The Bear Guide - Cataclysm Edition

[Infernix17]

Yeah, stam is about the same on equal level necks and rings now. So all you have is maybe a little dodge rating, but transferring to Agility will make up more dodge than that anyway.

No more tanking rings/necks for us. I Regemmed my Woodins and Bone Collous for tanking. I gained stam and I gained dodge.

You would have also gained a lot more Attack Power which buffs our Savage Defense. Thats the main reason.

[Deleted]

Ok, to summarize. I am mainly looking at Stam/Agi/Mastery (where does AP come from now)? All haste to be reforged into mastery (could someone explain these with some numbers). Any other things to reforge? And replace rings/neck with dps ones? Doest hit/exp come into this?

Cheers

[ihaz]

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=84735
(in reply to your vengeance math)

[Cyphran]

You would have also gained a lot more Attack Power which buffs our Savage Defense. Thats the main reason.

Yeah, I love Savage defence. I reforged my haste into mastery; so I'm sitting at 13mastery rating. I'd have liked to see the numbers Savage Defence was absorbing in last nights ICC, but I haven't got any way to check it atm.

With Vengence, on some trash packs I was hitting 14k Ap in Bear... would have been fun to see SD working on those hits.

[Infernix17]

Ok, to summarize. I am mainly looking at Stam/Agi/Mastery (where does AP come from now)? All haste to be reforged into mastery (could someone explain these with some numbers). Any other things to reforge? And replace rings/neck with dps ones? Doest hit/exp come into this?

Cheers

Yes, for now, Stam/Agi/Mastery/Crit are your main stats. Attack Power comes from Agility. (1 Agility = 2 AP.) You also get AP from Vengeance.

Vengeance:
Each time you take damage, you gain 5% of the damage taken as attack power, up to a maximum of 10% of your health.

Basically, one hit from any end game boss will give you up to your maximum Vengeance.

First: Haste ---> Mastery
Second: Crit ---> Mastery

Most people will be from 12-18% Mastery, depending on gear.

I explained our mastery with real numbers in my post.

Replace your rings, neck, cloak and possibly trinkets with ones with crit and Agility on them.
There is a short list of items that give you the general idea of what you need on the main post.

---------- Post added 2010-10-15 at 11:01 AM ----------

Yeah, I love Savage defence. I reforged my haste into mastery; so I'm sitting at 13mastery rating. I'd have liked to see the numbers Savage Defence was absorbing in last nights ICC, but I haven't got any way to check it atm.

With Vengence, on some trash packs I was hitting 14k Ap in Bear... would have been fun to see SD working on those hits.

Theres an addon you can get called "Vengeance Status." It monitors your AP and Savage Defense procs.
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-a...ce-status.aspx

I'm in the process of creating my own addon that is going to track:
-Lacerate ticks/next lacerate tick (So we can time Pulverize more effectively.)
-Savage Defense timer/Absorb Maximum/How much it actually absorbed.
-Vengeance stack + AP power

It will have a Lacerate bar that will show how many stacks are currently on the target and the time until the next tick.
It will have a Savage Defense timer and show the maximum it can absorb and after it gets used how much was actually used.

It will also have log in which you can link or review.

[luvlist]

To OP,how did you absorb 24k in icc?? if your AP only at 16k? i assume thats typo or whatever. but i'm pretty curious

and to everyone else,aoe tanking is hard but manageable. i can see the reason why people don't like it or think its bad. but it's not so bad once you figure it out. lacerate tabbing is amazing.. it deals alot more initial damage and still generate high amount of threat.. so people should start relying on it.

[Deleted]

Yes, for now, Stam/Agi/Mastery/Crit are your main stats. Attack Power comes from Agility. (1 Agility = 2 AP.) You also get AP from Vengeance.

Vengeance:
Each time you take damage, you gain 5% of the damage taken as attack power, up to a maximum of 10% of your health.

Basically, one hit from any end game boss will give you up to your maximum Vengeance.

First: Haste ---> Mastery
Second: Crit ---> Mastery

Most people will be from 12-18% Mastery, depending on gear.

I explained our mastery with real numbers in my post.

Replace your rings, neck, cloak and possible trinkets with DPS ones. (Ones with crit and Agility on them)

Too early to QQ about stam vs agi then? Seeing they both buff SD. I'm guessing they will both have diminishing returns sort of speak. Or is it as simple as stam buffing amount of SD and agi buffing it's amount AND frequency? Mind you haste also buffs frequency, I guess the amount is negligible though. Do Lacerate ticks proc SD?

[Infernix17]

Too early to QQ about stam vs agi then? Seeing they both buff SD. I'm guessing they will both have diminishing returns sort of speak. Or is it as simple as stam buffing amount of SD and agi buffing it's amount AND frequency? Mind you haste also buffs frequency, I guess the amount is negligible though. Do Lacerate ticks proc SD?

I don't see where you are going with the Stam and Agi. You keep the same exact amount of stam, the only thing you are changing is your strength to agility.

They are also 1:1 stam and agility with Savage Defense, so either way it doesn't matter.

Anything that crits can trigger Savage Defender, so yes.

---------- Post added 2010-10-15 at 11:17 AM ----------

To OP,how did you absorb 24k in icc?? if your AP only at 16k? i assume thats typo or whatever. but i'm pretty curious

and to everyone else,aoe tanking is hard but manageable. i can see the reason why people don't like it or think its bad. but it's not so bad once you figure it out. lacerate tabbing is amazing.. it deals alot more initial damage and still generate high amount of threat.. so people should start relying on it.

I have 94,000 HP fully raid buffed including feast and flasks.
When Vengeance reaches max I would have 9,400 extra AP, I add my original AP of 7,200 and I would have a total of 16,600 AP.
Savage Defender + Mastery= 110.5% of my AP turned into a bubble and I would get a shield of 18,343.
When I apply 18,343 to the 30% ICC buff I would have a shield of 23,846.

[luvlist]

ah i totally forgot 30% buff from icc,that would explain alot. Thank you

[sparks]

thanks so much Infernix17

I was about to give up until I found your post.
Keep up the great work.
hope to see a post on your new mod soon.

[zelamonster]

Just thought I'd point out that thrash no longer shares a cooldown with swipe. Those who were concerned about out AOE capabilities can rest assured that AOE pulls becomes a lot less punishing once you ding 81. You won't be able to get by on just swipe and thrash, but you no longer feel helpless if your DPS is trigger happy and your initial swipe misses.

[Barawr]

The bugged nameplates have been the biggest thorn in my side while tanking since the patch. When those are fixed I can focus more on being the thorn in the side of my enemies. Literally.

Fix my V-bars!

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...geNo=1&sid=1#6

This worked perfect for me. After you run the console commands you will need to retoggle the nameplates to make them appear correctly.

[Tiolith]

The hit cap for all melee classes is 8% (264 Hit Rating)

then would someone please explain this?

[Barawr]

You figured out how to be a Draenei Druid? :-D

[Deleted]

You figured out how to be a Draenei Druid? :-D

Barawr!!! Have you decanted over to Druid too??? What spec are you playing now?

Levva - Enh Shammy -> Moonkin Druid.

[Barawr]

LOL, hey bud! Yeah, I rerolled over to a good ol' Bear and loving every minute of it.

[Tiolith]

please stick to the topic and answer my hit riddle >__<
sadly Armory doesn't support reforging yet

[Marymary]

Good to know it doesn't alter when switching, although I think Thorns needs to be changed entirely.

Either make it the way it was before or change it so it can be cast in any form.

If they don't change it, I don't see a Feral cat popping out of form and wasting DPS to give a tank thorns. Same with Boomkins and even resto druids.

I know resto druids are already out of form, although it takes a full GCD, during new content a resto druid will most likely not have time wasting a GCD on thorns.

Boomkins dont switch out of form to cast thorns since we are technically already in "caster" form. Me and the other boomkin in my guild switched off on keeping thorns on our guilds MT in raid wednesday night. Really no different than throwing an innervate on a healer.

[Koumaru]

Too unfamiliar with the proc to make a proper decision. I suppose the proc will push the tank ring ahead, but it'd be close.

The proc rate on the tank ring is extremely low (2%) and scales negatively with avoidance. It's up mostly on trash and rarely procs on bosses.

The proc on the dps ring is 480 AP and procs far more often simply because it's based on outgoing hits (you hit much faster than almost any boss and the boss doesn't avoid 60%+ of your attacks). Just reread it as "Chance on melee hit to increase your next 2 to 3 Savage Defense bubbles by at least 400."

[uzumati]

Hit scaling dropped with 4.0.1 it only takes 246 to get to 8% now