Comments on: Polar Bears: Episode I – Northrend’s Got Talents!

By: TGAPGeorge

TGAPGeorge — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 04:24:09 +0000

As always, great posts. Also, 6th Picture of the 6th Folder game... tag, you're it!

By: Wolfblitzer

Wolfblitzer — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:56:06 +0000

@ Radford

You’ve got the right idea for the rotation. I would strongly recommend you get glyph of maul immediately. Although if you do you have to be cautious of using maul around CC’d targets, I found that it’s mostly a non issue, and it helps a lot with ae threat. When I’m ae pulling, I just switch out lacerate for swipe, and keep tab maul and mangling. Keep up demo roar unless a warrior is shouting, and throw in Faerie Fire whenever you have an open cooldown or are waiting on rage. Faerie Fire is free threat.

By: Urago

Urago — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:38:49 +0000

…And now for the 2nd half of that that I forgot to add before submitting.. If you’re tanking groups of mobs, drop Lac and throw in Swipe. Swipe is awesome. And, if you have Glyph of Maul, your Maul will be hitting 2 targets as well, keeping them glued to you. For multi tanking you want to keep Mangle on CD on your primary target, keep Maul lit unless you get below about 40 rage or so, and then otherwise just spam Swipe and keep your Roar debuff up. If things get really hairy and you think you’re going to lose some mobs, pop Berserk and spam Mangle. That’ll all but guarantee 3 mobs stay put. If you have more than that then use Tab/Mangle to spread it all around. And if one breaks off anyway, remember that Growl is now ranged and can even be used if the mob is behind you. Just growl them back to you and drop a couple of mangles on that one and carry on.

By: Urago

Urago — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:35:09 +0000

@Radford

Thanks for asking! Bear rotation really all comes down to what you’re doing. If you’re on a boss, then Mangle > Lacerate > Lacerate > Lacerate > Mangle > Lacerate > Lacerate will get you to 5 stacks. At which point it’s not as much a pure rotation as it is a prioritization. Mangle needs to constantly be ticking. Once you have Lac stacked to 5, you can just reapply when necessary to keep them bleeding, which frees up a nice amt of range to convert all of your swings into Mauls which will do a ton more dmg and a lot more threat. I’d also smack them with FFF whenever it’s off cooldown as long as you don’t need that GCD for Mangle or to top off Lac. Keep your Roar debuff up on them too and juggle until dead.

By: Urago

Urago — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:26:30 +0000

Also, Berserk will let you get through that entire rotation twice before you have to wait for energy to make your next move, so that’s tons-o-fun.

By: Urago

Urago — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:24:45 +0000

Well, I’ll add this – I’m still lvl 73 on my Druid but I did go ahead and respec dropping BI and Imp Mangle and getting some points in Shredding Attacks and 1 rank in PI so far. I have to say I’m very impressed with the DPS difference between BC and Wrath. I HATED being relegated to Kitty duty in 1-tank fights in BC because it was nothing more than Manglespam until my 5 pt combo was up which bored me to tears. Shredding Attacks really does allow for a nicer, more elegant rotation that cranks out the deeps. I churned out 960 DPS at 73 for a 5-man run last week using Mangle > Rake > Shred > Shred > Rake > Rip as my primary rotation, subbing in Pounce (Trash) and Ravage (Bosses) as a 1st strike when stealthed and finishing w/ FB instead of Rip when the mob was getting close to death. It was fun and I was about 100 DPS ahead of the BM Hunter who was 2nd on the Recount chart. Very impressive stuff.

By: Radford

Radford — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:01:59 +0000

Thanks for posting this. I recently respecced my druid to a feral tanking build and it worked out pretty similar to what you’ve shown here. My druid’s only 71 so he hasn’t filled in all his talents yet.

My druid is my first real attempt at tanking. Before the respec he was resto, then balance. If you don’t mind giving a little advice with a rotation for quick threat generation, I’d appreciate it. I haven’t done any grouping with the bear yet but the rotation I’ve been using just to get into bear fighting is mangle – lacerate 5 stacks – maul when available. Throw a mangle in every CD.

As I said it’s my first shot at tanking. Any advise on bear threat generation would be appreciated.

By: Wolfblitzer

Wolfblitzer — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:43:04 +0000

@Karthis

I’ve found that when I slap on my cat gear, that shredding attacks isn’t wholly necessary. I don’t really use shred since it costs so much energy, instead I manglespam between rakes to keep my combo points coming. It has the added benefit of simplifying my rotation for cat. Obviously no cat build should be without it, but for a bear build I can do without it.

By: Wolfblitzer

Wolfblitzer — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:39:52 +0000

The only difference I have in my current raid tank build vs what you show here is trading Brutal Impact for Primal Fury. When offtanking and on AOE, it makes a huge difference to your rage pool. When tanking 10+ trash mobs (or offtanking) every swipe fills your rage bar. Thirty seconds off bash is still far too long to be usable. Like Karthis said, leave the interrupting to the DK’s, Rogues and Shammies out there. Only way I would take Brutal Impact in a pve build is if it reduced the bash cooldown to 10s or less.

By: Urago

Urago — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:04:15 +0000

Thanks for the input Karthis. Admittedly my goal here was Tankability primarily with a bit of utility sprinkled in, but still heavily slanted toward Bear form. I may do some playing around with swapping Imp. Mangle and BI for SA and PI to see how it goes.