Yeah. I realized after writing that I'll have to test it tonight or tomorrow and post here. My initial expectation is that the attacks don't get delayed because the bear swings come regularly. Or else I'll be able to delay them forever with just Demo Roar spam. It's a little more likely that FFF could be bugged (I'd call it a bug.) this way though.

By the way, anyone else notice that Mangle (Bear) and FFF in bear have the same 1 sec GCD that the cat abilities have, instead of 1.5 sec? I find it a little funny. And nice. ^^

Couldnt find this anywhere (if anyone has a link to my question and Im just a blind ol' druid) but after playing around in RAWR today trying to figure out bear mitigation and a whole bunch of other crap. I had to ask myself where does the +hit come into play. Ive been filing through hundreds of perfect druid builds and future item needs. But it seems to be lacking on the +hit.

There is nothing more frustrating then running up to a mob, getting ready to mangle and your mangle is misse/dodged/parried. I get so frusted, and Ive been on a mission now to try and increase my +hit rating in bear but. But alas I keep coming up empty handed. Are there any suggestions you guys can give me. I know mangle is one of the key threat generators in bear form. If I cant land mangle it makes tanking on bloodboil extremely hard, especially if im trying to pull it off the MT who has 7 debuffs.

Hit Rating is hard to come by on tanking gear as a Druid, though we do have a few options.

1) Jewellery. If you can make up crit reduction or armor elsewhere, jewellery is not a bad place to get some Hit Rating. Especially the new [Brooch of Deftness] is a damn good aggro item because of the Hit Rating AND Expertise. There's also stuff like [Frayed Tether of the Drowned] and [Band of the Abyssal Lord].

2) S3 Arena gear. A bunch of pieces have a nice bit of hit rating on them, and if you wear 2 pieces, you get the 35 resilience set bonus which is a good chunk of what you need for crit immunity.

3) [Nordrassil Feral-Kilt] and [Thunderheart Leggings] both have a decent amount of hit rating.

4) [Boots of Natural Grace] are very good if you're a leatherworker pre-BT.

5) If you use a [Relentless Earthstorm Diamond] you should be using 2 x [Glinting Noble Topaz] to make up the yellow gem requirement.

6) Sacrifice mitigation, wear a bunch of Rogue items with hit rating in lieu of more bear oriented high armor items.

Druid threat is already solid despite our not-as-good-as-Warrior itemization when it comes to aggro stats (by which I mean Hit Rating & Expertise, not Str/Agi), which is why I guess they won't give us much Hit Rating / Expertise. Imagine if all the Intellect on our set pieces was Hit Rating and T5/6 Pants had Expertise O.O

Personally, I never focussed on Hit Rating. The only Hit Rating I had for a long long time was purely incidental (on Nordrassil Kilt). Only recently did I acquire Brooch of Deftness solely for the aggro producing stats on it. And so far (5/6 ssc 3/4 tk) I've not ever had threat issues on a boss encounter that I can remember.

[Item not found!] is also a decent option if you're not shy the defense, especially if you're getting a lot of resilience from s3/pvp3 gear.

I made a list of the setup that I will be using:


I got a few suggestions like use the S3 chest over S3 helm, but I think I am better off using the S3 chest for tanking, since the resilience helps and I am not defense capped. I did get the S3 helm last night, and overall I think that gear list posted above should put me on pretty high amount of stats for raid dps.

The list looks solid.

In keeping the 2T5 this looks to probably be the best.
The only "flaw" is that S3 chest is WAY superior to the T4 chest and Skulker's Greaves are a fair bit better than T5. For sustained DPS I think its probably worth giving up 2T5 and using the T4 Gloves/Shoulders, S3 Helm/Chest and Skulker's greaves for legs. The T5 set bonus, while nice I find is more usuable in PvP than in PvE. Its rare I'll hit a situation where I can't solve the problem with either a Healthstone or Healing Pot instead of needing to use an insta-regrowth.

re: +hit

Additionally if you are unable to get a [Belt of Natural Power], the 2.3 Badge rewards have a phenomenal tanking belt with some +hit. [Waistguard of the Great Beast]

You might want to consider swapping out the [Ancestral Ring of Conquest] with the [Shapeshifter's Signet]. If you believe the spreadsheets, the expertise rating more than makes up for the decreased physical stats. Its not a big difference, so this might not qualify as an upgrade depending on how much you believe the current valuations of expertise, which is still a pretty young stat.

The only reason I have 2t5 in my tank set is coincidence. I do not gear specifically for it and generally feel that you're better off just building a tank set based on tanking. While instant stuff is fun, it's generally not terribly worthwhile, in my opinion. Moreover, I wouldn't even think abut it for dps, as t6/t4 set bonuses are indispensable. Bottom line is that it's fun, but not necessary or even important by any stretch.

Really? I'd be curious to see the spreadsheets which value expertise so highly. Running Toskk's sim with 3000 AP, 35% crit, 120 hit rating, 7 weapon damage, 0 expertise/APen/Haste, Everbloom Idol, Relentless and 2t4, I get the following AEP values:

str 2.27
agi 2.69
exp 1.61

Which puts Ancestral Ring of Conquest at 128.93 AEP and Shapeshifter's Signet at 99.21 AEP.

hey fellow druids!

im currently new to WOW, and interested in starting a feral druid but unfortunately i lack the know-hows and the facts. while this guide is awesome, i couldn't really follow up on certain sections..

could anyone help me out with (how much to put into and the ideal sequence to place) stats and talents? and point out those impt quests to do for a druid?

this all sounds noobish, but i would greatly appreciate if someone could help, or point me in the right directions. thanks alot!