Niton

Losing threat to tank AoE exposes the problem. If I'm in Sunwell/4t6 gear, and a prot warrior is in full tier 5, and the prot warrior is ripping mobs i've swiped multiple times straight off me with Shockwave+Thunderclap, there might be an aggro generation issue. AoE packs are designed to die fast, and a Warrior or Paladin can fill the 'large amount of aggro on infinite mobs' in two global cooldowns compared to 4+ for a druid. Losing 4t6 just makes things worse, as well.

Swipe, like Felhoof said, also suffers tremendously from locking out the use of any other abilities. That, combined with its terrible initial TPS and how weak (Feral) Thorns is compared to Ret Aura or Damage Shield, makes loose mobs not only more likely during early AoE but harder to get back without losing other mobs. Glyph of Maul appears to help on the surface, but i've found it to be unreliable for smooth threat past 3 mobs, as it suffers from the same crippling issue of dumb-targeting that 2.x Swipe did.

That said, Druids do a -lot- of damage tanking, so it's surprising that AoE threat is suspect. I've heard that Paladins have a larger coefficient than other tanks on holy abilities. If it's true, that may explain why similar amounts of damage done isn't enough to make a Druid tank comparable to a paladin. Also, Thornsing a Prot Paladin and seeing it be about twice as effective is silly.

 

Deathwing

Paladins have a 1.9x threat multiplier on all their holy damage. It's their version of the 1.45x threat multiplier the other three classes get. And tclap, last I checked(about a month ago) has a 1.75x threat multiplier. So, the damage on swipe has to be higher in order to meet the other two classes. DK's might pull off the same thing as druids though, since none of their major AE abilities have threat multipliers(disclaimer: from what I read in the DK thread, they actually don't use DnD much for AE tanking).

 

Niton

In Beta, what happened was that Frost Presence / (Dire) Bear Form / Defensive stance got a new modifier, which last I heard was 207.35%. I've heard that paladins have a higher coefficient, but their modifier doesn't affect non-holy damage. Not sure if it's true, but it matches up with personal experience of a 4k Hammer of Righteousness hitting for 11.7k threat.

 

Foxe

Anyone able to write me a quick macro that will use the appropriate feral charge for whatever form I happen to be in (cat if I'm in cat, bear if I'm bear)? I just want one button

 

Niton

#showtooltip
/cast [stance:1] Feral Charge - Bear
/cast [stance:3] Feral Charge - Cat

That's the one I use, haven't had an issue thus far.

 

Foxe

Thank you much!

 

Merendel

armory is a little flakey so I cant actualy see your talent spec. One thing to remember is some of the classes had compleat reworks on some of their abilities, ret is one major example of this. they got huge boosts in their damage. Our changes to cat DPS are rather modest pre 75. you should be able to eek out a slight DPS boost from RnT and the new rake but nothing near what ret got as a boost. our big boost comes from savage roar but that is a lvl 75 ability that we dont have access to yet.

to recap our buffs at 70 are
Rend and tear. modest but good shred damage boost on bleeding targets
proper scaleing for 5 point rips. only slight boost
Rake damage buff. very big boost to the skill but only a modest DPS boost over the shred you would have done with that energy.
Mangle was buffed somewhat. very slight boost to damage in a standard cycle.

all of those are good but not amazing if you compare it to the ret changes at 70. However they are much closer to the power of the ret changes once savage roar is avalible. the scaleing of all those abilities improved and when you factor in 40% more AP from that finisher that is when they start to shine, right now not so much. bear got a better boost pre expansion to be honest.

 

Davaeorn

There's no AOE pack of any consequence that dies fast enough to let the warrior keep the aggro with one Shockwave and one TC, two abilities sporting a rather bulky cooldown time, and if the DPS won't give you five seconds to get initial aggro before they start pummeling their AOE abilities, you need to look around for a guild with a smaller quota of morons.

 

◊ Abradix

If you think about the fact we're talking about Wrath of the Lich King here, not The Burning Crusade, this statement is not very true. In Naxxramas there are a large number of trash packs (Namely all of them with more then 3 mobs in a pack) that can be Shockwave/Thunderclapped, and 15 seconds later they're dead. Pretty much every single class has a decent AoE, and they start the very second a tank even looks at a pack. And especially with a warrior/paladin tanking, this does work perfectly fine.

My main gripe with Swipe is what's been pointed out before, the number of global cooldowns we have to spend to do the same threat as the other tanks is what's crippling us, and no frontloaded threat ability such as Avengers Shield/Shockwave makes it slower for us to pick up a pack. All in all we can tank an AoE pull just fine, but the DPS have to wait a few seconds. With a frontloaded threat ability, DPS starts firing away the instant you pull. You can say "Well just tell them to wait", which obviously druids will do, but that doesn't mean AoE tanking capabilities are equal. We can manage just fine, and if you give us some time then we will do very nice sustained AoE threat. But right now in Naxxramas, the most powerful AoE tanking is the frontloaded threat, even if its not sustainable forever like our AoE threat is. Currently things simply die too fast for druid AoE.

 

Kazanir

I think you're exaggerating the state of affairs somewhat. In Naxx in particular I never had AoE casters pulling off me, and even if I had, asking them to wait 3 seconds isn't really a big deal in the scope of a 3-4 hour instance clear. Add in the fact that you'll always have another tank with you in Naxx -- the instance can't be solo tanked -- and I really don't see the issue. We have enough parity in this department that I'm completely satisfied.

Edit: The simulation stuff from a couple pages earlier should probably be broken out into it's own thread, since all the details are quite extensive and deserving of their own topic where those most interested (and competent) can discuss the programmatical details in unlimited depth. This is one of those times when a new thread would be a good idea.

'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. I told you. This is bigger than a war. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.

You can come with me. I can protect you.

 

summlan

I agree Kazanir.
I dont feel that we really need to do the exact same threat as a warrior when it comes to AOE-tanking.
If we get the job done, im more than fine with it. And atleast right now im doing way more dps while AOE-tanking than any warrior and id rather keep my 4k dps while tanking than doing more threat. The biggest problem i have with AOE-packs is all the pushback-abilities that scatter my perfectly placed group of mobs and make me loose dps.

 

Oiysters

This is correct. Druid AoE tanking may be good enough to do the job for those of you that are already established in your guilds and content with your position. However, if you are applying to a new guild and your competition is a Paladin or a Warrior, which one will your typical min-maxing guild leader take, assuming similar skill and gear levels? The tank that provides the largest margin of error with huge instant threat numbers, or the tank that needs 4 GCD's at the beginning of every AoE pull to establish threat lock?

 

Davaeorn

Overanalyzation much?

 

Duilliath

The day people base their recruited tanks on how well they do on trash instead of bosses is one I never hope to see.

Coming up with arguments is fine. Silly, baseless, beside-the-point arguments do not qualify.

An thenn tehy wuz al ded. Srsly. (Exodus 1)

 

Kazanir

Yes, that's a retarded argument. No one is going to choose a tank purely based on their instant AoE threat, especially when you're always going to have multiple tanks in a raid instance -- 2 for 10-mans and at least 3 for 25-mans.

Druids have significant advantages in DPS while AoE tanking, in raw mitigation and hp pools, in damage taken -> time to live, and in strange utility (i.e. battlerez and innervate.) I'm not worried that our weaknesses are in any way game-breaking.

'War' is too small a word for what I'm fighting. Like a candle in front of the whole burning Sun. I told you. This is bigger than a war. Now, I am not going to die today. I have other projects, and other options.

You can come with me. I can protect you.

 

Nospamas

Just to follow on from what Merendel and give you a bit more information. I'm currently using this spec, which would be a pure cat dps 70 cat build. The spec is built around mine and my raids specific needs, and you have a little bit of choice and variation within the build you want to use. Testing on target dummies my dps has risen from about 800 solo to about 1.2k and my raid buffed dps on bosses was hitting about 2k up from 1.2k ish. The build I'm using uses the standard shred rotation which has been stated several times over the thread. With regards to my position relative to my guild mates, I was about 1k dps behind the rogues, ranked around 10th overall on the boss kills.

With all that said there are things to consider, firstly what Merendel has said, we don't get SR till 75 which results in a 30% to 40% AP buff (I believe the buff does not stack with unleashed rage, the raid staple enhancement buff) which as a class whos raw damage comes primary straight from AP, results in a 20+% damage increase. Above and beyond that 70 is no longer the primary level for balancing and nor is the level of gear we are in. Blizzard are currently balancing the game around naxx at 80 based around entry level raid gear and several new abilities for all classes. Along with this comes extra talent points meaning both OOC and beserk .

 

Skydruid

Hi All

I am a long time reader but this is my first post.

I am a feral druid (5xt6) tanking and DPS'ing BT/SWP but I'll admit I am not a huge theorycrafter so with 3.0.2 out and still 3 weeks to LK any1 else have thoughts on specs untill LK? I tried to read all posts here but it was hard to figure out which was meant for LK and which for 3.0.2. So I'm sorry if this has been discussed before, I havent been able to find it here.

I sometimes raid as pure kittie dps, and yes I do plan to go waste 50g to spec the best possible kittie spec for a raid where I am not to tank anything.

Here are the builds I'm thinking of and the rotations:

Pure Kittie DPS build for BT/SWP patch 3.0.2:Kittie build Link
Rotation:
Mangle
Rake
shread x3
FB if its a quick dying mob Rip if its slow
Shread spam
(keeping up mangle and Rake when they wear off, using tigers fury when tank has decent agro)


Tanking Build for BT/SWP patch 3.0.2:Tank build link
Rotation:
FFF
Mangle
5xlacerate
swipe spam (with maul if enough rage)
(reapplying mangle when its off CD and keeping up a 5 stack of lacerate and FFF when its off CD)

Any1 else have thought along those lines, or think im completly wrong on something?

 

Oiysters

That's not what I said, but thanks for exaggerating.

Maybe my experience is not the norm, but I have yet to do a raid where the raid leader valued relatively small statistical differences over convenience and expediency, gear and skill being equal.

 

halmmar

With the ease of sunwell now, just spec pure bear. I speced like this, but I think KotJ would be better than predatory instincts.
The reason is even a failed brutallus attempt like ours is very short, and results in a kill (we were just supposed to test the soaking groups but ended up killing him). You will be able to pull 2 berserk with ease and do some rather good dps (at least give omen of clarity a run for its money). And when your 2 tanks die, you can just taunt him and laugh at his nerfed damage.

Survival instincts is very nice in a cat build. Dead cat does not damage

 

Merendel

Your scenario is also a bit contrived however. You would be very hard pressed to encounter a situation where you will find 3 tanks, one druid one paladin and one warrior all with equal skill and gear applying for the same raiding position. As a raid leader myself I would take the person I could trust to get the job done not the one with the slightly more convenient tool. The fact of the mater is that druids can get the job done even if we have to work a touch harder or the DPS has to wait a GCD or two before opening up. I've never liked the whole concept of bringing a person just because of their class. I've taken superior players over superior class combo's many times, often resulting in unorthodox kills. I'm not going to start taking class before player particularly now that they have moved away from needing X class and spec or your not going to get the boss down, particularly over such a minor difference as there is between the tanks AE capabilities.

Honestly if DPS was not listening and opening up too soon I would kick them for not following directions before I would go looking for a tank that would allow them to play in a sloppy manner. If you give them the means to be sloppy when it doesn't matter because you have a slightly higher margin of error what is to stop them from being sloppy when it does matter?

 

◊ Abradix

The build is pretty solid, although you might want to take 5/5 RnT and 2/3 Imp Mangle, purely because due to latency you will be Mangling every 5 seconds instead of every 4.5 anyway.

As for the rotation, this has been covered a few pages ago. But basically its:

Keep 5x Lacerate stack up
Mangle
Maul
Swipe
FFF (If no rage for swipe)

 

manapaws

On live, since 3.0, I've been tanking (and sometimes dpsing) with this spec and just wanted some advice on my rotation with it.

With 4pc t6 swipe bonus, plus 3/3 Feral Instinct's Swipe bonus, plus Rend and Tear's Maul bonus, I'm finding it hard to fit lacerate into my rotation. I *feel* like I'm doing my best dps when I lacerate once, purely to keep a bleed up (and refresh it when it's nearly off, instead of the popular 5 stack theory) -> Mangle every CD, Maul when rage is available -> spam Swipe (even on single target) all other times. For reference, I have about 2800+ AP in bearform selfbuffed with motw and I think around 34% crit.

Pre 3.0 I was spamming Lacerate inbetween my (longer CD) Mangles, and only Mauling occasionally. I find I have more rage on bosses now due to Natural Reaction talent.

 

david0925

What you're doing is really not off from the popular theory at all, as long as you keep a bleed up, lacerate will eventually stack to 5 assuming you don't let it fall off. The lacerate until 5 then keeping it up theory just uses 4 extra globals to quickly acculmulate lacerate. In return, you get the 5 stack bonus with just 1 refreshing every 15 seconds more rapidly. The math is going to be very close, but I do think letting getting a 5 stack going first 15 second of the fight will be better than eventually getting to a 5 stack 1.25 minute into the fight, both DPS and TPS speaking. I'll have to do the math after this, but intuitively, this is what i think.

Maniq is my hero

 

Davaeorn

Is RnT really a great tanking talent? I mean, leaving out Infected Wounds and ILoTP for another 20% Maul damage which you don't really need to maintain aggro doesn't seem to me like a choice a sane druid would make.

 

• Astrylian

Why would you leave out Infected Wounds and iLotP? 0/61/0.

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