Feral Tanking Discussion - Page 28

Oldmcdonald · 08/25/09, 1:51 PM

expertise is a very good stat to have, although i wouldnt give it up for mitigation. i think Tun's feral guide says the exp rate cap is 132, so i wouldnt worry too much about it till you notice a problem.

kriisko · 08/25/09, 3:03 PM

I have been raiding on my protection warrior for the last 2 years. During wotlk i've constantly had to deal with the pathetic amount of health points available for a warrior tank due to keeping my defense cap. About 3 weeks ago i was OT for a 25 man ulduar. The main tank was a feral druid that had been lvl 80 for about a week and i thought it was rediculous that just because his hp pool was so large that he should be deemed main tank. i stood ready to taunt bosses if he died because of his low avoidance... which my warrior's avoidance was 30block 20parry 23dodge.. which is pretty good compared to his 29 dodge. well he never even came close to dieing and after each fight i'd ask my buddy who was the main healer if it was hard to keep him up and he said no it's really easy. Then later when we were in the shattered hallway fighting trash. My warrior kept getting killed. which of course resulted in a wipe each time. It took having a dk stun the casts for me to be able to stay up. all the while the feral druid had no problem. so i took it upon myself to lvl a druid.. i've been 80 for about 4 days now . i have about 38k hp unbuffed in bear form and did naxx 10 man last night. i took the role of OT for my buddy that was on his warrior with all his avoidance. and i had to pick up a boss cause the healers couldnt keep him alive on the last boss in arachnid quarter. So my conclusion is that feral druid tanks are near the best tanks out there merely because of their overwhelming hp. i almost deleted my warrior after that raid.

Phnix · 08/25/09, 3:08 PM

Are there any mandatory addons for feral tanking? I know that it is very possible to do anything in WOW without addons, but what are some of the useful ones that you have found

Oldmcdonald · 08/25/09, 3:14 PM

only add on i really use for tanking is omen and thats not at all mandatory. i do use CT mod to watch my buffs though because i like the little timer bars better than the icons

here are some good macros i found on ensidia.com though:

#showtooltip
/cast Mangle (Bear)(Rank 5)
/cast !Maul

#showtooltip
/cast Swipe (Bear)(Rank 8)
/cast !Maul

#showtooltip
/cast Lacerate()
/cast !Maul

this way you dont have to spam Maul so much

to kriis, thats harsh man. i think they said theyre gonna give prot warriors and paladins a talent like survival of the fittest that negates the need for defense, so help is on the way lol. my guild still uses a prot warrior as a main tank because warriror tanks pull threat extremely well. you're right though they gso because of their low health pools and inability to heal themselves. this is my first toon ever and i started about a year and a half ago during BC when that health pool was the only thing that saved my sorry behind.

kriisko · 08/25/09, 3:32 PM

ya back in burning crusade they gave prot warriors and paladans a talent that gave somewhere around 40 defense so the hardship to reach defense cap wasn't nearly as hard. But they took that out on the patch directly before releasing wotlk. i think i went from 17k hp to somewhere around 15.5.

goulatek · 08/26/09, 5:53 PM

Originally Posted by Oldmcdonald

only add on i really use for tanking is omen and thats not at all mandatory. i do use CT mod to watch my buffs though because i like the little timer bars better than the icons

here are some good macros i found on ensidia.com though:

#showtooltip
/cast Mangle (Bear)(Rank 5)
/cast !Maul

#showtooltip
/cast Swipe (Bear)(Rank 8)
/cast !Maul

#showtooltip
/cast Lacerate()
/cast !Maul

this way you dont have to spam Maul so much

to kriis, thats harsh man. i think they said theyre gonna give prot warriors and paladins a talent like survival of the fittest that negates the need for defense, so help is on the way lol. my guild still uses a prot warrior as a main tank because warriror tanks pull threat extremely well. you're right though they gso because of their low health pools and inability to heal themselves. this is my first toon ever and i started about a year and a half ago during BC when that health pool was the only thing that saved my sorry behind.

I had these macros all made.. but I didn't feel like they were working properly.... Now I noticed that I didnt' have the ! infront of Maul... what was that doing to my macro? Thanks.

Dibsclaw · 08/26/09, 6:12 PM

! makes the ability non-toggleable. Without the !, each time Maul is cast it either toggles on or off. With !, extra presses of Maul will not turn the ability off.

goulatek · 08/27/09, 11:06 AM

Originally Posted by Dibsclaw

! makes the ability non-toggleable. Without the !, each time Maul is cast it either toggles on or off. With !, extra presses of Maul will not turn the ability off.

Thanks for that. Anyone have any wws or know off the top of their head how much of your total damage (%) Maul ends up being while tanking? Just trying to see if i'm getting an average amount of mauls off or not enough

Boevis · 08/27/09, 12:00 PM

I would say it's not so much how much of your total damage ends up coming from maul, but how little of it is coming from white damage. Looking at top threat druids on wowmeteronline as well as my own parses on what few fights I tank, you should be trying for 60% Maul and <5% White Melee.

Titanstrider · 08/27/09, 3:09 PM

On a boss fight you should find yourself with enough rage to always keep maul active, I find maul doing over 50% of my total damage. Since it replaces the normal attack, you will find there's a ratio to white damage. I have been manually using maul rather than the macro (which I'll be fixing soon!), and my maul/white damage ratio isn't as high as Boevis for sure. This is a great way to help maximize your TPS as well.

Pschorr · 08/27/09, 4:35 PM

Is Darkmoon Card: Greatness worth the 8k+ I'd have to spend to get it, or is Essence of Gossamer more than adequate?

Also, where can I find a gear list for tanking weapons?

I've been using Feral MaxDPS as I've been having some trouble with aggro, but I imagine there's a better option?

Ohmybad · 08/28/09, 7:48 AM

Originally Posted by Pschorr

Is Darkmoon Card: Greatness worth the 8k+ I'd have to spend to get it, or is Essence of Gossamer more than adequate?

Also, where can I find a gear list for tanking weapons?

I've been using Feral MaxDPS as I've been having some trouble with aggro, but I imagine there's a better option?

8K for Greatness OUCH, you might want to looking into the tank trinket that drops in reg ToC the 7k armor proc is better then the minor damage reduction Gossamer gives you. It's personal preference with Stam vs. Agl

I use RAWR for gear list/theory crafting gear.

Telaso · 08/28/09, 11:06 AM

I have a question for you more seasons Feral Tanks out there. I have been raiding mainly as Cat because my guild usually has 2 pally tanks and a warrior that show up. Lately I have had to tank more, and I'm curious at what my stats should be like.

Since I have my cat gear equipped on the armory atm, I shall link out my gear that I can remember off the top of my head.

Head Peice (Meta, Red, Enchant)
Neck Peice
Shoulders (Red, but Blue, Enchant)
Cloak (Enchant)
Chest Peice (Red, Blue, Enchant
Bracers (Red, but Blue, Enchant)
Weapon (Enchant)
Idol
Gloves (Yellow, but Blue, Enchant)
Belt (Belt Buckle with Red)
Legguards (Blue, Yellow, but Blue, Enchant)
Boots (Blue, Enchant)
Ring 1 Yes I know Parry is useless, but lack of others.
Ring 2 (Blue) Yes I know Parry is useless, but lack of others.
Trinket 1
Trinket 2

Spec
Glyph 1
Glyph 2
Glyph 3

I seem to have major Rage and threat issues, I have tried stacking more stamina so I will have lower dodge, but even then I run out and the DPS overcomes me. Anyone else notice that? I think I sit at 48k hp with around 42% dodge and 44% crit fully buffed. I never really have to MT, but on other various fights I am having major issues. I am not sure what I am doing wrong to be honest. I have used RAWR to theory craft, have put in different gems/chants to see what it would do, it says I should be alot higher than I am. I have switched to using Flask of Endless Rage over Flask of Stoneblood also being an Alchemist

I use Maul every attack I can, Mangle and Faerie Fire (Feral) everytime they are up. I stack my Lacerate to 5 and refresh it everytime.
When they are all on CD I use Swipe to keep my Proc of Idol of Mutilation up at all times.

I don't know what to do, I have read everything on these forums and tried everything I can think of but I can't seem to hold threat. Is it just that the DPS is to good, and should hold back or what? I usually see my TPS to be between 6.5 and 7.5k according to Omen.

Any suggestions would be very helpful.

I spent to much time on this, and probably made it way more detailed that it had to be, but I am trying to do the best I can.

Cynrh · 08/28/09, 12:02 PM

I only run 10's but that gear loadout looks like a full MT loadout, not a loadout an OT typically wears which can be anything from cat gear to MT gear, and often a mix. Tailor the loadout to match what you need to tank the encounter, how the DPS deals with what you're tanking, and how 'stressed' the encounter makes the healers. If DPS is supposed to be instant-on, super fast burn of what you're tanking, go DPS'ish. If you're tanking a heavy-hitter and your healers need you tough as a brick, or the healers need to concentrate 100% on the MT and need you to last, go MT gear. For quick, temporary OT assignments, DPS gear and using SI/Barkskin to cover it often works. Coming from a cat perspective you're probably erring too much on the side of caution for your healers and will probably find that tanking in partial cat gear will help your rage income and threat tremendously while only placing a small additional burden on the healers.

satyrical · 08/28/09, 8:03 PM

Telaso -

Looking at your cat gear I would suggest equipping favour of the dragon queen, lotrafen and maybe the leggings of the broken beast (even though it breaks 4 piece bonus) and check your stats.

I have found being hit capped helps alot, which you likely are in that gear.

Make sure your rotation uses fff whenever it is up and that you are swiping more and lacerating less and mauling constantly.

Once you feel you have maxed out the tps that you can do based on gear and getting your rotation as good as possible, then I would say that you should make sure you are on good terms with the rogues and that they are macroing you as the target of their tricks of the trade.

If you are only tanking occassionally they may be used to using it on some of the other tanks ?