Bear tanking in kitty gear

[takolin]

So we recently recruited a feral kitty, but our GM wants him to be a backup tank incase one of our normal tanks can't come for the night.

Now I was wondering: how viable is tanking in a bear spec with optimised cat gear and maybe here and there a switched out item? Would he be a lot harder to heal than a proper bear or is it doable?

[tyrkern]

He could, idk i aint a druid, but it wouldnt be that good without those tanking trinks/rings and neck's.

[tangedyn]

He will be noticeably harder to heal, dodging less than the average bear. It should still be doable though, but it might be harder on the tougher bosses like Cho'gall or Nefarian.

[Dassen]

He will be noticeably harder to heal, dodging less than the average bear. It should still be doable though, but it might be harder on the tougher bosses like Cho'gall or Nefarian.

Cat gear = almost exclusively agi gems, so how would he dodge less?

[Tminus009]

As it is now gear from bear to cat really isnt that different only thing that makes bear different from cat is gems and trinkets rather then that druids can tank in cat or bear gear.

Ive done heroic fights Accidently wearing some cat gear and there wasn't any noticeable difference

[god of lock and pala]

will be sucky.

[Fulltimejoke]

It might be do-able but it's going be a strain on the healers because gems, enchants, reforging, and whatever else i might be leaving out makes a big difference in the survivability of a tank. Plus, does the guy have any prior tanking experience? That would worry me more than him not being geared properly, as well as his first tank being a bear... they don't have an easy learning curve.

[Feraly]

As a feral druid, I have a completely different tank set and cat set(both 359-372 epics). I actually have slightly more dodge % and mastery in my cat gear, but about 25k less HP. Anyways, he probably wont be hit much harder than a normal tank, but he'll have to be healed quickly to avoid getting 2 shot.

[Cheezee]

He'll be down a few thousand HP and a couple percent (2-3% tops) dodge from an optimized tank to be honest. It shouldn't be too game breaking as long as he knows what he's doing with CDs and fight mechanics.

[Calathiel]

Im a main spec kitty, still Im tanking in my dps gear on hc halfus and Im on adds in hc Maloriak as well. Back when we were on normal Nef I was tanking Onyxia without any problems as well. So yeah - for situational tanking when one of your MT is missing there shouldnt be any problems at all. And in case it would be hard then well... spend 10min and some gold to reforge/regem? This shouldnt be a problem.

[Elunedra]

dps gear is abotu as good as tank gear. but tank gear will be better. but some fights where you dont have to surviva massive damage and only tank in one phase, dps gear might be rgiht choise

i tanked the adds on al'akir in dps gear becase i was having burst threat issues while the dpers nuking like crazy ;P

[blahssat]

Cat gear = Stupid amounts of agility, very high mastery, and high crit.
Bear gear = very high amounts of agility, stupid high mastery, some crit, some extra stam, and dodge reforged on every piece of gear.

[coocoo]

There are multiple threads here about Agi vs Sta... which should answer this question. (hint: it's viable)

[tangedyn]

Cat gear = almost exclusively agi gems, so how would he dodge less?

Bear gear is also mostly agi gems. With at least 800+ more Dodge Rating.

[Deleted]

I tank nefarian25hc in my kitty gear (except meta gem and trinkets) and we have 0 problems at all. So i'd say it's completely viable.

[teddabear]

He'll be down a few thousand HP and a couple percent (2-3% tops) dodge from an optimized tank to be honest. It shouldn't be too game breaking as long as he knows what he's doing with CDs and fight mechanics.

Its been a while but I'm pretty sure the difference is much larger than this. Reforging just by itself is a large amount of dodge. However if you picked up some no-tier pieces while waiting on your tier pieces you should have about half a bear set anyway. The problem is the jewelry, it was always hard to get tank jewelry when tanking was your offpsec and now that 10 man and 25 man share lockouts its virtually impossible.

[Gecko]

I tank in full DPS gear and do just fine. I'm no harder to heal than another tanking class (except the fact that we don't "block" which is getting fixed in 4.1). My HP is near the same as our geared Paladins and Death Knights (we don't have Warrior tanks) and my Dodge is at or higher then their combined totals for Dodge and Parry. I'm completely with Mihir on this one and all others saying you'd be harder to heal, you may not do as well, etc. are not telling you the truth based on experience.

BTW, tanking jewelry has the same amount of STA as AGI jewelry since they standardized STA across the board. No need to get STR/STA (with Dodge) gear anymore.

[Avenn]

I tanked heroic halfus the other day in my cat gear. Reforged everything to dodge but didn't bother re-gemming or enchanting and it was fine. Yeah, I was about 10-20k less health than the other two tanks but it worked. I think as long as your druid knows how to tank and the healers are ok with a lower health pool it should be ok.

[Argothea]

I have done this on a couple fights due to Outfitter malfunctions. While it wasn't the end of the world, my healers immediately could tell a significant difference (on Chimaeron and Nefarian). The Mastery reforging on my cat gear definitely didn't make up for the dodge reforging on my bear gear (I'm an Agi bear). Although if you could get him two solid stamina trinkets, I bet he would be just fine as an OT in a pinch--just make certain the healers are prepared for it feeling like you're a few bosses back, gearwise.

[Deleted]

I've successfully tanked hc halfus in 10 man mode. My job was to tank 2 drakes and halfus occassionally.
My health pool was ~160k ish and the logs showed about 40% avoid.

I have also tanked Onyxia in the Nefarian encounter and Nef himself in P3. It seemed to be fairly easy to heal, though a bit spikey due to the small health pool.