Like any other instance it depends on many factors, if you take down the mobs with aoe then you need to give some time to your bears to build aggro on all the mobs they are tanking. On the other side if you are doing them one by one then no need to wait and you should be able to dps the druid's target really quickly since unlike warriors druids do not change target when tanking up to 3 mobs.

This really isn't the right place for that sort of advice. I'd suggest you have a read of Lissanna's leveling guide, it should be enough to get you started: WoW Forums -> Guide for Feral & Balance leveling v.2.2

Azoth also maintains a more general FAQ thread: WoW Forums -> The Druid FAQ! Read and Learn! [9/26/07]

Greetings everybody =)

I need some advises. I'm a feral, currently at the end of ssc/tk, and i hesitate a lot concerning the use i should make of the wonderful s3 chest.

As a lot of druids, my guild don't return very oftenly to maghteridon, so i don't have the T4 chest for my tank gear, and we don't kill Kael'Thas yet and i'm pretty sure that some warriors, priests and maybe other druids will get the t5 before me when it will drop. So i wear the Heavy Clefthoof Vest, with 3 x + 12 stamina gems, and +150 health enchant (that is a total of 81 stamina + 150 health). It's good for tanking, yes, but it lacks of strength/agility for threat generation and of course agility for dodge, and i'm fed up to wear this item since i started to tank normal instances.

So my idea was to take the s3 chest and gem and enchant it for tanking. I have it, with +6 to all stats (that is a better enchant for tanking than +150hp, and it will help me also in arena). But i've read so many topics where the s3 chest is described as one of the best for dps that i'm hesitating a lot about the gems that i should use. And indeed, without gems on it, when i wear it, i lost "just" 37 attack power, 10 hit, but have 0.6% critic more than my Chestguard of the Conniver.

Should i go for 3 x 12 stamina for a full tank and arena chest ? (54 + 36 = 90, so more than my previous one) For a mix of 2 x +12 stamina and 1 x +8 agility for an all-purpose tank oriented chest ? (78 stamina, a little bit less that mine, and + 8 agility, i don't know if gemmed like that, the chest is good for dps) For 2 x +4agi/+6stam and 1x +4agi/4hit for an hybrid chest but more dps oriented (66 stamina, 15 less that mine, +12 agi, and +4 hit + the socket bonus) or for 2 x +8agi and 1 x +4agi/4hit for a pure dps chest (54 stamina, 26 less that mine, +20agi, +4 hit, and the socket bonus) ?

Even if i gem it for dps, i think that i'll use it to tank because of the armor, the high stamina in it, the resilience, and the threat generation stats (strength and agility). But i'll fall from 15,8k stam with clefthoof self-buff, to 15,3k with the s3 chest gemmed for dps, so 500 health less, that is huge.

So what should i do ? Is there a good mix of gems that will make of this chest a very good one for dps, but also a clear improvement over mine for tanking, without loosing too much stamina ?

I have also a Bloodsea Brigand's Vest looted recently, but not gemmed. As i see in many sites, this chest is not a clear improvement over mine for dps, but maybe it's still better than a pure tanking or hybrid gemmed s3 chest ?

Thanks in advance for your advises =)

I would be one of the two feral druids that Lambach was referring to.

I seem to have issues with swiping (it doesn't generate nearly enough threat to hold agro off of the AoE players) and tab target mangle/maul/lacerating. Neither way is generating enough threat to lock down the mobs sufficiently. I, too, would like some advice.

A side note: The problem could very well lay in my low FPS. I'm running on an old computer, but I don't THINK that is what has been causing the issues.

I don't have issues in more... eh... organized zones. Hyjal just seems so chaotic, I guess. In zones with static pulls, at least I know which targets I need to personally build agro on. In Hyjal it's just "Build agro on everything" and I can't seem to achieve that. Is it maybe an issue with which tank should be agroing which targets?

Before anyone says it, no, I'm not trying to shift blame off myself. I'm just trying to figure out if there is an easier way to determine what I should be tanking, and what the other tanks should.

I was having a few aggro issues with AoE'rs eventually pulling mobs off me on MH trash waves, I've switched to a slightly less defensive gear setup and it's a lot better now. KTM usually clocks me at 1200 ish TPS, with peaks of 1400-1500. Drop a little armor, don't be too worried about losing crit immunity and boost AP/Crit rate. Just mangle-swipe-swipe-swipe, with mauls in between if you have plenty of rage, and tabdance a bit so the mangles land on different mobs. Make sure you have a BoM (I ask pallies to overwrite the GBoW on druids with a personal BoM and keep it up).

Btw, thorns seem to help quite a bit, although I read on many sources that "reflected" damage deals no threat - is that true? did a quick search but couldn't find anything decisive.

Your tanks should split up the huge group into small ones, 3-4 mobs per tank. Its alot less choatic and way easyier to built threat on your mobs. Soon as all the tanks think they are ready, you converge in the middle and start the AoE. For myself, I spam swipe, keep maul up and do a mangle rotation on mobs that I tank, I dont bother with lacerate cause it doesnt worth it, unless you keep 5 stack on all the mobs you have. Also gear wise, I think you need more hit/expertise.

Hoping that will help you.

Pick what you can, so I swipe once or twice and I have around 3-4, sometime more and other time less. If you have only 1 or 2 you can go taunt one from a tank that has alot more. More than 2 abom on the same tank is bad, thats about the only thing I look for.

There isn't really a problem with AOE eventually pulling aggro from the tanks on Hyjal trash. Just as long as they only pull one or two at a time. Happens to us all the time and it's rarely a problem. We just feral charge lock the guilty mob to give the AOEr a chance to run and then taunt+mangle it back into position. The main thing we may do differently is that we use 4 tanks (2 warrior, 2 feral) on all the trash. With fewer tanks, I find that you have too many people double tanking abominations (chain knockdowns are bad) and unable to chase down loose mobs. It's not like we lose any notable DPS at boss time either, since only Kaz'Rogal lacks offtanking chores for the second warrior to handle and the druids just gear swap for good dps.

Another thing worth saying is that warriors are best at tanking banshees and necromancers (spell reflect, but any rogue or dps warrior can handle a necromancer) and druids are better with ghouls and crypt fiends. Abominations should be split up as much as possible between players. If you go with that kind of strategy, I find myself rarely trying to tank more than 3 mobs at once, which is really pretty easy.

I know, my post is long, but please read it, i need advises =)

There's nothing really specific to be said about holding agro on multiple mobs in Hyjal. The best suggestion I could make is using a paladin tank, which is probably not a very helpful suggestion. Still, paladin tanks really do trivialize tanking all the little trash (ghouls, spiders, felhunters) so the other tanks (your ferals/wars) can focus on the bigger things like aboms, necro's and banshees (spell reflect owns for the necro/banshee alpha and to keep the prot war on top of the agro list, so that when sheep breaks the necro won't go own the mage or some healer).

That said, if you really want to use ferals for it, simply spamming swipe alone won't work, you'll have to tab through as well (even when only tanking 3, simply swiping isn't enough tps to stay above aoe, swiping while tabbing to mangle/maul them should be though). I'm not sure they'd have enough rage tho, I know I struggle for rage in hyjal unless I've got a bunch of stuff on me. Also the biggest killer of your tps will be adds getting away, having to feral charge out to taunt an add means you're not building any threat, and while you're doing that chances are good you'll lose a different one instead. That's not to say it's not possible for druids to do it, we've done it before without prot pally, but I find it to be far more chaotic and messy whereas a prot paladin makes it so easy (the pally doesn't even need to be prot, a holy paladin with good prot gear would work just fine if your tanks are quick on picking up aboms/etc off the pally).

Well, this really depends so much on what you do most, and I think that's the first question you should ask yourself. In T5, my big focus was tank gear, I rarely dps'd, so it wasn't a big concern for me. This is what it looked like for me.

Tank: Hydross, Leotheras, Karathress, Vashj, Al'ar, Void Reaver, Kael'Thas (Staff/shield in P2, Telonicus in P3, phoenixes in P4/5)
Dps: Solarian, Lurker, Morogrim

Pretty much, I was tanking just about the entire time, and even on morogrim I would go bear during the add phase, just tanking in kitty gear. So really, since I was dps'ing so rarely, it was obvious for me to look at tank gear first, dps second.

While that doesn't change a huge amount in T6, it's a little closer to 50/50, so when I got to T6 I started working on my dps gear a lot more.

That said, S3 is basically the best dps chest (at least according to Toskk) short of 4 piece T6 (which means no 2 piece T4). The chest is a decent upgrade for your tanking too tho, so if you find yourself tanking most of the time, you could get S3 as tanking chest and get something like Shadowtooth Trollskin Cuirass as dps chest, and then once you hit T6 and probably have T5 chest change the S3 to dps chest.

If you really aren't tanking all that often, use the S3 as a dps chest, the clefthoof set is a really well itemized tank set and can last you a long time. The extra agi is nice for dodge, but the str/agi probably won't be a massive boost in tps, and you shouldn't have problems holding agro over people in T5 gear without that extra bit of str/agi.