Druid Tanking Simplified
- Introduction.
- Defense & Survivability
- Threat
- Healing as a Feral Druid
- Druid Item Lists
- More Information
1. Introduction
There are a lot of resources out there for bear tanking, including a ton of math and a list of very difficult-to-attain gear. This guide attempts to simplify that into something attainable and understandable to someone who isn't interested in calculating threat gained in their head each time a rogue crits a backstab.
Its secondary goal is to simplify bear tanking basics to other classes who are interested in basic information, without the need for complicated formulas.
It is the assumption of the author that it is irrelevant which class is better at tanking. It's not always possible to have a party made up of your ideal class balance. The important factors are: the class is capable of being an effective tank, and the player is able to tank effectively. To this end, Warriors, Paladins, and Druids are all capable of tanking. Shortcomings of any of these classes are best overcome with knowledge.
2. Defense & Survivability
2.2 Summary
- Druids are great at tanking straight melee mobs and bosses. Druids have higher damage mitigation from armour (about 10% more than warriors).
- Druids are OK at tanking primarily magic-damage mobs and bosses if they invest in a few pieces of good resist + stamina gear. However, we don't have anything like warriors' imp defensive stance (reduce magic damage taken).
- Druids are great at tanking some "trick" bosses, and lousy at tanking others. For example, we're perfect for tanking mobs who hex/polymorph and awful for tanking bosses who need to be interrupted (we don't have anything like shield bash).
- Feral druids have some good passive tricks up their sleeves, and I have noticed them working to great effect while tanking: 15% fear & stun resist, chance to avoid any type of aoe damage, etc.
- While feral itemization has vastly improved with 2.0, druids still need to put a lot of effort into collecting tanking gear. There is a pretty big difference between general feral (or hybrid) gear, tanking gear, and dps kitty gear. Instead of going through BWL with a level 45 tanking staff we can actually find something on-par with what other classes are getting at our level, but it does not mean that one piece of "feral" gear will work in all your roles.
- Druid tanks should carry "special use" gear. This mostly includes magic resistence gear. I recommend carrying a ring (or two), a trinket, a cloak, and bracers. These pieces tend to have the lowest stat allocations compared to helmet, chest, legs and gloves.
- Druid tanks should be comfortable changing gear based on the fight; in other words, go ahead and take off some of your +armour gear in lieu of +sta & +attack power gear in fights where there's a lot of magic damage. An add-on like Wardrobe is good for this. It's not always about high armour.
2.3 Stat Importance
- For overall damage mitigation: Armour > Stamina > Agility > Dodge > Defense (up to +65 skill / +156 rating)
- For overall threat generation: Strength > Agility
- For survivability against endgame physical DPS: Defense (up to +65 skill / +156 rating) > Stamina > Armour > Agility > Dodge
- For survivability against endgame magical DPS: Stamina > Magic Resistance > Agility > Dodge
All four of these are very important, and it's the job of the druid to prioritize them properly in order to mitigate damage, survive against crits and damage spikes, and generate threat.
My suggestion for overall performance is: Defense (up to +65 skill / +156 rating) > Armour (up to ~25k) > Stamina > Agility > Dodge > Strength. Overall, once you get your defense skill up, there isn't a lot of juggling to be done due to the amount of "bear tank" items in the game. You really only have a few items to choose from, and
WoW is a simple enough game, that no matter what your choices are out of these items you will still be viable.
When fighting primarily magic-damage mobs, re-prioritize the gear you wear to: Stamina > Magic Resistance > Everything Else.
2.4 Talents
It is essential that bear tanks take the following talents:
- Essential Tanking Talents∞ - 0/43/0 (leaves 18 points to be distibuted as you see fit)
- 3/3 Survival of the Fittest. This gives you 3% crit reduction, which is huge. That's the equivelant of +75 defense skill (180 defense rating).
- 3/3 Primal Tenacity. This gives 15% fear and stun resist. This means better control over most fights where mobs will stun or fear the tank (even without a Dwarf Priest).
- 5/5 Predatory Instincts. This gives 15% increased damage when you crit, and 15% resistance to Area of Effect attacks. This is also huge. Bear threat still scales with damage on white attacks and mangle, so this is a 15% increase on threat gained when you crit with those. 15% resistance to Area of Effect (AoE) attacks is the biggest boon to this talent--this is all AoE: melee (e.g., whirlwind) and magical (e.g., blizzard, hellfire).
Druids without the above talents really shouldn't be main tanking level 70 instances; they just don't have the tools. It's on par with a Fury Warrior tanking, except even tanking Fury Warriors have more "tricks" they can pull off.
2.5 Defense
- 1 Defense skill = 2.4 Defense Rating (at level 70)
- Each point of Defense skill for Druids adds 0.04% to the chance to be Missed, to Dodge an attack, and to convert a critical strike into a regular strike. This means +25 defense skill (+60 defense rating) will grant you an extra +1% Dodge, non-player opponents -1% to Hit, and will reduce your opponent's chance to crit you by 1% (it will be converted to a normal strike instead). Warriors and Paladins gain additional benefits from defense skill in the form of +parry and +block at the same 0.04% rate.
- For a level 70 player with 350 defense against a level 70 mob (level*5 = 350 weapon skill), the mob has a 5% chance to critically hit the player. With the Survival of the Fittest talent, Druids need only an extra +65 defense (156 rating) to negate all critical hits ("crit immunity"). In other words a total of 365 defense at level 60 or 415 at level 70. There is always a rare chance to be crit even with maximum defense.
- As long as your base defense is maxed (350 for level 70), you've done everything you can do to avoid crushing blows. A level 70 player therefore cannot apply more than 350 points of defense against crushing blows versus level 71 and higher mobs, even if the player's modified defense is higher than 350. A crushing blow is an attack made by an NPC that is 150% of the damage caused by a normal successful attack. A player cannot perform a crushing blow.
2.6 Dodge
- 1% Dodge = 14.73 Agility (for Druids at level 70)
- 1% Dodge = 18.9 Dodge Rating (at level 70)
- Although a dodged is 100% damage mitigation, you will get hit, so points in dodge should not have priority over other mitigation.
2.7 Resilience
- 1% Resilience = 39.4 Resilience rating = 1% less chance to be crit, 2% less damage taken from critical strikes
- Resilience and Defense don't mix & match very well. Reports indicate mixing +def and +res gear to reach crit immunity works on paper, but not in practice. At this point it looks like you should really do one or the other.
- Resilience is primarily a PvP talent; its item point allocation is very high (e.g., every +1 resilience rating on an item reduces the other stats an item has by a much larger amount than other ratings, such as +dodge or +defense), and overall +39 resilience rating (+1%) has less benefit than +60 defense (1% dodge, -1% to be hit, -1% to be crit).
- However, resilience may be easier to stack in order to get crit immunity (e.g., grabbing 2 pieces of Gladiator gear can get you complete crit immunity through resilience) leaving you more room in gearing out your other pieces. It does end up giving you some wasted points on things like rings with +armour and +defense, but also gives you more freedom to get other gear (pants, chest, boots) that have their points allocated to stats instead of extra defense.
2.8 Armour
- Bears gain +400% of an item's armour while in Dire Bear form. This is added to the item's base armour. So an item with 100 armour would grant 500 armour in Dire Bear form (or, rule of thumb, you get +400 armour for every 100).
- 3/3 Thick Hide grants an additional 10% bonus from an item's armour. In Dire Bear form this means (100% + 400%) x 110% = 550%. An item with 100 armour would grant 550 armour in Dire Bear form (or, rule of thumb, you get +450 armour for every 100).
- The bonus gained from Dire Bear form and Thick Hide apply only to white armour from items. It does not include your base (naked) armour rating (aka, armour gained from agility) and it does not include +armour enchants to items (such as those gained from leatherworking armour kits). In other words, if you have 17,000 armour in Dire Bear form and you apply a +150 armour enchant to your cloak, your armour will be 17,150 not 17,825.
Armor required to get 50%, 60%, 70% and 75% damage reduction against lvl 60, 63, 70 and 73 mobs.
| Enemy lvl |
50% |
60% |
70% |
75% |
| 60 |
5,885 |
8,827 |
13,731 |
17,654 |
| 63 |
7,287 |
10,931 |
17,003 |
21,861 |
| 70 |
10,560 |
15,840 |
24,639 |
31,679 |
| 73 |
11,962 |
17,943 |
27911 |
35,886 |
2.9 Stamina
- You gain +20% stamina in Dire Bear form.
- You gain an additional +20% stamina in Dire Bear form with 5/5 Heart of the Wild talent. I assume this is multiplied much like Thick Hide: (100% + 25%) x 120% but this is unconfirmed.
- I do not know if +stamina enchants are multiplied, or added after the Dire Bear multiplier. (e.g., does a +12 stamina enchant give you +12 stamina in Dire Bear or +15?)
- I do not know if your base (naked) stamina is multiplied too, or only stamina from items (a la the way your naked armour is not multiplied, only the white value from items).
2.10 Agility
- 1% Crit = 25 Agility
- 1% Dodge = 14.73 Agility
- 1 Armour = 2 Agility (not multiplied by Dire Bear form)
- Agility is important because it adds to your overall damage mitigation, avoidance, and threat generation.
- Agility is, overall, less important than armour and stamina.
2.11 Strength
- (Strength x 2) + (Character Level x 3) - 20 = Attack Power
- Bear threat is closely tied to damage done, so high strength = high threat.
2.12 More Information
- Bear Tanking Basics - A little old, but not outdated.
- Myths About Bear Tanking - Again, a little old but not outdated.
- The Complete (Druid) Guide to Damage Mitigation - Lots of math and supporting figures.
- Armor Diminishing Returns - Non-druid-specific guide to "diminishing returns" on armour. Outdated as of 2.0. Needs to be updated.
- Rating<->Skill Conversion Chart - Just what the title says.
- Consumables for Druids - This is a stub to be fleshed out later.
- WoWWiki.com: Combat Ratings System∞ - Explanation of ratings vs. skill.
- WoWWiki.com: Defense∞ - Explanation of the Defense skill and what it does.
- WoWWiki.com: Damage Reduction∞ - Explanation of how damage reduction works. A little out of date, only has beta information for 2.0.
- WorldOfWarcraft.com Forums: Extensive Guide to Bear Tanking∞ - Just what the title says.
- ElitistJerks.com Forums: Bear tank item comparisons∞ - Thread discussing level 70 tanking items, compromises, utilization, and effectiveness. Includes a great chart that rates items by the amount of damage they soak.
- WorldOfWarcraft.com Forums: Bear Tanking Gear (70+)∞ - Thread listing and discussing the "best" bear tanking items and where to get them.
- WorldOfWarcraft.com Forums: Defense vs. Resilience discussion∞ - Just what the title says.
- RatingBuster Add-On∞ - An add-on that converts the ratings in in-game tooltips to actual percentages for your level. Requires Ace2∞.
- Druid Points Add-On∞ - Basically, this does two things: shows you "kitty points" and "tank points" in an item's tooltip. What it does is take the applicable stats--strength, agility, +hit, +crit, +ap for kittypoints and armour, stamina, agility, +defense, +dodge for tank points--and converts them to "points." Essentially, the higher the point, the better the item is for your class. As always, human logic should overrule this; for example, it doesn't count stamina in kittypoints and you may prefer the extra health an item provides rather than an extra +20 attack power. Important: This mod isn't housed on an official site. I haven't found any adverse effects to unzipping its contents and using it on my Mac, however exercise caution.
- Tank Points Add-On∞ As above, but more reliable and hosted on curse-gaming.
- KLH Threat Meter (KTM) Add-On∞ - An add-on that calculates the threat you've gained, and gives you a side-by-side comparison vs. other party/raid members' threat (if they're also using KTM). A great tool for managing raid aggro.
- TauntResist Add-On∞ - An add-on that announces when your taunts are resisted.
3. Threat
- Bear Form/Dire Bear Form: +30% threat.
- Feral Instinct (Talent): +5%-15% threat while in Bear / Dire bear form (additive) - e.g., Dire Bear form = +30% threat; Dire Bear + 3/3 Feral Instinct = +45% threat.
- Maul, post-2.0.3: +207 threat (rank 7).
- Growl: Identical to Warrior Taunt
- Demoralizing Roar: +42 threat.
- Faerie Fire: +108 threat.
- Lacerate: 285 threat + 20% threat from initial Lacerate damage + 20% threat from Lacerate bleed. So a Lacerate that hits for 50 would generate (285+10+31)=326 threat. An interesting note: each application of Lacerate renews the timer, so if you stack Lacerate 4 times then wait until the bleed is almost gone before you Lacerate again to stacked the bleed to 5x, you will get 285 + 10 + (5 * 155 * 20%) = 450 threat from that 5th Lacerate. The final threat is then filtered through the Dire Bear and Feral Instincts modifiers, like all threat.
- Auto-attack, Swipe, and Mangle generate threat solely based on how much damage is done (no additional modifiers beyond Dire Bear form). Crits still generate much higher threats (as they do much higher damage).
3.1 Hitting the Mob
- Hitting the mob is very important to threat generation. The difference is Warriors have a bunch of quick consistant moves for threat generation and for the Druid it comes in big 2.5s long threat clumps, if a Druid gets 2 or 3 mauls parried/blocked in a row you'll have a threat gap but if they don't get any blocked/parried you'll see them well ahead of where a Warrior would be (till they get some blocked then it evens out again).
- Agility and +hit rating are more important than strength, +attack power, or +crit.
- 1% Chance to hit = 15.8 Hit rating
- +5.6% hit (88.48 hit rating) is the maximum needed. This will negate your opponent's dodge and parry. As you can see, this is difficult to attain. Therefore get as much +hit as you can without sacrificing your defense, armour, stamina, or agility.
- Feral weapon skill also affects your hit rating. Weapons with +feral weapon skill will reduce the amount of +hit needed.
3.2 More Information
4. Healing as a Feral Druid
- Heavy feral druids are not equipped to main heal endgame raid content, nor heroic instances. Some non-heroic 5-man instances, such as Caverns of Time: The Black Morass also fall under "cannot be adequately healed by a feral druid."
- Heavy feral druids are perfectly fine to fill hybrid roles and to assist healing in these instances.
These points seem obvious, but I see it all the time:
- Feral druids can and should heal when required or asked.
- Feral druids should carry healing gear with them at all times.
- Feral druids have an additional responsibility to collect good healing gear on top of their tanking gear. Aside from specific quest rewards where you must choose between your primary spec (tanking) and healing gear, you have a responsibility to collect the same top-end healing gear that restoration druids get. Except that you should defer the gear to them first. Yes, this means more work for you.
Now that that's out of the way, some pointers:
- Focus on intellect and mp/5. Lower mana pools and in-combat regeneration are two of the biggest areas feral druids of all specs suffer in.
- Depending on your spec, you will probably also have increased healing aggro (if you didn't take the Subtlety talent). This is mostly apparent in 5-man instances, where you (and the current tank) will notice the mobs running to you more often. Your best two options are: 1) be aware of your aggro tendency, and be prepared to run mobs to hunter traps or run them to the tank. A strategy that works well for me when I'm getting beaten on, is to drop a fresh instant heal (Rejuv or Lifebloom) on the tank, go bear form and bash the mob, then run on top of the tank to allow him to get the mob off you quickly. Don't wait for the tank to come to you.
- You don't have two major emergency buttons: Nature's Swiftness and Swiftmend. Be prepared to queue big heals before it's apparent you'll need them. You can always cancel the heal and cast a hot or a 2-second Regrowth if your healing touch isn't needed.
5. Druid Item Lists
5.1 More Information
- ElitistJerks.com Forums: Bear tank item comparisons∞ - Thread discussing level 70 tanking items, compromises, utilization, and effectiveness. Includes a great chart that rates items by the amount of damage they soak.
- WorldOfWarcraft.com Forums: Bear Tanking Gear (70+)∞ - Thread listing and discussing the "best" bear tanking items and where to get them.
- RatingBuster Add-On∞ - An add-on that converts the ratings in in-game tooltips to actual percentages for your level. Requires Ace2∞.
- Druid Points Add-On∞ - Basically, this does two things: shows you "kitty points" and "tank points" in an item's tooltip. What it does is take the applicable stats--strength, agility, +hit, +crit, +ap for kittypoints and armour, stamina, agility, +defense, +dodge for tank points--and converts them to "points." Essentially, the higher the point, the better the item is for your class. As always, human logic should overrule this; for example, it doesn't count stamina in kittypoints and you may prefer the extra health an item provides rather than an extra +20 attack power. Important: This mod isn't housed on an official site. I haven't found any adverse effects to unzipping its contents and using it on my Mac, however exercise caution.
5.1.1 Kitty Links
6. More Information
Feral Druid Gear - From 1.8+. Needs to be updated. More cat-centric.
Druid Mods - Listing of and links to mods useful to druids of all specs.
Druid Flash Healing - From 1.8+. Needs to be updated. Guide to druid instant heals.
Druid +Healing - From 1.8+. Needs to be updated. Guide to downranking druid heals.
Small Feral Druid FAQ - From 1.8+. Needs to be updated. Small Feral Druid FAQ.
Druid Speed Increases - From 1.8+. Needs to be updated. Speed increases & druids.
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