Druids as tanks
From WoWWiki
One of three tanking classes in the game, the druid is able to enter bear form and take the role of Tanking.
The bear form
The druid has two tanking forms: Bear Form obtained by quest at level 10 and Dire Bear Form obtained via trainer at level 40. The forms are the same except that Dire Bear has an even greater armor boost compared to bear form.
The Bear Form is the druid tank form. When a druid shapeshifts into bear the following things happen:
- Health: As of Patch 2.0.10, the Druid's stamina is increased by 25%
- Attack Power: The Druid gains Attack Power equal to their level * 3 (210 Attack Power at level 70). Base DPS from weapons are not used, being replaced by the bear's 54.9 dps 2.5 spd claw, although bonus stats from weapons still count.
- Armor: The druid gains a 200%/400% armor boost from items (depending on Bear/Dire Bear form). The bonus is additive, meaning that if you have 1000 armor from items, Bear form will grant you: 1000 + 1000 * 2.0 = 3000 armor from items, while Dire Bear will grant you 1000 + 1000 * 4.0 = 5000 armor.
- Threat (Aggro): The druid will obtain a 30% increase in all threat generated. This is the same bonus that the warrior is granted by Defensive Stance.
- Uncrittable: The tanking-specced feral druid will be virtually uncrittable with the proper gear.
25 defense, or 60 rating, for 1% less crit/more dodge/more miss 39.4 resilience for 1% less crit and 1% less damage from DOTs
Advantages of a druid tank
A Bear Tank specialized Feral Druid will have more armor, hit points, and dodge than a comparably geared Warrior, but lacks a Warrior's block and parry.
Bear tanking abilities (e.g Maul) scale very well with gear, though as of Patch 2.0.3, the threat generation from Maul is additive, similar to a Warrior's Heroic Strike.
Druids are immune to Polymorph and Humanoid Mind Control effects (prevents Priest MC, but not Charmed effects like Hakkar the Soulflayer's ability).
Bears can't be Disarmed, although they are sometimes vulnerable to the secondary effects of the "disarm" debuff (the loss of the stats from the weapon).
Druids can spec into the Feral Charge talent, which is similar to a Warrior's Intercept but does not require a stance change, and has a significantly shorter cooldown. This talent allows them to almost instantly re-engage a mob after getting knocked back.
The Predatory Instincts talent gives bears up to a 15% chance to avoid area effect attacks and Survival of the Fittest reduces the incoming crit rate by up to 3% (allowing druids to become crit immune with gear easily available by level 70).
Druids can put 2 talent points into Primal Fury which gives them 5 rage every time they score a critical hit, increasing their rage generation from white attacks and lowering the effective rage cost of their damaging specials, particularly Swipe (as Swipe can crit up to three targets). Typical druids in tanking gear will have high crit percentages given the efficiency of agility for dodge.
Swipe's 3 target hit and potential to cost little rage makes it easier for druids to tank multiple mobs than warriors. However, a protection specced paladin is still superior to a druid when it comes to multiple target threat generation.
Druids in Bear form, even in full tanking gear, have substantially higher damage output than a protection specced warrior in defensive stance, this combined with rage efficiency means that in some cases a druid can generate more threat per second than a warrior on the same target. When maintaining secondary threat on a target, druids need to be careful not to surpass their main tank on the threat tables.
Disadvantages of a druid tank
Druid tanks do not have the ability to parry or block attacks. A bear must compensate for this with higher Dodge chance and armor. This decreases the value of +defense gear for druid tanks, though they still get the dodge, miss, and reduced crit advantages.
The lack of any Shield Block- or Holy Shield-like ability means they have no means of preventing crushing blow attacks from higher level mobs. A bear must prepare for crushes with high armor and high health.
Bears have limited last resort options. Druids cannot use consumables (e.g. potions, healthstones, etc.) in bear form without the use of a slightly complicated Macro - but only while the GCD is down. Use of that macro while the GCD is up will result in a very squishy tank stuck in caster form for a second or two. Frenzied Regeneration, which uses a lot of rage, often renders them unable to use their threat generating abilities and the damage healed is negligible in the face of damage output from raid boss fights. In some situations they can risk performing a double-shift to use a consumable or cast spells like Barkskin+Tranquility, Regrowth/Rejuvenation, or Nature's Swiftness+Healing Touch if the druid has specialized the Restoration Talent, Nature's Swiftness. There are also a handful of trinkets with useful abilities to help amend this challenge, such as Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch or the Badge of Tenacity. With the BearPot macro, it is possible to shift out of bear, use a healthstone and a healing potion then shift back with little risk of being hit except against very fast hitting or multiple enemies.
Druids do not have an innate ability to actively counter fear. However, they can acquire a 15% resistance to fear as well as stun through the Feral Combat talent Primal Tenacity. While Fear Ward and Tremor Totems are the preferred way to counter Fear, Druids may also make use of a trinket (the Insignia of the Alliance/Insignia of the Horde and/or the Glimmering Mithril Insignia if the druid has chosen Blacksmithing) but these trinkets have lengthy cooldowns.
While in bear-form, druids have no ability to directly mitigate magic damage, but will have to rely on their extra health to carry them through a magical attack. Barkskin reduces all damage taken by 20% for 12 seconds and has a 1 minute cooldown, but shifting to caster form to use it is highly situational and usually not worth the risk of being caught by an attack while in caster form.
Tanking-related talents
Both the Feral Combat and the Restoration druid talent trees have talents which improve tanking ability in some way. This also means most "tanking-specced" druids will have talent points in both of these trees.
- With 5/5 Ferocity, Tier 1 Feral Combat: Rage cost on Maul, Swipe and Mangle is reduced by 5.
- With 3/3 Feral Instinct, Tier 2 Feral Combat: Threat generated is increased by 15% while in Bear Form (Threat modifier goes from 30% to 45%).
- With 3/3 Thick Hide, Tier 2 Feral Combat: Armor contribution from items in any form is increased by 10%. The Bear Form multiplier comes on top of this, giving an effective 5.0*1.1 (550%) armor multiplier for a druid in bear form with this talent.
- With 2/2 Feral Swiftness, Tier 3 Feral Combat: Increases dodge chance in Bear Form by 4%.
- With 1/1 Feral Charge, Tier 3 Feral Combat: Allows the druid to charge in Bear Form. This ability works like a warrior's Intercept except it does not require stance switching and is on 15 second cooldown.
- With 3/3 Sharpened Claws, Tier 3 Feral Combat: Critical Strike chance is increased by 6% while in Bear Form.
- With 3/3 Predatory Strikes, Tier 4 Feral Combat: Attack Power in increased by 150% of level (to a max of 105 Attack Power at level 70).
- With 2/2 Primal Fury, Tier 4 Feral Combat: The druid gains 5 rage for every critical hit they do in Bear Form.
- With 1/1 Faerie Fire (Feral), Tier 5 Feral Combat: Decreases the armor of the target by 610. This ability does not stack with itself, does not cost any rage and is on a 6 second cooldown. Also generates a small amount of threat.
- With 5/5 Heart of the Wild, Tier 6 Feral Combat: Stamina is increased by 20% in Bear/Dire Bear Form, granting an additional Health boost.
- With 3/3 Survival of the Fittest, Tier 6 Feral Combat: Increases all stats by 3%. increasing dodge chance, crit chance, attack power, and health. Also reduces chance to be crit by melee attacks by 3%, the equivalent of 120 resilience (except 120 resilience would also reduce the damage taken from crits by 6% and would apply against spells), or 75 defense.
- With 3/3 Primal Tenacity, Tier 7 Feral Combat: Increases chance to resist fear and stun by 15%.
- With 1/1 Leader of the Pack, Tier 7 Feral Combat: +5% crit chance for all ranged and melee within 45 yards of the Druid.
- With 2/2 Improved Leader of the Pack, Tier 7 Feral Combat: All characters benefitting from the Druid's Leader of the Pack heal 4% of their maximum health when they achieve a melee or ranged crit. This effect cannot trigger more than once every 6 seconds per player.
- With 3/3 Predatory Instincts, Tier 8 Feral Combat: While in Bear Form, increases critical strike bonus by 10%, increasing the crit multiplier from 200% damage to 220% damage. Also increases chance to avoid all area effect attacks by 15% while in Bear Form.
- With 1/1 Mangle, Tier 9 Feral Combat: Instant, high-damage ability on a 6 second cooldown that also increases damage from bleed effects for 12 seconds, increasing the threat generated by lacerate by 15%. Must have for threat generation. As of patch 2.0.10, there is a 50% threat bonus.
- With 5/5 Furor, Tier 1 Restoration: The druid gains 10 Rage everytime they switch to Bear/Dire Bear Form.
- With 5/5 Naturalist, Tier 2 Restoration: Physical damage done is increased by 10% (resulting in effectively a 10% increase in threat caused).
- With 3/3 Intensity, Tier 3 Restoration: The druid gains 10 additional rage instantly upon using Enrage.
- With 1/1 Omen of Clarity, Tier 3 Restoration: Allows the druid to enter a clearcasting state on a melee attack, reducing the mana/energy/rage cost of the next ability by 100% (effectively giving a rage-free maul or swipe. As a sidenote: OoC can proc on any melee hit, making it possible to Swipe spam with it indefinitely).
Note: An example of a PvE tanking spec is 0/47/14.
Various aspects of druid tanking
Druids have tanked raid instances and boss encounters such as Nefarian in Blackwing Lair (despite the druid Class Call), Gruul in his lair, Magtheridon and/or his adds, and even more advanced raid bosses. A Druid in Bear form is a very viable tank. A Protection-specialized Warrior is often the preferred Main Tank for large raids but in many cases, a Feral Druid can do the job as well.
Healing a druid tank
Healers general consensus on healing a druid tank is commonly, "less spike damage, but more mana required". Druids tend to be hit more often, lacking the overall avoidance of other tanks, however their armor and stamina makes them more able to withstand very large physical damage attacks. On the other hand, when a short-duration large damage output period can be anticipated (i.e. a boss enraging) the druid's lack of a shield wall ability makes them harder to heal than a protection warrior.
(Some of that may be outdated - suspect these comments date from pre-BC)
Damage mitigation and damage avoidance
Since druids cannot parry or block, druids must rely on their armor and dodge to mitigate and avoid damage. As such, they must specialize their gear differently from other tanking classes to play to their advantages. They rely on their much higher armor and dodge values to mitigate and avoid physical damage and their large hit point pool to provide a more comfortable buffer for their healers. Druids absorb powerful physical attacks quite well, so they do well on mobs and bosses that simply hit hard.
Despite the fact that druids cannot parry or block, +Defense gear is still useful for them, increase their chance to dodge or to be missed as well as decreasing their chance to be critically hit. In The Burning Crusade, many +defense items have been made available to druids. Druids have the highest dodge per agility ratio of all playable characters, making agility an important avoidance booster for them. Agility has the added bonuses of increasing the chance of a critical strike (and thus aggro generation) and armor (mitigating more physical damage).
Poor itemization and the lack of a overall damage reducer (like the 10% reduction that comes with Defensive Stance) also hurts druid tanks in resist fights where, once again they must rely on their increased health to survive long enough for their healers to pull them through. Keep in mind, however, that since many boss mobs' magical attacks are also AOEs, that the 15% chance to avoid that damage has comparable long-term mitigation to defensive stance. In particular, there is no post-60 crafted Nature resist or Frost resist leather available to help druids deal with Hydross the Unstable.
A useful comparison of resilience and defense can be found in the article on the Combat rating system.
Threat generation
Bear threat generating abilities scale slightly better than Warriors. Patch 2.03 changed the aggro for druids to be additive, same as the warrior. However, by speccing into the Feral Tree, a talent can increase all threat generation in bear form by up to 15%, comparable to a Protection specced Warrior with Defiance.
Druid threat since 2.0.3
Starting in patch 2.0.3, Maul and Swipe no longer multiply their Threat by 1.75. Instead, Maul adds a flat amount of Threat to the base Threat caused by its damage (similar to the Warrior's Heroic Strike), and Swipe causes no additional Threat beyond that caused by the damage it inflicts.
Bear Form still multiplies all Threat done by 1.3 (or by 1.45 with 3/3 Feral Instinct), however, including the additional Threat added to a Maul.
Druid threat since 2.0.10
Starting in patch 2.0.10, Mangle multiplies its Threat by 1.5. Lacerate will land a small amount of damage, causing it to generate threat against bleed-immune creatures. It should be noted that lacerate's threat is now front-loaded, causing a change in how it is used. Before, lacerate's threat was generated through the bleed damage it caused; subsequent applications of lacerate would not do anything except increase the time left on the bleed back to 15 seconds. After the 2.0.10 change, each lacerate application causes a certain amount of threat (similar in use to Sunder Armor), while the threat from the bleed was emphasized less.
Bear Form still multiplies all Threat done by 1.3 (or by 1.45 with 3/3 Feral Instinct).
Note: depending upon talents, Maul, Swipe, and Mangle all cause significantly less damage because they no longer benefit from Savage Fury. Mangle no longer receives the base weapon damage multiplier of 130%. The additional crit damage from Predatory Instincts has been lowered from 15% to 10%.
Snap aggro
Druids have both a single target Taunt and an AOE Taunt. In times where a Druid must generate a lot of threat in a short amount of time, the use of Mangle and Maul together can establish a high amount of threat within the period of one attack. It should be noted that both of these abilities can crit, generating around double the threat.
If the Bear Tank in question is a Feral Druid, they will most likely also have the talent of Faerie Fire(Feral) which requires no rage and assists in initial aggro establishment as well as allowing a druid to perform a ranged pull without having to shift out of Bear form and use a mana based ranged spell. Faerie Fire also has the benefit of not having any travel time, which allows for better control of when a mob will be pulled.
Knockbacks
Feral specialized Druids can almost immediately recover from many knockbacks using Feral Charge.
Fear
Some encounters, notably High King Maulgar, Nightbane, and various trash in Gruul's Lair and SSC, are made easier with fear-eliminating abilities. Groups with a Druid Main Tank in these encounters must either use Fear Ward or Tremor Totems, or be prepared for the main tank to temporarily lose aggro. Druids can also use fear-dispelling trinkets such as Insignia of the Alliance/Insignia of the Horde and the Glimmering Mithril Insignia, although these are all on high cooldowns. In addition, Druids may gain a passive 15% resistance to fear and stun mechanics through the Feral Combat talent Primal Tenacity.
Edit: Due to the changes in patch 2.3, when feared, the tank should no longer lose aggro, though some mob fears are not actually classed as fear, like the warriors intimidating shout doesn't fear its target,but the people around, so can cause an aggro drop
Disarm
Druids are affected less by being disarmed than other classes as their attacks are made with claws and teeth. This means that often they may be affected by the "disarmed" debuff, but it doesn't change their attack power or prevent them from using their special attacks. This can be rather useful in encounters such as General Rajaxx. On the other hand, sometimes the "disarmed" debuff is enough to trigger an effect, as with the Ethereal Thief mobs in Karazhan.
Emergency buttons
Druids have Frenzied Regeneration, which consumes 10 rage per second for 10 seconds to heal for 250 health each tick and up to 375 on criticals of the ability, as each tick has the chance to critical heal. This ability is on a 3 minute cooldown. It should be noted the Frenzied Regeneration consumes a lot of rage, so a bear using it will be constrained to use their threat generating moves less, particularly maul. In addition, they have the ability to use a variety of trinkets that have helpful emergency effects.
In certain dire situations, a druid can shift out to caster form, and use Barkskin and Tranquility as a last-ditch effort, although it is a very hit-or-miss tactic. Another more reliable, although far less dramatic, tactic is to use the talent (if you have specialized in restoration for it) Nature's Swiftness and a high ranked Healing Touch. However, these tactics are not recommended in any dungeon higher than a normal mode 5-man, as in many cases raid mobs will deal enough damage to kill you before you return to bear form. In addition, few if any serious tanks will have the necessary 24 points in restoration talents to have Nature's Swiftness.
Druids can use items which are typically used pre-fight such as Flasks and several longer duration potions. However, as noted before, Druids cannot use consumables while in form, so they cannot be reapplied if they are somehow dispelled. Macros exist to allow fast shifting and use of potions or healthstones, however. (See the BearPot macro at Useful macros/Druid#BearPot. Once the 2.3 patch goes live, this may need editing.)
Weapon enchants
Druids cannot utilize "Chance on Hit" procs on weapons, precluding the use of Windfury, Crusader, and other similar enchants. They can, however, make use of "Chance on Hit" abilities in other slots (Heroism, Maelstrom and Hand of Justice trinkets).
Similarly, feral druids cannot utilize bonus weapon damage enchants, leaving them with a limited range of enchants for their weapons. Many druids opt for attack power or agility enchants to compliment their equipment.
Polymorphing bosses
When a tank is polymorphed, any targets they held aggro on will run wild. Druids are generally immune to polymorph in Cat, Bear, Dire Bear, Moonkin and Tree of Life forms, so they have an 'easy out' on those types of mobs/bosses. This comes in handy with encounters that Polymorph, such as: Jin'do the Hexxer, Talon King Ikiss and Blackwing Spellbinders in Blackwing Lair. Shapeshifted druids are not immune, however, to the Shade of Aran's Mass Polymorph ability, but that boss cannot be tanked, feral druids should be in cat form.
