The tier gear is really well-itemized for bears compared to a lot of the other slots, but otherwise - yeah, just go for the highest ilvl gear you can. The tier bonuses simply aren't worth the time.

Just because the hard mode 239s are BiS doesn't make T8 next by default. Tank value always depends on how you weigh mitigation, survival, and threat. The Ferocious Gladiator pieces are actually BiS for some pieces depending on what you want. T8 does have decent well-rounded stats and are "good" in a general sense.

Easy answer: Use Rawr (just make sure you know what you are gearing for).

Im personally starting to wonder about [Formula: Enchant Weapon - Mongoose] and [Darkmoon Card: Greatness], while less worried about DMC:Greatness when looking at the fact that with current gear I am a tad under DR for Dodge I am wondering if after I hit the DR does it make other enchants worth more? Blood draining was originally laughed at considering the time it was announced tanks were not any where near threat of being killed by a boss.

This also is included with use effect items as well that give dodge/agility, more on the dodge trinkets since agility gives more than just dodge. granted with always nice to have a use effect trinket of the 2 as a O shit button. Lately ive been gearing more for stam>dodge/agility due to DR cap, that and the amount that bosses have been hitting for seem to support stam enchants/gems.

I am the MT for my guild and have MT'd every boss in Ulduar, except Algalon of course. I do not consider the 2 piece bonus of T8/8.5 worthless since the proc is equivalent to a free attack, which ultimately helps with threat. Though it's not often, currently I DO have threat problems since I cannot afford wearing threat/DPS gear to tank with as I did with Tier 7 content. Most easy-mode bosses are unforgiving so I need as much help I can get to produce decent threat while wearing pure survival or avoidance gear. Fights like General Vezax you want to have decent threat since he is not tauntable and the DPS is pushing over 10k TPS inside the black cloud. You can argue that rage isn't an issue since most bosses hit over 10k and even 20k, but with a string of avoidance, the two piece bonus comes in handy.

With fights in Ulduar being relatively longer than the fights in Naxxramas and also thanks to SI being reduced to a 3 minute CD, I often see myself using SI twice in most of the fights. For example, Mimiron, I use SI during phase 1 to give some breathing room for healers during plasma blast. In phase 4 it's up again where I used to use it on the first shock blast which used to synced with the barrage (before being fixed). I used the SI + barkskin (74.5k HP + barkskin) there to stay in during the shock blast (100k nature damage). The 8 extra seconds may seem not a whole lot on paper, but the 28 second SI with a 3 minute CD, is worth getting.

From first hand experience with toying around with the two set bonuses on the new tier 8/8.5, it's definitely not worthless and since tiers are always definite drops (especially Vanquisher token), it's rather easy to gear up rather than waiting for that one chest or shoulder to eventually drop "someday."

I asked this elsewhere, but I'll ask it here since this is the Feral tanking thread:

Anybody else notice (or even bothered by) the vast advantage of the Furious weapons over the same item level weapons off Ulduar for Feral tanks?

[Twisted Visage] versus [Furious Gladiator's Staff] (1850 rating 232 item level)

Browsing through possible stave, polearm, and maces off Ulduar and the weapons datamined from hard modes, I honestly do not see a tanking weapon that comes close to the ones that are obtained through arena.

I mentioned this in other forums, but it did not receive much attention and most druids seemed oblivious to it. I don't mind doing arena for BiS gear for tanking, I actually have the rating to purchase one, the point I'm trying to make is that Feral druids are going to get their weapons from doing arena as some of us had to back in BC.

Oh, and speaking of rings, don't forget [Platinum Band of the Aesir]

Any thoughts or comments are appreciated.

As far as the PVP staffs being BiS for tanking, they are hugely over budget and should only have 50% of the agility they do currently. However, even if the agility is halfed, they are still showing as BiS, albeit not by such a gross margin, I'll deff be picking up the 1850 one when I get the points, doubtful I'll make 2200 for the 2nd tier.

I am also seeing the furious bracers, gloves and legs to be BiS for tanking depending on how much you value threat with the boots ad belt not far behind either.

I was also wondering how much other people value expertise, not so much from a threat PoV, but from a parry-gib avoiding PoV. How dangerous are parry gibs now to our survivability? Rawr doesnt seem to rate it too highly, but nightcrawlers sim seems to rate it extremely high from his last run of tank sims (21 May). I personally like expertise, but wouldnt go out of my way to get it, or rate it as high as def, but i do rate it higher than rawr does, although not quite as high as night seems to think its worth.

Can anyone tell me if Bear hit rating is different. I was missing more than I like last night in heroic ulduar, and my hit rating was 297 (food, heroic prescence). It didn't lead to any problems on threat, but I don't care to miss.

Were you missing, or were you being dodged/parried?

VtS, it's not a free attack if you have infinite rage. If you're tanking a boss and you have rage issues, I'd be surprised. The only time it's at all valuable is in low-rage situations; in high-rage situations it does nothing for you at all. And even in low-rage situations you can't bet on it.

Anecdotally, I'm seeming more parries too on ulduar bosses. I imagine blizzard is just give these bosses a higher parry rate to correspond with the increasing levels of expertise out there.

Expertise cap for negating parry is 16%, 6.5% is to negate Dodge which is why most dps threads state the expertise cap is at 6.5%. So unless you have 16% expertise you will still be getting parried, the bosses in Ulduar have not had their parry chance increased.

Farias, this was shown recently to be untrue at least for the training dummy; it was 14%. This was in the combat ratings thread as well as other threads.

Without actual data points and values, it's pretty useless to cite one or two fights. In those cases it's just more deep breaths.

I did, but depending on a situation where you aren't hit AND you happen to get a proc off of a bleed that happens every 3 seconds is not a justifiable reason to have the set bonus. And it still only gives you a free mangle, lacerate or swipe; maul will still not be paid for via clearcasting, which means at best it's 40% of your threat.

As I said, even in low rage situations it's not reliable.