Druid tank + pally healer = busywork

Last night i started working on the team listed below after a long break from it:

(64) - Bear tank, assn rogue, fury warr, sh priest, holy pal

It was a nightmare. Druids were amazing tanks back during bc. They are the worst tank again, imo. It has poor threat generation and virtually no aoe threat. The paladin is a good single target healer but is worse than a shaman for group healing. I did mana tombs and was constantly having to tab through targets on the druid and i was spam clicking the grid layout. The druid doesnt generate enough threat to cover up a shadow priest's dps. To keep from losing aggro, id have to tab to the next target while the existing one was only half dead. This made groups of mobs die almost simultaneously instead of one at a time, meaning they all got to beat on me for the entire duration of the figght instead of the damage tapering off as the fight progressed. Also, the spriest was e highest dps toon but is a mana pig. So now the group will become:

(64) - Pally tank, assn rogue, fury warr, cat druid, holy priest

Which is unfortunate since it will be similar to another group i already have. Anyway, mympoint here is that i wouldnt recommend a druid tank for boxing. Maybe it gets better later but i wouldnt level that way. The druid can contribute better as a healer or a cat. Or even boomkin if you can get that working for you.

Druid = poor tank for boxing

Unfortunately by putting thrash as a level 81 skill and giving swipe a 6 second cooldown they destroyed druid aoe tanking at lower levels. I think they are hoping to fix some of that by making the cooldown on swipe to be 3 seconds instead of 6 in the 4.1 patch. I am not sure that even that will fix it although it will certainly help. They may just say that it is good enough anyway since they mostly focus on how druids are doing in endgame content.

aoe threat has been fine atleast for my druid tank but then again he's geared and 80+ .... only **cked up thing has been for my mix team that you get swipe at lvl 36 not 15 and i'm really not big fan of tab clicking every mob and crowd controlling bigger pulls on those low level dungeons

I have a mixed melee grp that I'm working on, but they were already 80 before cata.

Bear Tank, Frost DK, Fury War (Now Arms), Mutilate Rogue, Holy Priest.

I use tricks + FOK if im having threat issues, or sometimes I'll just toss my dk into blood presence and he'll offtank with howling blast. Bears aoe threat is no longer faceroll, but thrash makes it better at 81+

I had similar issues when I was leveling the group, so the DK was the tank for most of the 55-70 content, and I just had the feral cat thing going.

Set a macro up on your paladin to cast Hand of Salvation on your priest. Also if your priest is going oom and out performing everyone else to where its a problem, just tone it down a bit with him till the rest of the team matures or just wait 4 or 5 global cooldowns before the priest starts to dps so agros can be had.

Even at max levels druid tanks are doing a lot of tab targeting. That's just the nature of how bears roll. Been like this for quite a while.


Edit: the thing to remember is you're not max level. You don't have all the tanking tools yet. It's quite unfair to say "Druid = poor tank for boxing" when you're only 64. You're not even doing *hard* instances yet. It's much more accurate to say "druid = not my kind of tanking playstyle" or "druid = not for the lower level tanking faint of heart" or "druid = why the fuck did I not listen to everyone and use a faceroll pally"

I've done 99% of my 5 boxing with a bear tank. I'm quite certain they're fine for boxing, and you should either learn to play (as a bear) or check out another playstyle tank.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Svpernova09

Even at max levels druid tanks are doing a lot of tab targeting. That's just the nature of how bears roll. Been like this for quite a while.


Edit: the thing to remember is you're not max level. You don't have all the tanking tools yet. It's quite unfair to say "Druid = poor tank for boxing" when you're only 64. You're not even doing *hard* instances yet. It's much more accurate to say "druid = not my kind of tanking playstyle" or "druid = not for the lower level tanking faint of heart" or "druid = why the fuck did I not listen to everyone and use a faceroll pally"

I've done 99% of my 5 boxing with a bear tank. I'm quite certain they're fine for boxing, and you should either learn to play (as a bear) or check out another playstyle tank.

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I agree 100% here... I've had sucess with all 4 tanks in a 5 box enviroment, and all 4 healers... Just need to pick what you like to play the most.

To clarify, if anyone else is reading this and pondering the idea of using a druid tank, a druid is difficult to box with at less than max level. At least it is for me. I could have set up some multi-step keys in isboxer i guess but paladins, DKs, and warriors are all easier to box (in that order). I find even warriors to be easier. At least they have real AOE threat and Oshit abilities (plural!).

I have run into this problem constantly while solo leveling my mage and shaman through the dungeon finder. Every druid tank that popped could not hold threat on mobs at all. Have not run much above lvl 75 with them as of yet, mostly been getting pally and death knight tanks. But when I would use my chain lightning on mobs, I'd pull them with one shot, even after giving the tank more than enough time to build threat. As of now for leveling, I would not suggest using a druid for tanking. Dps and healing is way better. This was one reason I put my druid team on hold, had no fun leveling them at all, tho that's just me. Leveling up in BGs is an option, tho you don't get xp unless your team is actually winning, and ques may be too long for your realms, they were for mine.

On a side note, not sure when, but they removed the 'swipe' ability from bear pets for hunters and replaced it with a form of a warrior's demoralizing shout, which is helpful. Swipe is what gave bears an edge on tanking pets cause of the aoe effect. Now even at 85, farming mobs for pretty much anything is a pain cause their mob threat sucks with just thunderstomp alone.