Druid - Bear
Purpose
The Bear Druid can serve as a main or off tank, but is best suited to an off-tank role due to having high DPS (compared to other tanks) when not tanking.
Strengths:
-Simple rotation
-High DPS when not tanking
-Battle rez/Innervate when not tanking
Weaknesses:
-Fewer interrupts/emergency abilities than other tanks
Talents (UNDER REVISION FOR 3.1)
Common Bear talent specs:
0/60/11∞ - 0/60/11 has an improved Demoralizing Roar and Infected Wounds for slowing effects
0/53/16+2∞ 0/53/16+2 goes for Master Shapeshifter and has 2 points that can be used to augment tanking style or be dumped in Improved Mark of the Wild if there are no Restoration Druids in the raid.
Bearcat 0/60/11∞ This spec drops a few less critical bear talents (NSS+MS, Improved Mangle, Feral Aggression) to pick up the most crucial cat talents. This spec gives you 98% of the traditional build's mitigation/threat but gives excellent cat DPS. With this spec, I can pull 2K DPS in bear, pull 3K DPS in cat with bear gear/glyphs, or pull 4K DPS in cat with cat gear/glyphs...more if raidbuffed.
Note: 3/3 in Survival of the Fittest grants crit immunity to bears, which makes them the easiest tanks to gear for starting heroics.
Ability Priority List/Rotation
Single Target:
Berserk if up and have enough rage to use effectively.
Demo Roar on CD.
Lacerate to 5 stacks, then Lacerate as needed to keep stack up
Mangle on CD.
Feral Faerie Fire on CD (Great damage- note that it only has a 1.0 sec GCD, instead of 1.5).
Swipe
Maul as rage permits (should be all the time if actually tanking, and if not tanking, shift to Cat)
Easiest rotation is Mangle, FFF, Lacerate, Lacerate. (Or Mangle, FFF, Lacerate with Imp. Mangle) Swap in a Demo Roar for a Lacerate every 30s. As you get better, practice swapping in Swipe for Lacerate. Swipe is better TPS/DPS than Lacerate, but not if you let the lacerate stack drop.
Multi Target:
Glyphed Maul (as rage permits)
Berserked Mangle
Demoralizing Roar (refresh as needed)
Swipe spam
Key Cooldowns
Barkskin (60s CD) - Reduces all incoming damage by 20% and spell casts cannot be delayed by damaging attacks. This ability is designed to help mitigate damage when you know you'll be taking burst damage at regular intervals. Not as useful as other classes' emergency CD, but not useless in such a role either. This ability is off the GCD and can be used even while CC'd...great for PVP. You will use this OFTEN.
Berserk (3m CD) - Removes the cooldown on Mangle and allows it to hit 3 targets. Makes you immune to fear and removes any fear effects on you. Best for bosses that fear (Auraiya), and for AOE situations (make sure you have plenty of rage...no-CD mangle drains it quickly). If no fear/AOE needed, use on CD to increase DPS.
Survival Instincts (3m CD) - Grants you 30% of your maximum health instantly, or 45% if glyphed, increasing your health pool by that amount. Extra health is lost after 20 seconds. Your best emergency CD. Can be used reactively (oh crap my health's at 10%) or proactively on certain fights to enable you to survive one-shot attacks. (
Sarth3D breath; Mimiron plasma blast; Malygos P1; etc.)
Frenzied Regeneration (3m CD) - Converts 10 rage per second into health for 10 seconds; if glyphed, increases healing done to you by 20% while active. Each point of rage converted is worth 0.3% of your maximum health. Not too great unglyphed, but a good emergency CD when glyphed for certain situations. If unglyphed, try to pop with SI- the healing from FR will scale with the health increase.
Challenging Roar (3m CD) - AOE taunt. Places you at the top of the threat table of all enemies within 10 yds, and causes them to attack you for 6 seconds. A minor glyph can reduce this to a 2:30 CD. After 6 seconds the mobs will attack whoever is highest on their aggro list. Good for AOE situations about to go bad (Gothik, Razorscale) but difficult to use well due to the short range...if mobs are already peeling off then they'll typically be out of range by the time you hit it.
Growl (8s CD) - Taunts a target within 20 yds, placing you at the top of their threat table and forcing them to attack you for 3 seconds. Can be glyphed to always hit. 2nd most used CD after Barkskin. Do not pull with Growl...if you are being outthreated by DPS, wait until they pull agro, THEN Growl.
Bash (60s CD, talentable to 30s) - Stuns the target for 4 seconds (talentable up to 5 seconds) and interrupts spell casting for 3 seconds. This will interrupt spell casting on mobs that are immune to stuns, but will not work on mobs immune to other forms of spell interrupts. Situationally useful.
Feral Charge (15s CD) - Causes you to charge the enemy, immobilizing it and interrupting any spell being cast for 4 seconds. Situationally useful. It does use rage, so it's best not to use this to pull mobs (unless they're casters...and it's still better to pull with FFF, let them start casting, and then charge to interrupt the cast)
Stat Weightings
From Karthis.
1.0 - Agility - Core stat...gem/stack this for most fights. Gives avoidance and boosts SD.
.80 - Stamina - More health is always good. Not a bad idea to have several pieces with stam chants to switch in for burst damage fights. (Polar gear is perfect for this.)
.80 - Dodge - Love the avoidance.
.65 - Defense - Not a great stat, but we'll take it, as it gives us some avoidance.
.50 - Expertise - Lowers the chance of enemy parries, which decreases our TPS and increases boss DPS (bad). Once you have enough expertise to no longer be parried, stacking more is much less beneficial.
.40 - Armor - Armor is always good, but you'll have little opportunity to stack it.
.15 - Crit Rating - Component of SD, ILOTP, some trinket procs, etc.
.10 - Strength - Component of SD.
.05 - Attack Power - Component of SD.
.05 - Hit Rating - Component of SD.
.05 - Bonus Armor - i.e. armor not multiplied by Bear Form, such as weapon/cloak/neck/ring/trinket armor- handy.
Recommended Glyphs
Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration - FR boosts healing done to you by 20% while active.
Glyph of Survival Instincts - SI gives an additional 15% health boost.
Glyph of Maul - Maul hits an additional target. (GREAT for OTing or AOE tanking on heroics/Naxx; not so good when CC starts coming back into play.)
Glyph of Growl - Growls never miss. (You may not need this depending on gear)
Recommended Enchants
Head : Arcanum of the Stalwart Protector - Revered Argent Crusade
Shoulders : Master's Inscription of the Pinnacle - 400 Inscription
Greater Inscription of the Pinnacle - Exalted Sons of Hodir
Chest : Powerful Stats
Back : Major Agility
Mighty Armor
Wrists : Fur Lining - 400 Leatherworking
Expertise
Greater Stats
Hands : Major Agility
Expertise
Legs : Jormungar Leg Reinforcements - 405 Leatherworking
Frosthide Leg Armor
Feet : Tuskarr's Vitality
Greater Agility
Greater Fortitude
Fingers : Stamina - 400 Enchanting
Weapon : Mongoose
Major Agility
Recommended Gems (UNDER REVISION for 3.1)
Recommended Consumables
Flasks (persist after death, fill both elixir slots):
Flask of Stoneblood (+1200 hp, best overall consumable)
Flask of Chromatic Wonder (+35 magic resi, +18 all stats...not too great)
Battle Elixirs:
Elixir of Mighty Agility (+45 agi)
Guru's Elixir (+20 all stats)
Elixir of Expertise (+45 expertise)
Guardian Elixirs:
Elixir of Protection (+800 armor)
Elixir of Mighty Fortitude (+350 hp, +20 hp5)
Food:
Blackened Dragonfin (+40 stam, +40 agi)
Feasts are significantly worse (give +stam and +AP, which isn't nearly as much of an issue unless you're threat-capping DPS)
In summary, use flasks of stoneblood/blackened dragonfin for best effect; the others may be cheaper and better suited for farm content.
Additional Tips
- Many bosses have periods of time where you can shift out of bear form safely. Learn to recognize these situations so that you can DPS, Innervate or Rebirth if needed.
- It is HIGHLY recommended that you learn how to DPS as cat.
Sources and Other Resources
http://elitistjerks.com/f73/∞ - Druid forum at Elitist Jerks
http://www.codeplex.com/Rawr/∞ - home of Rawr, a great gear/talent optimizer program. Works for all flavors of Druids, and several other classes as well.
http://www.emmerald.net/∞ - Emmerald's gear list and forum (OUTDATED)
http://druid.wikispaces.com/∞ - Druid wiki
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