Thread: Dear all bears,

  1. #1
    Keyboard Turner
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    Northern California
    Posts
    5

    Dear all bears,

    I was a level 72 Resto/Balance druid but guild has a shortage of tanks, so they asked me if I would switch my Balance spec to Feral(bear). I kindly said that I would, but my only concern is that I'm jumping into it. They said that they would help me learn and get geared once I hit 85, but I just don't know where to start learning to tank.
    I've read the guides here, at EJ and I've also watched some videos but i still can't seem to shake my nerves. Unfortunately, my guild doesn't have any bears or else I'd seek advice from one of them. So I registered here to hopefully get some advice from players who actually know how to tank.

    I don't know if it matters but I'm currently using these Addons:
    Omen
    Recount
    Bartender
    Coollines (sexycooldown)
    ShadowedUnitFrames
    DBM

    If there are any better addons that would be recommended for tanking, please let me know! ~

    At the moment, I have no ideal tanking gear. I was thinking that once i hit Hyjal or Vash, I'd just start getting my tanking gear then.
    So with all that being said, any help would be appreciated!

  2. #2
    Addons: Get Threat Plates / Tidy Plates.
    It makes tanking much easier, especially if you are just getting started. But then, most of the pro tanks that I know use it too.

  3. #3
    Stood in the Fire yovmit98's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Location
    Dallas, TX
    Posts
    384
    Get tauntmaster as well.

  4. #4
    Field Marshal Sylvaneart's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Moonglade
    Posts
    91
    Hot key your raid icons.
    Learn what CC other classes bring to the table
    Key bind your abilities in a manner that makes since. IE having taunt key bound to a key you have to search for is of no use
    Run regulars and lots of them for gear and experience
    Do your dalies as a bear and and use all your abilities.
    Come to the realization you are NOT an AoE tank.

  5. #5
    A couple more suggestions:

    Start collecting feral gear now, start doing some solo work as bear or as kitty so that you have a better idea of what you can do without the pressure of a group.

    Have some guildies run with you through lower level content to help you get the hang of it. (If they want you to tank, they should be supportive of this)

  6. #6
    Echo what the others said, especially TidyPlates and TidyPlates Threat Plates (they work together).

    Unbind your A and D keys from turn, and replace them with strafe. This frees up two very nearby keys (Q and E) for useful clickable abilities. On my bear, those are bound to Feral Charge and Mangle. Technically, it's easily 4 or 6 keys, because you can add Shift-Q and Shift-E as abilities as well (Taunt and Feral Faerie Fire for me). If you haven't ever done this before and are wondering "well then how do I turn?" -- You turn with your mouse. Hold down your right mouse button and move the mouse left or right.

    Bind other nearby keys as well. Do not bind 5 through 0, -, or = unless you have extremely long fingers and can easily reach some of those keys. Bear tanks can reasonably expect to have 20-24 keys bound that you will use regularly.

    Bind a marking icon to a key. I use Skull and I have it on one of my five mouse buttons. When I switch targets after a target dies, I click my button and a magical skull appears. Viola, even the most retarded DPS who have never heard of assisting know which target to attack now. This also allows you to tab-Mangle or tab-Maul without throwing off the DPS -- they keep attacking Skull and don't get thrown off assisting you while you tab through targets to ensure you have a reasonable amount of threat on them.

    Don't get discouraged. I've been tanking for four years and sometimes bad stuff just happens. Sometimes it's your fault. If it is (BUT ONLY WHEN it is), just tell the group "sorry, my bad -- won't happen again" and move on. This lets the group know you know you made a mistake (which is comforting to experienced players because they know their tank isn't clueless) and encourages them to stick it out even if there was a wipe.

    For non-heroics, make sure your hit and expertise are high. There will be little crowd control, DPS tends to be more careless in non-heroics, and survivability isn't nearly as much of an issue. Once you hit 85 and are ready for heroics, reforge/regem/regear for survivability. The extra crowd control resolves a lot of AOE tanking problems.

  7. #7
    I'd like to respond to:

    Come to the realization you are NOT an AoE tank.
    The correction for it is, if you don't know how to AoE tank then you aren't. There are great Bears out there that can AoE tank like a baws.

    Bartender is great, if you customize it to make your bars very large you can use those as a CD watcher.

    Buff thorns before a pull, shift to bear then enrage. Run into the pack swipe and thrash for AoE packs and then mangle/lacerate tab mobs for times in between.
    Last edited by Turaz; 2010-12-17 at 10:13 PM.

  8. #8
    Keyboard Turner
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Location
    Northern California
    Posts
    5
    My god, I'm getting a headache. >.<'
    I've always had a respect for bears but now that respect is on a whole different level.

    I downloaded the addons and also took Communion's advice about Key-binding.

    I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment. xP I hate jumping into something like tanking or healing. But the advice I've gotten so far has helped a lot. Thank you, all. :]

    Anything else I should know?

  9. #9
    Use your own binds, don't use other peoples. Bind your abilities around your left hand, and use your mouse to move your character. I wouldn't suggest binding any keys to strafe since you want your mouse to control most of your movement and holding down right click and hitting A or S when they are bound to "Turn" will achieve the same thing as binding those keys to strafe. You do this to get yourself used to using your mouse to move your character and not your keys.

    Bottom line, bind/setup your keyboard to require as little attention as possible so most of your attention can be focused on watching the screen and mobs to position them properly for the group.

  10. #10
    I mostly agree with this, don't just use what I said. Do what's natural for you. But please, do not keyboard turn -- it's slow, it's inefficient, and you will die in a lot of dumb things.

    I disagree about strafe. I think circle strafing is amazing, but I play a lot of FPS games, so I'm really used to the mechanic. But Turaz is right, you have to do what works for you. As long as it's not keyboard turning and clicking your primary abilities with your mouse, of course.

  11. #11
    Scarab Lord Stanton Biston's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    Corvallis, Oregon
    Posts
    4,861
    Quote Originally Posted by Sylvaneart View Post
    Come to the realization you are NOT an AoE tank.
    First- Not true. There's some fairly simple AoE tanking rotations that work fine, even on heroics at 85.

    Second- There's 5 abillities bears have that hit multiple targets, 2 more with cooldowns over 6 seconds.
    Quote Originally Posted by Callace View Post
    Considering you just linked a graph with no data plotted on it as factual evidence, I think Stanton can infer whatever the hell he wants.
    Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence - Sometimes I abbreviate this ECREE

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •