My New Bear Tank!

[Ridere]

Woo,

Okay, I finally spent a bit of gold and bought some gear for my new bear tank. I was wondering if you bear veterans, or whoever really :p, wouldn't mind taking a look and seeing what you may suggest. I think the gear itself is okay. A few greens, but Armor is over 25k in bear form, and HP is around 24.5k

Chalisha is her name, and her profile is linked in my list of WoW characters under my name to the left. Guild = Excessus. Realm = The Scryers. Faction = Alliance

I'm mainly interested in what gems and enchants to use, how much hit I need on a bear tank, and suggestions for glyphs. I have a lot of empty gem slots to play around with, haven't purchased the belt buckle, either. So there's a lot of improvement I can work in there with gems and enchants. I'm just not sure which I should tweak.

I'm not interested in anything that has to do with a rep grind, as there are rumors rep grind enchants will be bind on account in the next patch, and with the exception of Sons of Hodir, the remaining Northrend reps I'll just boost via tabard in the heroics itself. (I may entertain the idea of buying exalted for SoH via Relics of Ulduar, but only if you think it's absolutely necessary)

So I know my setup won't be ideal, but my shamans are decently geared, and I'm going to gem/enchant them up to hit cap for heroics and boosting spell power to further make it easy on my fresh Bear.

Anyway, thoughts, suggestions? I'm pretty excited to start tackling some heroics this weekend.

[Canasou]

You're in luck, Big Bear Butt post a new list based on 3.2. http://thebigbearbutt.com/2009/11/26/patch-3-2-bear-gear-starter-list-armor/

He also has a bunch of stuff related to everything for feral tanking. A really nice blog site.

I box with a druid tank and love it. Priority on stam, agi, then hit. And remember your Blackened Dragonfin for stam and agi buff.

[Ridere]

Wow, very nice.

I appreciate the link. It looks like my cape really could stand to use an upgrade to that Nerubhuk one, though I could probably fudge it in the meantime. Definitely will use the enchants suggested in this guide and then probably Gem Hit as best as I can.

Anyone know how much hit is good for a bear tank for heroics?

Edit: Got it.

Looks like 262.32 for raid bosses.

196.74 for Heroic Dungeon Bosses and with a space goat, that brings it down to 163.95.

She already has 85 hit, so I'll just enchant her up first, check her hit, and at worst add 4 20 hit gems to bring her to the cap for heroic dungeons for now. Then I'll just fill out the rest of the gems with stamina, and agility. Probaly with a focus on stamina.

[Ualaa]

As a reference for Feral druids, I like: http://www.emmerald.net/

[heyaz]

have you tanked with the bear before? how do you like it?

[Svpernova09]

Gemming hit is bad. Your a tank, not a DPS. When it comes down to hitting something or surviving. You want to survive. You should be able to generate enough threat even in early levels of gear to not be too worried about hit. I wouldn't gem for it, I wouldn't even enchant for it unless you just aren't able to hold ANY threat at all. You're much better with AGI / Stam enchants and gems. I tend to prefer AGI over stam, but you really can't go wrong either way. You may want to lean more towards AGI in the beginning as you'll gain more mitigation which is hard to come by from gear alone.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Kil%27jaeden&n=Svpernova&group=1

That is the spec / glyphs I tank with. You can swap maul with something else if you prefer, but I really like it.

As long as your holding aggro, completely ignore hit until later, Expertise is something to be aware off, but as long as your talented primal precision should be all you need until higher gear levels, and that gear should have it on there already. The biggest issue you may run into is bears are harder to heal than other tanks in early gear levels. This is why AGI and Stam would do better for you than hit. AGI translates into dodge, Stam turns into health. Both scale incredibly well.