which of the two you need depends on your content level (hit/exp cap are pretty much necessary for heroic raids).

[Deleted]

(hit/exp cap are pretty much necessary for heroic raids)

Bullshit. Only if ur bad, tbh.

[Deleted]

^ That coulda been because he was stam stacking, though. some people are still locked in the Wrath mentality of STAM STAM STAM, which just isn't true anymore.

I actually joined a PuG raid the other day, and got on vent to hear some guy saying "as a tank you should NEVER gem for ANYTHING except Stam and Mastery." and I became very sad, because that simply is not true.

Once you have about 165k hp, stacking avoidance or threat (hit/exp cap) is WAY more important than raw stamina. Which of the two you need depends on your content level (hit/exp cap are pretty much necessary for heroic raids).

Hit and exp cap is not necessary at all for hc raids, only if you are bad and cant keep agro then it necessary but then you will not be in decent guild to do heroic raids, my druid has 0exp and 4.25% hit with full contenst cleared.

[Merendel]

Once you have about 165k hp, stacking avoidance or threat (hit/exp cap) is WAY more important than raw stamina. Which of the two you need depends on your content level (hit/exp cap are pretty much necessary for heroic raids).

I agree with the avoidance but not the hit/exp cap. The only time hit/exp being uncaped will even be noticed is the first 10s off the pull where you have no vengence and a bad string could be.... messy. If you manage to hold agro for the first 20s or so even with low hit/exp your going to hold threat. Prior to 4.1 I maintained a hitcap set for when I was needed on intterupts, havent used it since. While pulls were smoother with the hit set on even in my survivability set (about 2-3% hit/exp) I have no threat issues at all by the time berserk runs out. The only difference is with the hit set I could afford to not have zerk up on the pull.

[Anoiktos]

In addition to what above posters have said, there are some general things to remember as any tank:

1) Positioning. Always be facing the mobs you're fighting, or you can't dodge. And if you can't dodge, you're taking 20-40% more physical damage.

2) Positioning. Keep enemies where they aren't going to hurt your allies with incidental fire. Juggernauts in Zul'aman? Keep them away from the range so the healer doesn't have to heal accidental earthquakes on even more targets.

3) Control. Your job as the tank is twofold: To minimize damage to your allies, and to minimize damage to yourself. The first job here is an important one that it sometimes lost in the interim; due to the way healing mechanics work nowadays, it is easier for your healer to heal just you than to try to waste inefficient heals on other targets so that they can get back to pinging you with their efficient heals.

4) Control. Share the job of damage mitigation. Encourage your allies to crowd control. If they whine about it, and you're in a heroic, kick them unless they're the healer. If they whine about it, they're the healer, and they're struggling to keep you up, kick them anyway. Crowd control may not be 'fast', but it's almost ALWAYS faster than wiping.

5) Control. Know what to interrupt, when. Remind others to interrupt if they aren't. Know who has what interrupts with what cooldowns. Use something like recount and check the 'interrupts' and 'deaths' categories; DPS and healing meters are usually irrelevant. (Unless your DPS are pulling 3k in heroics on bosses, in which case there's usually something wrong.)

6) Cooldowns. Every tanking class has cooldowns. The trick is to know when to use them. If you have a short cooldown, like barkskin, use it whenever it's convenient. Pulling multiple mobs? Barkskin. Getting low on health? Barkskin. If your barkskin is off cooldown and you're taking interesting amounts of damage, you're wasting your healer's mana. Longer cooldowns are best saved for panic conditions; you've got an extra mob? The crowd control failed? The boss is using an ability? Your healer's OOM? Your healer's standing in the fire? Blow cooldowns.

7) Awareness. This is perhaps the most noticeable difference between a good tank and a bad tank, at equal gear levels. A good tank notices when the healer's under attack. A good tank knows the encounter, and will understand when it's difficult for the healer to heal them. A good tank understands that sometimes stupid DPS stand in fire, and the healer, being less pragmatic than you, will try to heal them instead of letting them die like the chumps they are. Use your abilities appropriately. Faerie fire or taunt the mob attacking the healer. Feral Charge the incoming pat before one of the DPS body pulls (but be careful to turn to face your enemies ASAP so they don't hit you from behind), and be prepared to blow cooldowns. A good tank knows when their healer is low on mana.

8) Debuffs. Keep demoralizing roar up. Always. That's 10% damage you're not taking, and 10% (or more, due to the way healer mana efficiency works nowadays!) mana the healer isn't wasting.

9) Buffs. Keep Pulverize up. That's 9% more crit for you, which means 4.5% more of a chance per hit that your Savage Defense procs, and quite a bit more threat. Keep Mark of the Wild up. Make sure that your warrior or DK use their agi/strength buffs. Make sure your priest or warrior use their stamina buffs. Make sure your paladin uses their might buff. Know what buffs different classes have; they act as power multipliers, creating a nice buffer between you and the grave. If you're having trouble, invest in some agi/stam food - fish up some eels from the pools in Uldum (no, you don't need a high fishing skill to fish from pools, and as a bonus it helps your guild's achievement) and pass them on to a guild cook for 90 extra stam/agi.

10) Cooldowns, Part II: Berserk is an amazing cooldown. For the duration (and the cooldown isn't that long), you're doing 3x15-30k damage per mangle - every global cooldown. This means the mobs die faster, it means your savage defense is almost always up, and it means no one is pulling aggro from you. It also makes you feel like a god.

11) Know the other roles, know the other classes. Play a healer. Play a DPS. Learn what classes have what CC, and what CC applies to what targets. Be bossy, but accept corrections with a smile and always be ready to learn new things. Every role you play teaches you different things about the mobs you fight, and different things about what you wish your tank was doing - which means what you can do to improve as a tank.

12) Be patient. Some people are idiots. Some people just don't know what they can do. Some people are inattentive. Things happen. People die. They get back up again, because this is WarCraft, and not reality. Generally, being patient and understanding goes a long way, but sometimes people are just rude, annoying, and insufferable. If it gets to be too much, apologize to your group, honestly point out what you think is going wrong, preferably without being snide, and leave group. 90% of the time you won't get a debuff, and the other 10% of the time you can go grab a drink and relax for the duration. Don't do this to punish them - frankly, they'll get another tank in a couple of seconds.

13) Try again. You won't always succeed; mechanics in Cataclysm heroics are not like those in WOTLK, the tank (unless he/she's REALLY geared, and even then...) can't carry a terrible group through all the encounters. Healers have to know who and what to heal (dispel the damn lash on the panther boss), DPS have to understand how to interrupt and when not to stand in fire (Especially on venoxis), because you only have one interrupt per 10-60 seconds. (I always talent for 10, but it's preference; I find the ability to interrupt mobs saves me a lot of damage in the long run.) You can't really control these factors, so if you're pounding your head against the brick wall of other people's failings, don't insult them, just quietly and politely state what you think is going wrong and if it doesn't improve, leave the group and find another. Some people can't (or more likely won't) be helped.

The key here is: All of these directly or indirectly affect your survivability. Survivability isn't stats, it's stats + context. Manipulating your context to minimize incoming damage multiplies the work your stats do, and can turn you from a well-geared tank to an amazing tank.

[Pokot]

Use Bear Form.

By far the most useful comment in the thread tbh. You wipe because you're being bad not because of your gear. That includes both the inability to understand the fight mechanics as well as tolerating a bad healer. Step up your game.

[TheGreatandMightyMe]

My druid has pretty good survivability and I have been gearing for near straight Agility. I have reforged to hit cap and 30 expertise (I have terrible luck. 18% of auto attacks missing with 4% hit.) and reforged the rest to mastery. Absolutely nothing is reforged to dodge. Point being there are multiple ways to go about it.

[papey]

if its just the heroic 5's ur having a problem with then i'd go full on agility, they hit for less than raid bosses so stam should not be needed, i'd even go as far as "thinking" about agility - hit in blue sockets, although this might be pushing it a bit. i also like to get extra armor where ever i can

[Deleted]

A lot in here seem to think that stamstacking and hit/exp reforging is baaaaaad.

Well, in his case I would advise him exactly to gem alot of stamina and reforge into hit/expertise.
Why?
It will only take a ~3% dodge loss to get hit/expertise capped if you have some items with those stats on them already. It's a massive threat boost, and much more uptime for Savage Defense.

Staminastacking is bad?
Nah, not really. For heroic raiding and raiding generally, it gets beaten by avoidance. But hey, he is doing mostly heroics and some raiding - And as I am just training random HC's on my druid to gear him up, I chose to staminastack him like hell. Mostly because I looove big healthpools, and secondly because stamina aint bad at all, as you make it sound like.

I might get a lot of miscredit for this, becuse I apparently don't hate staminastacking, which is "omgwtfnoobgetalife" at the current moment, but really, I don't care.

[Arielle]

Staminastacking is bad?
Nah, not really. For heroic raiding and raiding generally, it gets beaten by avoidance. But hey, he is doing mostly heroics and some raiding - And as I am just training random HC's on my druid to gear him up, I chose to staminastack him like hell. Mostly because I looove big healthpools, and secondly because stamina aint bad at all, as you make it sound like.

Stamina is not nearly as effective as Agility for 5mans or normal mode raiding.