Are Druid tanks = Wet cardboardFollow

Ok here is my first post been a long time reader of the topics here and find the community really helpful.


Ok so here goes I have recently geared a Druid tank to item level 350 and out of all my other tanks (that are similar geared) he seems to be the most squishy.

They all have similar armor and Hp (well the Druids is slightly higher but nothing to rave about) I swear I even saw a crit hit in the combat log yesterday when i was in SFK! I know an armory link would be helpful but I'm on my IPhone so you will have to wait for that if you will.

Are the mechanics wrong and not working? Is the class just really underpowered at the moment? Is it true that Druids wear wet cardboard as armor?

Any advice would be helpful that includes roll tree or boomkin :-)

Cheers Nal

I just checked my threat set, I need to upgrade my meta since I can activate with said threat set.

With the SD change and others heroics will be a complete joke for a bear that can deal with them now.

I still don't get why they're reducing Swipe's cooldown to 3 seconds instead of just removing it and making Thrash spammable. I guess they worked hard on the names and want to keep them in the game.

Whatever, I'd sacrifice Swipe/Thrash if I got Nom Nom Nom back.

First of all, Death Knight self-healing is lulsies. Especially now that Blood Shield stacks. Second, what's your armor and dodge values like? I've got 41k armor and ~30% dodge self-buffed, if I remember correctly, covered in mostly heroic blues.

Also, you're going to take a lot of pain on trash because of how our shield thing works (getting fixed next patch), and because you can't pop 20k self-heals every 20 seconds like Paladins, or generate a constant flow of incoming health like the Death Knight. As for getting crit, to my knowledge, nothing in Shadowfang Keep uses a "100% crit on next hit" buff/debuff, so if you're getting crit then it's because you don't have 3/3 Thick Hide.

Extensive testing was done a while back by some of the math geeks over on the O-board and it showed that while Druids lack a lot of utility compared to other classes (we basically have none), the mitigation is actually some of the best, at least until Paladins and Warriors start getting block-capped. And that was before the armor "fix" which granted most Druids a huge armor bonus.

I feel very squishy when I tank on my Druid compared to my Paladin, but every healer I've run with says I'm taking very little damage, so I'm guessing it's more of an illusion brought out by the lack of utility and self-healing.

Ps. I've run heroics where I took less damage on a boss than the melee DPS. It was fun.

Try and replace the Str ring with an Agi one. Don't go down in iLvl though just know that you should have an Agi ring.

Weapon should have 120 Agi on it.

Use Agi/Dodge gems for yellow sockets that you wish to activate, use straight Agi gems in red sockets, Mastery/Stam is a fine alternative to Agi/Stam for blue. The straight stam gems need to be changed to one of the ones listed.

Back out of some expertise reforging. You only need ~21 or so for heroics. I raid with around 3 Exp and very little hit as well. I do have a threat set for heroics, I recommend having one. You don't have to cap them even for threat just don't let them get as low as you would on raid gear.

Also Haste->Hit->Exp->Crit->Mastery is the order of where to take from. Once you are content with your threat, more important for heroics, start reforging to Dodge.

Threat stats don't matter in a raid setting, they are nearly worthless there. Heroics is a different ball game. Even on raid trash with low hit/exp I don't have threat issues, mobs hit hard enough for Vengeance to stack fast.

Stamina is never bad, according to EJ, but at a certain point you want to stack avoidance instead, or at least mix it in.

I'm still stuck in the WOTLK mindset that stamina > everything, which is why I'm running around with a green trinket.

4.1 has turned bears into killing machines that don't show remorse or die.

Seems to work for me.

Ive been busy running the new HC's and i have to say WOW! Blizzard have actually turned us from the weakest tank out of the 4 into a strong contender for raid tanks.

The new mechanic seems to work perfectly for me however i do tend to get the odd healer who makes me feel like im pre 4.1.

One thing that has shocked me is how I dont seem to be rage starved as much when AoE'ing thanks ro changing the CD on Swipe Im not to sure how much affect its actually had but Ive seemed to have noticed that I am far more rage efficeient.

£3.00 in the post finally pat yourselves on the back Blizzard and grab yourself a pint

Cheers

Nal Out