Liar

Like Melthar said, there is crush immunity for Warriors on Morogrim. Earthquake eats a Shield Block charge and the boss can thrash. The Warrior *will* take crushings for up to 8k damage then. If you have a Boss that can crush both your Warrior and Druid to an extent, it sometimes is just better to use the Druid because he can mitigate the crushes alot better than the Warrior can.

 

Daenerys

In my experience Druid tanks have been preferred by our healers on Morogrim. Warriors take huge spike damage from a crushing, and they can't stay immune on this boss.

 

Jini

I'll pile on the Morogrim thread to say that we have found feral Druid tanking to be successful. However, it does seem to require a solid healing core.

 

Liar

What exactly is that supposed to mean? Morogrim is not an easy fight to heal, regardless of the tank you use.

 

Daenerys

We've found that keeping HoTs up on me while I tank really smooths out the limited spikiness from crushes. In a typical kill, I rarely go below 50% health, which is the only time the fight is ever dicey, since at that point (about 10k health), a crush and a normal hit may do me in.

As to a "solid healing core," my guild's experience has been that the healing core has to be even more solid when a Warrior is tanking. =P Basically a Warrior takes more spike damage here. My combat log reads:

4k
4k
6k (crushing)
6k (crushing)
4k
6k (crushing)
4k
4k

Yes, some spikiness, but not bad. A Warriors is more like:

5k
5k
5k
8k (crushing)
5k
5k
5k

Yes, I just made those numbers up, but you get the point. Healers are healing nice, steady damage on the Warrior until they get a big spike. On me, they are healing less steady damage, but the spikes aren't as rare, and therefore they are already healing with them in mind. In other words, a crush on the tank is a shock the healers have to quickly adapt to; on me, it's just part of healing on that fight.

I think it comes down to your healers. Some groups may prefer being surprised by an 8k hit once in a while, while other groups might like the more predicatble damage from 4k and 6k hits intermingled.

 

Jini

I didn't intend to touch a nerve with my comment. I've tanked the fight a couple, few times. The last time I tanked it we didn't have a tree healing me and the spikes were, literally, killer.

Part of my point is the classic one that overall druids will take a bit more damage than a warrior but it should be somewhat smoother.

Partially I'm just reliving my last try at Morogrim. We had a group that took down VR but couldn't finish Morogrim. It has me scratching my head wondering what I can do better.

 

◊ Kaubel

Some druids will always be sensitive when it comes to the topic of bear tanking. I wouldn't sweat it.

 

david0925

For reliquary, a warrior tank is preferred since in phase 2, spell reflect is almost required to reflect the deaden (unless you have very very strong dps that you can kill him without deaden before the soft enrage), and for phase 3, warriors mitigate the rage burn better due to defensive stance.

For Mother Shahraz, we actually do use a feral druid to tank since mother is not capable of dealing a crushing blow.

For Illidari council, i dont think either one has too much of a advantage, unless there are mechanicsim missing.

For Illidan right now, there seem to be a high hp-reducing ability that can be blocked, which favors Warrior tanks over Druid tanks for now, but whether it is intentional that that ability (excuse me for not saying the name, i cannot currently recall it) can be blocked is unknown.

Right now, i'd say Druid tanking is actually rather close to Warrior tanking in terms of relationship, versrus their relationship prebc. Now druids are capable to be immune to crit thanks to SoTF and gems. Warrior armor is also increasing at a rather nice speed, and with the introduction of sockets, 5% stamina talent boost, better scaling with shield slam threat, brought both class rather comparable at tanking, instead of being two entirely different style tanks

 

Dalamar

That is the great part, for whatever messed up reason, they decided that there is NOTHING the druid player can do to effectively improve his tanking during a fight. We can only gear our character out and pray that everyone else does their job well.

The only thing we are capable of doing is equipping an activated dodge trinket or two, but those are extremely limited effectiveness.

 

amoondre

So I was asked by my guilds warrior class officer to make a post about the pro's and con's of a feral tank, over a warrior. This is what I have come up with, please rip it apart and let me



In AB we use feral druids a lot as a viable alternative to a warrior. There are several good reasons why we do this and several reasons why we are used as off tanks not as a main tank class.
Pros about feral druids in the correct gear, and right mind set:
1. Higher armor = less damage taken when struck by a melee class of a non-boss level
2. Usually higher stamina= more time to allow healers to recover while multiple people are being pounded and my need a more time to get of that much needed heal.
3. When not tanking feral druids can switch gear and become a DPS class and assist melee. We can pull down more DPS than a prot warrior, and thus great if we have to tank for a partial fight, because of the nature of the class we can start pumping out dps the second we are no longer tanking.
4. Feral druids have the ability to generate massive amount of threat while not being the main target of a mob. Because of omen of clarity and the 2 piece set bonus of teir 4, we can generate rage must more efficiently than a prot war, and if we do pull aggro (Main tank dies/ aggro dump) we do not have to equip a shield and can instantly start taking hits as a tank.
5. Leader of the pack. 5% crit to melee classes is a huge increase to DPS, and as a plus every 6 seconds when a melee crits they heal themselves for 4% of their total life 9000hp = a 360hp heal every 6 seconds.
6. “Snap” aggro. Mangle (41 point feral talent) For Bear Form, the attack causes 115% normal damage plus causes the target to take 30% additional damage from Shred and bleed effects for 12 sec. Mangle is an instant attack, because of its large damage amount we have the ability to almost instantly grab a mob to tank.
7. Multiple add tanking. Swipe hits 3 targets in an area in front of the druid. (3 random targets if more than 3, not CC friendly) this plus tabing between targets is a great way to grab a lot of mobs quickly.

Cons, and misconceptions about a druid tank.
1. Crushing blows, A crushing blow is an attack made by an NPC that is 150% of the Damage caused by a normal successful attack. The mob must have greater than 15 points of weapon skill above the person they are hitting. Palidins and warriors have abilities to avoid a crushing blow, The warrior ability Shield Block increases block rate by 75%, removing crushing blows from the miss/ dodge/ parry/ block/ crit/ crushing-blow table that occurs when an opponent attacks, and making the warrior more or less "immune" to both crushing blows and critical hits in a PVE environment. n the same way, the paladin talent Redoubt along with the Holy Shield ability increases the block rate by 60% (30% each), allowing for period of immunity against crushing blows, assuming dodge + parry + miss rate + base block skill is at least 42.4% (against mobs their own level), which it will be for anyone wearing normal tank gear. However, Redoubt only procs randomly and cannot be relied upon. (wowwiki source)

DRUIDS CANNOT STOP A CRUSHING BLOW OF ANY KIND!

Druids rely on armor as a key mitigation factor, a crushing hit is a devastating blow to a druid tank. This means “Boss” level mobs and lvl 73’s are almost a death sentence to a druid.

2. Melee avoidance in compared to a warrior, druids have a Large amount of dodge, the reasoning is that we cannot parry or block, yes when you were questing “beasts” could parry and block your hits. However, druids cannot. So the overall avoidance for a war will always sit higher than a druid when you add the chance to miss from defense, dodge, and parry. Not to mention the amount they can just block.

3. Druids have no way to mitigate spell hits. We don’t have defensive stance and we do not have talent points to lower the amount spells can hit us for. We take the full force of the blast, leaving the pressure on the healers, which is never that good of an idea since they are already busting their ass on the fight.

4. Taunt, the druids Taunt(growl) is a much longer cool down than our warrior counterpart. Meaning those loose mobs are only getting a mangle or a swipe instead of the taunt which is still on 5 sec of its 10 second cool down. prot wars can spec their taunt to 8 sec, which may not seem like much, but really means the world

5. Combat rez while tanking. A key feature to a druid in a raid is the all powerful combat rez. Personally I have bashed a target and then combat rez’d my healer in a heroic or two. But this is impossible to do while main tanking, and just as hard in most raids due to the fast that most mobs are immune to stun in a raid situation.




Overall we are great off-tanks with better mitigation from a non boss level melee with our high armor, and our higher hp (usually). We are great for a class that can tank the trash then help dps on a boss. We are great for fights where adds spawn with “snap” agro abilities. In my opinion and experience as a feral druid, we are great for off-tanks and do not have to be switched out for a DPS class when it comes to the boss, we can hold multiple adds well w/ almost no real effort (compared to tab sunder).

Druids are 1/3 tank, we do not have 3 talent trees devoted to different melee abilities, we were designed as a hybrid healer, but because of the huge dependency on gear and points since WoW 2.0 we have set builds and most of which are hard to break away from (some exceptions apply)




Blizzards opinion “The Druid gives players several play style options. A Druid in normal form is a caster that can fight with spells or weapons. In Bear form the Druid becomes a Warrior with Rage. While in Cat form the Druid becomes a Rogue with Energy and stealth. The Druid can also transform into two other special animal forms. With its ability to heal itself and fellow characters, the Druid can also take on the role of a Priest. A Druid is not as versatile in its abilities as a Priest is, lacking the spells Power Word: Shield and Resurrection, but is otherwise a very capable healer.” WoW.com -> Info -> Classes -> Druid

 

◊ masanbol

The major strength of any druid tank is mitigation first and avoidance second. This is why we are good MTs on fights like Morogrim where the boss' special abilities eat up shield blocks and leave warriors unable to take the hits. As a practical example:

Rinx - WWS

Go to damage in and look at the detail panel for incoming physical hits. Notice that 6% of the hits he took were CBs, max CB was 8750 and average was about 7100. For a warrior with 18-19k HP, that's a pretty big spike, especially while the raid is stretched from dealing with murloc AoE.

Reality - WWS

This is me on that same boss. You'll notice I took twice as many CBs (12%), but both the max and average were 2000 damage less, due to the fact that I was at the armor cap. I was also sitting at about 24k HP.

As you can see, druids excel on fights where shield block is not always so effective, such as Morogrim, and also the increasing number of fights where the boss can't crush at all (Shahraz, Archimonde). The fact that it is so easy for us to hit the armor cap makes us ideal for situations where a more steady amount of incoming damage will make the healers' jobs much easier.

It's also been remarked elsewhere on this forum that since healing mana is rarely a problem these days due to huge amounts of mp5 and the prevalence of shadowpriests, spam healing a MT is not as much of an issue as it used to be pre-TBC. In that sense, druids are great MTs for many encounters because the damage we do take is rarely spiky when compared to warriors.

 

Jini

First off, I would fix the typos.

Second, Higher armor = less damage taken when struck by a melee class (period) It doesn't matter what level the thing hitting you is, you will have more mitigation per hit.

As for crushing blows, yes Druids cannot avoid them. However, there are fights in which Warriors cannot avoid them either. However, crushing blows are not devastating to a Druid and boss level mobs are not a "death sentence."

While the bit about taunt having a longer cooldown is true, I don't think this matters in raid instances.

I believe the last two paragraphs are mostly opinion and should be removed if you are going for a fact based post.

 

◊ Fluffy

Change 'dodge' there to block so you don't confuse the slow people who already get hedgey reading anything with more than 2 sentences.

 

amoondre

Wow, thanks I did not know I left so many stupid things in there. Edited and reposted. Also working on a better way to word some of the info. Again thanks.

 

Shag

You have misconceived this misconception. A crushing blow cannot be avoided nor should it be a concern with sufficient HP and AC. More accurately, a crushing blow is far more devastating to a warrior tank. Boss mobs are routinely tanked by ferals and the difference is negligable in most cases to the point of non - existence.

 

Boevis

To be fair, Druids don't have an advantage (or disadvantage) when it comes to Snap Aggro, Multi-Mob tanking, compared to warriors.

 

osirisunnefer

Isn't TC better for tanking multiple mobs? I would've thought swipe is decent for upto 3 but TC is better on more.

 

seminarca

Thunder Clap is by far the superior skill at multitarget aggro holding; it affects more targets, does more damage (talented), has static threat values associated with it, has bonus attack speed slowing and costs less rage (talented + Focused Rage).

Shield Slam is no slouch at snap either, though I wouldn't say it's better or worse than Mangle.

 

• nachrichter

TC is 13 rage with those talents, 4 second cooldown, hits four targets. 150ish TC is ~390 threat per target (assuming I did that right -- 150*1.75*1.495).

Swipe is 15 rage to hit three targets with no cooldown. Someone who does real maths can correct this for greater accuracy, but if you swipe three things with ~30% crit, you're going to end up somewhere around 11 rage per use after PF. 180ish Swipe hits are ~260 threat with 360ish crits at ~520. 30% crit makes that ~340 average threat per target.

So I'd go with Boevis' statement about no real advantage either way.

Edit: Forgot Pred Instincts and tools who put Relentless in their tank hats (like me), but they don't really change anything about the conclusion, just the numbers.

 

seminarca

Not sure where you are getting the numbers for Thunder Clap. Rank 7 Thunder Clap does 123 damage, and it has a static threat component of 130. 3/3 Improved Thunder Clap makes it do 100% more damage. Thunder Clap threat per target is then ((123 * 2) + 130) * 1.495 = 562 per target. What is the 1.75 in your TC calculation? 0o

Also consider that Swipe is mitigated by armor, whereas Thunder Clap is not. Thunder Clap is subject to resist, but then Swipe is subject to miss/dodge/parry/block.

 

• nachrichter

I got the 150ish number from a WWS parse of a kara clear a couple days ago. Warrior had Imp TC, 629 TC hits for an average of 153 damage. A couple of those hit during Curator's evocate (max TC 518) but I ignored that.

The 1.75 came from Kenco: A Guide To Threat. (posts 209 and a few subsequent ones mention it) and having otherwise been told that TC had a 75% threat bonus rather than innate threat. I'm always happy to learn things, if that is not accurate.

 

• nachrichter

That didn't seem right to me, either, so I got on my 68 warrior. Imp TC, tooltip says 246. Hit 62 helboars for 177, 61 helboars for 181, 62 illidari taskmaster for 174 and 56 dreghood brutes for 191.

Hamstring (tooltip 63 damage) hit those targets for 47, 48, 46 and I only got crits and enraged hits on the brutes, didn't care enough to try more.

Victory rush (tooltip 463) hit the 61 helboar for 354.

Those all come out to somewhere in the 25-30% mitigation range and are consistent to each other within a few points. Nothing shocking there, I'm sure; but unless I'm completely misunderstanding something, armor affects TC. Again, I'm up for larnin'.

 

seminarca