Bear Tank survivability issues.

[Deleted]

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

I barely take any damage while tanking, which leads me to thinking in stamina instead of more damage reduction. A resto druid can mostly keep me up with lifeblooms and a reju now and then. In my case, as I see it atleast, stamina is more valuable for me than agility, mastery and dodge.

[Soisoisoi]

I barely take any damage while tanking, which leads me to thinking in stamina instead of more damage reduction. A resto druid can mostly keep me up with lifeblooms and a reju now and then. In my case, as I see it atleast, stamina is more valuable for me than agility, mastery and dodge.

So, you need all that stamina for what exactly if you barely take any damage? You could take even less damage and save that bit more on healers mana? ^_^

[Taunar]

Says who?

eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/emeriss/knub/advanced - my dr00d, survivability is great

Right.. What good is that abundance of stamina going to do for you in a raiding enviroment. If your guild's healers aren't mentally disordered, they'll most likely be healing you most of the time. Now, if you stack stamina, you will require more healing. Where's the logic in stacking more stamina, when you can live just as well from stacking agility, and take less damage; less of a strain on your healers. Only on HNefarian, Sinestra and Chimaeron would stamina stacking be superior, and even then, just equipping some spare stamina trinkets would be more than sufficient.

If you're going to come with the arguement "Sejta is stacking stamina, and he's in Paragon, so it has to be right", then I'm sorry to burst your bubble. Sejta is a special snowflake playing with 24 other special snowflakes. I believe it is because they were facing the hardest encounters in the game, with no good gear. And because they didnt know what to expect, he probably just decked up for every possible scenario, by stacking stamina. He has been stacking stamina since WOTStaminaKing and has never looked back, that's just the way it is. The reason he can do this and have such great success, is because he has nearly perfect healers. This doesn't mean you, the average player, can or should do the same.

Thing is, you have to experimentate and figure out what works best for your guild. I've yet to see convincing arguements and numbers that prove stamina is superior to agility. Although it is fairly obvious that on encounters with frequent burst it is superior in terms of survival. (Sinestra, Chimaeron, Nefarian)

I'm very confident that gemming 40 agi in red spots, 30stam/20agi in blue spots, and 20agi/20dodge in yellow spots, and keeping situational trinkets at bay, for encounters where they will be neccesary, is the key to success.

[Mustakrakish]

Bullshit. Only if ur bad, tbh.

So much this. If you have so much trouble with threat that its dependant on your hit and exp just ... no ...

[Richmond]

Your gemming is OK
Enchanting - Only thing i'd change would be +50 Dodge to bracers instead of Stamina and your leg enchant is laughable - Please get the LW Agility and Stamina enchant and we'll pretend this never happened
Reforging - Reforge the haste on your relic to Dodge instead of Mastery, Reforge the haste on your new ring to dodge

Gear wise i'd say you've got too many pieces without mastery on them, i know you may be unlucky with drop rates but there is a piece out there for every slot now with mastery on it... You have 6 pieces out of 16 that don't have mastery (Head, Neck, Shoulders, Chest, Hands and Boots) The boots are a total waste of money and / or gold if you plan on tanking with them, the ones that fall from the last boss in HC deadmines are alot better than those.

Once you get those pieces sorted out you can almost get to that magic 20 mastery number which is what you want to be aiming for.

Spec - I'd personally spec out of Feral Aggression and Stampede and max out King of the Jungle, its great for AOE snap threat and Stampede is useless in all honesty, Feral Aggression is good but only in a raid environment really, HC mobs died too quickly to make it worth while.

Glpyhs - Glyph of barkskin? /facepalm. Please change that out for Frenzied Regen, its a mandatory glyph for tanking.

In regards to taking too much damage in HCs and Raids, its hard to say without actually seeing some Parse. I'd just recommend keeping Demo Roar up, using Barkskin wisely and often, dont be afraid to use Frenzied Regen (glyphed ofc) or survival instincts when the sh*t hits the fan because they are on such short CD's that you'll have at least 1 of them ready for the next pack or boss...

I heal and tank HC's and raids on a daily basis and i can tell you that a well played druid (even undergeared) will take alot less damage than a warrior or DK. And when i do tank my guild healers always say that i'm much easier to keep up. Paladins on the other hand are too good at the moment, very easy to keep up.

[Bigslick]

Glyph of barkskin? /facepalm. Please change that out for Frenzied Regen, its a mandatory glyph for tanking.

Yeah, glyph of barkskin isn't really doing anything when you're crit-immune via Thick Hide.

But while I agee that glyph of FR is essential for tanking raids, given that the OP is expressing difficulties in the troll heroics I'd recommend it not be glyphed there, instead choosing perhaps glyph of rebirth. 10% more healing taken from a single healer who is also responsible for healing 4 others just isn't that valuable a cooldown when compared to the amount of healing FR provideds unglyphed (especially when factoring in the Luck of the Draw buff), though it's important to be aware of the temporary rage starvation that may result.

[Deleted]

Yuo can also use your 3 chimera eye's to get a boost, 1 101 stam gem and 2 67 agil gems are a nice boost over 3 20agil-30stam gems and i'd put the stam chimera's eye in the helm (30agilo socket bonus is not to be sniffed at).

I'd also reforge into extra dodge and i always reforge haste and mastery first, then crit. once those 3 are reforged then expertise is my 4th option before hit, (yeah i still like hit as its a dps increase which increases threat).

[Embermoon]

You want to reforge haste crit before ever reforging mastery, Snakecatcher.

@ the OP - ignore anyone telling you to stack stamina. I don't have the math on me, but if you read theincbear.com, he has math showing that Agi outperforms Stam for bear avoidance. Also, he has math showing how you want to reforge all available stats to dodge (starting with haste, then hit, then expertise, then crit, and then mastery ONLY if mastery is the only available secondary stat).

Get your socket bonuses if they're at least 20 of Agi/Mastery/Stam. If they're just 10 of something, put a 40 Agi gem in the socket. Otherwise, use Agi/Stam or Agi/Dodge gems.

Back on the healers note - resto druids are the least-equipped to heal bear tanks, in my experience. I'm not saying they can't; but they don't have the tools to mitigate a ton of incoming damage on you. Also, you shouldn't have too much trouble grabbing mob packs if you do two things - one, tell the party to wait for you to get aggro. If they don't, kick them or drop group and get another group. Two - berserk is your friend. When you pop berserk, you mangle 3 targets at once, every GCD. It does a shitton of threat. On bigger packs, you can simply tab-target and triple-mangle. For every other mob pack that you don't have berserk available, Be sure you're tab-targeting and using swipe, thrash, and maul as heavily as you can. Discourage too much AoE on the mob packs and mark your first target for the dps to kill.

On Jan'Alai, if you're geared and specced right (stats; not ilvl), then you shouldn't have a problem. The biggest mistake I see so many tanks making on Jan'Alai, is they don't move when he does flame breath. It puts the line of fire on the ground, and melee dps will either stand in it, taking damage, or they have to move away and not dps the boss. Guess what? It also damages you. So, every flame breath, move the boss. For the dragonhawks, save your thrash and swipe for when they're coming out. If they make a beeline for anyone besides you, it'll be the healer. If you've been mangling/lacerating/pulverizing Jan'Alai up to this point, you'll have plenty of threat on him so that you can BACK UP to the healer's spot, and thrash/swipe. The other huge source of damage is the fireballs. Don't stand on one. Once you have a pack of dragonhawks, remember to pop demoralizing roar and barkskin. You should have an easy time on that fight if you do all of those things. That fight is about positioning and controlling the hatchers.

[Bigslick]

I'd also reforge into extra dodge and i always reforge haste and mastery first, then crit. once those 3 are reforged then expertise is my 4th option before hit, (yeah i still like hit as its a dps increase which increases threat).

Are you aware that you just recommended ranking stats in the following order for bear tanking in a thread that expressed concerns over survivability?

Dodge > Hit > Expertise > Crit > Mastery = Haste

So survivability > threat > survivability? Taking our most valuable survivability stat given to us on gear and reforging away from it as quickly as from our least valuable stat in every respect is just...

(and off-topic on your desire to increase dps/threat, you'd still want to put expertise to soft cap > hit = expertise to hard cap).

[rated]

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.

This is not a theorycrafting game. It's mathematically proven that as a stam stacker you'll be taking more damage and being more of a mana sponge than being a tank who tries to mitigate the most damage possible.

As a tank that should be one of your biggest concerns, but I guess like your last sentance said, you dont care.

[Deleted]

So i shouldnt be reforging into dodge from haste and mastery over other stats? Think the bear sticky needs changing in that case.

Also i always thought dodge was a survivability stat because if you dodge you dont get hit, unless i need more spirit a a bear instead......

[Bigslick]

I'd also reforge into extra dodge and i always reforge haste and mastery first, then crit. once those 3 are reforged then expertise is my 4th option before hit, (yeah i still like hit as its a dps increase which increases threat).

So i shouldnt be reforging into dodge from haste and mastery over other stats? Think the bear sticky needs changing in that case.

Haste yes, mastery no. Mastery is your best secondary stat native to agi gear (second only to dodge, which is only found on non-optimal strength gear) and should never be reforged away from unless it is the only secondary stat present (typically only the case with issues such as the TB trinket).

Provided threat is not an issue (and it shouldn't be), stats as they should generally be reforged away from (reforging into mastery) are: haste first, hit 2nd, expertise 3rd, crit 4th, and mastery last if there is no other option. I haven't checked the bear sticky top post in a while, but would be very surprised if it's deviated from that recommendation as bear changes to date haven't implemented anything that would change that priority.

Edit: Just gave the top post there a quick perusal and while there are still some outdated bits of information, the priority is still pretty much in order with what I listed above.

[Shaun]

use all your JC special gems it helps abit

[Auroro]

So i shouldnt be reforging into dodge from haste and mastery over other stats? Think the bear sticky needs changing in that case.

Also i always thought dodge was a survivability stat because if you dodge you dont get hit, unless i need more spirit a a bear instead......

I would said you need to reread it.

The Reforge priority is as follows, from least wanted to most wanted:

Haste (Least wanted)
Hit / Expertise (if beyond soft cap)
Crit >= Expertise (if below soft cap)
Mastery (Only reforge away from Mastery if it is the only secondary available.) (most wanted)

Haste-> Hit/Expertise -> Crit -> Mastery

Reforge all the Haste to Dodge, no matter what. I am still waiting for Blizzard answer on how to make haste "better".

If no Haste on the gear, then reforge Hit or Expertise to Dodge.

If the gear has only Crit and Mastery, then reforge the Crit.

There are one or two gear that just have Mastery, you can reforge it to dodge if you like.

THe reason why we reforge to dodge is because Agility does not give alot of dodge %, Dodge rating give more. Every leather in Cata does not give dodge. Also 4.2 will make Str useless so we have to do a lot of reforging.

[Cheezee]

Enchanting - Only thing i'd change would be +50 Dodge to bracers instead of Stamina

50 Agility, not dodge.

THe reason why we reforge to dodge is because Agility does not give alot of dodge %, Dodge rating give more. Every leather in Cata does not give dodge. Also 4.2 will make Str useless so we have to do a lot of reforging.

No, the reason you chose dodge is because you cannot reforge to agility.

[exochaft]

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.

Would've quoted the entire post, but I didn't want to create a wall of text. =D

If the person is appropriately geared (aka, using leather agi items and agi accesories and/or tank items useful for bears), I contend that you could not reforge or socket or enchant, and the bear would be fine. Blizz designed the gear for Cataclysm to be standardized to the point that the base raw stats on items would be enough... that being said, the majority of surviving content comes down to the player behind the bear and how they do things. It's like the classic "hey, look at this pug in full epics doing a horrible job at healing/tanking/DPS"... obviously the gear doesn't have the sole or major control, it's the player.

[tyggyr]

On Jan'Alai ... Once you have a pack of dragonhawks, remember to pop demoralizing roar and barkskin

Overall good advice here.
I'd like to note though that the dragonhawks primarily do fire damage which Demo Roar won't help at all for.

OP: Make certain that dps kill one hatcher, and one hatcher only, on the first spawn of the hatchers. Position Jan'alai near the entrance to the platform where you'll be getting hatchers, but don't have him actually in line with the platform opening, in case he blasts fire down the path. As the dragonhawks come out, swipe-thrash-swipe for aggro. If the birds are all over the place, use challenging roar once they're all out.

Things that will cause major problems on this fight: 1) if you touch the fire walls, consider yourself dead unless you're great with your cooldowns and your healer's amazing. 2) dps kill both hatchers, both times, and you push Jan'alai to 35% without any dragonhawks yet - he does a soft enrage here and hatches all birds, so you get tons of damage.

If you absolutely have to, jump over the fire line (not a fire wall) to get to your healer who's got dragonhawks on him; it's better than him getting killed.

[Embermoon]

Would've quoted the entire post, but I didn't want to create a wall of text. =D

If the person is appropriately geared (aka, using leather agi items and agi accesories and/or tank items useful for bears), I contend that you could not reforge or socket or enchant, and the bear would be fine. Blizz designed the gear for Cataclysm to be standardized to the point that the base raw stats on items would be enough... that being said, the majority of surviving content comes down to the player behind the bear and how they do things. It's like the classic "hey, look at this pug in full epics doing a horrible job at healing/tanking/DPS"... obviously the gear doesn't have the sole or major control, it's the player.

You would be fine, up to a point. I've run it both ways, Your way, when I thought my SD shield was proccing for 20k-30k damage absorbs, and the reforge dodge way, after it was pointed out to me that my shield is only ~12k. I was fine on any ZA/ZG run, and the extra expertise helped kill things faster, and seemed to be fine on the 10 man bosses I did. What I can't accruately gauge is what the healers' mana consumption was when I didn't reforge to dodge.

So, now I'm reforged to dodge (a.k.a. the supposed "right" way). I've noticed an increased survivability on large instance trash packs, even at the cost of reduced damage. Hey, tanks aren't supposed to top dps charts, right?

Even on raid bosses, I've noticed a slight improvement (it's approx. a 4% dodge increase for me). So yeah, gear can mitigate much of the content, but I'd be willing to bet that we'd see the most noticeable differences on bosses like cho'gall and nef, where they hit like Mack trucks. I can't speak for heroic mode bosses, as I haven't tanked any.

[JaymzBond]

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.

i always end up getting kicked when i try to warn or ask them about cc

[alucardtnuoc]

bear stats are simple

Agi > Dodge > mastery > crit

Ignore other stats and drop as much of them as you can.