I have now main tanked all content in this new expansion. As main tank i get priority on the gear i need so my mitigation and threat output have steadily improved in the last few weeks. As i started out with very low dodge when hitting level 80 (after getting few upgrades past SWP gear whilst leveling) i initially picked a spec that i felt would give me maximum survivability: Mitigation
However, i have started to notice that certain classes especially Mages and Warlocks who are now getting close to, if not at the hit cap (and are now stacking haste/crit) are starting to catch me up on threat after the first minute or two.
I now have 5 parts Dreamwalker and all the other items i could want except a decent tanking stick, so i have switched the 5 points in Feral Aggression for 5 points in Rend & Tear leaving me with this spec: Threat
The difference in TPS is really noticeable, and i didn't come close to having threat trouble on Heroic Malygos last night, even with casters in 100% damage increase zones.
Another great TPS boost i was using last night was bezerking when bloodlust was popped, this allowed me to spam mangle and maul on every cooldown for some really high threat figures, this gave me a massive lead over the dps even when they were in double damage increasing patches.
If threat becomes an issue again in the future i will look to use a spec with master shape shifter, although i will hate to spend 3 useless talent points to get to it.
Having said that, Rend and Tear and Maul are not "Nice", they're borderline overpowered and Maul will be the source of 50-60% of your threat and damage on any fight you main tank, making RnT much more powerful then Master Shapeshifter (5 points for a 2% damage buff per point, vs 5 points for 0.8% damage buff per point if you include the 3 points in Natural Shapeshifter).
Any tanking build where you are going to be tanking a single target needs to have rend and tear.
You can't call a planet Bob!
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You were missing the () at the end of Feral Charge (Bear), this is necessary otherwise WoW thinks you're trying to cast Feral Charge Rank Bear.
Currently using this for 5 and 25-man tanking. I can't stress enough how little of an issue threat is at this point. You should reliably hold double the threat of your highest dps with no problem. What's good about this spec, also, is that it allows you to still do very high kitty dps. I have been top 5 on a number of 25-man encounters with this spec. You basically give up shred, which does hurt, but if you go with 2p t6, you just keep up SR, rake, rip, and mangle when you have the energy. Shred on clearcasts, and the extra CP allows for a bite in between generally (although it does not guarantee crit).
I just don't find R&T to be useful in a tanking situation. To be honest, the talent, especially as a 45-50 pt, lacks in general. Thoughts?
Mangle spam basically only works with the 2T6 bonus for being "Good" DPS. Without that set bonus the DPS will be much much lower. There was some math done on the talent preview mega thread but the gist of it was with ferocity imp mangle and 2T6 mangle comes out to similar DPE to shred at early level 80 gear but falls further behind as gear levels scale up. The stats on the 2 gear slots you are sacrificing for the bonus will also start hurting you more past the T7 level.
Honestly I think RnT would be a much better choice for points even in a tank spec over master shifter. While master shapeshifter does give you 4% more on swipe and mangle in addition to maul it will come out to less damage overall on a single target that you know will be bleeding. Yes threat is not an issue on a single target now but you will do more damage over the course of the boss fight. Additionally it will be better for your style of DPS in that spec. With a rotation revolving around mangle instead of shred for its damage you will have enough CP for a 5/5/5 FR/Rip/FB finisher cycle assuming 2T7 and the rip glyph. Raid buffed FB will almost always crit with RnT on a boss target that will be bleeding.
I'm usually 2nd OT (I prefer this role as often I get the possibility to shift out and CR or innervate a person, or even pop a tranq, there's also a lot of fights that don't require 3 tanks so I get to dps fairly often as well.).
So I'm currently going with this spec, I guess it's a bit unconvential and after reading some in here I have my doubts about not having primal precision.
What I've also noticed in practically every spec linked here is improved mangle, everyone seems to have it, I didn't take improved mangle, the talent just doesn't seems that great to me to be honest, sure having a mangle one gcd earlier is nice, but is it really that big of a TPS increase? I mean I lost my 2T6 a while back and from what I gathered here as you gear up the % of threat coming from maul goes up (so I'm assuming the % from mangle will go down?).
Furthermore I don't really use the -energycost on it as I don't have mangle in my dps rotation (since trauma is usually up).
I've not gotten feral agression and I'm probably going to drop infected wounds as well since one of the other tanks is specced for improved thunderclap and we have a dps warrior with 2/5 imp demoshout (is 2/5 enough though, seems nobody has been able to give a final answer about how much AP reduction you need on a boss nowadays).
After having read everything in here I'm considering speccing to something like this(well I might take one point out of predatory instincts and max primal precision) because I can rely on the other tanks for keeping up thunderclap wherever it matters (and with my current gear I should be able to survive fine in heroics now without infected wounds).
Improved Mangle is around a 5% DPS boost for 3 points, with my WWS averaging around 20% of my damage coming from Mangle while tanking bosses. Additionally it increases the chance the mangle debuff stays on the target if you don't have a trauma warrior, which is probably the majority of raids but not your concern if you do have a trauma warrior in your raids.
Regarding your spec, it depends how much you value the tanking talents and how much you value the DPS part. Personally I question the value of Infected Wounds and Feral Instinct in your build, and would move that to 2/2 Primal Precision and 2/3 Imp Mangle. If you're looking for more DPS however, I'd invest in King of the Jungle instead.
Your second spec is a bit strange, in the sense that it takes away ALOT of DPS potential which you seem to want. For a pure bear spec it's alright, even though personally I don't value Infected Wounds and Primal Tenacity very high and would take Master Shapeshifter instead, with 1 point spare.
Your second spec is a bit strange, in the sense that it takes away ALOT of DPS potential which you seem to want. For a pure bear spec it's alright, even though personally I don't value Infected Wounds and Primal Tenacity very high and would take Master Shapeshifter instead, with 1 point spare.
Thanks for the fast feedback, the second spec I linked wasn't actually the one I had in mind :x.
As you can see I did move the point out of the infected wounds as there's not a lot of point because the other tank should be keeping up TC in raids. I'm just in doubt here really, on one hand I don't want to give up feral instinct because I feel it would nerf my ability to AOE tank by quite a bit (I usually do heroics with an unholy specced DK who's a bit of an aggrowhore, especially on AOE :p), on the other hand I think it might be good for me to pick up improved mangle instead to increase my singletarget threat, I think I'll spec to the build I linked in this post for tonight and will have a look at singletarget threat (mine as well as the other tanks and what the dps are putting out) to decide ... for now
According to Rawr, mangle spam *does* work even without 2T6 if you have full improved mangle. Apparently that makes mangle cheap enough that the DPE is close enough to shred to be worth it. At least at my heroics/crafted ilvl 200 gearing.
A pure cat build may not have improved mangle and can just shred away but for a bear/cat OT build it's nice being able to skip shredding attacks and still do respectable DPS.
I am also interested in the facts about feral aggression
Originally Posted by lawl
So how many points do I need in feral aggression to hit the AP reduction cap for bosses?
I'm look to spec the optimal tank build for survival, with threat and DPS being secondary.
1 point? 5 points?
What AP do level 80 bosses have?
So on my bear, which is an alt, I'd be looking at doing all the 5-man content, the 10 man as well, probably not much if any 25-man content. With this toon, I want a pure tank, and with threat generation being easy, I'm after the same priorities as lawl, survival first and threat and dps secondary. I'm also assuming I'd be the MT and would not want to count on a Tauren Warrior for thunder clap (infected wounds) nor any warrior for the demo shout.
I don't think for 5 man content any amount of feral aggression is necessary.
Right now, I doubt any is really necessary for 10-man due to the ease, but how much will actually be good is unknown. In the future, chances are that some will be very valuable.
In my oppinion, it’s more usefull to spec 2/2 Imp MotW and leave it with 3/5 Furor. If you are the only druid in the raid (which is usually in 5/10 instances), this would be another buff for all 3 tanking aspects. You may lose some comfort because sometimes you don`t get the 10 rage, but you can easily pay the mana for reswitching until you get the rage.
Unless you are maxed out on expertise - and by maxed out, I mean you have enough to negate parries entirely - skipping primal precision for master shapeshifter will be a net loss. Each point of primal precision gives 1.25% fewer parries and dodges. Even if it is 1.25% fewer parries, that means each point is worth 1.25% more hits. Which is basically the same as 1.25% more DPS and TPS (not exactly due to FF not being part of it, static effects, and keeping lacerate stacks up - but closer). If you are below the dodge cap (and with your current gear, you are), you're looking at 2.5% damage per point. And you are reducing the chance of parry gib by 1.25% per point as well, so it adds some mitigational effect.
Master shapeshifter increases your physical damage by 2% per point, but it costs 3 useless points to get there. Even if you didn't factor in those three points, it still is not as good as primal precision on a per-point basis.
In my opinion, practical usefulness of Primal Precision very low at the moment when expertise is abundant on our gear and threat is not an issue. I am running with 7% dodge/parry reduction in tank gear, and i have no problems on Malygos with raid standing in double patch.
Regarding cat form: If you go for Primal Precision, you will have troubles staying under dodge cap. Our gear has nice hit as well, you will not miss finishers, so the other part of the talent is wasted as well. So primal precision brings almost nothing to cat form.
Moreover, even if trash is not as important as bosses, primal precision brings almost nothing there as non-boss mobs have way lower parry chance (i believe its the same as dodge chance, so 5% + 0.2 per level, but i am not 100% sure here). So Master Shapeshifter is better for trash clearing as well.
Therefore i think taking Master Shapeshifter is better choice (considering time spend in cat) than Primal Precision. If you can invest those 3 extra talents.
edit: the above is valid once you reach cca 6% dodge/parry reduction and when you are close to hit cap (7%+ in my opinion).
kalbear gave you the facts already: on a per-point basis Primal Precision is better for threat/dps than Master Shapeshifter by a factor of 1.25% to 0.8%, if you're dodge capped (more, of course, if you are not). When you also consider the side benefits of expertise, namely fewer parry hasted swings and smoother threat generation, PP comes out way ahead of MS.
kalbear gave you the facts already: on a per-point basis Primal Precision is better for threat/dps than Master Shapeshifter by a factor of 1.25% to 0.8%, if you're dodge capped (more, of course, if you are not). When you also consider the side benefits of expertise, namely fewer parry hasted swings and smoother threat generation, PP comes out way ahead of MS.
Dps difference in bear is not important (and small). In cat form, MS gives you way more given standard gear setup. Smoother threat generation brings you nothing if you are way ahead of dps classes even without it. The only thing i agree with is fewer hasted swings, but in my opinion damage in cat matters more than occasional hasted swing.
Dps difference in bear is not important (and small). In cat form, MS gives you way more given standard gear setup. Smoother threat generation brings you nothing if you are way ahead of dps classes even without it. The only thing i agree with is fewer hasted swings, but in my opinion damage in cat matters more than occasional hasted swing.
I think there's a difference in outlook here - most people in this thread are looking from a tanking perspective mainly. As a tank, an occasional hasted swing is significant. From a hybrid tank/dps perspective, it may not be. Just make sure your healers are OK with your damage profile and it should all be good.
The hybrid builds will hopefully be redundant once dualspecs are put in (when/if that happens).
Originally Posted by Wraithlin
Do your hospitals have unusually narrow doorways?
If not how do "lifestyle choices" explain the waiting time statistics?
For hybrid there are a number of talents that you should likely take, but I'm still not sure that primal precision gets skipped.
Master shapeshifter gives 4% crit, which is a big bonus for cats. 4% damage for bears is also good but not particularly significant nowadays. It costs 5 talent points though, and that's pretty big. I personally would rather have imp mangle + primal precision for a hybrid build, skipping infected wounds and NS/MS. That may not end up being better DPS for cats, but it will be significantly better TPS and survivability for bears. I can see a reasonable argument for taking NS/MS in that situation, however.
For pure tanking though, the argument stands; NS/MS is not nearly as good on a TPS level or a mitigation level as primal precision is, especially if you have to trade something like imp mangle for it.
I now have 5 parts Dreamwalker and all the other items i could want except a decent tanking stick, so i have switched the 5 points in Feral Aggression for 5 points in Rend & Tear leaving me with this spec: Threat
Charge,
My spec is basically what you are using, I just swap Primal Precision with Brutal Impact. The question I have though, looking at most specs on this thread, why is it no one takes brutal impact? I don´t know, of course, there are others classes who will spell interrupt in raid and so on, but why would we give up on that utility for 10 expertise? (I mean, we have more expertise on gear nowadays more than anything else).
Because the "utility" of Brutal Impact is completely wasted in raids, whereas 10 expertise is extremely valueable for both TPS and surviveability.
Expertise IS infact quite useful. Take this wws for example. Physical damage done by Sapphiron to me, 435k, of which the average hit was 7628. 20 of my attacks got parried, with dodge at 50% that means I got hit by 10 extra hits during the entire fight due to parries, amounting for a total of 76k damage, out of a total 435k of physical damage or 560k total damage.
This was with around 9% parry, so reducing that to 6.5% parry would've saved me 3 hits, 23k damage less taken, that's almost a 5% reduction. Expertise value differs per boss, because some like Patchwerk aren't affected by parry haste, and obviously parry is alot more devestating on bosses that hit very hard yet slow compared to fast, weak hitting bosses. But all in all, Primal Precision IS an avoidance talent that you should always take if you intend on tanking in raid instances.
On top of that, a parry hasted swing is extra burst damage which is generally speaking the reason tanks die, we want to reduce the chance of the worst case scenario by as much as possible, and reducing the chances of parry hasted swing is a big part of that.
20 of my attacks got parried, with dodge at 50% that means I got hit by 10 extra hits during the entire fight due to parries, amounting for a total of 76k damage, out of a total 435k of physical damage or 560k total damage.
That's not entirely accurate; a boss doesn't get an extra swing. They get at best a 40% haste boost, and at worst a 0% haste boost. Average tends to be 30% or so. That's still basically 6 extra attacks that you took that whole time, or 3 extra attacks that landed - and they happened to be bursty.
Mostly, 10 expertise is quite a lot of threat and would be equivalent to 320 expertise rating. It's usually to your advantage to turn talent points into stat values when they're that high. Brutal Impact is very situational and often completely useless, and even talented having one spell interrupt every 30 seconds is not reliable enough to matter. If a fight needed interrupts, you'd want something like a warrior instead.
The change for Swipe to generate an additional 50% threat is now live. Please let us know how it goes.
You were tanking naxx 25 trash without Feral Instincts? Ever had 2 or 3 groups in naxx 10? How did you handle Gothik the Harvester? Without a doubt this is one of the pure 100% must have talents for tanking in 3.0.3 already!
I saw someone raise the Feral Agression 5/5 or 3/5 question, and I hoped to find more on this topic but no one seems to have tested it yet, including warriors. Does anyone have more info ?
Concerning FI, i tanked Nax from A to Z without it and never had trouble keeping aggro on anything, but with the new changes it seems quite sexy. To me FI was more a matter of taste. But I'm looking on focusing more on a bear spec, something similar to this.
Based on a 70% armor reduction from bosses, here are the results:
For AP 4735, crit 30%, no T6 and 2pT7 I get the following:
swipe TPS: 1095.2
lacerate TPS: 786.1
lacerate DOT TPS: 282.5
total lacerate TPS: 1076.045
Breakdown : for max TPS, swipe. For max DPS, keep a lacerate stack up and swipe whenever you can.
So, my question would be, is a spec only taking 3/5 Feral Agression optimal or not ? I'm mostly pairing with a Tankadin or a DK, so no friendly warrior around. This post was the only one I found concerning itself with that topic.
I saw someone raise the Feral Agression 5/5 or 3/5 question, and I hoped to find more on this topic but no one seems to have tested it yet, including warriors. Does anyone have more info ?
In short it looks like we need the full 5 points in order to fully remove boss AP. I'm glad that Blizzard picked up on this issue in WotLK, as having the optimal number of points for a talent be less than the max is quite a poor mechanic.
The change for Swipe to generate an additional 50% threat is now live. Please let us know how it goes.
I took a second look at this talent myself when building a hybrid/OT build. Swipe just didn't seem as useful to me. But, After running Naxx 10 man I have to say it ends up being very good. Aside from the obvious utility for AOE tanking, I find myself using swipe more often in my rotation if I already have lacerate stacked. Mangle/Swipe/Swipe/Lacerate, this is of course with mauls always up, and switching out swipes for demo roar and FFF as needed. Granted this might not be the best TPS, I don't know the numbers on lacerate vs swipe, but it dishes out more damage. And when you already out Threat your dps, more damage is what you should be working towards.
Mangle/Swipe/Swipe/Lacerate, this is of course with mauls always up, and switching out swipes for demo roar and FFF as needed. Granted this might not be the best TPS, I don't know the numbers on lacerate vs swipe, but it dishes out more damage. And when you already out Threat your dps, more damage is what you should be working towards.
If you got improved mangle which is something a druid tank can use very well too, the rotation should become something like:
(if you already have a 5 stack lacerate)
mangle/lacerate/swipe
mangle/swipe/swipe
mangle/swipe/swipe
And repeat.
Also It depends what your AP is.
Some math can be found at: ThinkTank: [Druid] Swipe is 50% more fun
And this way is probably the best TPS and DPS when you have enough AP
12/02/08, 4:28 PM
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