Bear Tanks

[mackenziemi]

I was thinking about starting another group last night and it hit me that I really haven't seen anyone use a bear tank for their MB group. That got me wondering why. Now since I have never leveled a druid I am not very familiar with the class, so I can't see an obvious game mechanic that would stop it. So why aren't druid tanks used in mutliboxing groups?

Thanks

[Toned]

Because Paladin's are like shortbus tanks. You don't even have to try and they can hold agro on tons of mobs.

[mlwhitt]

My main is a 70 Druid that goes back and forth between Feral and Balance. I am able to use her to 5 box most outlands instances without any problem. Sure she isn't as good about AOE as a Pally and you have to watch things a bit closer, but you can't beat the Dodge, Armor and HP that they have. Where Pally tanking is pretty much a 3 button deal, a bear tank is maybe a 4 button deal.

[kadaan]

My main is a feral tank, and my team of 3 shaman + priest is being leveled with the intent of doing 5-mans with my druid as the tank. So far the only issue I've run in to is groups of more than 3 mobs. Swipe only hits 3, and even tab-swiping I get the occasional chain lightning that pulls one of them off me. Paladins are the preferred tank because they can tank as many as they have to just fine.

As for buttons, I only use 3: Mangle+Maul macro, Swipe, Lacerate. On trash I hit my MM macro once for the snap aggro and FF that target down with my shaman while swiping. On bosses I spam both the MM macro and Lacerate.

[Toned]

When I played alliance I had a resto druid with full season 3 feral that I'd box with it is doable, but paladin is just so much easier. Druids are viable just little more micromangement. Tab target all the mobs mashing swipe to make sure you hit them all. Where as paladin you drop a consecrate and you're done lol.

[Sanctume]

Before Raf, I could have never levelled a druid past level 40.

I actually just leveled a druid now from 38 to 40 but in an un-linked account, and leaching exp from 2 sets of linked accounts.

For now, the druid is resto, but I would like to play around with a Druid Tank later on.

But I've been playing prot tank for a while now that I have not even looked back at my original warrior tank.

[xyzzy]

I'm biased since my original character is a feral druid that tanked everything from Stockades up. That said, in my opinion a feral tank is a legitimate but not ideal option for five boxing. It's easy mode with crowd control from three mages, but I wouldn't be so keen to try and hold aggro in the face some of the larger dungeon pulls in a CC-lite group for the very reason Kadaan and Toned mentioned.

On balance, bear tanking is a fun alternative and keeps you on your toes a little more.

[Vyndree]

[quote='Toned',index.php?page=Thread&postID=107772# post107772]Because Paladin's are like shortbus tanks. You don't even have to try and they can hold agro on tons of mobs.[/quote]

I considered rolling a druid tank for [url='http://dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=3060']my initial 4 shammy+tank group[/url].

These are the three tanks I considered, and why I choose pally:
Warrior: (leveled 20-40 w/4 ele shammies)
Synergy: WF totem, STR totem, AGI totem, STONESKIN, healing streams
Drawbacks: Low multi-target threat generation. Harder time keeping aggro off healers when multi-mob tanking. Harder to macro.
Meh: Tremor totem can be negated by stance dancing, but is still useful for the shammies

Summary: Warriors are great single-target threat generators, and STR+WF makes them even better at it. However, shammies have ZIPPO cc abilities -- so they don't play on warrior strengths well.

Druid:
Synergy: AGI totem, STONESKIN, STR totem, healing streams, TREMOR totem, MoTW buff -- also swipe hits exactly 3 targets so may work with CL, respec to boomkin for PvP (high synergy as boomkin)
Drawbacks: Unable to use innervate while tanking (plus low shaman spirit regen), unable to use WF
Meh: easier to macro and few abilities to micro, but doesn't benefit from certain shammy totems

Summary: Druids are great tanks in general, and well rounded enough to tank up to 3 mobs (which is perfect for CL). That being said, they can't use certain totems like WF, but since shammies don't need WF totem anyway it's not a big deal. They're a solid choice, particularly since a respec turns them into another role (Boomkin) with HIGH synergy with ele shammies.

Pally: (leveled 40-70 w/4 ele shammies)
Synergy: EVERYTHING. Mana, Healing, Agi, WF, Str (minor buff to block, but still usable), Tremor, Wis buff, Salv buff, Kings buff, WoA totem, hits multiple targets for CL, easy to macro (lawl holy shield spam), respec to holy for PvP
Drawbacks: LowER single-target threat, but as long as you give standard "lead time" (i.e. "wait for sunders") you're fine. Click-cast at the beginning to get an aggro lead unless you can Avenger's Shield in which case DPS away
Meh: Prot sucks for PvP, but Holy is decent

Summary: Pallies not only play well with ALL shaman buffs, but have very valuable buffs to GIVE shaman. AoE tanking is easy to macro and micromanage, and they are a respec away from being your healer in PvP. Pally has high threat generation on multiple mobs, allowing chain lightning to be used liberally. Consecrate tags all mobs such that Magma/Fire Nova aoe farming is doable (without mobs peeling off and one-shotting your 5hp nova totem) -- since if a totem kills a mob 100% by itself you get no XP, consecrate can be used to "tag" mobs while the shammy aoe totems kill them.



In the end I choose pally for its INCREDIBLE synergy with shaman. Not that warriors and druids have NO synergy, but the amount of synergy pallies have with shamans is near 100% -- I can't think of a single totem (besides maybe Tranquil Air -- but clever positioning can even make that useful -- and it DOES stack, multiplicatively, with Salv) that a pally wouldn't find useful. Not only that but pally buffs are uber useful for shammies, too! Blessing of Wisdom helped TREMENDOUSLY for outdoor quest leveling since ele shammies suffer from mana problems early on. In instances, salv helps when I'm doing single-target tanking since the pally isn't as good as a warrior or druid. Kings helps for PvP, so that's even useful too.

Second, Pallies make EXCELLENT boosters. So if I ever want a warrior or a druid to mix and match, all I have to do is boost it up with the pally. So they are a good long-term investment.

[mlwhitt]

Another thing along the Synergy lines with Pally + Shaman is Grounding Totems. If there is one thing that causes Pally tanks problems it is caster mobs. 4 x Grounding totems help that out a lot. The other thing is that you can't beat Spiritual Attunement getting you nice little bits of mana from 4 x Healing Stream Totems.

[Suvega]

Now, Pally
WOTLK? Druid, by far.

Synergy issues no moar (windfury and agi and str all help the druid).
AND you can actually cc stuff with them, AND you don't need to overgear an instance to tank.

REMEMBER IN WOTLK YOU WONT HAVE BADGE GEAR TO CARRY YOUR ASS THROUGH INSTANCES.
(maybe 4-5months later :P)

Tanking 6 mobs won't happen in Wotlk either, they have said it will be small pulls.
CC is probably going to be required with the shitty blue quest rewards, and pallies frankly BLOW at tanking anywhere fucking near cc'ed targets.