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Before Druids get Lacerate and Mangle...
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Post by
Limiter
What other abilities can you use to tank in bear form? I can't seem to hold aggro too well.
Post by
pelf
I imagine you're just down to Swipe spam for multiple-mobs to build rage with
Primal Fury
from the crits. Remember, also, that Maul will take over a swing
and
consume rage when it's used meaning that for that swing you're not generating any rage from dealing damage.
Both Demoralizing Roar and Faerie Fire (Feral) generate threat as well, so I would make sure those are, at a minimum, always up and renewed on your target(s). Bash is also, I find, a nice thing to use when tanking (and most trash pre-TBC is going to be susceptible to stuns) to use as a kind of second oh-shit button when taunts are down.
Make sure you have
Feral Instinct
filled out for the threat bonus. Considering the short time you'll have to deal with not having the new stuff, I wouldn't even bother with threat enchants. Just get through it :).
Post by
Robyn
Here's a list of abilities that generate aggro and how much...
http://www.wowwiki.com/Threat
Mostly pelf's saying sensible things ;) At lower levels you're going to need to make sure your party gives you a little time to get solid aggro, Maul and Swipe just aren't as good at it as Mangle and Lacerate.
Post by
Kaitain
i used to tank at 60 with mainly just Mauls. The only thing to do is tell your DPS to wait 5 secs at every pull for you to gain aggro. If they can't manage that, ditch them :-P
Post by
pelf
Mostly pelf's saying sensible things ;)
Thanks :). I can't believe I missed an opportunity to link to Wowwiki :|.
I think TBC certainly gave Druids the ability to front-load threat a lot more than they were previously able. As Kaitain said, Druids used to definitely require more initial time than Warriors and to top it off they also didn't have any debuff-type indicator that they could say to go after -- e.g. DPS in after 5 sunders.
Just thinking about how much more awesome Druids are now still gives me the warm fuzzies :).
Post by
Shuror
Maul is the skill for single target tanking and Swipe for multi-target. That is pretty much everything. Swipe is viable on a single mob too, if you have rage to spare. As pelf said, FF(F) is a nice skill to spam every 6th second to get extra free threat.
Demo Roar doesn't give enough threat to be better than Swipe, so just reapply it every 30th second. The damage reduction from it is significant, though.
Remember to not use Growl on targets that already are targeting you, because it won't have any effect. Only use Growl on mobs that are bashing your other party members.
If you find your party members are attacking too early, you might want to make a macro to tell them when it's safe to start DPSing;
/p Start damage now.
Or something similar.
Post by
pelf
Remember to not use Growl on targets that already are targeting you, because it won't have any effect. Only use Growl on mobs that are bashing your other party members.
This is
so
key. I can't count how many people (warrior tanks, druid tanks or otherwise) who don't know how taunts work in the game.
(
http://www.wowwiki.com/Aggro
)
When warrior Taunt, druid Growl, or paladin Righteous Defense is used, three things happen:
A short-lived debuff is applied to the mob, which forces it to attack the taunting character.
The Threat level of the character who used the taunting ability is immediately raised to be equal to the Threat level of whoever currently has aggro, if the taunting character's Threat is lower.
The taunting character gains aggro. (This feature was added to taunting abilities soon after Burning Crusade came out.)
Post by
mgp84
A good thing to do is when you pull. Make sure you have Intensity. Faerie Fire>Click Maul even if target is away>Mangle when target is in range. This makes your Maul and Mangle go off at the same time. I combine this with Demo Shout and you are good to go.
Do Lacerates after this. Even if it does small damage it generates ALOT of threat.
Post by
BlackMojo
I'm pretty new to druid tanking, but I feel i'm qualified to add something since my druid is low enough not to have mangle/lacerate just yet and I've been doing some tanking. I'm working on getting Furor right now, so occasionally I get the rage boost on shifting, in a couple more levels I will always get it. I don't yet have faerie fire (feral) either, so here's what I've been doing:
For multiple enemies: Starting in caster, I regrowth myself, hit as many of my targets as possible with moonfire, rejuv, and jump into bear. I start by tabbing around them, hitting and building some rage, then hit demoralizing roar and start pumping the swipes, mauling if my rage gets high enough and keeping an eye out for any of them that drifts off so I can growl or bash.
Single strong enemies: Pretty much the same, but I open with a starfire. I've been wondering if I can work a regular faerie fire into my rotation, but if I spend too much time in caster, I tend to lost health faster than the healer can keep me up.
I'm liking the druid because of all the different things I can do.. (seems like basically everything) and I'm trying to keep it all in mind as I fill the tank role.
Although, once I've built up a lot of rage, I tend to forsake the above strategy and just run in and proximity aggro stuff. Also, in PUG's with overzealous warriors who insist on charging everything, I mostly don't have time to do any of it, and just end up running in and trying to pull them off the guy. I'm sure this isn't something that happens all the time... just last night.
Oh, and one last thing, which is actually why I started writing... if my healer is good, I can pop enrage when the enemies start beating on me to generate rage not only from the ability, but from the armor debuff, so I get more rage from being hit. I notice that I build rage really fast, but lost health when I do this, so the healing is important. Also, if I do that, I can't pop enrage in between fights to keep a constant level.
Any input on whether my strategies are viable or just a waste of time and mana would be much appreciated.
Post by
pelf
Surprisingly cogent input from a self-professed low-level druid, BlackMojo :).
Starting HOTs on yourself before pulling is definitely good as each tick will generate 1/2 of the amount healed as threat. Casting Moonfire or Starfire is also an excellent idea which I even do now, sometimes (situationally).
Well said.
Getting creative early on can only help you out later, I'd say. As for waste of time and mana: if you have enough mana to shapeshift and not cause the party to wait for you, then you're doing just fine. If you find yourself having to drink with the rest of the mana users, so what? It's not like you would be doing anything else then anyway.
Post by
BlackMojo
Well... thanks =P
I didn't even think about the healing ticks working as threat, but that's great to know. In a couple more levels when I've filled out all the resto I'm gonna get (omen and intensity), I probably will be able to do this more in between fights, since now I feel like if I've built up a lot of rage during one fight, I might as well stay in bear and use it. I'd be interested in some kind of threat calculation website, that shows how much threat is caused by those healing ticks and moonfire pulls vs if I keep some rage around for a roar and some swipes...
On a side note, I'm pretty amazed by the difference between these and the offical blizz druid forum. I've been on here only 3 or so days and already have found more intelligent and helpful advice than I ever have there in the week I've had my druid.
Post by
pelf
Blizzard's forums are ... necessarily diluted. Not necessarily as in, they have to be, but necessarily as in, their dilution follows from what it is they are and what they're made of.
I've found that reading through Wowwiki, Wikispaces and Elitist Jerks I've gotten more information by far than anything I've read on the official forums.
EDIT:
To your question, I'd read
http://www.wowwiki.com/Threat
and
http://www.wowwiki.com/Aggro
. There's a list of abilities with exactly how much threat they generate. Some abilities have static or scaling threat modifiers applied when they are used.
Generically, however, each point of damage is equivalent to one (1) point of threat. Each point of healing is equivalent to half (0.5) a point of threat. This is all before talent or buff modifications to these numbers. In order to pull aggro from the player with the most threat, you have to generate either 110% of their threat (if you are within melee range ) or 130% of their threat (if you are at range).
Just those three things were pretty relevatory for me when I learned them.
Post by
Robyn
Blizzard's forums are ... necessarily diluted. Not necessarily as in, they have to be, but necessarily as in, their dilution follows from what it is they are and what they're made of.
I've found that reading through Wowwiki, Wikispaces and Elitist Jerks I've gotten more information by far than anything I've read on the official forums.
Basically, everyone and his dog posts on the wow forums, and a lot of the posts are attempts to influence blizzards' design decisions. It makes for a very high signal-to-noise ratio ;) On other sites you tend to find more long-time players...
On top of health and damage, mana regen powers can also cause aggro - which is a relatively little known fact, though I'm not sure if Innervate belongs in that category.
A lot of other good druid info can be found on the druid wiki, here:
http://druid.wikispaces.com/
Post by
pelf
On top of health and damage, mana regen powers can also cause aggro - which is a relatively little known fact, though I'm not sure if Innervate belongs in that category.
A lot of other good druid info can be found on the druid wiki, here:
http://druid.wikispaces.com/
Yeah thanks for the druid wikispace link. I was feeling lazy when I listed the three.
You know I think I knew about that in the back of my mind ... I wonder if stuff like Furor or 2pc T4 proc causes any threat...
I suppose we could just read through the code for Threat-1.0 ... that library seems to cover nearly everything. Omen is quite a nice frontend to a really great threat library.
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