Bear Guide: 4.1+

[Bigslick]

Anyway, I'm curious: When it comes to enchanting, are the agility enchants or the tank enchants typically a better choice? AKA At what Dodge % should we start going for stamina, and vice versa with at around how much health should we start aiming for agility? XD

The 'base' level of stamina required for reasonable survivability is heavily impacted by your ability to avoid avoidable damage (don't stand in fire, interrupt interruptible attacks) and the responsiveness of healers to spikes and predictable incoming nukes. Once you get to this 'right' level of stamina (which can vary by fight) to survive bursts, stress agi as it will reduce damage taken over the long haul.

[rated]

I sacrificed 3% avoidance which is partly mitigated by substantially increased savage defense uptime.

I'm just curious, how much SD uptime where you getting before this change and now after it ?

[Deleted]

How do you monitor Savage Defense uptime? Also is there a good addon to display savage defense n such?

[uzumati]

DroodFocus gives you a Savage Defense bar that shows how big and how much SD is remaining.

As far as monitoring uptime nothing beats a good parse site like WoL, WWS, ect.

[wfrost]

I'm just curious, how much SD uptime where you getting before this change and now after it ?

A lot depends on the particular fight. Losing the avoidance and gaining more SD procs generally works out to taking 1-1.5% more melee damage over the course of a fight. If your healers are struggling now, don't do it. If they aren't, you might want to try it and see how it goes.

[Myzou]

The 'base' level of stamina required for reasonable survivability is heavily impacted by your ability to avoid avoidable damage (don't stand in fire, interrupt interruptible attacks) and the responsiveness of healers to spikes and predictable incoming nukes. Once you get to this 'right' level of stamina (which can vary by fight) to survive bursts, stress agi as it will reduce damage taken over the long haul.

Sorry, badly phrased.

I meant mainly head and shoulder enchants. Considering their price, not really up to constantly redoing them based on my other gear changing. :P Overall, would agi or stam enchants be better on them? XD

If anything, I can change the gems and enchants on the other pieces much easier, and a helluva lot cheaper.

[Sysunia]

Hello all you friendly bears! Im a fellow moonkin seaking some tanking knowledge. I just got Malevolence for my tanking offspec and im not sure what enchant should i put on it... The sticky guide doesnt say much...

[Enchant 2H Weapon - Mighty Agility]: +130 Agility.

[Enchant Weapon - Windwalk]: Permanently enchant a weapon to sometimes increase dodge rating by 600 and movement speed by 15% for 10 sec when striking in melee.

[Enchant Weapon - Landslide]: Permanently enchant a weapon to sometimes increase attack power by 1000 for 12 sec when striking in melee.

Is that just the cheep/expensive versions or does it depend on my gear/boss fight/stats/build? Wich one is the best wich should i use?

[Bigslick]

Hello all you friendly bears! Im a fellow moonkin seaking some tanking knowledge. I just got Malevolence for my tanking offspec and im not sure what enchant should i put on it... The sticky guide doesnt say much...



Is that just the cheep/expensive versions or does it depend on my gear/boss fight/stats/build? Wich one is the best wich should i use?

Landslide can be dropped from the options right away. If you'll be tanking the heroic content you're working on, it's a closer call between windwalk and 130 agi depending on the fight. If it's mostly for insta-queues in 5-mans definitely go with 130 agi (which is definitely better if you every go kitty).

[Sysunia]

Nah I dont do 5 mans as a tank and almost never go kitty. The only 2 fights i might go kitty is the last phaze on Ascendat Council where you dont need 2 tanks any more, and the same on Nezir in the Conclave of Wind.

[Deleted]

Hi,

Looking for some advice on how to optimise my gear to reduce damage taken, It seems that in the higher end fights (particularly nefarian 10N) healers are having problems trying to keep up with the damage I take.

I try to have Demo roar up as much as possible, try to proc savage defense as much as possible and still I take more damage than paladin tanks.

[Richmond]

Hi,

Looking for some advice on how to optimise my gear to reduce damage taken, It seems that in the higher end fights (particularly nefarian 10N) healers are having problems trying to keep up with the damage I take.

I try to have Demo roar up as much as possible, try to proc savage defense as much as possible and still I take more damage than paladin tanks.

Make sure you have the BH mastery trinket equipped and use it for the cackles, it pretty much negates half of the cackle. Keep demo roar up and use your CD's sparingly. His breaths deal about 50-60k over about 2-3 seconds, try and time barkskin for those. Not sure what else to say really, theres not alot you can do thats any different from any other fight. If your dying in the early stages of the fight, its probably because the boss has the 100% attack speed buff, to counter this, position yourself in the place you intend to tank him and FFF / get a tricks or MD to you...

The paladin may seem easier to heal because there self-healing is immense in comparison to a druid. Ours is about 6k every 6 seconds, were as they can have a seal that heals them constantly as well as a free 20odd k heal every 20 seconds...

I tank ony when our pala tank is in the raid, he just seems to handle Nef better.

[invader]

u dont really need the bh trinky for nef normal (unless you gear is still a lil low, whats your gear like, what stats r u using?),, i use bedrock talisman and either fluid death (reforged to dodge) or a stam trinky dependin how i feel and i dont take any more dmg than our warrior or pala whichevers tanking.. r u specced into 9% mgc dmg reduction?? r u tankin nef and using a cooldown for breath? breath hits u harder than a crackle does, r u taking tail swipes?, do u have stray ads on you? many things could be causing this ;p, try make sure healers have u nearly topped off before a breath or crackle too.. also like richmond says get bosses spread asap to avoid the buff they get when less than 60yards apart,, but you may find that waiting out of range and relying on ff or md doesnt work as healers or other tank will have tons of threat and nef will just ignore you and gun straight for them so youll probly have to go n give nef some slaps to aggro him then move to your position.. if you got a healer priest or shammy healer try make sure you got the 10% melee reduce buff on as much as poss,, trial n error i spose is all you can do

[rated]

bedrock talisman ? People use that for things other than the ilvl ?

Tia's grace + fluid death >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> bedrock talisman

Tia's grace >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> bedrock talisman

A lot depends on the particular fight. Losing the avoidance and gaining more SD procs generally works out to taking 1-1.5% more melee damage over the course of a fight. If your healers are struggling now, don't do it. If they aren't, you might want to try it and see how it goes.

Is the difference enough to justify losing 3% avoidance and do you take damage going this way ?

[invader]

bedrock is nice for droods for armor and dodge proc, i dont use it on all fights only melee heavy fights.. not much kop for other tanks tho. but i likes it i got bedrock, fluid death, a stam trinky and bh trinky to swap aboot

[rated]

bedrock is nice for droods for armor and dodge proc, i dont use it on all fights only melee heavy fights.. not much kop for other tanks tho. but i likes it i got bedrock, fluid death, a stam trinky and bh trinky to swap aboot

Tia's grace and fluid death are about 4723896892467423 times better than the bedcrap trinket for melee fights though.

I run with tia's grace + fluid death for melee (both reforged to dodge)
2 stam trinkets for magic fights (if I really need the extra stam)
and mirror of broken images for the fights it shines on

[invader]

serves me fine each to their own n what not ;p

[rated]

I always prefer to use the best gear avabilible to me, so I will have to disagree with your logic.

But yeah what ever "serves you fine" I guess is most important for you and if its working for you we'll just have to leave it at that. good luck man.

[invader]

idd i is unorthodox bear i also has lots of hit and exp soft cap (i can hear you all crying or laughing ;p) but my healers loves me bryn cos my sav defs are nearly ALWAYS up meatshields ftw, i loves mah bear

[rated]

Would you love your bear if he took even less damage ?

[invader]

i do take less dmg than our other tanks, except on the odd occasions. . for a while i had 0 expertise and only around 1-2% hit,, was forever clunking n clicking with misses n dodges etc., had tons of mastery and everything reforged to dodge,, by doing this ive only lost about 1.5% dodge from reforges which isnt a lot really in this tier, ive still got 34% i think raid buffed. but now ive decided to get some hit, got 4% and some expertise, got 23.. ive noticed hell of a difference in uptime on sav def and healers have noticed im a lil less squishy, i also do more dmg and our warrior is now WAAY behind on threat, aggo hor as he is ;p... all in all im real comfortable with mah bear, got 7-12 heroics down (10 man) and currently workin on nef hc (im tankin nef) before 4.2 hits , had 2 nights on him and currently goin thru p3 but pala tank is dying from ads or bad dominions on healers at times so gotta sort that out............. but like i said each to their own, dont always go by what eJ or others say and dont be afraid to experiment to find what suits you sir :P