Force Of Nature as a Tank choice in 5 mans.

[Bosen]

Hi.

I recently came back to playing my Druid after a long break and I really like all the changes that have been made.

I was told in a 5 man Forge Of Souls that I should never pick Force Of Nature and to always choose Incarnation, no matter what or why.

I told this person that I found the ability useful for my needs and what does it matter while leveling anyway? I thought the whole idea with the new talent system is that there really wasn't a "wrong" choice.

Why did I find it useful? I liked the ability to control agro a bit more/run interference. I like to choose abilities and glyphs that help me control /position mobs easier. I just feel more confident in doing it this way. It had no bad effects on my tanking or group.

Do any of you choose Force Of Nature as a Tank while leveling , 5 mans or later?

[Kaj392]

Never really used it, didn't see the point in them (they kinda have low hp too last time i checked so it was useless in MoP).
With Incarnation you can just spam trash/swipe groups (and taunt on a 1.5s cd if needed) and easily position yourself with this too.

No talent is 'wrong', but there is always the 'better' choice. Run what you enjoy.

[Juano]

Its a fun spell to play in 5man where nothing is important its a low CD it can help you with the trash and stuff

[Bosen]

Its a fun spell to play in 5man where nothing is important its a low CD it can help you with the trash and stuff

Yeah that's exactly what I use them on.

[Deleted]

The trees are alright for 5 mans, but Incarnation is even better. Pull three or four groups of trash, pop Incarnation and spam Thrash + Mangle, the DPS is insane.

[Deleted]

Can be used for soloing if certain mechanics requires you to have a friendly target in a zone.

[Arielle]

For leveling it doesn't really matter.

Once you get to current content they just become completely terrible.

[Deleted]

They do have their uses in all specs. They are few and far between though.
As a cat ms myself I use them in challenge modes as a aoe stun. I expect them to be useful there as guardian as well

[Arielle]

I expect them to be useful there as guardian as well

Not really. They die in 1 hit to anything dangerous. Incarnation is just 10x better.

[Elunedra]

they are verry awsome in 5 mans , they give you a little extra dps, and thier taunt allows you to take like 0 damage for a few seconds as they will tank the boss for you.
they however do not work in raids, wich i find verry sad

however imo blizzard should give them aoe taunts, that will make them usefull in raids a little bit

[Deleted]

Incarnation + Natures Vigil = awesomesauce.

I used the treants while leveling a bit just for lols as it was something new. They're totally not worth it as a guardian.

[Juvencus]

There is no wrong choice for what you are after. It's just that theorycrafting is done on Raid-Boss level and there are idiots who will regurgitate everything they read and don't understand, and apply it anywhere in the game.

[Notamonk]

The only problem with Force of Nature I find is that I gain more then enough rage just though my normal rotation and end up capping rage all the time with it; but as a druid tank rage capping isn't really that bad I guess. But either way, I just never really found it that useful. The whole point of the talent system is to give YOU the ability to pick and choose which talents you want and what talents work best for YOU. Do some testing and see which ones you like! Mine as well give them all a try and see which one you enjoy or find the most useful.

[Arielle]

The only problem with Force of Nature I find is that I gain more then enough rage just though my normal rotation and end up capping rage all the time with it;

I think you meant Incarnation here.

The whole point of the talent system is to give YOU the ability to pick and choose which talents you want and what talents work best for YOU. Do some testing and see which ones you like! Mine as well give them all a try and see which one you enjoy or find the most useful.

Agree here. The only problem is that Incarnation is | | that much better then either FoN or SotF because not only does it give you more Rage (which you shouldn't have a problem spending since it also eliminates the CD on Maul while active), but it also does more DPS than FoN could ever hope to achieve. FoN doesn't scale with your weapon DPS (for some really, really, really stupid reason) whereas Incarnation does.

[Raugnaut]

The only time I found the treants to be useful as a guardian was on the last boss in Scholo. He constantly spams a 120k incinerate, which, especially if the healer got teleported, hits like a truck. The treants, when they taunt, absorbed 2 incinerates each, giving me 10 seconds or so of breathing room in between CDs.

Of course, what sucks is that they have no threat generation beyond the single taunt. You essentially have to stop attacking for them to function as a soak. If you have an awesome dps, they could possibly overtake the trees in threat in the brief time that they are up.

But yea, Treants become useless once you pass the 5 man lvls. Useless in raids, useless in pvp.

---------- Post added 2013-02-08 at 03:34 AM ----------

but as a druid tank rage capping isn't really that bad I guess.

Rage capping is bad, period. In a perfect situation, you will both have maximized survivability, and NEVER have capped rage. Sure, capping rage DOES happen from time to time when you essentially get a melee-mangle crit combo in the same instance, grating you a whooping 40 rage, which will cap you if you are sitting on rage to use SD as soon as it gets off Cd in the next 2 seconds. But, you should ALWAYS try to avoid rage capping if possible.

[Elunedra]

if you rage cap and your not at 100% hp you should do a FR
if your rage capped and at 100% hp do a empowered maul

[exochaft]

I'd have to say that FoN does have a use for tanks in raids, albeit rarely. While my guild was progressing through heroic HoF, I was always assigned to the echo in the last phase as a bear tank. Due to some positioning RNG and occasional bugs, I'd either have to run through extra rings/orbs (generally not desired) to get back to the echo to avoid Song of the Empress, or the echo would cast/pulse Song of the Empress for some unknown reason even if I was smacking him before Attentuation finished. The solution? FoN!

Due to the nature of the echo being fixed and the conditions under which it would cast Song of the Empress, the echo would immediately aggro on anything in close proximity (we've had our fair share of totems and hunter pets die despite our best efforts for immediate aggro). While FoN taunts do not work on the echo, they do act as a target within melee which the echo will attack and prolong him deciding to cast Song of the Empress. As an added bonus, we never had the echo bug out and pulse out the Song with FoN beating on it before Attenuation ends. Obviously can't be used for every Attenuation, but it can be used for every other easily enough. Since I haven't seen the Song bug anymore, it's still a useful tool in case the echo placement + double Attenuation doesn't leave an optimal path to get into melee range.

About any other raid fight I'd consider FoN a possibility, I'm either DPS or find Incarnation a much better choice. I can't remember if I used FoN in challenge modes at all, fairly certain I used it at least once when we didn't have a DK for AotD. Maybe for Shado-Pan and the Sha boss, since FoN can eat the blind. However, despite finding a use for FoN as a Guardian, I really wish they would increase the HP of them to make them more useful (or have them take significantly less damage from NPCs). Sadly, the majority of their use for any spec is for gimmicks.

[Ihnasir]

Never, I only have it in Feral for Viscidus soloing to sell the pet.

I looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove Incarnation.

[Arielle]

I really wish they would increase the HP of them to make them more useful

This is really the core problem. They don't have enough health for their intended function. They need to be able to eat more than 1 hit before falling over.

Plus they don't generate any Rage, and are competing against 2 other talents (despite the fact that SotF is terrible) that do. Give them more HP and make them generate at least SOME Rage and they instantly become cool.

[Karnudge]

For a guardian, incarnation works as our purgatory or second wind, only it's manual. You hit it, possibly also with NV (for the smart heal) and you spam mangle for 30 seconds of amazing rage generation, healing and dodging all the way home.