Bear tanks

[puppychow]

In WOTLK all tanks are fairly equivalent in terms of capabilities, its just a personal preference issue at this point. There are a few random fights where one tank is slightly better than others, but with perhaps the exception of Sarth 3Drakes I don't think it makes more than a minor difference, my guild uses 2 pally tanks and a DK tank and we've cleared every 10/25 man instance and done up to 2 drakes. I know multiboxers here with pally tanks and DK tanks have cleared almost every heroic, not sure about druid/warrior but I don't imagine its that much harder.

From a dual spec perspective in future patches, all are nice as well since pallies can respec DPS/heal as can druids, and DKs and warriors have very good DPS specs as well. Most servers have an abundance of DKs and warriors so getting into pug raids may be harder, whereas feral druids seem to be quite rare.

The issue will be Uldar in the next major patch, just like the Sunwell patch suddenly made resto shamans crazy good and warriors the only possible MTs for Sunwell (and even Black Temple before that), its possible that the next raid may have encounters that require specific classes, or even for multiboxers the next 5 man may be easier with some tanks than others. Hopefully it won't happen, but you never know.

[valkry]

Almost, except pallies were godly for Black Temple and became the preferred MT for the Illidan fight.

[TheBigBB]

BoW and auras > Leader of the pact (5% meele critt) since most run tank+4 casters.

Bears have higher stamina pool but also requires the most healing of all tanking classes i belive.

The ugly bear look no near as awsome as my paladin when she's well geared either!

Well to be fair to bears, moonkin aura is also not that great because the crit chance doesn't stack with elemental oath, and most boxers will have elemental oath up most of the time.

Also, a druid adds mark of the wild which is seriously underestimated by most people; it's a pretty nice all-around buff.

However, I have to still agree that a paladin's buffs are way more versatile and useful, and the frontloading threat is awesome.

[Nicbennett]

Will someone define front loading for me? I think I understand the basic idea in that consecrate is an awesome AoE opener that generates a ton of thread, but is there some significance to the term front loading?

Also, as far as nearly everyone recommending pally tanks, I do understand that and plan to do my first tank with one, but after that I thought a little variety might be nice. I was more asking whether a bear is viable than whether it was as easy as a paladin, but in both cases you answered my question admirably, so thanks for all the replies. I also might just decide to put the pally tank on one account and boost other groups with him with the intent of using him as a tank for everyone in the end, but we'll see how that goes. Gotta ding 80 on my shammies to start harvesting gold before I worry about that.

[valkry]

Frontloading - when using this to refer to a pally tank, it means they start off at very high threat. Mostly because of that move where they throw the shield actually, and that Hand of Righteous or w/e. Consecrate is also awesome for the big aoe threat. But yea, the shield is a huge aggro generation.

That's for multiple targets, for single targets a nice big phat mangle crit from a bear druid can be just as effective :P

[Nicbennett]

Thank you for the clarification, I understand now(and feel kind of dumb for not seeing the obvious meaning). I would think multi-mob would be crucial, since really the only reason you need a tank at all as a 5 boxer is instances, which means groups.

I also might try boosting to 60 then taking a DK tank. they seem to rock out the AoE threat with all the diseases, though I understand they require a bit more management than a pally. That seems like it might be preferable to a feral tank in a lot of ways, though I still may try both eventually. I have great dreams of boxing at least one toon of each class(with the possible exception of rogues, since they don't have much place in boxing groups)

[valkry]

When I try boxing my 4 shammies with a Dk tank, I had the Dk specced frost. Now what i had for the assist macros was this:

Lightning bolt - Icy touch, single target threat is all that is needed so far.
Flame shock - plague strike, once again, single target threat.
Lave burst - (I use this early because i try to kill something almost straight away which helps with healing the tank) Pestilence, this will spread the diseases for for a small amount of aoe threat (relatively). The 2 first abilities plus white swings is enough threat to beat the aggro from lava burst. Also, I mash this button so pestilence goes off twice, more aoe threat and 2 death runes set up. Also, i have that talent in blood for 10% parry when bloods are on cd.
Chain lightning - howling blast, this is massive threat and at 80 will hit for like 2.5k easily non crit with decent dungeon gear. Easily enough to combat chain lightning aggro.

Rinse and repeat. That's roughly a 10 second rotation, if i need to heal I don't really bother with having any moves macrod for the dk while the shammies heal, makes it easier to keep track of the runes. you can do it differently ifd you want, but that's how i set up my dk tanking for my shammies.

PS: Also, if you death grip the first target, you will be up the the pesilence stage as the mobs reach you, which will draw them back to you if a shammy happens to pull aggro from mana totem (mana gains generate aggro).