Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Main Tanking Build

This post is dedicated to showing and defending the build that i personally view as the best tanking build out there, altho it should be known that some people would use different builds because they use different raid set ups or have very specific gear (Idol of the corruptor and improved mangle).
I will post my reason for having each talent when i discuss the talents that are in the build.

This is the build i am referring to.

Feral

Ferocity [5/5]
At first i would have thought that with the advent of Ulduar i might not be rage starved and could switch these points into Feral Agression for the added effect on demorolizing roar, sadly i was quite disappointed that i still badly needed this talent to keep my rotation going.

Feral Instinct [3/3]
Swipe is important skill for AoE tanking and also quite a good threat move to have in your rotation so you can't go without this for threat.

Savage Fury [2/2]
The massive damage increase on maul and mangle make this a must have for tanking damage and threat.

Thick Hide [3/3]
Must... have... more... armor (damn 3.1 nerf).

Feral Swiftness [2/2]
You are a tank, you want to take as little as damage as possible so can't say no to 4% dodge.

Survival Instincts [1/1]
Proper oh shit button, use when you get to low on health.

Sharpened Claws [3/3]
Crit makes savage defense proc so can't miss this, it's also a pre-requisite for Primal Fury and Primal Precision.

Predatory Strikes [3/3]
Attack power increases our bear-block value and it's also a pre-requisite for Heart of the Wild.

Primal Fury [2/2]
Can never have enough rage.

Primal Precision [2/2]
Free expertise means less parry/dodge and more threat/rage/savage defense procs.

Feral Charge [1/1]
Technically not so important, but i kinda like it. Needs to be seperate cooldown for bear and cat however ;(

Natural Reaction [3/3]
Grants extra dodge AND rage? Yum

Heart of the Wild [5/5]
Grants more health, your bread and butter as a bear.

Survival of the Fittest [3/3]
Increases stats which is nice but the key part of this talent is that it makes you uncrittable versus boss level encounters.

Leader of the Pack [1/1] + Improved Leader of the Pack [2/2]
Healing yourself every time you crit effectively makes you have more health which is a very good thing, the buff it offers to other players is also very nice.

Protector of the Pack [3/3]
Pure godly talent, grants more attack power which increases the bear-block value and reduces damage taken by a flat ammount.

Infected Wounds [3/3]
Could do without this talent on single mobs as a lot of classes overwrite the attack speed part of the talent but on multimob fights like Razorscale it helps a lot in terms of reducing the damage taken.

Mangle [1/1]
Mangle it self is a good threat move, reducing the cooldown is just useless however, if you don't know why read this post. NOTE: If you have the idol of the corruptor then improved mangle offers a substantial increase in survivability, read here to see how and why.

Rend and Tear [5/5]
The damage and threat this talent gives is simply amazing, can't live without it.

Primal Gore [1/1]
The threat this gives is not great but every little bit helps, the main point in my opinion is the critical hits that trigger Savage Defense.

Berserk [1/1]
Great to pop during heroism or at the start of a fight for a threat boost, once lacerate is going.

Restoration

Improved Mark of the Wild [2/2]
This talent is so godly with the 2% added stats now that i can't see any druid not having this talent (no matter the build).

Furor [3/5]
Furor always has been a PvP talent in my opinion so not always having the 10 rage when i go into bear is no big deal for me as i pop enrage before i pull a boss anyhow.

Naturalist [5/5]
10% extra damage is a lot of damage and threat, take it.

Natural shapeshifter [3/3]
Useless, pre-requiste for Master Shapeshifter however.

Omen of Clarity [1/1]
Free attacks helps a lot as you will have times when you just seem to dodge everything and not have any rage to use.

Master Shapeshifter [2/2]
A flat 4% damage increase helps a lot for your threat (2.07 modifier so that's ~ 8% threat), also the damage it self is quite nice.

Glyphs

Glyph of Survival Instincts (Major)
This new glyph is very helpful when healers let you get to low on health.

Glyph of Growl (Major)
Nothing is worse then getting a resist on growl.

Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration (Major)
When you pop this you need health, so taking extra healing is a perfect bonus.

Glyph of Challenging Roar (Minor)
Nifty little glyph to have when pulling lots of big packs in short succession (ie Naxxramas).

Glyph of Thorns (Minor)
A lazy druid's best friend *cough cough*

Free Minor Glyph
No real nice minor glyphs left that are really important for tanking, you could pick up Glyph of Uburdened Rebirth if you want to be sure you never have to say 'oh shit, i ran out of reagents'.

Things i did not take but could be handy

Feral Agression [0/5]
Would like to have it but can't lose points anywhere else, just use normal demoralizing shout.

Shredding Attacks [0/2]
Having 2 rage cheaper lacerates is nice but not good enough to warrant losing 2 points somewhere else.

King of the Jungle [0/3]
The added threat when you use enrage is nice for threat-bursts but it requires you to enrage, which is something you should not want to do as a (Main) Tank. The type of bonus is nice i'll agree and that's why i included Master Shapeshifter in my build.

Glyph of Maul (Major)
Nice glyph to have for when you want to get high on the damage meters or doing 5 man heroics but with 3.1 Glyph of Survival Instincts is a far better choice for pure main tanking purposes.

I hope this helps some people finding their builds specifically aimed towards tanking.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

You sure you want glyph of growl? I cant remember the last time a taunt was resisted... where it mattered. Maybe on 4 horseman back in january? Glyph of survival instincts is far far better, assuming your working on Ulduar now.

Bas Jansen said...

@ Anonymous, Personally i prefer the Glyph of Maul for when i'm doing an instance or when tanking say XT-002 and a XM-024.

However i must agree that for single target main tanking it is indeed actually better to lose the Glyph of Maul in favor of Glyph of Survival Instincts (I will alter the original post to reflect that).

Jalmon said...

What are your thoughts on taking Predatory Instincts for a tank build, to mitigate some aoe damage? Lets say as an alternative to 3 point Infected Wounds.

Bas Jansen said...

@ Jalmon, that talent has been nerfed (patch 2.4) to apply only to kitties, otherwise it would be a must have.

Mithas said...

good reasoning..I couldn't decide between iMangle and IW but your comments here helped a lot. Now all I need to do is to leave the office, go home and spend some gold :) I hate patches...always cost more and more.

Marino said...

You missed that you should have primal gore because the crit you get from lacerate proc SD. So a damn defensive as offensive must have!
Or was that changed again?

Diadem said...

So, is the Brutal Impact talent not something you considered? My 10-man group has 1 interrupt class (unless I can convince my shaman healer to focus and shock), so I felt like lowering the CD on Bash to 30 seconds was useful.

Are most of you not running into the interrupt issue? Or is it because so few bosses need it?

Bas Jansen said...

The only mobs in Ulduar so far (i'm not that very far in yet tho) that i could interrupt were the invasion mobs on the razorscale fight which cast a chain lightning.

But your a lot better off with a warrior, rogue or shaman there doing the interrupts or just completely ignoring them,

Anonymous said...

Honestly I would prefer the Glyph of Maul over Growl. Having only one ability (swipe) to hit multiple mobs doesn't do the best in threat when mages for some reason insist on AOE for 2+ mobs. I think since I have started bear tanking I have had maybe one mob resist Growl. Again hitting multiple mobs means more chance to proc SD.

Bas Jansen said...

@ Anonymous, for general purpose yes i would too. This build is however designed around single target main tanking as the title suggests and there SI is a lot more useful then hitting multiple mobs as most boss fights only have the boss.

Unknown said...

Tarkskin,

I would like to know which Idol you're using for tanking? Are you still using Idol of Terror? Don't you want to have it proc as much as possible hence getting the Improved Mangle?

Just would like your thoughts on that.

I'm anxious to try your build and see the difference in the Ulduar Raids.

Thanks a lot!!!

Anonymous said...

OOOK i totaly agree on the spec buuut the glyphs are not so great lol the glyph of growl is pointless lol and id rather put maul on there so u will have more threat GROWL causes no threat it only makes them attack you for 6sec so its an ok chance to get some agro but MAUL dose a massive amount of threat and also helps on dps so id go with the GLYPH OF MAUL... so you got better dps and threat...

Sunsinne said...

The only things i have ever had resist a taunt is BC raid boss's and as far as I know there isn't a class in game that can taunt a BC raid boss, DPS just need to slow there role and let tanks build aggro

Sunsinne said...

the only things that growl don't work on for me is BC raid Boss's, and they cant be taunted by any class in game that i know of dps just has to slow there role and let tanks buld aggro

Anonymous said...

4% damage is only 4% increased threat not 8%.

~napkin math~

If base damage was 1000, you'd produce 2000 threat.
The 4% damage gives you 400 damage.
1400 damage causes 2800 threat. Increase of 800.
800/2000 = 4%

side note - I know I am posting in an old discussion, but seeing as this is linked by a number of different places I felt it important to point this out for those that follow.

Unknown said...

Im new to druid tanking. i just got my druid to lvl 80 and it is my first toon. i dual speced feral today and i would like to thank you for taking the time to post that tanking spec, as that is what i intend on doing. i was curious to know if you have any ideas for a good rotation as i have never really played around with feral.

Anonymous said...

4% of 1000 is 4, not 40.

Anonymous said...

I take maul glyph and drop the Growl glyph any day I have other ways of pulling threat off of people. And why waste 3 ponits in shap shifting for an extra 4% damage. Thats talents i can put into bash and other things.

Kiaos of Senjin Druid tank. current level 73.

Anonymous said...

No 4% of 1000 is 40

1000/100=10=1%
1% times 4=4% and 10 times 4=40.

Anonymous said...

Thank you anonymous. It's good to see someone that passed middle school math. On a side note the return from glyph of growl isn't that great, it's better to use glyph of maul. If something resists you, use feral charge, get aggro, and pull the mob back to where it was. Also for the third minor glyph, go with Unburdened Rebirth and free up an extra slot in your bags.

Bas Jansen said...

I already stated earlier in the comments that for general purposes i prefer the glyph of maul but that this set up is aimed specifically towards single mob (boss) tanking.

Bas Jansen said...

I also stated that unburdended rebirth is a good glyph for the 3d minor glyph slot, but that it is not 'vital' to a tank build.

Unknown said...

I agree with maul glyph for trash/heroics and growl for any raid boss with tank swapping. In ICC, a missed taunt on bosses that require tank swaps can easily wipe the raid. Also, druids don't have a backup single target taunt like other tanks. So having that glyph on tank swap fights is MANDATORY for all druid tanks unless you want to explain to your raid why you let saurfang beat down the other tank while he had the Blood Rune.

Anonymous said...

Nice build but you spent 18 points in resto and 55 in feral. Thats 2 points too many -_-