Long Time Moonkin looking for advice on WotLK Feral

[Meiunchikin]

So with WotLK coming out sometime in the near future (3-9 months imo) I've decided that I'm looking for a change.

I'm taking my Moonkin Feral for WotLK. And would love some CONSTRUCTIVE advice. None of this "OMG L2Mangle" crap I see constantly on some of the threads like this. I'm not some scrub player who just bought my first toon on E-Bay. It's just been almost 3 years since I played Feral, and with almost 300 days played on my Druid that's alot of time for me to forget.

So anyway. Here's my propossed spec: http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

What I'm going for is kinda all around DPS/ Tank spec. Any revisions/ advice on attack rotations would be helpful.

~Meiun

New link:

[Anielin]

Feral? you got a healing dpec linked there...

Anyway ill post my 70 feral spec(for wotlk) and my 80 in a sec

[Anielin]

ok lvl 70 WotLK Talents...http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000


and lvl 80.....http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

Q&A till 230, them im off work

[Meiunchikin]

Hmmm... Messed up the link somehow.

Sorry about that

[Submission821]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

There it is, this is PVP Feral. Getting 1 point into Infected wounds is rediculous, No Natural Shapeshifter means you go OOM in a grand total of 2 shapeshifts.

[Anielin]

What I'm going for is kinda all around DPS/ Tank spec. 

=Pve

There it is, this is PVP Feral. Getting 1 point into Infected wounds is rediculous, No Natural Shapeshifter means you go OOM in a grand total of 2 shapeshifts.

my spec is for PvE and yes 1 pnt infected is not good for PvP but for PvE it will do just fine.   

on a side note, master shapshifter is great for saving mana in Pvp but it is not vital....I powershift all the time with my current pve spec and have no problems....http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...illa&n=Anielin


(out of work now, will check in in an hour or so)

[druidiful]

If you are just talking about pve a spec like this http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZxhGsfrzVhoAkAo0Eczb will give you almost all of the tanking talents and most of the dps talents.
http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZxhGsfrzVhoAzGZ0E0z will most likely be my spec at first at 70.

[Neruat]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

this is my leveling spec from the beginning i start to lvl, thick hide is useless when levling, by then Brutal Impact is far better, together with a Pounce, Shred, Mangle combo. I also chose Shredding attacks just for that starting combo on mobs, it works really nice.
Imp LotP is nice since it means you wont have to go out to caster form and heal as much.
at lvl 71 you will need to pick up omen of clarity, then spend the rest of the points in both the resto tree and feral tree as you go=)

[coredumperror]

There is a ton of great discussion on ferals in WotLK on the EJ thread, here: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t26297-d...ew_discussion/

As for my suggested PvE spec, it's actually pretty much impossible to get all the talents you'd want to both tank and DPS at maximum effectiveness. I'm hoping that the trees get tweaked a bit before live, because the feral tree is downright bloated with excellent talents. Since Blizz is obviously trying to push ferals into a "tank and DPS with the same gear, and sometimes in the same fight" role, I don't see why they're making the best new tanking talents mutually exclusive to the best new DPS talents. Anyway, here's my suggested spec, based on my nearly 2 years of feral experience: http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

The new talents Primal Precision, Master Shapeshifter, and Improved Mangle and are essential for tanking, since there's no evidence that we got the built-in threat talent like warrior did. Their +15% talent got rolled into Defensive Stance and changed to 15% crit on some skills; our's got changed to 15% swipe damage, but we didn't apparently get the 15% threat bonus rolled into Dire Bear Form. So, we need the DPS boost from all those talents to stay competitive on threat. I'd spec out of the 15% swipe talent, except that there's nothing else worth having at the top of the feral tree for PvE unless Ferocious Bite becomes competitive with Rip (right now it's a complete joke compared to Rip since it doesn't scale). I give up a small amount of Cat DPS (Savage Fury) for this, but you Mangle so rarely while DPSing a boss (once every 13 seconds) that it's a small loss for what you gain.

Rend and Tear is another DPS booster for tanking, giving us much needed threat, and the 10% boost to Shred (and possibly the 50% crit chance bonus to FB) is going to be outstanding for DPS, so I included it. I'd love to see Natural Shapeshifter unlinked from Master Shapeshifter, since it's an excellent taking talent, but NS is worthless to a tank. It's excellent for kitties though, since you should be powershifting as often as possible (read up on the Feral Druid Megathread at EJ if you don't know about powershifting).

I'd really, really love to have King of the Jungle in this build, since it would give a bunch of needed energy generation, but I just can't fit it in. The points that Druidful put into it were taked from Improved Leader of the PAck, which I think would be a poor choice to spoec out of. Blizzard has shown that massive raid damage is the new big thing, and letting your group heal themselves from physical crits is not a small bonus, whether you're tanking or DPSing. And don't forget that you'll likely be sitting at 30-35k HP in lvl 80 epics, meaning that a 4% self heal every ~6 seconds is going to help smooth out the damage on you immensely.

I put points into Infected Wounds because with the most recent change in the beta (not reflected on mmo-champ's talent calc yet), it only stacks to 20%, meaning it'll likely work on bosses. This will be essential in 5- and 10-mans, since you can't guarantee that there will be a warrior to slow the bosses' attacks down for you with tclap. The second point could go into King of the Jungle or Savage Fury, I guess, but I'd rather not risk Infected Wounds falling off due to bad RNG with only a 33% chance to apply.

As for a lvling spec, I agree with Neruat's suggestion, but I think you should work in Primal Precision as early as possible. Reduced parry and dodge on mobs that you're attacking from the front (which you will be doing for at least half the time per mob, even with Pounce -> Mangle -> Shred combos), will make a huge difference in your kill speed. Getting that big 5-pt Ferocious Bite parried and losing all your energy is not fun. Also, Feral Instinct is not useful for lvling, since you shouldn't need to worry about mobs seeing through your stealth, and you won't be swiping much. I'd put those points into Feral Aggression for bigger FBs. Also be sure to Rake at some point (after the mob stops being stunned, and you can't Shred any more, for instance), so that the mob is bleeding for the 50% crit chance bonus on FB from Rend and Tear.

[Meiunchikin]

So as it is now I'm seeing alot of the same 55/16 builds. Differences being in the Cat vs. Bear talents, and wether I wanna do more Tanking, or more DPS oriented stuffs. This correct?

The last thing is I'm seeing alot of mention to the Pounce, Shred, Mangle combo. Is this the normal Cat rotation? Like I said. It's been almost 3 years since I've even thought about Feral. The most I've done in that time frame is use Cat to lessen fall damage, and stealth around some mobs that I REALLY didn't wanna kill. So I'm a realativly smart nOOb when it comes to Feral. I know what you're talking about, but I don't fully understand why.

Thanks for everyone's input so far!

PS: Submission... I managed to put together a full s3 Balance gear set for the one weekend a month I farm Honor in AV. I hate Arena, and I hate PvP. I'm looking for straight PvE Spec's. My fun from this game comes from 25 (god I miss 40 mans) people banding together to kill something for the first time. So hate to burst the PvP bubble here, but posting PvP spec's will get about as much attention as a 20 year old at a Micheal Jackson party.

[druidiful]

Yes almost everyone so far is using the 55/16 builds because master shapeshifter so far looks like it is going to be necessary to have and we still need all the points we can get in the feral tree because of all the good talents in it.

The combo that you are talking about is pounce, mangle, shred and that is mainly used when you are out solo. If you are doing raid dps, its mainly keeping mangle up on the target and then shredding until 4-5 cp and ripping.

Coredumperror: Yes I did move the points from iLotp into kotj because even though I love ilotp I spend most of my time in cat form in raids and a free 120 energy every minute is just too much to pass up.

[Meiunchikin]

So Raid DPS is Mangle, Shred, Rip.

What about those few instances that I feel like Tanking? I'm sure with WotLK some of the rotation will be bumped for other things, but what about during the 70-80 grind? What's the highest TPS rotation?

[druidiful]

So Raid DPS is Mangle, Shred, Rip.

What about those few instances that I feel like Tanking? I'm sure with WotLK some of the rotation will be bumped for other things, but what about during the 70-80 grind? What's the highest TPS rotation?

Mangle whenever it is up and either spam swipe or lacerate in between depending on which pulls ahead in threat. And if you have plenty of rage (over 50 generally) replace your white hits with maul.

[Wildhearted]

I myself played feral for a loong time, and this is what i came up with:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000


i saw some ppl puting 2 points in savage fury, totally useless since only a noob uses mangle alot, normally you only use it once per mob in pve and twice/3 times in pvp

2/2 in nurturing instinct is also highly needed in solo pve and pvp, as well as predatory instincts, survival of the fittest is to waste points, imo there are many Alot better talents to spend them in

[Lysiander]

on a side note, master shapshifter is great for saving mana in Pvp but it is not vital....I powershift all the time with my current pve spec and have no problems....http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...illa&n=Anielin

I don't know, but when I tank non boss mobs, which you will be doing a lot as a druid tank, seeing as there is always trash to clear, I want to have as many infected would stacks up as possible to make my healer's job easier, simply because the less they have to heal you, the less healers you can take overall and/or add more DPS. (With the rumored on the fly talent specs, having priests switch between Shadow and Holy might make a lot of difference in clearing times.)
Having many stacks up will also help with enraging since it slows the overall damage input and again, makes it easier on the healer while you dish out more DPS and TPS.

Only a 33% chance will guarantee you maybe one or two stacks, which in my opinion is just not enough.

That is the build I'm most likely to go for, but it does have some flaws. It basically has one point to play with, which i put in ILotP simply because it helps in those long fights when healing for other meeles is scarce.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

Not having improved Mangle sucks, but the improvement isn't great enough to justify the loss of other abilties in my opinion. Same goes for Nurturing Instincts and Primal Precision.

I don't believe in primal tenacity and since it only reduces stun damage now and not chance to be stunned, it became useless in PvE IMO. (You're not likely to rely on 15% of a druid talent for fears. In Raids you will have Fear Wards, Totems or simply a Warrior tank stance dancing.)

I sure hope they reduce the bloat somewhat. As it stands now, we have zero room for having different specs and every feral will look exactly the same once the exact numbers are in.

[Seraphk]

Here's my propossed spec: http://www.mmo-champion.com/talent/?...00000000000000

What I'm going for is kinda all around DPS/ Tank spec. Any revisions/ advice on attack rotations would be helpful.

~Meiun

Quite a few awesome Druids on here helping you out, however, like someone previously mentioned many are using personal preference and bias choosing certain talents that may be better off for PvP rather than PvE. If I personally look at what you posted for your Level 70 spec and assume that you want a balanced DPS/Tank PvE spec -- I get an idea of what you're looking for.

However, the real thing you have to decide before any leveling spec is what talents are required, what talents are scalable, and what talents will make it faster. So, when I look at your spec for Level 70 there are a few things:
1) Improved LoTP - is 4% of your total health every time you crit. In Kitty form, this is a lot of health and makes it where you pretty much never have to shift out to heal yourself unless you decide to get into a fight with 4+ mobs. In Bear form, this serves as even more HP healed and makes it a lot easier on your healer. Not to mention, if you want to solo group quests, you're going to want Bear Form with Improved LoTP to make it easier. Thus, I consider it a highly scalable talent which makes leveling much easier & faster.

2) Thick Hide/Survival of the Fittest - both of these talents are tanking talents. However, think about how BC was 60 - 70. A Fury Warrior could tank instances up to Level 68. A Ret Pally could do the same as well. Normal instances should not be all that hard -- You'll have higher physical mitigation/HP than most other tanks while leveling up as it is. To max out these tanking talents and sacrifice points when there are utility/DPS talents available is not the best of ideas as utility helps you greatly & you will be spending more of your time DPS than tanking while leveling. Survival of the Fittest should be considered of higher value though simply because it does increase your stats and prevents you from being crit (which can be trouble burst damage for healers to heal through).

Now, considering these two things and looking at your spec. I'd suggest that you go with something more like this: Level 70 Spec -- In this spec I took a point out of Thick Hide and two points out of Survival of the Fittest go get you Improved LoTP & one point into Infected Wounds since this ability will definitely help you out on mitigation while tanking and the amount of damage you take while grinding mobs. It's attack speed slow should cap at 20% on NPCs though. But, Infected Wounds basically gives you more damage mitigation just by slowing down attack speed than Thick Hide, so the point switch is worth it. Do not worry that it is only 33%. Like someone said earlier, if your Rage is above 40 - 50 start spamming using Maul. Between Mangle and Maul, you'll get the 2 stacks to cap out the 20% attack speed reduction on mobs.

My advice, as soon as you hit 71 get Omen of Clarity as nothing will help you out more than this ability. Heck, Omen of Clarity now works with spells, you may come out to heal yourself and find that you get an Omen of Clarity proc so that you can go back into Kitty Form and get two Mangles right off as if you didn't miss the 3 seconds it took to throw Rejuv & Lifebloom on yourself. After Omen of Clarity, it's back solely to the Feral tree for a bit. Get King of the Jungle ASAP as, you will be using Tiger's Fury every 30 sec while DPSing and a 60 energy restore is no joke. 15% extra damage while Enraged in Bear will help out tons with initial aggro on mob pulls in instances and will also help you get Elites down faster while trying to solo group quests. Next, put two points into Survival of the Fittest and for your last points just go back over to Resto for Natural Shapeshifter up to 69. At 70, you will have completed leveling and will have to then go from a leveling spec to your Level 80 dungeon/raid spec.


Level 80 things get harder. You stop considering what makes things faster and more convenient and start considering other classes abilities, what your role will likely be, and what you have to sacrifice for the good of your group/raid.

That said, I can give you my Level 80 spec, but these are considerations that may change once I get to Level 80 & see scalability/itemization:
Infected Wounds - Unless the only tank in a dungeon or clearing trash, this talent should be viewed more as a PvP than it is for PvE talent. Thus, it's a regretable sacrifice as the additional mitigation from the talent in five mans will surely be missed. In raids though, it will not likely stack with Thunderclap and the snare definitely won't work on bosses. Thus, it is useless in a raid environment. Warriors get Thunderclap for free, no use in spending talent points to get something with the exact same benefit since the reduction is capped.

Thick Hide - I keep this at 2/3 and lose 3% armor in order to get more utility abilities. Typically, Druids hit the armor cap easily. You could get armor capped in Tier 4 almost. The desire for me to get it to 2/3 is so that I can get the 5 required points to move on to Tier 3 talents and so that I will still have decent armor until I have reached the cap in the game. I can't wait until I can take these 2 points out and put them into Feral Aggression.

Primal Precision - 10 expertise is awesome, but the real greatness of this ability comes with the 80% energy refund if your finisher fails. I, however, rarely miss my finishers while hit capped. Thus, I consider this talent too conditional and something that is wanted by people trying to completely safeguard their DPS potential. I'd personally rather put the two talent points into something else.

Natural/Master Shapeshifter - Based on mathematical data on Elistist Jerks and having played a Druid pre-BC & seeing how the mana cost of shifting increased so much. I can tell that you that if you plan on powershifting to increase your DPS and plan on having to come out to Tranqulity, Battle Rez, or Innervate... You will NEED Natural Shapeshifter. As for Master Shapeshifter, if our aggro has not been innately dumped into our Bear Form, then Master Shapeshifter's 4% additional damage in Bear Form will definitely be required to remain competitive in threat. The 4% crit in Kitty Form is nice, but definitely not required. Thus, if I find that our threat has been put into our Bear Form, I will most likely say forget Master Shapeshifter. Perhaps if they combined it where Bear andCat got 2% physical damage & 2% crit, it would be worth two points to me, but I'd rather go back over into the Feral tree and get Infected Wounds for more utility.

That said, here is my current: Level 80 Spec. If I find that our threat is innately rolled into Bear Form and it's abilities, I will then drop Master Shapeshifter for Infected Wounds. Mostly because it is overall additional mitigation and hard to pass up.


Finally, you asked about rotations, they're fairly simplistic:

Bear Tanking Single Target - Mangle, Lacerate to 5 stacks ASAP, Maul if Rage is above 40. Make sure Faerie Fire and Demorailizing Roar are always up. After you have 5 stacks of Lacerate, switch to using Swipe + Maul and Mangling every time the CD is up. Swipe should give you more threat than additional Lacerates, you just want the 5 Lacerate stacks to keep building additional threat.

Bear Tanking Multiple Targets - Mangle, Lacerate, Swipe spam. Maul if Rage is above 40. Make sure FF/DR are always up. Here you do not worry about 5 Lacerate stacks, you begin using Lacerate as an off-target threat generator. Everytime you Mangle, you will tab to a target and Lacerate then continue your Maul/Swipe spam on the primary target waiting for Mangle to be up again then switching to the other target you did not Lacerate and hitting them. This will ensure that your healers do not pull aggro. DPS on the other hand that have AoE abilities -- It can sometimes get tricky so be ready to use Taunt if you have to.

Kitty DPS - In the past, Kitty DPS has always been relatively simple. Pounce is always your opener. Then DPS rotation is -- Mangle for debuff, Shred to 5 combo points, and Rip. However, this is changing in WoTLK. With the new Savage Roar ability increasing our AP by 25% for 21 seconds at 5 combo points, we will operate more like Rogues with Slice N Dice. Also, Tiger's Fury costing no energy with a 30 sec CD and actually granting us 60 energy when we use it is another consideration. Based on theorycraft, the new optimal DPS rotation will be. Mangle for debuff, Shred to 5 CP, Savage Roar, continue to Shred until right before the Mangle debuff wears off, Tiger's Fury to restore energy, Mangle, Shred to 5 CP, Rip. Rinse & repeat. This combined with smart powershifting should be around optimal DPS for bosses/raid encounters. The only thing that you could possibly change would be using Tiger's Fury after the first Shred when opening so that you can use Tiger's Fury more in which a net increase of energy will always result in a net increase in DPS, which is the ideology behind powershifting. But, I'd rather be able to maximize the benefits I get from having my Mangle debuff up for my Shred and using Shred for more DPS, then popping Tiger's Fury allowing me to instantly get the debuff back up and continue with my Shredding. Of course, with a 30 sec CD, I won't be able to do this every time, but the times when I am allowed to do it, I will be able to maximize the number of times I Shred before having to refresh my Mangle debuff.


Hope that helps. And, other than that, welcome to the Feral Druid. Playing one back at 60 doing nothing but PvPing on it, and playing it into BC PvE more than PvPing. I can say it has always been the most fun and diverse of the Druid specs, but... At first Blizzard didn't have them very viable for PvE or PvP at 60, and at 70 they made them viable for PvE yet PvP was still not right. In WoTLK, with Maim becoming like Kidney Shot, this snare/attack speed reduction, Berserk, and Feral Charge (Cat)... I'm hoping they're finally viable for PvP. Sad thing is, compared to other tanks at the moment, the Druid got little in comparison for tanking. Hopefully they don't break us in PvE while we're viable in PvP & we have to wait another expansion hoping they get around to where we're viable in both PvE/PvP. :-X **Thinking of such things should not be spoken of**

[Lysiander]

2) Thick Hide/Survival of the Fittest - both of these talents are tanking talents. However, think about how BC was 60 - 70. A Fury Warrior could tank instances up to Level 68. A Ret Pally could do the same as well. Normal instances should not be all that hard -- You'll have higher physical mitigation/HP than most other tanks while leveling up as it is. To max out these tanking talents and sacrifice points when there are utility/DPS talents available is not the best of ideas as utility helps you greatly & you will be spending more of your time DPS than tanking while leveling. Survival of the Fittest should be considered of higher value though simply because it does increase your stats and prevents you from being crit (which can be trouble burst damage for healers to heal through).

Uhm, no sorry. No ability at no time justifies to loose Survival of the Fittest. 6% to all attributes is basically a half BoK, always there. However this is minor. 6% less chance to be critted is your crit immunity right there, with nothing else to worry about. When all other tanks will loose their crit immunity simply because rating conversions change with levels and new items will, most likely not be available that quickly, every druid tank with this talent will remain uncritable. That alone will makes us desireable in groups and make our jobs a whole lot easier.

Never loose survival of the fittest. It's basically the talent that "allows" you to call yourself tank. Even if instances are going to be easier, crits will always be a huge problem for tanks that aren't uncrittable.

[druidiful]

I agree that you should never give up having sotf in that it is a great tool to be able to tank pretty much anything while leveling up in ok tank gear or regular dps gear since you dont have to worry about getting crit.

I also think that we will still need to take 3/3 thick hide based on the way that blizzard has been acting and making us use more and more rogue gear which doesn't have the extra armor on it that we are used to in TBC.

In regards to Primal Precision I believe that this talent is worth it just for the expertise since it means that while you are dpsing the mob will dodge you less and while you are tanking the mob is less likely to dodge and to parry, which resets the swing timer so you have less of a chance of being burst down. It is also pretty cheap if you look at it since rogues also have a talent for 10 expertise, but its a tier six talent and doesn't include the little bonus for finishers, which they have on a tier five talent in a completely different tree.

[Seraphk]

Uhm, no sorry. No ability at no time justifies to loose Survival of the Fittest. 6% to all attributes is basically a half BoK, always there. However this is minor. 6% less chance to be critted is your crit immunity right there, with nothing else to worry about. When all other tanks will loose their crit immunity simply because rating conversions change with levels and new items will, most likely not be available that quickly, every druid tank with this talent will remain uncritable. That alone will makes us desireable in groups and make our jobs a whole lot easier.

Never loose survival of the fittest. It's basically the talent that "allows" you to call yourself tank. Even if instances are going to be easier, crits will always be a huge problem for tanks that aren't uncrittable.

The level of mobs is going up and so is the % required to be uncrittable. Survival of the Fittest is scaled appropriately for it.

But, I leveled two Feral Druids to 70, my NE was purely pugs but I had Ret Paladins in Tier 2 healing me in SP on four Bogstrok pulls without breaking a sweat. Furthermore, when I leveled my BE Paladin to 70 I had a Fury Warrior tank Mana Tombs in quest greens while I healed him. I distinctly remember this because the group thought we couldn't do it. Which, we wiped but it was not due to the tank dying first. Of course, he took crits but the damage was manageable, so either I'm just that awesome at healing or I'm right & the damage output in non-Heroic dungeons is a joke. Name a dungeon 60 - 68 that wasn't a complete joke, seriously. I mean, if you did not even have to be specced Prot as a Warrior or Paladin to tank, you definitely do not need to be uncrittable. It will likely be the same with WoTLK from what I've seen in beta dungeon videos. More so the fact that most people will be leveling in their T6 equivalent gear that will last them well into 76 before considering something an upgrade and even then you could get to 80 with it.

Additional considerations:
- Due to people initially leveling up in higher quality gear, Blizz should have already taken into account that for people leveling pre-70, their gear will not be all that great and thus requiring uncrittable for a dungeon is unreasonable. Aside from seeing the damage numbers above people's heads in beta dungeon videos, this is the reason BC instances were such jokes & will be the same reason WoTLK dungeons are jokes until Level 80.

- All healers have been given strong single target healing capabilities. It almost sad for Paladins because they have not been given stronger multi-target healing abilities aside from their 51 point talent that is extremely high mana cost due to being able to hit unlimited targets while the Druid gets Flourish which hits 5 targets or a group with a much lower mana cost and potentially higher, more subtle healing as to not just overheal but gradually work its way up. But, due to this buff, a crittable tank as a Resto Druid used to be horrible because your HoTs stabilized the damage but had a hard time getting ahead of it with crits. Now it shouldn't be a problem for any healer.

In the end, you should actually reverse your opinion that "it is minor" & make your argument more geared towards the 6% stats that you would take SoTF for. The % stamina obtained in Bear Form will be a significant buff to HP while in Bear form, but that's that's due to the multiplicative stamina add on the form itself combined with SoTF. Other than that, your agility would be the next stat down from stamina to get the most benefit which is also awesome for armor / dodge / crit. The 6% stats is far more significant than uncrittable portion of it while leveling.

I agree that you should never give up having sotf in that it is a great tool to be able to tank pretty much anything while leveling up in ok tank gear or regular dps gear since you dont have to worry about getting crit.

I also think that we will still need to take 3/3 thick hide based on the way that blizzard has been acting and making us use more and more rogue gear which doesn't have the extra armor on it that we are used to in TBC.

In regards to Primal Precision I believe that this talent is worth it just for the expertise since it means that while you are dpsing the mob will dodge you less and while you are tanking the mob is less likely to dodge and to parry, which resets the swing timer so you have less of a chance of being burst down. It is also pretty cheap if you look at it since rogues also have a talent for 10 expertise, but its a tier six talent and doesn't include the little bonus for finishers, which they have on a tier five talent in a completely different tree.

That 2nd part talking about being able to tank in DPS gear is exactly right. You should tank in DPS gear because the dungeons are likely going to be a joke 70 - 78 just like they were in BC. But I guess I'll see when I decide to level my Pally as Ret and tank when I have to. That new 51 point talent is pure holy damage and should be a good aggro holder. Then, once I get their new shield slam ability that is trainable by all Paladins, holding aggro shouldn't be a problem at all.

You do bring up a good point about the Rogue gear. They're worrying me based on the itemization screenshots I've seen. No int on our gear with such a huge increase in the % mana cost of shapeshifting. The base mana increase from 60 - 70 was scary as it was. Which is why the people that aren't taking Natural Shapeshifter in the builds are definitely going to have a reason now if we do end up stuck with more Rogue itemization. But, like I said, tank in your DPS gear if you want. Heck, a lot of Rogue DPS gear actually has higher base mitigation values than Druid tanking gear since they usually only buff Agility/Stamina. But, 3% armor is not going to kill you tanking dungeons up to Level 80. The primary thing you should focus on to increase your survivability as a tank while leveling will be your stamina.

Finally, I cannot argue about Primal Precision, since you will be questing most of your way to 80 -- You will be fighting mobs from the front using Mangle, thus Parry is a consideration. However, having an attack dodged/parry doesn't mean you're going to die. Just as being crittable doesn't mean you're going to die as a tank. Utility, extra options, and more overall abilities should always be considered above non-requisite talents WHILE leveling. At 80 it's a different story as many of the things that weren't requisites before do become requisites.

In the end, sacrificing SoTF means you're sacrifice quite a few stats (my bear has 1394 sta unbuffed, 6% reduction would be 83 stamina loss), but being uncrittable will not be something required to tank (owww... the non-elite adds in Utgarde Keep hit for 200 and the mobs hit for approximately 5%-10% more than any non-heroic Level 70 dungeon in BC... Demonology Warlocks in Demon Form could tank it). While leveling, the more utility you have the better off you are.

[Wildhearted]

Why is everyone focusing on a tanking build? :S Wth get a leveling build mixed with pvp since you will be doing both ALOT, no matter what you do you cant avoid the pvp in northrend when 10 000 players is leveling at the same place, so why not make the best of it? the "tanking" speccs is for raid encounters, no need for them in normal instances...