Druid Tank - Closing the gap between normal to Heroic

I have read, read and read some more guides, tips and tricks concerning gearing my tank. I know which stuff I need to go for, what kinda gems to use, which enchants etc. theres a ton of help out there to get me started.

What I don't know is the transition phase going from normal to heroic 5-mans.

I currently have 3500 g on my tank (see sign for equipment) he is now lvl 80 wuhu the first toon ever, and seriously I have no clue what i'm going to do next.

A friend at work told me to do some heroic pugs as DPS until I got a few epic pieces then I could begin to tank the easy heroics.

I did go to a heroic yesterday and did a wopping 1100 dps in cat form... I was almost to embarrassed to do the heroic to the end, until the tank in the group screwed up, did a bad pull and lost aggro... I switched to bear form, popped my survival abilities, and off tanked two elites, and saved the casters.

But I don't linke to be an @ss and having the rest of the group carry me through the instance.... (even though I have done exactly this for a few people while doing the random dungeons each day (I have often been top dps with my tank, lol).

I have been saving up my Triumph badges and have around 25 now, and I'm starting to stack up some frost aswell. So the gear will improve a bit now....

I'm only focusing on my tank atm. and when he is fairly well geared ill pull the rest of my team through instances to around lvl 80 and hopefully I have saved up enough shard to be able to purchase some heirloom equipment for a new team so I can ditch the moonkins as dps.

So basically I just need some help to go in the right direction.

Found this on the official forum as a "goal" to be able to tank some heroics. I'm not sure how far off I am to be able to reach those stats - need to look into this tonight:

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Q. What statistics are about normal for a bear to start tanking heroic dungeons with?
A. By selecting gear from quests, crafters, level 78+ dungeons and the Argent Tournament, and enchanting them with cheap value enchantments, you should come to these approximate values in Dire Bear Form without buffs:
- 25.000 armor
- 28% dodge chance
- 5,5% miss chance (seen when mousing over the Defense value, but add 5%)
- 25.000 health
- 4.000 Attack Power
- 25% critical strike chance
- Hit, Haste, Expertise and Armor Penetration ratings varying from 40 to 120.
Remember, these are very vague statistics and are meant to reflect a bear that just turned level 80 (but was rather serious in tanking business) and is ready for tanking. They also vary a bit for the two available races. Night Elves get extra miss chance (though not reflected by the Defense value) and Tauren get extra health.

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Source: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread....cId=9521444247

are you on grim yet? you can check me out on grim, im using a druid tank.

im sure you said you was moving? if you come on im happy to help,

For the love of all things nature, if your going to que as DPS, use a pure cat spec. You'll do a LOT more than 1100 than in a bear spec. Yes, there *really* is a difference between the two.

Pure Cat: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...ernova&group=2
Pure Bear: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...ernova&group=1

Jump into heroics asap. whats the WORST that could happen? Get the 232 crafted stuff and get the i245 idol FIRST, then start working on T9. (T9 isn't great for bears). If you can find a cheap 90 AGI Greatness deck get it, it's still nearly BIS for cats and bears. Get a death warmed belt made, it'll last you until you get the Frost badge one.

Druids are stupidly easy to tank with, just save barkskin for when you hit 40% HP or you know there is huge incoming damage and use it with Surv Instincts. IMO Glyph Maul and Use this macro on 2 or less mobs:

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

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If you don't want to rely on a macro then get the addon Feral By Night, it has a move suggestion feature that will help guide you through the learning process.

On 3 or more mobs, spam swipe while hitting the above macro on a single target that DPS is focusing on.


Random Dungeon Finder = Learn your class. Currently they can't vote kick you until 15 minutes, so even in a worse case scenario you get vote kicked you can immediately reque. I don't think you get a debuff from getting vote kicked either. In Bloodlust US tanks get instant ques all day, I imagine you'll have really short ques as well. Don't be scared to fuck up, all tanks learn somewhere.

I have done quite a bit of tanking from lvl 75 to 80 in random dungeons and used roughly the castsequence you stated above...

It's not the mechanics of tanking or how to spec i'm concerned about it was purly relating to the gear gap between the normal and the heroic instances.

I guess ill go pure dps then... :) do a fair spec and see how much damage I can dish out.

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are you on grim yet? you can check me out on grim, im using a druid tank.

im sure you said you was moving? if you come on im happy to help,

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My Palladins are. Ill expect to transfer to Grim Bathol this weekend as I don't have much time to play during next week anyway :) I have also saved up the stonekeeper shards I would need to get my pallys rolling with heirlooms on.

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Originally Posted by Seldum

I have done quite a bit of tanking from lvl 75 to 80 in random dungeons and used roughly the castsequence you stated above...

It's not the mechanics of tanking or how to spec i'm concerned about it was purly relating to the gear gap between the normal and the heroic instances.

I guess ill go pure dps then... :) do a fair spec and see how much damage I can dish out.

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Bah, I wouldn't worry about the gear gap. If you go DPS, still get feral by night, it's great for watching all your cat dps stuff.


I also use this flowchart (John fucking Madden ftw)

http://www.unbearably.net/blogfiles/simplecatdps.jpg

If you are worried about a gear gap maybe see if a highly geared healer/friend queues with you. The only thing your lower gear will do is make you harder to heal and not hold aggro as much as a high geared tank.
As was said above, tanks are pretty much instant random dungeons and so you should be able to gear pretty fast. Once you get your basic gear I would move to ICC 5 mans where there are some decent drops which will fill the gaps in your gear very quickly.
Good luck :)

that flow chart is awesome, made my day

I lol'd at the flowchart - john madden!

Anyways, people were relatively nice when I started pugging heroics. The only preparation I made was to be crit immune, that was it, I jumped right in.

For me the biggest challenge to tanking heroics was dealing with people who couldn't control their dps. I only ran into 1 asshat in my entire time of starting heroics.

After I geared up, all you have to worry about is whether or not you get people doing under 1500 dps and the heroic taking forever!

I found this: http://www.emmerald.net/ to be a great resource for Feral gearing.

i'd simply queue for heros, especially since you're a druid and are automatically crit immun. you will get carried through a bit, but i wouldn't mind as a tank ;)

One absolutely awesome thing about feral bear tanks, is the fact that pvp gear is actually VERY nice in lots of slots. Honestly full furious (which you can buy with honor now) is more than a fine start. And if you look at many bear tanks, you'll see that even with access to pve gear, the high stamina on a lot of pieces (particularly hands and legs) make them quite desirable.

Sure farm some heroics and fill some slots. But also get on random arena team for points, and in 3 weeks buy yourself the relentless legs and hands for arena points/honor. There's actually quite a good gearing guide on the official forums strangely enough.

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Originally Posted by Ualaa

I found this: http://www.emmerald.net/ to be a great resource for Feral gearing.

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that was indeed a great site, but it's kinda outdated now. doesn't include triumph badges rewards or any icc loot.

A wowhead with some filters can help aswell:

http://www.wowhead.com/?items=4.2&fi...;crv=0:0#0-2+1

Feral tanking is hard, yo. I've 5-manned a few heroics with my bear as tank and I didn't even have any shammies for ezmode.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...a&n=Dondeltoro

I have ONE blue heroic drop and ONE purple heroic drop. The rest are AH, crafted or normal gear. And my enchants are LOL. I never had a problem with him holding aggro, taking too much damage or any other tank-related problem.

Really. Bear tank iz difikult.

[edit] Bear tank faceroll macro:
/castrandom [stance:1] maul, swipe, lacerate

No, I'm not suggesting I am a shining example of the pinnacle of druidic tankdom.
Yes, I am suggesting that a very little bit of gear, crappy enchants and a one-button wonder macro CAN effectively tank most 5-man heroics provided your teammates aren't /AFK.

I followed the advice concerning the change to dps. I bought dualspec and used the guide Svpernova09 suggested and it raised my dps to 2100.
I also followed the flowchart which helped alot, thanks for all the help.

Ill probably farm some heroics in the forthcomming week and see what it will bring. I really hate to dps and can't wait to begin tanking again.

I also purchased the dex ring. I dunno if its a good piece but it was an improvement over the ring I had in the first place :)

I guess ill just have to keep doing the heroics and maybe start doing some pvp for the honor.
Ill also be transferring to GIMP on Bathol EU, and they might be able to give me some advice etc. because that really what I need atm.

Again thanks for the help and comments, it's always nice to hear your oppinions.

for my bear i started by crafting the polar set (very high stam with .. frost resist). Easy 3 pieces, just to get my stam a bit higher and not scare other people in randoms lol

you're crit immune so grab all the stam and agi you can. and go for heroics ;)
nice staff in H VH btw. easy one to get for a nice stam boost. Trinkets in H AN and normal ToC5 for more stam, while you build badges for armor. once you'll have enough in built stam you'll be able to swap those for nice trinkets (although they are already real nice, but at some point you dont need more stam for heroics)

I just want to thank you all for your comments and effort in guiding me in the right direction. Being a fairly layback gamer in wow, all the gear, glyphs, spells etc. can be a bit overwhelming at times.

Heres a new armory link as my main looks atm.

http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sh...l&cn=Weedpower

Often the drops is plate or mail - in fact so much plate drop that I could build a panzer tank out of it - but I was very lucky last night. I had this http://eu.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47216 drop the first time I did Trial of the crusader. And I won the need roll. Lol.

I'm also getting better at doing dps in Heroics even though my gear suck at this. But at least no one complains anymore. I average 2000-2500 depending on the pulls. So i'm doing the daily random heroic as well.

One question though, Would you ever trade a frost badge for a triumph badge to be able to buy a il 245? I did this earlier as well. I had 11 frost badges and 65 Triumph badges, so I traded 10 frost to get the head piece i'm wearing atm.

And yes I need to change the idol. Its on the todo list :)

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Originally Posted by Seldum

One question though, Would you ever trade a frost badge for a triumph badge to be able to buy a il 245? I did this earlier as well. I had 11 frost badges and 65 Triumph badges, so I traded 10 frost to get the head piece i'm wearing atm.

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Wow. Absolutely not. 10 triumph badges is about 30 minutes of work. That was a ridiculous waste.

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Originally Posted by Seldum

One question though, Would you ever trade a frost badge for a triumph badge to be able to buy a il 245? I did this earlier as well. I had 11 frost badges and 65 Triumph badges, so I traded 10 frost to get the head piece i'm wearing atm.

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Wow, no, never. That's like asking if I'd trade all the geared DPS on my team for a couple of level 20s. There is no limit at all on how many Triumphs you can get a day. There is a limit on the number of Frost you can get, and Frost pieces are expensive, the Frost helm is 95 badges.

Darn, I just knew I should have been more patience with that... hmm I live and learn :)

Found this freaky macro... might be usefull in many ways if you don't have innerspace with keymap toggle.

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What I'd like is to turn maul off for a duration of a fight, if I want. So that for some fight I could just maul to my heart's content, but for another I could choose to do it if I wanted. The problem here is that there's no capslock type of system. I can't just press a button and have it 'held' without programmable keyboards. What to do?

Well, if you're sarf from EJ, you hack the bastard instead and you write a macro that rewrites another macro. Which is a brilliant idea. I had to modify his initial crack at it and mine's not nearly as elegant, but it does work.
/run if not InCombatLockdown() then local i=GetMacroIndexByName ("Ma") local mt=GetMacroBody(i) local a=strlen(mt) local v="/cast Mangle" if a < 15 then mt=v.."\n/cast !Maul" else mt=v end local n,t,_,l=GetMacroInfo(i) EditMacro(i,n,t,mt,l,1) end

With the other macro called 'Ma' being this:
/cast mangle

What this does is the following:
checks to see whether you're in combat. (you can't modify macros in combat).
Gets the macro that's called 'Ma'. This looks for a macro called Ma and grabs info about it. It's important that you have this macro already.
gets the length of that macro
if the length is smaller than the extended version, make the macro's text be:
/cast Mangle
/cast !Maul
Otherwise, make it be:
/cast Mangle
Then edit the macro 'Ma' to say whatever you said above.

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Source: http://wowthinktank.blogspot.com/200...ng-maulhs.html

I could modify this to work with my eclipse procs for my dps druids. Evil.

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Originally Posted by Seldum

One question though, Would you ever trade a frost badge for a triumph badge to be able to buy a il 245? I did this earlier as well. I had 11 frost badges and 65 Triumph badges, so I traded 10 frost to get the head piece i'm wearing atm.

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I confess, I've done this to get my first 2 pieces of triumph gear. Think I've wasted about 20 frosts on each toon for that. When I think with my head it was my most stupid move ever. But when I think about the joy it gave me and how those 2 pieces improved my boxing, then those 10 days of dailies were well worth it.

Stupid? Yeah. Regrets? Hell no.

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Originally Posted by Seldum

I could modify this to work with my eclipse procs for my dps druids. Evil.

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You can't modify macros while in combat, so unfortunately no, you can't.

Argh you are right. :) Forgot that little twist.