• the KRIS

My situation's similar to yours, Kodus. I'm playing a feral alt to tank entry-level content like heroics and 10-mans while our mains farm Illidork. I've run into quite a different issue, though. I'm having a hard time staying alive versus heroic mobs, even though I have all the standard recommended blues for feral tanking (Heavy Clefthoof, Honored kara ring, Braxxis staff, etc). I'm sitting at about 15k health fully buffed, 22k armor, 25% dodge, and I'm getting SMOKED. The massive amount of healing I require causes our healer to pull insane threat, even though I usually work with a paladin (.25 threat per heal). I can't imagine how bad a shaman (.425) or druid healer (.4) would get smeared across the floor trying to heal me. What can I do to solve this? I can't very well get my Earthwarden if I can't handle tanking the requisite Coilfang heroics... not even PUGs do Steamvaults normal on my server these days.

 

Kewangeder

the KRIS:

1. Keep looking for normal SV pickups.
2. Remember to demo roar as mobs come in; that'll cut down on your healer threat, as well as give you more initial threat.
3. Triple-check the first post in this thread, specifically, the section on threat generation; there's likely stuff there that we both miss (though I'm -still- not clear on whether lacerate's innate threat works on a bleed immune mob).
4. If you want a little extra threat on a mob, you might also start with starfire+moonfire before shifting into bear and FFing. I sometimes do this to get aggro on three things before they even close. Hurricane can also work in some cases.

 

Tidia

Your gear is a mixture of good and bad. You posted *fully buffed* stats but that doesn't mean anything (To me fully buffed means Kings, Blood Pact, Fort, GOA etc), always post stats selfbuffed (ie. MOTW only). Anyway you are probably undergeared slightly (or just on par) for heroics (Which are more difficult than Karazhan in your situation). Your Dodge is average, health is fine, armor is fine, you havn't posted if you are crittable which is worrying.

Asking gear advice is not the goal of this thread, however I would suggest than you post which skill rotation you use for threat (Like Cat DPS it can make a huge difference). Having said that you shouldn't be getting hit *that* hard enough with your gear (I was tanking in similar gear both Heroics + Karazhan last year).

Oh Noes! trinkets can be very helpful during enrage/ability timers on bosses/mobs. I would buy Badge of Tenecity and try and get Moroes Pocket Watch also.

Putting the um in Forum.

 

• the KRIS

Thanks Kew. I'm all set for 1 and 2, but 4 is an interesting idea that I'll try to start implementing.

Tidia, sorry if it's confusing. I logged in my cat gear and I'm at work, so I'm having to go off memory. I think I'm at around 13k health without fort + kings. I have 415 defense as well - there's a couple high-agi kara pieces I could swap in if I had more defense/resil gear, so I'll have to hit the AV grind pretty hard this week.

When AoE tanking, I frantically tab-spam and swipe + mangle when it's up, but I find I can't maul while tabbing... if I tab before the maul goes off, it cancels the maul. Any way around this? I can't seem to dump rage quickly enough on four-pulls and I end up having to charge+taunt the ones that peel off toward the healer.

 

Tidia

1. Keep looking for normal SV pickups.

Good idea, having said that Earthwarden isn't the be all and end all.

2. Remember to demo roar as mobs come in; that'll cut down on your healer threat, as well as give you more initial threat.

Miminal threat, but good idea to always keep this up (every little bit helps)

3. Triple-check the first post in this thread, specifically, the section on threat generation; there's likely stuff there that we both miss (though I'm -still- not clear on whether lacerate's innate threat works on a bleed immune mob).

Read more than this guide, that will help you gain perspective on topical issues.

4. If you want a little extra threat on a mob, you might also start with starfire+moonfire before shifting into bear and FFing. I sometimes do this to get aggro on three things before they even close. Hurricane can also work in some cases.

I never use this, except in 3+ pulls (which you should never do in your gear). In 2 mob pulls (Heroic) Mark one Skull, one X. Pull using FFF on skull, activate dodge trinket, Maul and mangle X, Lacerate Skull, when mangle refreshes Mangle X again, then DPS skull. (That should be all needed, when Skull is at 15% Bash and change targets to X).

Putting the um in Forum.

 

coredumperror

I've read offhand comments about "once you reach the armor cap, you can do this, or this this" etc, in regards to gear. However, I've wracked my brain on *how* to actually reach the armor cap AT ALL pre-T6. I'm wearing 4t4, Vengeful Chest, Badge of Tenacity, Great Beast, Swift Paw, exalted Violet Signet, Boots of Natural Grace, and Wildfury Greatstaff, and I'm sitting in the 33k armor range: no where near the 35,800 armor cap for bosses. I don't even wear my t5 shoulders since they're a huge downgrade in armor from 4t4 for a minor upgrade in stats (and I don't have any other t5 due to bad luck). With the +25% armor bonus from shaman and priest crits I'm well over the cap, but I can't really rely on that being on me all the time.

Am I doing something wrong, or are people talking out their asses about hitting the armor cap in t4/t5 gear?

 

Karmen

For new bear druids, the Vindicator gear should really be priority #1 as it's so easy to get yet so good for both tanking and dps. I can't stress enough how much easier your life will become just by getting the bracers and belt first as then your defense needs from there are greatly minimized and you have a lot more gearing options. I prefer resilience so I also had a Resolute Cape made when I started Kara way back when. It lasted until I picked up a Pepe's in Hyjal so you can't go wrong by getting one in my opinion.

As far as some helpful tanking tips. I never use Maul unless I have 60+ rage as Maul eats up your white attacks. Doing this lowers the probability of you being rage starved which is very bad for your TPS. So when tanking in a multi-mob situation I pull with fairy fire and make sure my auto attack is on, then mangle and lacerate spam until I have enough rage to add in maul while refreshing mangle on every CD. I tab through each mob and make sure each 1 gets 1 lacerate stack before moving to the next mob. Once every mob has 1 lacerate stack I focus on my main target and hopefully it's dead before the lacerate is up. If it's not then I'll refresh the lacerate stack on the off-tanked mobs.

This works really well until your average swipe damage is in the 150 range at which time you can just use white damage, mangle and swipe to easily hold aggro in multi-mob situations. Hope that helps.

Late Night Raiding www.skeletoncrew.org

 

Duilliath

Do you have Survival of the Fittest ? 415 defense means nothing with a wrong spec.

Tanking 4pulls isn't a huge problem once yer used to tanking. When learning the ropes, bring some CC so you only face 2 at most. Only SH and SL have larger packs, from the top of my head.

//edit: My understanding of Armor Cap @ t4 level was that this was with an Inspiration/Ancient Fortitude bonus.

//edit2: Lacerate was changed to have 60ish damage on hit. This enabled it to deal threat on Bleed Immune Mobs. It's also the bit that deals most threat, so the lack of a dot ticking don't make a huge difference.

 

Karmen

You can hit the armor cap in T5 gear. Irregardless the difference between 33k armor and the armor cap is so neglible that you probably wouldn't even notice if you actually were at the cap. Once you get beyond 29k unbuffed you should focus more on getting your dodge up to a good level to help with your avoidance as being just one big mana sponge isn't very fun in the end.

Late Night Raiding www.skeletoncrew.org

 

coredumperror

Ah, thanx for the solid advice on where armor becomes less useful than avoidance! I have around 40% selfbuffed dodge right now, because I mostly socket pure agi so my DPS and Tanking gear can be shared (plus I get enough stam from raid buffs anyway). I reach around 50% raid buffed dodge with GoA and Kings, and then Idol of Terror procs give me that much more. I do wish I had some more T5 so I could benefit from the vastly improved stam on it, though.

Which reminds me... I stuck solid stars of Elune into my t5, in preparation for making it a high-stam set once I get a few more pieces. Would it make more sense to socket agi and just pump that dodge up even further? I've reached 20k HP fully raid buffed and flasked on our Kael attempts these last weeks, if that helps you get an idea of how much stam I might or might not want to go for, over avoidance stats.

And on that note, is it just me, or does it seem unfair that warrior tanking gear has SO MUCH stam, and so many sockets to put EVEN MORE stam, that my guild's MT has like 2-3k more HP than I do? I'm a Tauren bear for crying out loud, I get +50% stam in bear form, and I'm still significantly below him! Maybe it'll even out a bit once I get more T5 I guess.

 

Tamber

The difference between 33K armor and the cap is about 6% less damage taken (comparing physical damage taken at the cap, with physical damage taken at 33K armor). Is that not noticeable?

Stack armor. Gem for stam, enchant for agility. If you can get good agility/dodge as secondary stats on armor while doing it, GREAT! Once you hit the armor cap, then you can start worry about swapping pieces for less armor and more dodge or stam.

 

Karmen

6% of a 3000dmg hit is 180 damage or at 5000 it's 300 extra damage. So no, it's not that noticable and the odds of it being a major difference between you dying and not dying are probably pretty minor. Keep in mind that we're talking about self-buffed. At 29k and above you'll hit the armor cap with the +armor procs that occur during raids, which if you are MTing something they will probably be up consistently.

As far as STA goes, it really depends on your role. If you OT for the most part then I don't see it as being a big deal with you having less health than your warrior who MT's as he's probably using +12 or +15STA gems while you are using +8 or +10agi gems in most every slot. I think my guild's MT has around 21-22k health raid buffed while I'll be at the 17-18k range depending on the pots I'm using. This is more than sufficient as my dodge is over 50% and I have capped armor even without trying as the T5 set items and T6 non-set/Vindicator gear has so much of it.

Late Night Raiding www.skeletoncrew.org

 

Ducimus

It looks like 2.3.2 removed the hotfix that made it possible to powershift with one key press (Without /cancelform in the macro). Anyone else experiencing this issue? Previously I was able to use the macro /cast Cat Form to powershift from cat to cat, but it doesn't seem to be working. Cross forms works fine however.

Edit: Using /cancelform makes it work again. But then you lose the mana check. Very frustrating how Blizzard forgets to add hotfixes to the patch.

 

dukes

It depends on what your 33k includes. If it's unbuffed, there should be virtually no difference between that and capped (devo aura/motw = nearly 2k armour). If you regularly have an inspiration/ancestral fort specced healer, again the difference should be pretty small from 30k+, as long as they have decent gear.

The entire problem I have with people saying "get to the cap then you can swap gear etc." is that I never got to the cap. I never even got close to the cap (31k or so). I don't understand how you can get to the cap with a decent gear setup that isn't purely stacking armour for the sake of it, still have good threat and then have so much armour you can start swapping pieces out as well as being crit immune. I understand people aren't talking out of their arses when they say they're capped (I can identify gear sets that have it) but I don't see the advantage in the lost balance of other stats while wearing those setups. Sticking to a target of 30k armour gives you so much more freedom of gear than going for ~36k, and if you are mostly in a hybrid role it's much more benefit to have relatively solid tanking stats and much better threat/damage than it is to stack tanking loads, then find you're not useful because your agro is crap/damage is poor.

@ Karmen, you might want to read the first post. Pretty much every useful point you made is in there, and for multimob tanking swipe is superior to lacerate by a long way right from the start (the break even point is approximately where swipe is doing 225 damage total, which is about 75 on each mob as long as you're hitting 3). As much as it might seem counter-intuitive, swipe is also better in a situation with crowd control than lacerate is. If you happen to break a sheep with swipe you weren't paying attention but it can get resheeped - if you do the same with lacerate you're screwed for the next 15 seconds (other than the sheep getting resheeped constantly for that time). Also as Duilliath pointed out, the actual lacerate bleed damage means bugger all in threat terms.

 

• the KRIS

Duc, that's unfortunate. /cast Cat Form was such a nice, lazy way to powershift!

What about just double-tapping Cat? Does that work? I'd test it myself, but still at work.

On another note, are Bearstand pot/healthstone macros broken by the same coding?

 

Ducimus

It's still possible in one key press, you just need to add /cancelform where you didn't need it before. I just used my Healthstone Bear Macro and it's having the same issue. I had to add a /stopcasting and a /cancelform to make it work.

The part that sucks is that /cast Cat Form (Without /cancelform) wouldn't shift if you didn't have enough mana, which was handy in some fights.

 

seminarca

Could be that just the autounshift flag got reset in this patch? Try setting your autounshift back on, "/console autoUnshift 1" I think.

 

Ducimus

Good idea, I'll try that.

Edit: No Dice. That wasn't it.

Edit2: Thanks Wednesday. That's what it was. (Reading the patch notes for the win)

 

Wednesday

Try /cast !Cat Form

 

coredumperror

That works!

 

Boevis

No, it's really not noticeable considering the difference in other stats you have to sacrifice to get there. The most you ever need is enough health + armor to survive back to back crushing blows (never let yourself get crit, it's just dumb), beyond that, stack dodge. Don't get me wrong, more HP and Armor is always good, but talking like 25% dodge is "Average" in a raiding environment is absurd. Self buffed I have 42%, admittedly I have some T6, but my numbers with starting Kara T4 weren't nearly as low as 25%.

I was tanking Maulgar/Gruul before the massive armor buffs hit us, trust me, you don't need armor cap.

 

Inaiwae

This is wrong statement imo. Do not talk about 3000 hit. That will not kill even the squishiest clothie in the raid. Where it is important is when the tank receives massive spike damage, from my experience e.g. Tidalvess who can do insane burst dmg via windfury. It is a difference whether you get hit for 18000 or 17000 within 2 seconds.

The point of the "stack armor to cap, then dodge" is such that when you decide between items that have similar iLvl, you prefer the one where armor is increased over some agi/dodge focused piece until you reach the cap (buffed). Thats all.

 

Inaiwae

I am not sure if it is possible to have 25% dodge in raid environment. 25% dodge is pre-raid clefthoof-set gear.

Druid tanking pieces from t4 upwards always have agility on them, so i wouldnt worry about it at all. Just be sure you get the right enchants.