Tanking as a Druid

[Caline]

In my experience as a tanking bear, I've found switching in and out of bear form every fight counterproductive and time-consuming. It certainly does the job, but I've had better experiences when I focus on tanking instead of trying to play the dual role of caster/tank. Hopefully these annotations will explain what I feel are disadvantages of this playstyle, and suggest an alternative. Discretion is, of course, left to the reader.

TANKING AS A BEAR : SOME BASIC ADVICE

This guide is intended to give the druid player the basic tools needed to be an  effective tank. I have found that even with no points at all in the feral tree it  is possible to tank quite well in bear form, even in the higher level instances.

We're considering play in 5-player groups, where the druid is the only available  tank. In order for this to work there must also be a healer and some damage  dealers backing the tank up.

USING SPELLS TO GENERATE AGGRO

When you play as a tank your job is not to deal damage. You will of course deal  some, but the tank's main job is to get and keep aggro from every mob in every  encounter. The druid does not have quite the versatility of the warrior when it  comes to managing aggro, but with a little ingenuity he can still be quite  capable. We'll start by looking at spells which can be useful for generating  aggro.

MOONFIRE:  Moonfire is an instant which does some initial damage and then  generates some DOT. The spell is only available in caster form, so you might  wonder why it's on this list. I suggest that you start each encounter in caster  form and use this spell to pull. It gives you a ranged way to pull and starts the  process of getting the mob's aggro.

FAERIE FIRE:  Another caster spell, this one lowers the mob's armor. Use this one  directly after the Moonfire. If the pull is a bit tricky use this before the  Moonfire; it generates less aggro and can often turn a 2 or 3-pull into a 1-pull.

This here is the main advantage of using caster form when tanking: the ability to pull from range. Moonfire's damage is trivial as DPS (as Darkcrown says, DPS is not your role), too low to solidify threat on an add, and completely overshadowed by your melee damage (and inherent bear +threat) if used on the main assist.

Effortless pulls from range are certainly a boon, but they're far from necessary. When fighting a group of melee creeps, body pulling works as well. If fighting casters or other ranged attackers, a ranged puller encounters the same problems as a body puller, though it's usually easier for a ranged puller to break LoS. If it's safe to fight in a creep camp (for lack of a better term), Feral Charge is always fun, and handy against casters.

Alternately, of course, a hunter or rogue can pull. I'm sure you've read all about the pros and cons of such a move in other threads and other forums, so I won't repeat them here. Suffice to say that as tank, your role is the same. A fast demoralize can strip aggro before anyone takes a hit. It's certainly trickier, but I already said convenience was the big draw of pullilng with spells, right?

(Personally, I get by with body aggro 90% of the time, and use caster form to LoS tricky pulls of ranged attackers. It's always harder to establish and keep aggro with the latter.)

Also: faerie fire acting as a soothe? Wha? Could you explain this please? I've never noticed this behavior.

REJUVENATION:  This is a healing spell which heals over time. Cast this on  yourself as soon as the mob is pulled. Again this will generate aggro and the  healing will make you harder to damage at the beginning of the fight.

REGROWTH:  Another healing spell, this one heals for a fixed amount and then has a  heal over time component. Cast this along with the Rejuvenation, for even more  aggro and a little less damage taken early in the fight.

After you've pulled as described above and buffed yourself, drop into bear form.  Make sure that your party understands not to start unloading on the mob until you  are in bear form and have a bit of rage generated.

First off: healing doesn't build threat before the pull enters melee. I'm not sure if it builds threat or not if you're at full HP (which you'd better be, if you're pulling) after the pull, but I've tested the former (as a result, the latter seems counterintuitive anyway...). Get a full regrowth/rejuv going, pull with FF, tick, tick, rogue throws dagger and it's on him.

Does the HoT help negate damage? Certainly. Unfortunately, rejuvenation is about half-gone by the time you start taking damage, and regrowth's HoT is pretty minor compared to the damage you should be taking from a pack of at-level elites. In a vacuum, this is still pretty sweet. Unfortunately, since you start off with no rage, and have to tell your group to back off until you can demoralize and establish aggro, I consider it a net loss. It's still a good tactic to keep in mind for special situations (like when you need to get the high-DPS creep down ASAP), but as general procedure...

Besides, like Darkcrown says:

Also keep in mind that the only stat you never need to worry about is your  own health. It's the healer's job to focus on it, not yours.

I agree completely.

ENRAGE: This spell is an instant which generates rage and lowers your armor  rating. I don't believe it generates aggro by itself, but if you find it's taking  too long to get off the Demoralizing Roar, you should consider casting this as  soon as you go into bear form.

Enrage is free rage. Wouldn't you like to go into combat with 20 free rage? Great. The grace period before it starts to decay is very small, so try to pull with 3-5 seconds left on the clock. With a 1 min recast timer, this sounds daunting, but if your group works well together, it's easy to establish a rhythm after a few pulls.

The armor penalty is huge. That's 75 percent, reducing your armor to a little less than caster form. I certainly don't like tanking in caster form, and I bet you don't either. Taking more than 2 or 3 hits with enrage active can easily cause a horrible ping-ponging mess due to healing aggro. Ideally, you should be taking none. Corrolary: Don't use enrage while in combat.

I think Darkcrown is suggesting pulling with moonfire/ff, casting HoTs, shifting to bear, and using enrage to quickly build initial rage for a roar and so on. If so, I propose the following experiment. HoT up, and pull a pack of elites in caster form. See how well the HoTs negate the armor penalty (as mentioned above, caster form is roughly equal to 25% bearform armor). It's... not pretty, is it?

This leads to another basic of tanking: protect the other players at all costs.

If you take extra damage during a pull, or inhibit your ability to generate rage or threat, you're making your job harder.

SWIPE: This spell does some damage to 3 nearby enemies, and keeps you near the  top of their hit list. If the pull is 2 or 3 you will want to use this directly  after the Demoralizing Roar.

Any warrior will tell you how important switching targets is to holding multiple aggro. Unfortunately, as a bear, we're hampered with a 3.0 delay attack speed, which I feel is the largest weakness of the playstyle. In the time it takes for us to tab through 4 targets, 12 seconds have gone by. That's 12 seconds of the damage classes piling on the main assist, and 12 seconds of your healing casting away. It's simply not feasible. Swipe is high rage cost for low damage, but it's a quick way to build a little threat on multiple targets at once, while keeping your focus on the main assist. And a little threat is a lot more useful than none.

Swipe is kind of finicky about deciding what is and isn't in swiping range. If creeps are too close to you (inside the model), it won't hit them. If they're too far in the periphery of your character, it won't hit them. And, of course, if they're behind you or to your side, it won't hit them. Try to herd the creep pack into a 90 degree wedge directly in front of you. Easier said than done, I know.

BASH:     This spell stuns the target briefly. This is handy in two common  situations. If the healer is having trouble keeping up, and needs a few seconds  to get a heal to you, use Bash to give that player a little breathing room. This  is also sometimes useful if the mob is a caster, as you can often Bash them  before they get off their spell.

Also useful to catch a runner or if someone peels you while taunt is down. ...it's a stun, what's to say?

A few common warrior pointers that druids might not have picked up on:

*Maul replaces a normal attack. It takes time to go off, and effectively costs an extra attack worth of rage.

*Growl generates no lasting threat. It puts you right at the top of the threat list, and forces the monster to focus attacks on you for two seconds. After that, anything will distract the monster away from you.

*Again with the 3.0 attack speed gripe. This means that a taunted creep can and will be peeled in between autoattacks. Ideally, hit growl just before an autoattack. However, since we don't live in an ideal world, Swipe is instant damage that can solidify your threat... at least until the Growl timer comes up again.

Finally...

*Though the feral talent tree is an unpopular choice, Ferocity is a first-tier talent that has an amazing effect on bear form. If you plan on spending any time as a bear, pick Ferocity up. Being able use Maul and Swipe that much faster doesn't sound like an amazing effect, but in practice, it's like 25% faster rage generation. And that is a beautiful thing.