Feral Druids - the Bear guide

[baseball]

Yes but you could just stack up on the reagents and get another glyph.

name a better glyph.

aquatic form, challenging roar, dash, the wild, thorns, typhoon, unburdened rebirth.

Name 3 of those BETTER than unburdened rebirth for tanks.

[elapadrinar]

name a better glyph.

aquatic form, challenging roar, dash, the wild, thorns, typhoon, unburdened rebirth.

Name 3 of those BETTER than unburdened rebirth for tanks.

dash, thorns, challenging roar

[PewZ007]

Thorns and Challenging Roar, I agree the 3rd glyph doesn't really matter but saying removing the reagent on rebirth is mandatory is just false. Dash could be better useful in some fights, like Sapph for example to go faster behind the iceblock.

[arel00]

I thought the threshold DR to dodge was raised to 60% in 3.1. I though I saw it somewhere on the undocumented changes.

But I could be wrong.

I think I missed that. If you (or someone else) could post source, I'll take a read and update the data

TL;DR :

Get armor, stamina and dodge increasing abilities. Talent for these stats, and grab SOTF no matter what. Didn't know bear tanking could be made to seem so complex.

No offense but, this is a guide, and must be complete. If you want a short advice, then ask someone directly.
Besides, Bear tanking *is* complex in theory, you'd be surprised how complex many things are.

Good job, thanks for sharing with the community.
However, I do not agree with your minor glyph recommendations. Unending birth isn't mandataroy for a Bear Druid, because even if someone dies midfight you can't throw a brez because you'll get 1 shotted in normal form.

I'm sorry if I seemed to state it's mandatory. My intention was to state that almost everyone (read: all druid I discussed with) takes into account Rebirth as a glyph.

To all the following posters: I'll correct that part so it doesn't look an "aut aut", let's not derail

[Remen]

Thanks Arel00, well done!

[deathsclaw]

First i would like to say VERY nice job on the guide. I have been tanking for a long time and now have a place to point new ferals' to review it in writing. Top notch thanks for documenting.

I wanted to share macro's that i use as a tank (or used I should say, boomkin now). I recently changed to boomkin to test the waters with duel spec. But back to the macros. Since Maul is the #1 attack and is NOT on the GCD you can macro it against your 3 other attacks, mangle, swipe and Lacerate. That way its "always" in que for the next auto attack. This works GREAT for raids and getting massive threat however can put you in a raged starved situation in heroics once your very well geared. None the less i find them very useful and wanted to share.

Mangle :
#showtooltip mangle - bear
/cast Mangle (Bear)
/cast !Maul

Swipe :
#showtooltip swipe
/cast Swipe (Bear)
/cast !Maul

Lacerate :
#showtooltip Lacerate
/cast Lacerate
/cast !Maul

Using these no matter what attack you use, maul is always in que. By doing this you never miss a maul attack and using a DPS meter like recount you should see you DPS about 55-60% maul.

[CSJenova]

A note, doesn't mark of the unyielding drop off Normal kologarn? In the OP it's listed as a normal Freya drop.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45696

Also, I know warriors put a lot of effort into hitting expertise cap. Is it generally considered less of an issue for bears due to the slower swing speed compared to your average tanking weapon that it's not as big a deal for ferals? Or do I have it wrong and I should be trying harder for expertise cap?

It's something I've never really worried TOO much about because I'm second tank and never had a problem. Now that Ulduar is requiring people to pay attention...I've been trying to focus more on making sure I'm pushing out as much as I can.

[PewZ007]

First i would like to say VERY nice job on the guide. I have been tanking for a long time and now have a place to point new ferals' to review it in writing. Top notch thanks for documenting.

I wanted to share macro's that i use as a tank (or used I should say, boomkin now). I recently changed to boomkin to test the waters with duel spec. But back to the macros. Since Maul is the #1 attack and is NOT on the GCD you can macro it against your 3 other attacks, mangle, swipe and Lacerate. That way its "always" in que for the next auto attack. This works GREAT for raids and getting massive threat however can put you in a raged starved situation in heroics once your very well geared. None the less i find them very useful and wanted to share.

Mangle :
#showtooltip mangle - bear
/cast Mangle (Bear)
/cast !Maul

Swipe :
#showtooltip swipe
/cast Swipe (Bear)
/cast !Maul

Lacerate :
#showtooltip Lacerate
/cast Lacerate
/cast !Maul

Using these no matter what attack you use, maul is always in que. By doing this you never miss a maul attack and using a DPS meter like recount you should see you DPS about 55-60% maul.

Thats amazing thanks

[Imadroodlol]

A note, doesn't mark of the unyielding drop off Normal kologarn? In the OP it's listed as a normal Freya drop.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45696

Also, I know warriors put a lot of effort into hitting expertise cap. Is it generally considered less of an issue for bears due to the slower swing speed compared to your average tanking weapon that it's not as big a deal for ferals? Or do I have it wrong and I should be trying harder for expertise cap?

It's something I've never really worried TOO much about because I'm second tank and never had a problem. Now that Ulduar is requiring people to pay attention...I've been trying to focus more on making sure I'm pushing out as much as I can.

Mark of the Unyielding does indeed drop on normal mode kologarn. Dropped for us last night and I was lucky enough to win it.
I'm using it over Heritage which I shouldn't probably do as I lose 4 or 5 dodge rating, 21 hit rating for 4 stamina and more strength and armor. Meh... It's ulduar gear

[blahblahnameblah]

I'm really impressed with this guide, very nice compendium of information.

The link on Mechanist's Bindings is bad though, it refers back to Drape of the Faceless General.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45108

[arel00]

First i would like to say VERY nice job on the guide. I have been tanking for a long time and now have a place to point new ferals' to review it in writing. Top notch thanks for documenting.

I wanted to share macro's that i use as a tank (or used I should say, boomkin now). I recently changed to boomkin to test the waters with duel spec. But back to the macros. Since Maul is the #1 attack and is NOT on the GCD you can macro it against your 3 other attacks, mangle, swipe and Lacerate. That way its "always" in que for the next auto attack. This works GREAT for raids and getting massive threat however can put you in a raged starved situation in heroics once your very well geared. None the less i find them very useful and wanted to share.

Mangle :
#showtooltip mangle - bear
/cast Mangle (Bear)
/cast !Maul

Swipe :
#showtooltip swipe
/cast Swipe (Bear)
/cast !Maul

Lacerate :
#showtooltip Lacerate
/cast Lacerate
/cast !Maul

Using these no matter what attack you use, maul is always in que. By doing this you never miss a maul attack and using a DPS meter like recount you should see you DPS about 55-60% maul.

Thanks, was just thinking about it. Added.

A note, doesn't mark of the unyielding drop off Normal kologarn? In the OP it's listed as a normal Freya drop.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45696

Also, I know warriors put a lot of effort into hitting expertise cap. Is it generally considered less of an issue for bears due to the slower swing speed compared to your average tanking weapon that it's not as big a deal for ferals? Or do I have it wrong and I should be trying harder for expertise cap?

It's something I've never really worried TOO much about because I'm second tank and never had a problem. Now that Ulduar is requiring people to pay attention...I've been trying to focus more on making sure I'm pushing out as much as I can.

Thanks for correcting, I think it was a misreading on my part

As for the expertise, it is important. At least to the point of pushing it to the dodge cap. You may also consider that we get a full 10 expertise from Primal Precision, thus the need to push it on gear is less strong than on other classes. Is this referred to the gear-sets btw? Because for the T8-level one I'm just getting data from RAWR, I didn't have time to do all the math myself (yet)

I'm really impressed with this guide, very nice compendium of information.

The link on Mechanist's Bindings is bad though, it refers back to Drape of the Faceless General.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45108

Thanks, corrected.

[Deleted]

A looong while ago (about middle of Burning Crusade) I read on ElitistJerks a macro for Catform that checked the amount of energy you had and powershifted (or not) depending on it (the "oldschool" droods will still remember this technique )

Does anyone know if this mechanics of reading out the "mana" bar would also work for Rage and thus could be used in the above mentioned macroes Mangle/Maul, Lacerate/Maul, etc.?

On a different note: What is the dodge cap for expertise?

[blahblahnameblah]

On a different note: What is the dodge cap for expertise?

6.5%

[arel00]

A looong while ago (about middle of Burning Crusade) I read on ElitistJerks a macro for Catform that checked the amount of energy you had and powershifted (or not) depending on it (the "oldschool" droods will still remember this technique )

Does anyone know if this mechanics of reading out the "mana" bar would also work for Rage and thus could be used in the above mentioned macroes Mangle/Maul, Lacerate/Maul, etc.?

On a different note: What is the dodge cap for expertise?

I remember the macros quite well. Back at the time I scripted a hell of a setup to push my dps to the limit for Brutallus.
I will check back on my data and see if I can arrange a rage-checking Maul macro set, or even better, if I can rebuild the toggle I used back then to turn on and off the powershifting macros.

[Suzuran]

I would like to add some items for those who are not able to progess into 25man / do not wish to progress into 25 man, and will be strictly 10 man items (unless it's from naxx 25 / VoA 25 PuG, but i will state that)

(this will be a current placeholder as i do not have access to 1. WoW EU in work. 2. WoW in work 3. busy work scedual to recall items specificly)

[Leggomyeggo]

Not really sure why, but when viewing shoulders through Rawr it always shows Greater Inscription of the Gladiator as the shoulder enchant on the item.

Seems like a pretty decent option depending on what you are going for. (I have been using this one for a while now.)

Perhaps Rawr is showing this for me because my gear is at such a level that a minor increase to dodge rating and defense would be outweighed by the 30 stamina.

I mention this because you do not mention this shoulder enchant. It costs 10k honor and you can get it from an Officer Accessories Quartermaster in Orgrimmar or Stormwind.

** Edit **
After looking at Rawr more, I'm not sure the displayed enchant on items is the best in slot enchant. I think the displayed enchant is simply the same enchant you already have on that item. I say this because I have an 18 stam patch on my boots and I know that isn't the best enchant to have there. Regardless of this, the 30 stam shoulder enchant is still worth mentioning.

[Alski]

Not really sure why, but when viewing shoulders through Rawr it always shows Greater Inscription of the Gladiator as the shoulder enchant on the item.

there is one problem with rawr, it will always value stam higher than any other stat no matter what your current gear is thats why stam gems/enchants come out ahead >

[Goodge]

there is one problem with rawr, it will always value stam higher than any other stat no matter what your current gear is thats why stam gems/enchants come out ahead >

Actually, that is not correct. It depends on the settings you put in the options tab. If you lower the Survival Soft Cap your Stamina threshold will be lower and eventually you will hit the soft cap. Other stats will go up as you move towards the soft cap.

[Alski]

Actually, that is not correct. It depends on the settings you put in the options tab. If you lower the Survival Soft Cap your Stamina threshold will be lower and eventually you will hit the soft cap. Other stats will go up as you move towards the soft cap.

Well that shows i dont use rawr :P . But from everything ive hear from people it values stam to high.

[Sunshine]

Well that shows i dont use rawr :P . But from everything ive hear from people it values stam to high.

It used to overvalue stam; now with the "soft cap" it seems to do much better. In my current gear, setting it to the "T8 heroic" preset, it heavily prefers agi (esp for socketing and such), provided that I've selected all of the proper raid buffs. Without raid buffs (for an example of a much lower stam setting), it heavily prefers stam. It's kind of cool.