Druid Tanking Guide
(All credit for this guide goes to Vindictive of the Druid Forums. The original version of this guide can be found here. Also the most updated version of this guide can be found at that link.)
This is a guide for Druid Tanks that want to know what's been changed in WotLK including what your gear goals should be, how you should spec, your attack order etc.
Please feel free to add suggestions, comments or missed updates!
Thank you for your help and feedback!
Index
Post 0 - Fundamental Changes in WotLK / Stats & Gear
Post 1 - Abilities & Talents
Post 2 - Glyphs
Post 3 - Threat Generation
Post 4 - Basics of Tanking
Post 5 - Q & A
Fundamental Changes in WotLK
Armor and Dodge
Druid Armor and Dodge have been significantly reduced with the latest patch. This is an obvious cause for concern. However, if you look at the overall changes made in WotLK, you'll see that many changes were made to compensate for these reductions.
- Boses no longer do Crushing Blows - This greatly reduced the damage that bosses deal.
- Protector of the Pack reduces all damage taken by 12%. This not only helps with physical damage, but now also gives Druids damage reduction vs magic attacks as well.
- Survival of the Fittest now makes us 100% crit immune without the need for any Defense or Resilience which allows us to Gem and Enchant for Agility or Stamina etc.
Also remember, the gear Druids use to tank has changed drastically with WotLK so you'll need to select your gear, gems and enchants accordingly. If you tank in your old tanking gear or don't have some of the new key talents, you'll likely take tremendous extra damage.
These changes put us in line with, not better or worse then, the other tanks. So please give it a try before you consider these overall changes a nerf. So far from my testing, I have found that Druid tanks are both very effective and very competative. Thank you.
Armor
Bonus or "green" armor has been removed from WoW. You'll find all of your old tank gear now has far less armor then it used to. As well, The Dire Bear form armor multiplier has been reduced from 400% to 370%. Futher, items equiped in the Neck, Ring, Trinket, Back and Weapon slots do not receive the armor multiplier bonus. These changes were made to prevent Druid tanks from being able to reach the Armor cap and to keep mitigation in line with the other tank classes.
Feral Tree "bloat"
Blizzard has radically changed the Feral tree to force Druids to focus on Tanking or DPS or have a partial build that is good (but not great) at both. Many call this bloat, but it was intentional on Blizzards part.
Mitigation now has diminishing returns
Dodge, Block and Perry now have diminishing returns. This means that the more +Dodge you stack, the less value each additional point has. In other words, the rating co-efficients become worse as you get more rating.
Crushing Blows
While still in the game, Crushing Blows can only occur if you are fighting targets that are at least 4 levels higher then you. This means, for basic tanking purposes, Crushing Blows have effectively been removed and you do not need to worry about them unless you are to low level to be tanking the instance, in which case, Crushing Blows are the least of your problems.
Note: At level 80 you must be Defense capped at 400 to be Crushing Blow immune. For every 5 points below 400, you are considered 1 level lower and thus more likely to be hit by a Crushing Blow.
Potions in Forms
Druids will now be able to use Potions, Health Stones and other such items while remaining in their current form. This means no more shifting to caster form to drink a potion. Blizzard has also limited everyone to 1 potion per fight.
Enchants in Forms
Proc enchants will now work in all forms making many Enchants very viable for Druids to use.
Threat
Blizzard made some very fundamental changes to threat in WotLK.
1. Threat is now built into bear form - your party no longer needs Salvation or other such abilities to reduce their threat. In fact, Salvation has been removed from the game.
2. Threat generation by tanks has been significantly increased - Blizzard wants threat to be a factor in fights, but does not want threat to set the DPS cap as it currently does. So expect it to be easier to hold agro going forward.
Stats & Gear
With WotLK, Blizzard made a lot of big changes to how Druid tanks are expected to gear, gem and enchant for tanking. This is a review of the most important stats for Druid Tanks and how they effect you.
Armor
High Armor is very important to Druid damage mitigation. The more armor you have, the less damage you take from every non-magic attack. So having more armor means you will be able to live longer because you will be taking less damage from each attack.
With the changes in WotLK, it will now be near impossible to reach the Armor cap, but Armor is still an excellent stat to stack that does not have deminishing returns. So the more Armor, the better. This is the best stat, point for point, for Druid Tanks.
Note: Trinkets, rings, weapons and cloaks with Armor values will no longer receive the 370% bonus. This is done to give Druid tanks more gear selection for these slots beyond just stacking the highest armor. This means you should not focus on stacking armor in these slots and instead focus on the other tanking stats - Agility and Stamina primarly.
Agility
It takes ~40 Agility to get 1% Dodge and 1% Crit at level 80. You also get 2 armor per 1 point of Agility.
As well, the proc of Savage Defense is based off of crit which means Agility is even more effective as it increases the proc rate of your Savage Defense.
Agility is an extremely valuable stat for Druid tanks because it provides 3 seperate and very important benefits - Dodge, Crit and Armor and indirectly increases Savage Defense procs. This makes it excellent for survivability and threat and should be prefered on gear, gems and enchants whenever possible.
Stamina
As with every class, the more stamina you have, the longer you can stay alive and the more time your healers have to heal you.
As a Druid tank you benefit far more from +stam then you do from +health because when you go to Bear form you get 1.25 times more health from Stamina then everyone else. This Bear form bonus does not apply to +health.
Stamina is very important for Druid Tanks.
Dodge
Dodge lets you completely avoid attacks by, well, dodging them. The more dodge you have the less hits you take which greatly increases your survivability.
Dodge can be obtained from Dodge Rating, Agility and Defense. However, it's generally considered best to get your Dodge from Agility gear, gems and enchants.
Dodge, whether through Dodge Rating or Agility, is an excellent stat to stack until you reach ~50% Dodge. However, after that point, diminishing returns reduce it's effectiveness.
Defense
Druid tanks do not need Defense gear.
The Survival of the Fittest talent reduces the chance to be crit by 2/4/6%, which means a Druid tank can achieve uncritable by only taking 3/3 SotF.
However, Defense is not totally worthless. Once you reach ~50% Dodge, due to diminishing returns, stacking Defense actually becomes better then stacking more Dodge.
Begin to stack Defense only after you have reached ~50% Dodge.
Note: Like with Crushing Blows, you must be Defense capped at 400 to be crit immune.
Hit & Expertise
Hit & Expertise are very good stats for maintaining high DPS (and thus threat) in a fight as both help you to hit your target more often. However, If you do have a choice between +Hit and +Expertise, you should go for the +Expertise gear which will help reduce the Dodge and Parry of the target you are attacking.
Strength
Strength provides 2 Attack Power per point, making it a very good stat for increased Threat.
Crit
+crit provides more crit% per point then Agility and so is a very good stat for increased Threat. It also increases the proc rate of Savage Defense.
Haste
Haste does very little to help Druids in Bear form as it has no effect on your primary threat attack, Mangle, or on your primary AOE attack, Swipe. So Haste is best avoided for tanking.
Resilience
Resilience no longer plays any significant role in Feral Tanking.
Gear, Gems and Enchants
Generally, Druids should gear in this order for Tanking:
Armor
Agility
Stamina
Dodge to ~50% then Defense
Expertise
Hit
Crit
Strength
Abilities
This is a review of abilities that have been added or significantly changed that directly effect Druid Tanking.
Savage Defense
This is a passive ability that procs a shield any time you crit with a melee attack while in Bear form. The shield protects against physical damage only and reduces damage taken by 25% of your attack power (after armor).
Because the proc is crit based and there is no internal cooldown, using Swipe when around groups can greatly increase the proc rate and thus your overall mitigation. As always when using Swipe, be careful of CCed mobs.
Swipe
Swipe is an AOE effect that hits all mobs around the tank and does not require you to have a target to use though a target must be within range. This allows Druids to AOE Tank any number of mobs without having to worry about targeting or direction issues. Basically AOE threat is very easy - just push the button.
Growl
With a range of 30 yards, Growl is ideal for pulling mobs to you at range, including off of a healer or DPS that's pulled agro or a newly spawned mob for example. Another important note on Growl is that it forces the mob to attack you for 3 seconds, even if someone generates enough threat to pull the mob off - after the 3 seconds the mob will then go to that person if their threat is still high enough to pull threat. A Growl or Taunt ability from another tank will pull the mob even within the 3 seconds however.
Note that some mobs and especially many bosses can resist or are immune to taunt.
Feral Fearie Fire
When in Bear form, FFF does significantly threat and damage. This makes it an excellent ability to use when pulling a single target to you for tanking. And because FFF uses no Rage, it is now an excellent ability to help increase your threat on a target even when you are low on Rage. FFF in cat form has not changed.
Note: A nice combo to use when trying to get threat on a target that is far away attacking someone else is to Growl to force the mob to attack you, then FFF to increase your threat even more. Do not do this combo backwords as it is a waste.
Barkskin
Barkskin be used in any form without shifting you to caster form. This makes Barskin a primary emergency button for Druid Tanks that reduces all damage, physical and magic, by 20% for 12 seconds every minute. This should be a button you are ready to use whenever you are low on health or expect to take a lot of damage.
Survival Instincts
This ability gives you 30% of your max health for 20 seconds and can be used every 3 minutes. Basically this is for when you suddenly take a large amount of damage and need to give your healers a few more seconds to cast their spells or to give you more health when a boss soft enrages. Knowing when to use this ability can mean the difference between a boss kill and a wipe.
Bash
Bash is considered an "Interupt" effect, even if the target is not stunable. This means it will stop spell casting on trash and boss fights just like a Rogue Kick or Warrior Shield Bash do currently. This is an excellent tool and makes 2/2 Brutal Impact worth considering. However, the talent only reduces the cooldown and most raids will have a Rogue or Warrior to interupt when needed, so while good, these points are not critical to spend.
Nature's Grasp
Natures Grasp can be used in any form without shifting you to caster form. This allows you to root targets that are attacking you while remaining in bear or cat form.
Tank Talents
This is a review of the most important tank related talents.
Survival of the Fittest
Each point of the Survival of the Fittest talent (max 3) reduces your chance to be crit by 2%, making it so that Druids are 100% Crit Immune immediately if they have 3/3 in this talent.
This is an absolutely critical talent for Druid Tanks.
Protector of the Pack
Each point of this talent (max 3) reduces all damage, including Magic, by 3% per talent point spent. This means that you will take 12% less damage from all forms of attack. This is our primary magic damage reduction ability.
This is an absolutely critical talent for Druid Tanks.
Infected Wounds
This talent causes your attacks to apply a stacking wound that reduces the attack speed of your target by 20% including most bosses. When applied, this will greatly reduce the incoming damage taken and is considered a very important tanking talent.
Thick Hide
This ability increases your armor by 10%. This is a very good increase and definitely worth the 3 talent points.
Feral Swiftness & Natural Reaction
Together these talents increase your total Dodge by 10% - a very big and very important increase. As well, you gain 3 rage from Natural Reaction every time you dodge an attack - a very nice boost to threat especially when low on rage.
Survival Instincts
This talent gives Druid tanks an emergency button for when their health begins to get low. For one point, this talent is very much worth it.
Threat Talents
This is a review of the most important threat related talents for Druid tanks.
Mangle & Improved Mangle
Mangle is your number one threat attack on a single target as a Druid tank and is an absolutely critical talent. Improved Mangle reduces the cooldown from 6 seconds to 4.5 seconds allowing you to use Mangle more often in your rotation. So while Mangle is critical, Imp Mangle adds marginally to threat generation.
Note on Improved Mangle - If you are going to put any points into this talent, you must go 3/3 because if you only get 1/3 or 2/3 no benefit is gained whatsoever for Druid tanking.
Berserk
This ability alows the tank to produce huge threat very quickly by removing the cooldown of Mangle so that it can be spammed for 15 seconds. It is best to wait until you have a near full Rage bar before you use this ability so you don't waste it due to being rage starved. Also, be careful not to break CC as it causes you to attack up to 3 targets at once instead of 1.
Savage Fury
Very important talent for increasing threat. Considered must have for the damage increase it provides for just 2 talent points.
Precision
Very important talent for increasing threat. Considered must have for improved chance to hit with attacks, which greatly increases your threat.
Feral Instinct
This talent gives our AOE Tanking ability a 30% damage increase making it extremely important to have.
Omen of Clarity
This talent is a very significant DPS boost in that it very often gives you free attacks.
Note: OOC only procs off of White damage making it scale very effectively with Haste.
Rend and Tear & Primal Gore
These talent boosts the damage Maul does on bleeding targets but the 6 talent points are generally better spent else where unless you are an OT and will use it for Feral DPS.
Other Talents
This is a list of other Threat related talents that should be considered for any tanking build:
Ferocity
Sharpened Claws
Primal Fury
Predatory Strikes
Primal Precision
Naturalist
Talent Build
This is a MT build designed for high survivability and threat at the cost of Cat form attack abilities
Druid Glyphs
This is a review of Feral Druid Glyphs.
Major Glyphs
Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration
While Frenzied Regeneration is active, healing effects on you are 20% more powerful.
This can be a very nice boost to your incoming healing and turns Frenzied Regeneration into a another Druid emergency button when tanking.
Glyph of Survival Instincts
Increases the percentage of your maximum health received from Survival Instincts to 40%.
Greatly increases the effectiveness of Survival Instintcs and a very good glyph to take.
Glyph of Maul
Your Maul ability now hits 1 additional target.
Great increase in DPS output when multi-tanking. However, this means you have to be careful when you use Maul as you can break CC if it is to close. I recomend against taking this glyph if you are just starting tanking.
Glyph of Growl
Increases the chance for your Growl ability to work successfully by 8%.
Having Growl resisted has not tended to be a major issue.
Glyph of Shred
Increases the damage dealt by Shred to stunned and incapacitated targets by 20%.
A nice damage increase but very limited in use due to the stun / incap requirement, making it marginal at best.
Glyph of Rip
Increases the duration of your Rip ability by 4 sec.
Adds 2 full damage ticks to Rip. This is an absolutely must have Glyph for Feral DPS but has no use for tanking.
Glyph of Mangle
Increases the duration of Mangle by 6 sec.
It's effects when tanking are minimal but this is helpful for Feral DPS rotations.
Barkskin
Reduces the chance you’ll be critically hit by melee attacks by 25% while Barkskin is active.
With 3/3 Survival of the Fittest, this talent is completely worthless for tanking as you are already crit immune. This is a PvP glyph.
Glyph of Rake
Your Rake ability prevents targets from fleeing.
Basically only good for grinding to keep low health targets from running and agroing others. And even then I doubt it will be of great value.
Glyph of Hurricane
Your Hurricane ability now also slows the movement speed of its victims by 20%.
This Glyph can actually be pretty useful for Feral druids - I often like to pull groups of mobs with Hurricane, this Glyph would slow them down so I could get more ticks, and thus more threat, before they got to me.
Glyph of Entangling Roots
Increases the damage your Entangling Roots victims can take before the Entangling Roots automatically breaks by 20%.
With Natures Grasp now castable in all forms, this can be useful. The problem I see is, you're a melee DPS so your either out of range so the extra damage doesn't matter, or your in range, so the mobs going to be attacking you anyways. Overall, not very good for feral druids.
Minor Glyphs
Glyph of Thorns
Increases the duration of your Thorns ability by 50 min when cast on yourself.
Must have for feral tanks as it allows you to keep thorns up through an entire fight.
Glyph of Dash
Reduces the cooldown of your Dash ability by 20%.
Reduces the cooldown of Dash from 3 minutes to 2 Minutes 24 Seconds. This is a cat form ability.
Glyph of Challenging Roar
Reduces the cooldown of your Challenging Roar ability by 30 sec.
Reduces the cooldown of Challenging Roar from 3 minutes to 2 Minutes 30 Seconds.
Glyph of Aquatic Form
Increases your swim speed by 50% while in Aquatic Form.
Meh.
Threat Generation
Being able to generate high threat is critical to doing a good job tanking. If your threat is to low your DPSers (or worse, healers) will pull agro and that generally means a wipe.
Good threat generation is achieved by a combination of good AP and Crit and using the right ability rotation.
The AP and Crit you work on by selecting, gemming and enchanting the right gear before the fight as outlined above, so I won't go into that any further.
Using the right abilities is critical to building threat quickly.
The abilities you will use most consistently are:
Mangle
Mangle is a big threat generator ability. You must be sure to use it every time the 6 second cooldown ends (4.5 second cooldown with 3/3 Imp Mangle). It is your best opener and constant threat increase. Think of Mangle as 2 to 4 times better then any other threat ability you have and you'll understand why you must use it every time it is up.
Maul
Maul applies extra damage to your Auto Attack making it generate very good damage and threat. One big advantage of Maul is that it does not use or reset your Global Cooldown like Mangle, Lacerate and Swipe do. This means you can use it even while these other abilities are on the Global Cooldown.
Warning: Maul causes your next Auto Attack to generate no rage! Auto Attack is one of your primary means of generating rage when you arn't taking damage and using Maul when you are low on rage will leave you very short of rage and thus greatly reduce the amount of threat you are able to generate.
Swipe
Swipe is your "AOE" attack, hitting all targets around you at once. If you have 3/3 Feral Instinct, the threat generated by Swipe will be greater then the threat generated by Lacerate. This means this will be your primary Threat ability when not using Mangle. However, you must be careful when using this ability around CCed mobs.
Feral Fearie Fire
FFF causes a large amount of threat, does some damage and best of all, costs zero rage. Because of this, FFF should be used as often as possible whenever you are low on rage.
Lacerate
Lacerate generates very good threat due to a special threat bonus applied when the attack is made. More importantly, Lacerate also applies a bleed effect to your target. This bleed effect stacks up to 5 times and should be kept up at all times.
Best Practices
There are basically three types of fights you'll need to worry about - Those that generate lots of rage, those that make you struggle for rage and those where you will drift from a full rage bar to empty depending on the hits you take etc.
High Rage Fights
Generally this is when you are the MT and the boss does a large amount of damage or when you are tanking multiple mobs at the same time. It is your goal to use every bit of rage you have - you never want that rage bar at 100% because that is rage you should have been using to generate more threat.
Ability Order:
Open with Mangle, then Lacerate, then spam Swipe and Maul until Mangle is ready.
Rinse, repeat. Just make sure to keep Lacerate up.
Low Rage Fights
Generally this is when you are the OT or the boss does medium to low damage directly to you. It is your goal to maintain the highest amount of threat you can with what little rage you have.
Ability Order:
Open with FFF, then Mangle, then Lacerate then, rage permitting, spam Swipe. Be sure to stop spamming Swipe early to prevent waiting for rage when Mangle becomes ready. After you Mangle you sould be able to re-apply FFF then Lacerate then Swipe once or twice before Mangle.
Continue in this rotation.
Note: On some fights you might not be able to Maul at all if Rage generation is very slow. That's ok, just make sure you maintain Mangle whenever you can, use FFF whenever it is up, Lacerate to keep the bleed effect up and Swipe the rest of the time.
High / Low Fights
On many fights you'll find your rage sometimes spikes to full then drifts down to near empty. For these fights, you want to use your rage in the smartest way possibly by maximizing threat as your rage goes up and down. Really that just means switching between the high and low rage fight orders listed above as your rage goes up and down.
Ability Order:
As always, Mangle whenever it is up. When your rage is over 40% to 50%, spam Maul and Swipe. When it dips below 40% to 50%, stop Mauling and use FFF until it goes back up. And always keep the Lacerate bleed up.
Note: You should always keep an eye on the cooldown of Mangle and, about 1 to 2 seconds before it is ready to cast, stop using Swipe, Lacerate and FFF and wait for Mangle to be ready. If you don't stop and just spam buttons, you'll very likely push Mangle back a few seconds or more due to global cooldowns. This definatly does effect your threat generation especially over long fights.
Special Note on Mangle & Maul
On their own, Mangle (15 rage) and Maul (10 rage) produce about the same amount of damage and threat. However, despite Maul costing less rage to cast then Mangle, Maul actually ends up costing more rage and reduces your net damage.
Sounds crazy, I know. :)
This all has to do with the fact that Druids get rage from white / auto attacks but not from yellow / special attacks and Maul turns your white attack into a yellow attack.
So not only do you spend 10 rage to cast Maul, you also lose 8 to 12 rage that you would have gotten for auto attacking. Likewise, when you turn your white attack into a yellow attack, you also lose the damage of your auto attack. These are opportunity costs instead of direct costs but they hurt all the same.
So if I spend 15 rage on Mangle, I also gain ~10 rage and the damage from my next auto attack.
If I spend 10 rage on Maul, I do not gain the ~10 rage and do not do the damage from my next auto attack. So Maul has "cost" me ~20 rage and the auto attack damage.
So obviously Mangle is better to use then Maul, right? Well, maybe. :)
Mangle also applies a debuff that increases Maul damage by 30% which easily makes Maul a better ability then Mangle even with the additional opportunity costs of Maul.
So to do the most damage, you want to use Maul as much as possible but you need to keep the Mangle debuff up to get the most out of it. And the best way to keep the Mangle debuff up is to make sure you use Mangle every time it goes off cooldown.
So what it comes down to is this:
When you don't have enough rage to use both abilities, use Mangle because it "costs" less rage by not preventing you from getting rage and damage from your auto attack. And since you don't have enough rage to use both, the Maul would likely not benefit from the 30% increase so the opportunity costs make Maul far less effective then Mangle. However, if you have plenty of rage then you need to use Mangle whenever it is up and spam Maul!
So the reason it is so important to use Mangle at all times, every cooldown, is 3 fold:
1. If you're low on rage Mangle is more effecient then Maul.
2. When you have plenty of rage, using Mangle keeps the 30% buff to Maul up.
3. Maul doesn't use global cooldowns and Mangle is always far better then Lacerate / Swipe when it comes to single target threat.
So there is almost never a time when Mangle isn't being used every cooldown. :)
How To Guide
This section is to outline the basics of different aspects of tanking.
How To - Growl
Growl, like Warrior Taunt, sets your threat equal to the mobs current target and forces the mob to attack you for 3 seconds. Because Growl uses the mobs current target to set your threat when used, Growl should never be used when the mob is already attacking you - it will do almost nothing. Growl is meant to be used as an emergency agro recovery ability, returning agro to you after someone else has pulled it off. Be warned however, most bosses and some trash are immune to Growl.
Note on Growl - Some people advocate using Growl to "stick" agro to you for a few extra seconds. Basically you Growl while the target is already attacking you which has no effect on your threat but does still force the mob to stay attacking you for a few seconds. I feel this is generally a waste and risky because you start the 8 second cooldown on an ability that could be critical to saving a healer etc.
How To - Challenging Roar
Challenging Roar is the area effect version of Growl with one key difference - Challenging Roar does not increase your threat on any targets. Instead it only forces all mobs in the area to attack you for 6 seconds after which they will return to their previous targets if you have not generated enough threat to hold them. If you use this ability, I strongly suggest you pop any "emergency" buttons and any trinkets you may have to reduce the chance that you are overwhelmed by the additional damage.
Also, you must be very careful when you use Challenging Roar to pick up adds near a boss - often times the boss is tauntable and you will pull it off of the main tank, possibly exposing the party to a forward AOE damage ability.
How To - Multi-Tank
Multi-tanking means holding agro on 2 or more mobs. Most often, you will have one primary target to hold agro on and 1 or more secondary targets to hold agro on. The primary target will be DPSed down by your party then you will all move on to the next mob. The most important thing to consider when tanking multiple mobs is that healing spells generate AoE threat - Each time your healer heals you, they generate threat on all mobs around you. Because of this, it is critical that you continue to build threat on all mobs you are tanking.
The best way to build threat is to position all mobs you'll be tanking so they are away from any CCed mobs. Then use Mangle when it is up and spam Swipe, using Maul if you have enough rage. This will build decent agro on the primary target while keeping some agro on all secondary targets.
If for any reason a mob breaks from the group and heads toward another party member, you must be ready to click the mob, Growl it so it is again attacking you, and Mangle / Lacerate / Maul it so that you build some quick agro on it. Then return to your primary target and return to Mangle / Swipe.
The advantage to multi-tanking is that you have many mobs hitting you, causing you to generate rage much faster.
The disadvantage to multi-tanking is that you have many mobs hitting you, causing your health to go down much faster. Gear is very important.
In the end, the nature of many fights simply requires that you learn to tank multiple mobs effectively. Multi-tanking is as tricky as it sounds and is the primary factor that separates the excellent tanks from the so-so tanks. Be an excellent tank - learn to multi-tank, it's important.
How To - Kill Order
Basically, Kill Order is the order in which the mobs will be tanked and DPSed. The reason this is important is because if you are tanking one mob and your DPS is attacking others, they will pull agro and get killed and there will be little or nothing you can do to prevent a wipe.
Raid symbols should be used to set the Kill Order, as well as to assign any CC you may be using. Typical kill orders are Skull then X then Star, but feel free to set it however you want - just be sure all party members know it. By following the kill order, you ensure that you are generating the most threat on the same mob that the DPS are attack.
Any DPS that do not follow the kill order should be left to die - your job is to keep agro on the primary target, not whatever target they happen to click on and attack.
Q&A Section
Question
Do Druids have emergency buttons?
Answer
Yes, with WotLK Druid tanks gained 2 emergency buttons.
Survival Instincts gives a 30% boost to health for 20 seconds which gives the healers time to recover from a sharp drop in health.
Barkskin can now be cast in any form, reducing all damage taken by 20% for 12 seconds. This can be very useful at the start of a fight when healers are still getting to position or on fights where you know the boss / mob will frenzy.
As well, Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration can make Frenzied Regeneration a very nice boost to your incoming healing (while Frenzied Regeneration is active, healing effects on you are 20% more powerful) and turn Frenzied Regeneration into a poor Druid's emergency button when tanking. This basically helps your healers keep you up.
Then there are the items Druids can get such as Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch or Badge of Tenacity to greatly increase their dodge in case of an emergency.
Question
What is the difference between Threat and Agro?
Answer:
Threat is an indication of how much the mob hates you or how much of a threat it considers you. The more threat you have, the more likely you are to "pull agro". Threat does not go down unless you die, leave combat or are effected by special abilities that reduce or remove your threat. As a druid, your primary means of generating threat is using your attack abilities.
Agro, or having agro, means the mob has determined that you are the biggest threat and will attack you. Only one person can have agro at a time and as the tank you should be the one that has it. Pulling agro means taking agro away from someone else and having the mob attack you.
There is a built in buffer - Those in Melee range need 110% of your threat before they pull agro, those standing out of Melee range need 130% of your threat before they pull agro. If they go above these buffers, the mob will attack them instead of you.
So if you have 1000 Threat and a rogue has 1090 threat, the mob will continue to attack you. However, if the rogue attacks before you generate more threat, then the rogues threat will be above the buffer so the rogue will pull agro, meaning the mob will turn and attack him. You will then have to get to at least 110% of the rogues current threat to take agro back (or the rogue simply dies and the agro will go to the next highest threat target).
Note: If a mage or healer is within melee range of the mob, because of the lower buffer they will have a much easier time pulling agro on accident. For this reason and many others, all ranged should be out of melee range whenever possible.
Question
Can Druids use Potions or Healthstones while tanking?
Answer
Yes. This was changed in the latest patch so that Druids can use potions, Healthstones and other items while in forms.
Question
What is the best way for a Druid to pull?
Answer
Actually, Druids have several very good ways to pull depending on the situation:
Faerie Fire Pull - Feral Faerie Fire pulls can be done while in Bear form. This is good for mobs that charge or "shoot" when agroed so that you are ready for them yet can still pull from range. You will usually want to use Enrage for extra rage a few seconds before the pull. And since FFF is an instant cast, you can use it to pull mobs on a patrol path right when you want.
In WotLK, FFF was buffed cause additional threat and do damage when used in Bear form.
Hurricane Pull - This is a great way to pull groups of mobs - it lets you get good starting agro on all of the mobs instead of just one or a few. Stand close enough so that you can get most of the mobs in your circle then begin casting. You should get at least 2 ticks before you have to shift to Bear form, 3 if you time it right. The main danger with this pull is that you must be in Bear form to tank before they get to you!
Wrath Pull - Because this spell has a "travel time" to get to your target, this is a very good spell to pull with when you are doing line of site pulls on caster targets. You can cast it and run around a corner before they are even agroed.
Healing Agro - For most any type of pull, if you are having Agro issues, you can cast Regrowth and other healing over time spells on yourself just before using one of the above listed pulls. Once you start to take damage, the healing you receive from your own spell will generate extra threat for you. Frenzied Regeneration can also help you with agro if you have enough rage to keep your attacks going. This is best used with Hurricane Pulls.
Question
What are the best Gems and Enchants to get for Druid Tanks?
Answer
By far the best Gems and Enchants to get are Agility and Stamina with a bias to Stamina.
Question
What gear should I get?
Answer
This is a constantly changing question with a constantly changing answer. You should get whatever gear provides you with the best stats as outlined in the first section.
Question
I've been told that when you are low on rage or having difficulty generating more rage, Maul is the worst possible ability you can use to increase your threat. But I thought Maul gives more threat for less rage then Lacerate, so how can that be?
Answer
Well, on the surface, this doesn't make sense - Maul costs only 10 Rage to cast and can generate as much or more threat then Lacerate, which costs 13 Rage.
To solve this conundrum, we have to look at the whole picture, but first some game mechanics:
Druid tanks generate about 10 rage per "White" or "auto attack". That's rage, not threat. So every time you auto attack a target, you get about 10 rage. This is why you can just stand there and attack and, even if you take no damage, you'll still fill your rage bar.
On the other hand, Druid tanks do NOT generate any rage from "Yellow" or "special" attacks, like Maul, Lacerate, Shred and Mangle.
The problem with Maul is that it turns your rage generating White damage into non-rage generating Yellow damage. So the cost to cast Maul is 10 Rage but by using Maul you prevent yourself from gaining the additional Rage of the white damage auto attack, making the total cost to cast one Maul closer to 20 Rage, not 10 Rage.
This huge total cost means that Maul is extremely inefficient when it comes to Threat generation - with that 20 rage you could have cast nearly two Lacerates instead.
Just keep in mind, this huge cost doesn't matter when you have a full rage bar and the boss is giving you tons of rage through damage - it only matters when you're low on rage and trying to build threat quickly.
Question
How does 3/3 Survival of the Fittest make me immune to crits?
Answer
SotF provides 6% crit reduction. Mobs of equal level to you have a 5% chance to crit you with +.2% added for every level above you. This means mobs up to 5 levels higher then you can not crit you. End-game bosses are considered 3 levels above you, giving them a crit chance of 5.6%.
Question
Is there one macro that can be setup to just spam that button for Druid tanking?
Answer
The problem is that if you use just one macro, you will not be able to spam the button, instead being forced to carefully time each press right after the GCD. That is not a very enjoyable way to tank. Here is a better Macro solution:
Populate the entire left side of your keyboard with Lacerate.
Populate the entire right side of keyboard with this macro:
/startattack
/cast maul
/cast Mangle (Bear)
Now, the trick here is start with your face on the right side of the keyboard to open with Mangle. After that, just roll your face back and forth across the entire keyboard until mangle's 6 second cooldown is almost up - when Mangle's almost ready, roll your face only on the right side of the keyboard until you use your Mangle. Once you've mangled, you return to full keyboard face rolling until Mangle is again near cooldown.
This should keep Mangle, Lacerate and Maul going full speed. The trick to building lots of threat is to roll your face very fast - the faster you face roll the faster you build agro - it's really that simple.
If you get low on Rage, just roll your face on the left side only, returning to the right side only when Mangle is ready.
[Note: Blizzard, please do something to make Druid tanking a bit more involved. Thank you.]
(All credit for this guide goes to Vindictive of the Druid Forums. The original version of this guide can be found here. Also the most updated version of this guide can be found at that link.)