If 15/31/5 was at all raid-useful chupid and I would both be that spec still. The DPS output from it is completely insane. 220ish white damage with +300 DPS specials/combo spikes, often for free.

Yep, but it sure is fun B)

Hello, first time posting here.

I am feral, hear me roar: /roar

I've tanked ZG in its entirety. I've tanked AQ20 in its entirety. I've tanked 3/4 of MC, Razorgore, Broodlord, drakes, Ebonroc, Chromaggus (ok we wiped.), and almost always tank Nefarian phase 1.

Sicne getting into AQ40... I have to admit it's been a whole new world. No longer am I begging to be allowed to prove that I can... For now my time has come: they're begging me! AQ40 is amazing.

IMO, Druids are superior to Warriors on multiple occasions.

1. Any de-aggro fight where there is the potential for DPS classes to pull aggro from the MT. If your Healer core can keep the Druid alive (for yes, I admit, crits will occur (although, I'm workin on getting my Defense maxed at ~365)), then it is only for the benefit of the raid that the Druid steps up to MT... (Not to tarnish the Warrior's ego, not for personal pride. For the raid's benefit.) As said previously in this thread, a warrior using a 2h can deal a tremendously larger amount of damage than a cat form druid. Couple that with the fact that all DPS can unleash their full force w/o fear of aggro, and the fight becomes a lot quicker.

2. Hex fights. (obviously)

3. Feral Charge. Druid's in bear form are what every Warrior wishes he was: Defensive Stance and Berserker. Our 'tank' gear inherently bolsters both aspects, whereas Warriors must decide between the two. We have Intercept in our Defensive Stance. Use this to the raids advantage. A fight like Skeram: no intermediate puller is needed after a teleportation, feral charge ftw. A fight like Rajaxx, or any of the numerous pulls in AQ40 w/ knockback: Feral Charge = Anti Knockback. Be quick ;).

4. Are you a warrior? Want a piece of plate from a 20 man zone? Having trouble obtaining your Primal Hakkari Aegis? Druid tank ftw!

When you're a guild of 50-55 people as Sigil is, we're not going to have the most perfectly ideal raid balance on any given day. Yes, there will be many times when we do, but there will also be many times when the raid is short a 'lock, short a Warrior, etc. At those times, is it not a benefit to the entire raid to be able to call on an experienced backup?

Inevitably, even the player with the mosb perfect attendance ever, will be forced to miss a raid, or possibly even leave mid raid... With the state of our server's these days, there are numerous times per week when we have the ideal class balance on Vent and ready to raid, but not in game. At this time, wouldn't it be a huge benefit to have an experienced backup tank get the raid started?

The flexability of a Druid is amazing.

Now, I admit, I could do a lot of the things above with the gear I have, while Restoration specced. But I could certainly not do it all. With the talents I have in Feral Instinct, combined with my OOC free attacks and my extra rage from crits, I am a much superior tank on 'Surger' type mobs than a warrior. I get free attacks, I get extra attacks, I have superior damage, and I have equivalent base threat... (Vem comes to mind when I say all this. He's a wily, mobile lil' bastard, and I can keep him under wraps fairly easy w/ Feral Charge + my threat generation. I could not do this w/o my increased dmg talents, free OOC hits, and free rage from crits.) So regardless of the constant knockbacks I recieve from the mob, I can still keep aggro on him...

I guess I'll conclude this ramble:

If you're just wanting a Druid tank for any content but 40man raid bosses, a 0 / 20 / 31 spec is probably going to be more than enough. But if you recognize that there are boss encounters where it is more beneficial for a Druid to tank, and are willing to work through a learning phase as a 'noob' end game tank trains, then you should definately have a full feral druid on your raiding team.

It's for the benefit of everyone.

Out of all that, it seems as being immune to hex is the only advantage druids have over warriors.

I think you're significantly missing the point that a raid group has to fight many different encounters before it goes home (and the related point that a guild has to be able to consistently put forth a viable group, day after day).

If I could pull an extra Warrior out of thin air whenever I needed one, and put him away again (in the middle of the raid, no less), Bears would be rather more unemployed. But I'm not going to summon in three Warriors for Fankriss who will tank everything in the room without blinking an eye, and then kick them out for three more Innervates for Huhuran. I can, however, bring a mix of utility for both encounters (and many others). Every fight does not require exactly the same mix of healing, tanking, and DPS. Hybrids smooth out your allocation of resources in different situations, so the net utility is higher at the end of day.

Or even within a fight. I had a Druid who started Fankriss in Cat, did a good bit of damage before the worms appeared, shifted into caster to heal for a while, and then went Bear to tank when there were lots of bugs (getting the most out of your class: priceless).

And the same smoothing of utility is important on a guild scale. A smaller number of people can more done consistently when you some real versatility at your disposal.

I guess you're right in that it's nice to have more than the guaranteed 6 warriors per raid that you'd have, but my mind was too boggled by your insinuations that bears are somehow immune to deaggros to process anything else.

A druid tank would work wonderfully on Broodlord.

The problem is that most guilds have ample warriors for the task, and more melee in his range just means more Blast Wave damage and so forth. It's not like freeing up a warrior really gives you any advantage as a guild. I'd much rather have an extra healer than yet another person building threat on Broodlord.

[quote=Arawethion,March 10th, 2006 @ 2:06AM] When you're using them as a Swiss Army Knife type class, they definately don't need 'full feral' talents, they barely even need 11. I would say tanking bosses is the only real justification of going full feral, unless your a pvp nut.

I don't have flat fact to back this up, I never do at the get go (Fiction inspires Science), but I'm willing to bet that a fully specced bear tank is a better Tank than a Arms / Fury warrior?

I also failed to point out the advantage of a druid offtank: I can get rage while not being hit, fury style, due to my ~25% to crit, and crits = 5 rage... Bear tank is fury + prot...




When Maximizing your raid's potential, you should definately encourage a bear to tank on bosses that they can. Dealing more damage as a warrior using a 2h, and allowing DPS classes to unleash full force, speeds up the entire raid... it's selfish to think anything contrary.

I get 5 rage per hit while not being hit. Do you think that warriors only get rage by being hit?

Yea, I had to reread that paragraph a few times and I still didn't understand it. :unsure:

And here I thought Hamlet had been banned.

Before posting anymore druid vs warrior stuff, you might - I don't know - do a smidgen of research. People come to these forums for accurate and timely advice, not speculative, fanciful bullshit stated in a manner that makes it sound like fact.

[quote=Kaubel,March 10th, 2006 @ 10:50AM] Those people apparently consider you their better, not their equal.

That's not to say I don't respect you guys, but honestly, 'elitists' would be maximizing at every opportunity.

Adios.

Hahaha.

No, the point isn't lack of openness to new ideas, because there's plenty of that here. The point is a disdain for "facts" that are stated without any actual knowledge or information behind them.

Say what?

You said that with a druid tanking, With regard to raid content, (An "intermediate puller" on Skeram? Yeah, I'm sure you have a hunter peel the images to their tanks, right?)

Hamlet's (Arawethion, not the banned one) post about Fankriss is a great point about where druid versatility is a huge benefit, and it makes factual sense based on an understanding of the encounter. Your statements above are just pure misinformation, regardless whether your underlying point has merit.

I have multiple screenshots of dead bears (I started with dead catform druids and it just grew on me) in different situations. We use them quite a bit, so we're certainly not averse to the idea.

That said, I think that you're being overgenerous in favor of the druid. Yes, they can be excellent tanks. But there's a difference between capable and optimal. For example, take the Skeram fight you cite as advantageous for the druid: How do you interrupt an image casting IAE? A warrior can shield bash. I have no doubt the druid can hold aggro. But can he do all the utility stuff(ie Shield Wall, Last Stand, Shield Block, Shield Bash, Challenging Shout)? Most of the tanking core is there, but it's a bit spartan and those little luxuries, in my experience, have meant the difference between a kill and a wipe on numerous occasions.

+6 Defense - Sandstorm Cloak
+8 Defense - Medallion of Steadfast Might
+6 Defense - Angelista's Touch
+9 Defense - Ring of Emperor Vek'lor
+8 Defense - Blessed Qiraji War Hammer
+12 Defense - 4 Core Armor Kits
+15 Defense - Genesis 3 set bonus (won't be able to decide if the lack of true 'tank' leather in exchange for Genesis +Defense is worth it until I try it)
+2 Defense - Enchant Bracer Minor Deflection (Possibly is 3 Defense?)
-----------
+66 Defense total.

Broodlord is the best example of the held-back aggro from DPS classes. I don't have the link readily available, but I'm pretty sure it's in this thread somewhere, to the comparison between Druid and Warrior in completely ideal gear: Druids can generate more threat per minute. So yes, all DPS can unleash a lot more, a lot quicker, without fear of aggro.

As to an 'intermediate puller on Skeram', yes. With our warrior at Skeram's init location, Skeram teleports away, and there are multiple options: have a new tank taunt and pull back down to the middle (is his taunt duration enough time every time?); have a hunter pull back to the MT; have the MT attempt to use his own ranged to repull; have a Druid feral charge resecuring 100% of his aggro. (Sure, either of those options work, and it's not like I'm saying it's a feral fight, every fight, nothing is. But can you guarantee your raid attendance every time? Raid class balance changes, and you should want your versatile Druids to be practiced, capable tanks when it does.) Clearly, when the time comes, a Feral Combat tank is going to be superior to a Restoration tank, especially in HP.

Ah, you meant 365 as the max defense for a druid -- I misunderstood.

I sort of agree with you on Broodlord. Druid threat generation theoretically scales better, but I'm not sure that putting a druid in the mix as one of many Broodlord tanks means that the DPS can act "without fear of pulling aggro." A druid should increase the height of the aggro plateau a little bit, though.

I'm still perplexed by the Skeram stuff -- sounds like we have very different approaches to the fight. My understanding of the fight makes what you're proposing be an exceptionally bad idea (have you ever actually tried having someone pull Skeram from range, or try to move him around a lot?).

Anyway, I absolutely agree that a feral-heavy druid with the relevant bear talents is a real asset on a raid. Never said otherwise. And the Genesis set is a great step in the direction of allowing them to function as true hybrids within the confines of even a single fight. Offtanking something and then when their mob dies, reverting to caster and healing, without gimping themselves in one area or the other.

A simple and practical test would be to have a warrior and a bear fight for aggro on Vael, pre-execute range, both vying to be the #2 tank. When the #1 tank blows up, to whom will Vael turn?

Most aggro-sensitive fights also tend to yield a whole lot of rage for the tanks, to the point where many weapon speed for more HS spam becomes a factor for warriors. So taking rage out of the equation entirely isn't unreasonable.

I guess I wasn't really thinking that through, eh? Sorry, only fought him twice, and the second time I was deifnately feral charging and repulling to the init location...

I guess a ranged pull wouldn't make sense *SHOCK* (pun.) and I can only assume in the madness on our first kill that a separate warrior was pulling back down.

But ya, if Druid was the MT, it eliminates the need for Warrior 2.

No, they expect posts that aren't glaringly open for misinterpretation. There's a difference. You saying that druids can get aggro while not getting hit, and by omission saying warriors cannot, doesn't exactly help you on your quest to sound as if you're an expert on the mechanisms of tanking.

You're welcome to brainstorm and suggest that druids can do this, that, and the other. Just watch the biased, unproven gossip and you won't get hassled. That and stop insulting the others who frequently visit here. If anything, they've earned the right to be heard. You haven't yet.

On the other hand, there are quite a few "ok fight for aggro" fights where all the tanks fight for aggro and are only getting rage for their attacks, making rage efficiency a major issue.

Signing up for this! :D

Vael is one of the few fights where I think even we could make good use of bears. Bears with good crit rates could give you a noticably wider aggro lead for #1 and #2 above 3, which would make the fight safer.