I agree with the rest of your post, but our warrior tank gets results like:
Blood Reserve 6 hits Avg 1028 Max 2026
Improved Leader of the Pack 43 hits Avg 1986 Max 2564

So a single ILotP heals for more than a Blood Reserve proc at somewhat good gear levels. Even with 75% ILotP overheal, it heals for 4 times as much health as Blood Reserve during a fight of reasonable length. And that's with a ~20% crit chance and lower max health than a feral.

And just because it's so important: It takes at least 50 seconds to stack up a 2000 health heal using Blood Draining. Blood Draining is worth at most 44 heal/second in the best-case scenario.

Re: Thorim hard mode. Boevis I notice you don't have Imp Demo - do you have a Warrior put it up?

I couldn't find any figures for the differencein his hits between standard Demo Shout/Roar and talented. I assume that Imp Demo is a big yes - especially later on in the fight, but I'm stuggling to quantify the difference in incoming damage it would make.

Hello Folks,

I am fairly new here and I apologize if this question has been answered else where. Currently I am a feral tank for Ulduar10 and naxx25 and such trying to get into Ulduar25. Most of the gems on my gear are based on hit rating trying to reach as close as i can to the cap which is 263. I am wondering if the gems are a waste and should probably go for agi/stam instead? If I do that wouldn't that affect my threat generation? I am currently sitting on 250 hit rating. What about expertise rating, I do know the cap is 17% for tanking but thats impossible to get. i am sitting on 7.50% right now. Some feral druids have been telling me to maximize on expertise instead of hit but I am wondering if thats the right way to do it?

Please feel free to inspect my character and give any suggestions.
Any help is appreciated

I'd really consider dropping the 16 hit gems out of your gear, you have hmm 160 hit from gear? Thats probably fine with you being over the expertise softcap aswell, the cap is 6.50%(26) for dodges and 11% for parries, nowhere the near 17% you got from somewhere.

You dont need the socket bonus on the legs, chest or helm just stick 24 stamina gems in them and you are still at 218 hit which is more than enough, i think most would tell you to resocket the whole lot except for the gloves.

Edit :thought I would add that you should have some kind of goals to reach with basic stats, somthing like 30k armor,43 - 45k hp, then 50% or more dodge and 26 expetise is suitable for ulduar 25(raid buffed) Thats like 33k hp 41% dodge 29-30k or so armor unbuffed, then you can start playing around with hit rating gems.

thanks for your quick response Mat. I just did what you said and managed to get 32K HP, 29k Armor, 42% dodge, and 29 expertise after re-gem'ing, all unbuffed. My hit dropped to 178. About to go try Maly25 and see how it goes.

I use the following macro:

/cast maul
/castsequence reset=3 Mangle (Bear)(), Faerie Fire (Feral)(), Lacerate, Mangle (Bear)(), Swipe (Bear)(), Faerie Fire (Feral)(), Mangle (Bear)(), Lacerate, Swipe (Bear)()

My threat is always massive. Only time I lose agro is within 15 seconds of the pull, or special cases like Hodir or Vezax (but even on those with a well timed enrage/berserk and watching omen to call for salvation I have almost no probs).

The 2nd tank in raid (this week anyway) is a Prot Warrior, he keeps up sunder, thunderclap, and demo for me so I can focus on threat. Usually I'll provide the Demo myself with a different spec, but since this is the only fight where I actually tank now, I spec specifically for my situation.

My Armory Specs should never be emulated, they are always custom for one fight or another in particular, my guild is focusing on various Hard Modes so I spec based on what I feel will be best on a fight by fight basis, usually not specs that I (or anyone) would generally consider overall optimized.

Agility does add up to the DR cap of Dodge, but since the DR for Dodge is 50% (not including the 10% from talents.) means getting to the DR cap is a long process not including multiple procs/use effects.

Why do I have or mainly why do you use swipe in your tank rotation? Is it only a filler? Does it make more threat than a laterace? And if it makes more threat, why do you use laterace so often and not only if the dot is nearly expired?

I am strugling with threat on Vezax (normal mode) and Hodir (hard mode) kills.

What i do on Vezax is using dps trinkets ([Mark of Norgannon], [Pyrite Infuser]) together with standard stamina-gemmed tank gear. Threat is so-so, mostly depending on luck during initial berserker (sometimes i get miss streak, sometimes i get dodge streak and have no rage). I guess with 232 lvl weapon (which refuses to drop) threat will improve, but i wonder what setup others use there?

As for Hodir hard mode, we just started with it. Seems the only way i can provide enough threat together with sufficient survivability is to get storm buff at the beginning and together with berserker. I am using 2 FR pieces (chest, ring), resistance flask, rest stamina-gemmed tank gear. Is this viable approach or are people using more dps-oriented gear to tank this?

The threat problem on General Vezax hard mode only gets worse. The DPS requirement in the hard mode is even greater than in normal, and general cannot be taunted. Use enrage during the first berserk for extra threat and keep the rogues/hunters feeding you MD/Tricks. Make sure the ranged dps saves their threat drops (invis/shatter/etc.) until later on in the fight. Use Hand of Sanctuary as much as possible.

The threat problem on Hodir is much more interesting. In order to make the timer, your DPS must put out more threat than you. It is not uncommon to see casters hitting 14-16k DPS with a good string of buffs. The key here is that Hodir is tauntable. The best strategy is wait until a mage pulls aggro and then taunt. After that the mage pops invis, and you should (hopefully) have a huge threat lead on the rest of the DPS. When the next caster pulls aggro at 130%, rinse and repeat. This strategy will only work if you have caster DPS pulling aggro at 130% threat before melee pull aggro at 110% threat (which they should). If the casters aren't doing pulling aggro then they aren't doing their job