As a proud bear that I am, I have sometimes tried to search the internet for something about those cute bears that roam World of Warcraft. After increasing my experience as a player, I have decided to develop a guide to the Feral Druid tanking from a 3.1 patch perspective in order to help other druids who recently reached level 80 and want to start their walks in the world of swallowing blows like bread. .
I am Elnath from Genesis and this is a personal guide on the Feral Tank. I emphasize the personal thing because it is still my vision.
MITIGATION
Damage mitigation on the druid is pretty straightforward. Unlike Warriors, Paladins or Death Knights, we only have the ability Bark skin to reduce damage taken by 20%, either physical or magical.
The ideal of this talent is that if the boss deals magic damage temporarily, we reserve it for it. A clear example are the novae of emalon. When Emalon starts throwing the Nova, it's a good time to use Bark skin. In case the boss only deals physical damage, like Archavon, whenever you have it available, you should use it. In this way, you reduce the damage a lot and that is mana for the healers.
Afterwards, it is always advisable to throw trinkets at the beginning of the fight, which is when the healers are positioning themselves and fewer priests arrive. Agility (Dodge) and Armor bonuses are great. With the release of 3.1, the critical rating is also important for mitigation, since it will reduce our damage by 25% of our attack power, thanks to the passive talent Savage Defense.
The main thing about druid tanking is that, at the start of combat, it is used Demoralizing roar in order to reduce the boss's attack power.
SURVIVAL
Survival, or in other words, the amount of life the druid has. It is the strong point of the bear, which is the one that usually has the most life as a rule. In addition to all the stamina that the team gives us, we have two talents that make us natural survivors.
Frenzied regeneration with the proper glyph, is one of the best assets we have in critical moments of combat. When the fight against some bosses takes too long and the healers are low on mana, this will help the heals a bit since we will regenerate about 1,000 health points per second in exchange for 10 rage points for 8 seconds, and with the glyph, the heals we receive will increase by 20% during those 8 seconds.
Survival instinct it will increase our life considerably. It is advisable to use it when it is at full life because this will increase 25% of full life, but it saves in critical moments when we are below 10k hp. If the bosses make very big blows, it is advisable to use it at those times so that the reserve is greater.
MAINTAINING THE THREAT
Nowadays, one of the most important things since most of the dps do a brutality of damage and therefore, they generate a lot of threat. The druid's attacks, from highest to lowest threat generation, are these:
Feerico Fire > Bruise > Shatter > Flagellum > Lacerate.
The best way to keep the threat on a boss is to start the pull with Feerico Fire, use Bruise in all auto-attacks since it is independent of the cooldown of the other attacks, keep the Lacerate always at 5 and use Shatter as long as it is active.
So the best is:
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Faerie Fire
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Bruise (always)
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Shatter.
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Lacerate (up to 5) and reuse when in 6 or 7 seconds.
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Flagellum.
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If you see that you lack aggro, use "Enrage" to increase the damage (as long as you have the talent of King of the Jungle) although in personal opinion, it would pass from it for the mere fact that it reduces armor.
TANKING PROCEDURE
This is based on my way of tank bosses, so it is not that it is the absolute truth, but my point of view.
As I have mentioned, the idea is to fight with Faerie Fire unless you have to keep the boss in a specific area such as Sapphiron, then the charge is carried out and while the bear runs, you throw the Fire and the demoralizing roar.
If the boss does not do any type of magic damage or the one he does is very light, it is advisable to use Bark skin at the beginning on the issue of the organization and situation of the healers. In case you do make temporary magic attacks, ideally use it when you cast them to reduce those attacks.
Once the combat has started, a combination of bruise and destroy, start the bruise + lacerate cycle until the lacerate is raised to 5 and change to bruise + scourge. We will change the cycle whenever we have destroy active to use it.
The roar must always be active And every now and then, if you're in a rush and the DPS starts catching up with you in threat, use Fairy Fire. If there are any balance druids in the group, it is not convenient to use them as the balance druid's FF provides them with critical and the effect on the boss is the same as ours.
It's best to save your frenzied regeneration and survival instinct for critical moments or later stages where you really need it.
If you carry trinkets for use, the ideal is to use them at the beginning of the fight since normally, the CD of these trinkets is 2 minutes and thus we can use them again later, increasing the cycles of uses and improvements.
When there are multiple monsters, it is best to take the Glyph of Bruise which hits two targets at the same time and uses the bruise + scourge combo constantly. If you are still in a hurry with a threat, a rage is the best solution, since it will put us to destroy without a cooldown and it will also affect 3 objectives at the same time.
MORE TIPS
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Do not use health potions or sorcerer stones with life above 15k, it is a waste since the healers will increase your life at the moment. Only use it in a hurry and if survival instinct is thrown, use these potis before to increase the useful life of the bear more.
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The "Enrage" use it as little as possible if it is not because you have the talent that increases the Attack Power and you are short of Threat. After 3.0 they put an armor loss effect on us when Enrage is active.
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Start always Faerie Fire combat unless the boss is to be kept in a specific area. This way the healers will always have you in range and will not have to run after us because of the load.
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Always go doped (use jars and well-fed meals) is essential.
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Vial of Stoneblood always put for bosses.
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A matter of food ... well, this is already very personal the use of one or the other. I always choose two in particular:
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+40 Stamina and +40 Critical for bosses that are more magic damage and more movement.
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+40 Stamina and +40 Agility for bosses that are more melee and static.
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Why are you two? Well, because Agility increases our dodge and some critical and the extra critical gives us more options for the “Wild Defense” talent to jump, which reduces the damage received by 25% of our Attack Power.