Is Fandral's Flamescythe really worth it?

Ok, so we have all probably seen someone with Fandral's Flamescythe by now. A flaming cat hanging out in Stormwind or Orgrimmar, showing off their new look.  But is it really worth it? Is this weapon more then just a gimmicky weapon put in by Blizzard?  Lets examine the facts shall we...

Here is Fandral's Flamescythe:


Fandral's Flamescythe
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Staff
1428 - 2143 Damage Speed 2.40
(744.1 damage per second)
+408 Agility
+611 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 276 (1.54% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 265 (1.48 @ L85).

We also know that the unlisted trick to this weapon is that druids using it get a new fiery cat form.  Now, the stats are nice, very high and in the right spots.  The mastery on it is nice and the critical strike always helps.  But is this really worth going crazy to go after?

Well, if you like your fair share of PvP, another weapon in your grasp can be:


Ruthless Gladiator's Staff
Season 10
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Staff
1190 - 1786 Damage Speed 2.00
(744.1 damage per second)
+408 Agility
+611 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 272 (1.52% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your resilience rating by 272 (3.44% @ L85).

or


Ruthless Gladiator's Pike
Season 10
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Polearm
2142 - 3215 Damage Speed 3.60
(744.1 damage per second)
+408 Agility
+611 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 272 (1.52% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your resilience rating by 272 (3.44% @ L85).


Now, you do lose out on the mastery on these 2 choices, but although mastery is a nice stat to have, it's not the top stat in most builds at the moment. You can always reforge to get some mastery back, but ultimately, the 265 mastery that the Fandral's Flamescythe gives you does not actually translate in to that much of an improvement.  You have to remember that 265 does not translate in to actually 265 more mastery.  It gets tossed in to the conversion tables like all other stats and then the correct amount is added to your stats.

Now, if you do not have access to or do not like to PvP, there is always "


Witch-Hunter's Harvester
Binds when equipped
Two-Hand Polearm
1614 - 3000 Damage Speed 3.50
(659.2 damage per second)
+361 Agility
+541 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 85
Item Level 365
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 241 (1.34% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 241 (1.34 @ L85).

Ok, I know what you are going to say.  And yes, the ilvl and stats are lower.  But look at the big picture here and not the numbers on the polearm.  You are only losing out on 47 agility, 70 stamina, 35 critical strike and 24 mastery.  If you were to add these missing amounts to your stats you would see almost no change in your over all stats. For example, 70 stamina is only going to give you about 700 more health over all. In today's WoW, 700 health doesn't make a  ton of difference, or really any at all.

If you sit back and do that over all math and run that numbers in your stats, you can see that, unless the staff drops while you are in there anyways, it does not seem that Fandral's Flamescythe is the end all/be all of weapons in the game for druids at this point.  Sure the higher stats and ilvl numbers all make it the "best" weapon in game for druids.  But if you stand back and look at it for what it really is, the shine on it seems to die down and it's not really that awesome of a weapon.  Now if you want a weapon that will change you form, then this is simple the best for you.  I feel that this just isn't worth farming for.

If you have any questions or comments you'd like to make on this topic, please feel free to comment.  I will respond to any and all questions posted here.  If you like this or any of my other topics, please follow me. You can also find me on twitter @neosroar.

Firelands and you. New Shinies things for feral tanks.

With the release of The Firelands raid in 4.2, please are all climbing over each other to get in there and see what they can get off each boss.  Now sure, the new dungeon journal gives you a full loot table off each boss, but I've taken some time and made up what I call my "Firelands Shopping List" full of new shinies that would make any feral tank smile.  Here are the drops that bears would love to make use of in order of what boss they drop from...



drops off Beth'tilac <The Red Widow>

Cinderweb Leggings
Binds when picked up
Legs Leather
1592 Armor
+368 Agility
+611 Stamina
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Socket Bonus: +20 Agility
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 212 (1.66% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 284 (1.58 @ L85).


Spidersilk Spindle
Binds when picked up
Unique-Equipped: Spidersilk Spindle (1)
Trinket
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 383 (2.14 @ L85).
Equip: Melee attacks which reduce you below 35% health cause you to gain a protective shield which absorbs 17095 damage for 30 sec.  Cannot occur more than once every 1 min.




Drops off Lord Rhyolith

Dreadfire Drape
Binds when picked up
Back
695 Armor
+212 Agility
+341 Stamina
Red Socket
Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +20 Agility
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your hit rating by 138 (1.15% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 95 (0.53 @ L85).


Hood of Rampant Disdain
Binds when picked up
Head Leather
1478 Armor
+348 Agility
+611 Stamina
Meta Socket
Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +30 Agility
Durability 100 / 100
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 295 (2.30% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your expertise rating by 172 (5.73 @ L85).




There are no drops off Alysrazor




Drops off Shannox

Gloves of Dissolving Smoke
Binds when picked up
Hands Leather
1137 Armor
+282 Agility
+454 Stamina
Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +10 Agility
Durability 55 / 55
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 172 (0.96% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 208 (1.16 @ L85).




Drops off Baleroc

Breastplate of the Incendiary Soul
Binds when picked up
Chest Leather
1820 Armor
+368 Agility
+611 Stamina
Red Socket
Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +20 Agility
Durability 165 / 165
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 231 (1.80% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 267 (1.49 @ L85).


Shoulderpads of the Forgotten Gate
Binds when picked up
Shoulder Leather
1365 Armor
+282 Agility
+454 Stamina
Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +10 Agility
Durability 100 / 100
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your hit rating by 210 (1.75% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 153 (0.85% @ L85).





Drops off Majordomo Staghelm <Archdruid of the Flame>

Mantle of the Fiery Vanquisher
Binds when picked up
Classes: Rogue, Death Knight, Mage, Druid
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378

The above tier item will get you:
Obsidian Arborweave Spaulders

Binds when picked up
Shoulder Leather
1365 Armor
+282 Agility
+454 Stamina
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +10 Agility
Durability 100 / 100
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 157 (0.88% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 216 (1.20 @ L85).
(2) Set: Your attacks with Mangle, Maul, and Shred deal 10% additional damage as Fire damage over 4 sec.
(4) Set: Your finishing moves have a 20% chance per combo point to extend the duration of Berserk by 2 + (20 * ComboPoints) sec and when your Barkskin ability expires you gain an additional 10% chance to dodge for 12 sec.



The Hungerer
Binds when picked up
Unique-Equipped: The Hungerer (1)
Trinket
+383 Agility
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Your melee and ranged attacks have a chance to grant you 1532 haste rating for 15 sec.


Fandral's Flamescythe
Binds when picked up
Two-Hand Staff
1428 - 2143 Damage Speed 2.40
(744.1 damage per second)
+408 Agility
+611 Stamina
Durability 120 / 120
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 276 (1.54% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 265 (1.48 @ L85).


Sandals of Leaping Coals
Binds when picked up
Feet Leather
1251 Armor
+282 Agility
+454 Stamina
Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +10 Agility
Durability 75 / 75
Requires Level 85
Item Level 378
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 133 (0.74% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 230 (1.28 @ L85).





Drops off Ragnaros

Choker of the Vanquished Lord
Binds when picked up
Neck
+240 Agility
+360 Stamina
Requires Level 85
Item Level 384
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 162 (1.27% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your mastery rating by 156 (0.87 @ L85).


Matrix Restabilizer
Binds when picked up
Unique-Equipped: Matrix Restabilizer (1)
Trinket
+406 Agility
Requires Level 85
Item Level 384
Equip: Your melee and ranged attacks have a chance to grant 1532 critical strike rating, haste rating, or mastery rating, whichever is currently highest.




As you can see, there is some really nice gear to be had in The Firelands.  My only real recommendation would be to make sure that you are well geared for this raid before you step foot in there to kill bosses.  These bosses are considerably harder then previous raid bosses (beyond the obvious reason that it's the next raid tier, they are really stepping up the game in this one).  Don't rush in and end up being more of a problem then a help.  This raid is not going anywhere anytime soon. You will find that your raiding experience in there will be far better if you are truly prepared. (flashes on Illidan: "You are Not prepared!" lol)

Keep up the good work and lets show those other tank classes how tanking is really done!

A few things that will make you a better tank. Part 3

Ok, when we last left off I was talking about playing the role of caster dps.  Some people think I'm completely off my rocker for saying that to be a better tank, you need to do everything BUT tank.  I have found that the best way to become a better tank is the ability to empathize with the other members of your group.  If you understand what they are having to deal with, it will always help you to be able to make a pull better, get a boss down faster and make the run go smoother.

On that note, Melee is next!

No, some tanks out there have done this.  Some have a melee spec and they go to town killing stuff.  HOWEVER.....they usually do it in their tanking gear and have no fear of pull off the tank.  This does nothing to make you a better player.  All this does is give you a bigger epeen and make you the group pain in the @ss.

So, as stated in the last couple of blogs, start up a new toon, I recommend a warrior as this class is perfect for this.  With a warrior,  you can't step back and cast a heal on yourself to pull your butt out of the proverbial fire (or real fire if you were standing in it, lol).  You will have to rely on paying attention and your healer to keep you alive.  Level to 10 and then jump on BGs.  This will give you the perfect place to learn to watch what is going on.  If you can develop eyes in the back of your head, you will have learned a skill that will make you a good dps and a great tank, extreme situational awareness.  This is a skill that you will find a great number of people are lacking.  Even dps should know what is going on at all times with stuff in the room.

Once you hit 15, jump in to dungeons with both feet and learn new fun features such as "The tank keeps him moving when he doesn't need to....I CAN'T HIT HIM!!!!"  or my favorite "Why does the tank keep turning him? I keep getting him by the mob since the tank faces him to me!  AHHHH!!!"  Watch closely at what your tank is doing and remember or even write down the things he/she does that drive you nuts.  Don't yell at them in chat, it won't do any good.  Just make a note of it and remember it.

So, now that you have played the roll of healer, caster and melee dps, you have a firm grasp on what the other members of your group go through on a daily basis.  You know what they have to deal with trying to keep you alive and how the strive to keep themselves alive.  Remember, you are the tank.  It if your job to not just grab mobs and make fast pulls to show off your epeen.  It is your job to keep the group alive.  It is the healers job to keep you alive so that you can do your job.  This means do not be afraid to CC something or to make a LoS pull or to kill that extra group of trash so that it does not get accidentally pulled.  It's your job to keep them alive by setting up the run.  You are the first one in there and it is your job to set up pulls so that no one gets killed (there are some exceptions such as people standing in fire.  Cause you just can't fix stupid, lol.).  You will find that once you try this technique of playing all the different rolls until about lvl20 or 30, you will have much better understanding of the real group dynamic and you will become a much better tank for it.

I hope this has helped out.  I have done this and I can say that it gave me a lot of insight and makes my runs much smoother and with less repair bills.  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to comment below and I will respond quickly.  If you enjoy this blog,. please become a follower and spread the word about Neo's Challenging Roar!

A few things that will make you a better tank. Part 2

So, in my last blog, I covered that one thing that will make you a better thank is to put yourself in the healers shoes for about 20 levels.  Now, lets move on to dps.  Every tank should play two different dps classes.  One should be a melee and the other should be a mage since you get the ability to CC at a very low level.

Like before, level up to 10 and run BGs to get a better feel for shooting things that want to kill you more then spiders in Elwynn do. However, don't take off your heirloom.  In fact, you should have the highest and strongest possible enchants on that heirloom gear. As soon as you hit 15, queue for dungeons.  This is again where you will learn some good information and help you out as a tank.  You should have gotten Polymorph at lvl14 so every chance you get in a dungeon, CC something near the group that might be or was accidentally pulled.  Watch how the tank tends to ignore your CC and either hit it anyway or after the group is dead, walks past it like there is supposed to be a sheep walking around in Ragefire Chasm.

Now, you might be noticing that you are probably doing crazy dps with your heirloom gear on at this point and pulling mobs off the tank may be a bit on the easy side. You are now starting to understand that you might be under the tank on threat but it only takes 1 good crit to blow past him to make you run from the giant earth elemental screaming like a little girl as it pounds you in the face (ok, maybe that's just me that does that, lol).

Remember, dps are usually not totally fail or dumb.  They don't CC stuff to annoy you but rather to help out.  They don't mean to pull off you, sometimes a abnormally high crit happens.  Trust me, normal dpsers don't want to pull mobs off you and tank them.  They know that they can't take a hit like you can and don't want to try. You can always tell the good dps from the crazy epeen maniacs by whether they pull off you all the time or not.  You are always gonna run in to the epeen maniacs at some point or another, it can't be avoided.  That's what the pick feature is for.

Keep up the good work tanks, the world won't get anything done out there without you. Keep your eye out for the next part of this series on how to become a better tank.  Remember, no one is perfect and we all have room for improvement.

A few things that will make you a better tank. Part 1

After a few runs I have had in the recent past, I have decided to cover a few things that will make a tank a much better tank.  These are not your normal "get hit capped/more dodge/blah blah blah" stuff.  This will make you a better tank in that you will find that your runs will be smoother and nicer, which makes for a much better experience.  This will be a multi-part post that, by the end of the last post, you should have everything you need to make your life better in game.

The first this I recommend to EVERY tank out there is.......stop and roll a healer.  Yes, you heard me correctly.  Stop tanking and to roll a healer.  don't respec or dual spec and get a healing spec.  I mean start from square one and start healing.  Put all your points in healing as soon as you get them and then, at lvl10, Take off ALL your heirloom gear, replace the removed items with normal green/white items you can find and queue for BGs.  First, this will heal build healing skills.  Good healers learn that you can't just stand there and heal, there are times you have to heal and run as much as you can. This is easily learned in doing battleground.  A big orc warrior or little gnome rogue is not gonna let you just sit there and heal, you have to learn to heal and move to stay alive and keep people alive.  Stay with the group, the only way to learn good healing skills is to stay with the group and heal as much as you can.  Remember, don't get healer tunnel vision. This is where you are healing everyone so much, you forget to heal yourself.  This happens far more then you would think.

Now that you have leveled to 15 in battlegrounds, KEEP your heirloom gear off and queue in for random dungeons.  Now you learn some of the major tanking points in game.  You will now see how often a tank runs in for the next pull before you are ready and have mana back.  You will now see how often YOU are blamed for not keeping people alive, even though you were out of mana, siad you were out of mana but the tank went in anyway.  Here is where you will learn that healers are not supposed to loot ANYTHING, you are just supposed to keep up and heal.  You.....are a healbot.  You will also find some groups that the tank will listen to chat.  Will wait for you to get mana, will let you loot and will not go charging in if you have less them half mana.  Learning this all first hand, you will see what the healing classes go through in almost every run they get in to.

If you want to become a better tank, both for your sanity and for the good of the group (since running a dungeon/raid is a GROUP activity), you will do this until about lvl20 or lvl30.  It will only take you about 2 days to do this and you will learn just about everything you need to know.  Remember, you will not truly learn anything if you run to the AH and twink yourself out.  If you really want to do this, and I recommend you do, you will do it properly and do this in normal level appropriate gear.

My next blog will cover step 2 in becoming a better tank for you and your group.  When all is said and done, you will be a far better tank then you are now.  Trust me, I've done it.

Who will be Cataclysm's big bad guy in the end?

SARGERAS.......

This name comes to mind time and time again as I take in all the lore and quests around me in the this expansion. Allow me to explain. There are several events that have happened so far in this expansion that point to Sargeras. 

First, the Twilight Cultists refer to "The Master" when they speak if the person in charge, even Deathwing himself has referred to "The Master". People have speculated that the "head bad guy" in this expansion could be the Old Gods.  I'm not so sure about that.  First off there is the obvious problem in phrasing. Simply put, Old Gods can not me "THE" Master.  But, if you were to take it down to just one of the Old Gods, then that would put them back in the running. But there is more information that pulls it back away form the old gods.

Next, what is the one race that stopped Sageras from coming through to Azeroth and were a main force in repeatedly stopping the Burning Legion over and over again?  The Night Elves.  What is one of the only places to actually take a massive hit in Cataclysm? The Park District in Stormwind.  Now, yes, he has destroyed mountains in the badlands and re trashed the dame in Loch Modan, but The Park District is different.  Deathwing swoops down, obliterates the Park District, roars around Stormwind for a minute or two and then leaves.  Does not kill or trash anything else really.  Sure he messes up the front gate area a bit, but nothing like sending an entire district to the sea. This is even spoken of by some of the guards in Stormwind.  If Sargeras was "The Master", then Deathwing would be acting under instructions from Sargeras and would even be working to make his master happy.  So taking out an entire area of Night Elves would be a good start.

Now, it is confirmed that we will be getting a new Caverns of Time instance. This in itself is not too big a deal until you find out that it is taking us back to the War of the Ancients. This is where the Burning Legion and Sargeras first start to come to Azeroth for its power and to take over and bring chaos to the world. Blizzard is literally bringing us back to the events that changed the world as we know it and the events that would lead to the Burning Crusade expansion. Seems a bit odd to go there if the head bad guy here is one or all of the remaining Old Gods.

Now, I know what some people are saying. Sargeras is dead. Medivh's mother killed him in the past and buried his body in the Maelstrom. And that his essence went in to her an then in to Medivh who was later killed by Khadgar. This is all completely true according to lore and what has been seen in game. However, when Khadgar killed Medivh, it freed his soul from the essence of Sargeras. This did not destroy the essence, it only detached it from Medivhs soul, freeing him. Secondly, His mother never killed Sargeras, she merely destroyed his avatar that was on Azeroth. He himself never came through and is still in the twisting nether.  With his essence still in Azeroth, he could have been spending all this time gaining strength again and quietly building up an army on Azeroth to do his bidding

One other thing that I noticed that seems odd, Deathwing went almost straight for Uldum and recruited lackeys to help him get the power of the Origination Machine that is there in Uldum, left by the Titans. Now, how could he have know everything about that machine, that is was there and how it worked and what he needed his lackeys to go after? Well, if your boss was a crazy, insane demon version of a Titan that was once on the good guys team and helped to create Azeroth, you would know about the Origination machine and how to use it. And since, assuming he has no physical form at this point, Sargeras would have to recruit a lackey of his own to get get stuff done for him, enter Deathwing, who is already nuts and would be easily susceptible to the power that Sargeras could offer him.

Kinda starts you thinking, doesn't it?  Well, keep in mind that this is all just ideas that I have though about for awhile now and could be completely wrong. But you never know, there are a lot of things going on that do seem to point to Sargeras.  We will just have to wait and see.

If you enjoy these blogs, please become a follower and spread the word about Neo's Challenging Roar.  Feel free to comment or ask any questions about this post int he comment section, I will respond to any questions or comments quickly.

Can you live in BC again?

I've been seeing people talk lately about "retro-toons" and was curious as to what this was exactly.  It seems that there are people that are creating new characters, leveling them up to lvl70 and then.....*gasp*, capping their experience.  At first I thought this was a bit of a crazy idea.  However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had so much fun back in BC that it might be worth a shot.  So I leveled up a mage that I already had sitting as lvl62 and capped off my XP at 70.  It was at that point that I had a huge rush of flashbacks from when I hit lvl70 on my druid back in Burning Crusade.

My first stop, Isle of Quel'Danas! Time to start knocking out my Isle dailys again. The more I started doing some rep grinding in dungeons and with turn ins, not to mention beginning to gather some better gear through quartermasters and dungeons, I began to have more fun than I thought I would.  I figured it would be fun for a few days and probably lose it's interest, at which point I'd simply turn back on my XP and move on.  But it's been well over a week and I haven't lost any interest yet.  Maybe it's the fact that I know I can always turn on my XP and move on if I get bored. Maybe it the fact that Blizzard has, in the past, made changes to the over all stats in the game and even with the actual BC gear, I'm doing more damage now then I did then.  Who knows, all I know is that it's become so much fun, I have 5 other guild member that have decided to do the same thing. Next thing we know, we'll have enough people at lvl70 to run Karazhan with all 70s, lol.

I must admit, it's has been really fun.  Running some Cataclysm raids on my level 85 toons and then switching over and running dungeons and other stuff on my level 70 has been a blast so far.  I hope that it doesn't get old or boring any time soon. One thing we, the people in my guild that are going to have toons stay at lvl70, have decided is no twinking.  By this, we mean that you have to get gear from dungeons, heroics, raids, quests or quartermasters. Running battlegrounds to power through and grab all the super-high level PvP gear you can takes away form the fun of it and is somewhat frowned on.  1 or 2 pieces of PvP are ok, but full BG epics is a bit much.

If you have a level70 toon and are interested in having some fun on the Anvilmar server (Alliance side), cap that XP off and give me a pst.  Just whisper Taeo (my lvl70) or Neotaeo, if I'm not on then just whisper anyone in <DunderMifflin> and if they can't invite you, they will let someone know that can that you want an invite.  Come and have some fun, that is what retro-toons are all about!

Healing is part of your job too.

Now I know that people think, "You're the healer. it's your job to heal, not mine!",  or "I'm here to dps, not heal.". Well, for a feral tank, this is just not true. Healing yourself is part of your job and makes the healing easier for the healer and will keep you alive longer.  Now, this is not something you have to go out of your way to do. Part of it comes totally natural from talent points alone:



Leader of the Pack
While in Cat Form or Bear Form, the Leader of the Pack increases critical strike chance of all party and raid members within 100 yards by 5%.  In addition, your melee critical strikes in Cat Form and Bear Form cause you to heal for 4% of your total health and gain 8% of your maximum mana.  This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec.


This alone is a big heal in the long run.  Any healing you do to yourself here is mana not being used by the healer and mana that can be utilized in a "crunch time" situation.  I share this here as some people take a tank build that they see from a blog (I've posted mine here in an earlier post) or off the wow armory or from other places, which is fine.  Problem, some people don't take the time to read the talents and why they should be chosen.  This is one that should be.



Another thing you can do it use a glyph for your Frenzied Regeneration:



Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration
Major Glyph
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 52
Item Level 52
Use: Permanently teaches you this glyph.


While Frenzied Regeneration is active, healing effects on you are 30% more powerful but causes your Frenzied Regeneration to no longer convert rage into health.


Now this is a big step for some tanks as this makes you put full trust and faith in your healer and takes some of your self healing abilities away from your.  To me, this is a great glyph to have since it infact boosts the healing done to you by the healer AND by your Leader of the Pack talents. At the point you hit Frenzied Regeneration, you will want to do something very important. Keep your eye out for a Lightwell or any kind of AoE healing effect on the ground.  If you see these, get in them.  Some would argue that a Lightwell is really only for the dps so that the healer can focus more on the tank and not so much on dps.  This could not be farther from the truth.  Any and all healing you can do to yourself will help save the healer mana for use when it is truly needed to keep your bear butt up, lol.

Remember, tanking is part of the team effort.  If you want to succeed, you need to think like part of the team and not as just the tank. Any and all thing you can do to help the healer must be high priority. The healer and dps will thank you for this.  If the healer goes out of mana (oom) or dies, you will not be standing for very long after.

Keep up the good work tanks.  Remember we all want to get through a run alive, working together will make that happen.

A little about the blogger...

After handing out all this information about tanking and everything else I have covered in my blog, I though I should take a moment to give you a look in to where this wealth of knowledge (pffft) comes from. A little background on me, the blogger so you can maybe understand a little bit more about why I have the opinions I do and why I have taken it so seriously to gather up all the information I have obtained over the years and feel the need to share it with everyone out there that is looking for some help or maybe just a confirmation of what they were thinking.

I stated playing World of Warcraft back in early/mid 2006.  My first toon was......a mage.  I know, but I soon learned the ways of the tank side, lol.  After a lot of thinking about it, I grabbed myself a free trial of WoW.  I always loved the Warcraft games and thought, why not.  Man, I was not prepared for what I saw.  I started out as a human not having a clue as to what was going on.  didn't know what quests were, didn't know anything.  I wondered around in awe of the landscape of the game.  To me, the Elywnn Forest was amazing looking.  I Stumbled on Stormwind and didn't have a clue a I got lost (didn't know about hitting "M" for a map yet, lol). I found what I thought was a underground train that would take me around the city....WRONG!  I get off the tram and wonder around some more.  I finally find what looks like an entrance and.....I find myself in a high mountain peak, surrounded by snow.   I was shocked and in awe....and had to have this game!  I told my wife that she had to try this game out.  After all, she is the one that got me in to the warcraft games in the first place.  After she roamed around a bit, it was settled, we got a WoW account.

After about 6 months, I got a second account. Since I knew nothing about character transfers, I started a new toon..my druid Neotaeo.  My original reason for this was I liked the description of being able to cast spells AND heal myself.  Little did I know that in my leveling, I would learn how to change forms.  This was a big thing for me, I loved it.  The survivability of the bear form really kept my attention. Of course, I still had no idea what a tank was.  I wouldn't learn what a tank was until I got to about level 50ish.  By this time, My wife and I had seen the demon attacks on cities and discovered the upcoming Burning Crusade expansion. So with the coming of BC, I became a full on tank...kind of.  It was a steep learning curve and bears were looked down on even harder then ever in times after.

By the time I hit lvl70, I was the GM of my guild, tanking anything I could get in to and building up a guild group for dungeons.  I began to tank everything in sight, it didn't matter what it was or how hard it was, I tanked it ( or at least tried to).  I began to read up about feral tanking.  Back then, we still needed defense, although, we didn't not need as much as other classes.  This is when I found myself becoming all too familiar with 2 major things in BC.  1, everyone would rather take a pally in a group then a bear, and if there was no pally, they just would not go some times.  2, bears were stacking stamina (NOOOOOO!!!!!!).  It was at that point that I decided 2 things.  I was going to make a name for myself as one of the very few bear tanks on the server people would have no trouble running with.  And 2, I was going to do bear tanking against what most people were doing.  Almost everyone was stam-stacking and that did not make sense to me.  If you can get your dodge rating up high, you will take less damage and therefore need less heals.  By the end of BC, I was getting requests from some of the bigger raiding guilds on my server to tank raids like SSC, and Gruuls ( I made a lot of friends tanking heroic dungeons with people) and I was proving that stam-stacking was NOT the way to go, even if people didn't listen.

With the coming of Wrath of the Lich King, bears had changed.  We got rid of defense and got some nice AoE attacks.  This was like music to my ears, if we don't have to have defense, we can add more agility to our gear where we can.  Wrath however, caused problems that we would not understand until Cataclysm would hit. Tanks, bears included became lazy and impatient.  We would run in to a group, round them up and begin to hold everything, and it was not hard for us.  Even I fell in to the trap that was Wrath.  When Cataclysm hit us, we were in a world of hurt.  Tanks that were so use to running in and grabbing everything were dying very quick because Blizzard had brought back the need for crowd control (CC).  I know I found myself in a fix.  They had done major changes to bear that left us all but broken, but they also changed the rules of the game back to BC style mob pulls. I'll be honest, I hung up my bear suit for awhile after trying very hard to relearn how to bear tank.  But this gave me a good opportunity as I rolled a Death Knight for the sole reason of tanking.  I could learn form scratch how to tank in Cataclysm. Although I was now a DK tank, I still kept up on druid tanking and gave Blizzard my two cents worth of information and feeling on how they could change bears and make them more playable again. After all, it was at that point that bear tanks all but disappeared ingame.  We all felt the same way, and I'm glad that Blizzard listened.  With the big changes they did to bear tanks again, they brought us back out and in the main stream of tanking again.

So, I have seen and been through so many different incarnations of feral tanking and have done so much person trial and error for what works with bears that I feel that I need to share it with those that are either just starting out in feral tanking or might be thinking about it.  I share this with those that might be looking for some piece of information that confirms what they think. I even happily share my info with those that would argue against my points as I know that I don't know everything and there might be a different way of doing things that are better or easier at the time. For over 4 years now I have been the GM and main tank of <DunderMifflin> and I intend on continuing tanking until they shutdown the servers.

More changes for feral druids in 4.2.

In an earlier post, I went over a few of the changes we can expect to see in feral druids when 4.2 goes live.  With the PTR still up and running, the changes keep coming.  Here are the changes that we can expect to see at this point in time if 4.2 were to hit today.

Blizzard feels that bear damage abilities were scaling too fast with higher gear levels compared to other tanks, so they have made the following changes to try to balance out druids with other tanking classes (booo). Keep in mind that these numbers are all for lvl85 feral druids.

• Faerie Fire (Feral) base damage has been raised to 2950, up from 679. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 10.8%, down from 15%.

• Maul base damage has been raised to 35, up from 8. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 19%, down from 26.4%.

• Pulverize weapon damage percent has been decreased to 60%, down from 80%. Damage per Lacerate application has been increased to 1623, up from 361.

• Mangle (Bear) weapon damage percent has been decreased to 190%, down from 260%. Bonus damage has been increased to 3306, down from 754.

• Swipe base damage has been increased to 929, up from 215. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 12.3%, down from 17.1%.

• Thrash initial base damage has been increased to 1042, up from 339. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 9.82%, down from 19.2%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 581, up from 189. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 1.67%, down from 3.26%. In addition, a bug was corrected where armor decreased the periodic damage done by this ability.

• Lacerate initial base damage has been increased to 3608, up from 2089. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 5.52%, down from 7.66%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 69, up from 16. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 0.369%, down from 0.512%.

• Natural Reaction damage reduction has been increased to 9/18%, up from 6/12%.

So lets take a look at the information they have given us.  Overall, they are giving us rather large increases in initial damage done. In the area were we normally see our attacks scale up quickly, we will be seeing it slow down a good deal.  Now I know that some people are already freaking out about this. "They are nerfing us again!  Why does Blizzard hate feral?".  This could not be farther from the truth.  First off, they are probably tired of hearing the other tank classes complain that we are becoming insane as a tanking class.  Feral has always been looked down on and since the drop of 4.1, we have been coming back with a vengeance.  Second, if you look at the stats they are showing us, you will most likely not really notice any significant changes while tanking, in either lower level content or in current raiding content.

The only real change we might notice is from Natural Reaction:

• Reduces damage taken while in Bear Form by 18% (was 12%), increases your dodge while in Bear Form by 6%, and you generate 3 Rage every time you dodge while in Bear Form.

Any time we see an increase in damage reduction in the feral class, this is a big thing.  We already have a large about of damage we do not take through our avoidance (agility/dodge rating), so any amount of damage after that will now be reduced by 18% at the top end.  Lets put this in hard terms.  If you get hit for 47,000, after Natural Reaction kicks in, you will have only taken 38,540 worth of damage.  That's a pretty big number. Before the change, you would have taken 41,360 worth of damage.  That to me is a significant change for the good.

All in all, I'm interested to see how these changes play out in the long run.  Regardless of how the changes affect feral tanking, I know that I for one will not give up and still go out there and show those other tanking classes how it's done!

Remember, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to comment below.  I will respond to any questions quickly.  If you like this blog, become a follower and spread the word about Neo's Challenging Roar!

Battle of the tank: which class is the best tank.

Ok, so you all have seen trade chat or even had conversations with guildies or friends on this subject.  Everyone in game knows that this has been a heated topic for years and will continue to be as long as the WoW servers are up.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you have probably just started playing or been living under a rock.  What is the question?  Here it is, which tanking class is the best. We all hear the tank of paladins being on top.  At the moment, some say it is Death Knights that are the best tanks.  Here, I will answer this long asked question once and for all.

The best tanking class is:  Feral Druids.

Ok, just kidding.  Actually, there is no one answer to this question.  No matter what people may say, there is absolutely no one tank designed to do it all and do it perfectly. Blizzard just did not deign the tanking classes that way, and for good reason.

So, let me explain why this is.  First off, if one tanking class was perfect at doing it all, there would be absolutely no reason to have any other class as a tank.  If DKs were perfect, pallys, druid and warriors would all be obsolete.  Second, by having tanks that are better in one are and worse in others, it not only gives a variety for a player to choose to fit his/her play style, but this opens up the door for Blizzard designers to make mobs, bosses and everything in between different from each other.

For example, if a paladin goes in to tank a raid boss, he will do fine assuming that the player knows his class and how to play it.  Now, if the boss happens to have a mana drain ability, the paladin will find himself in trouble since he uses his mana pool for a good portion of keeping aggro. Here is where other tanks come in to play. Any other tanking class that is the second tank can step in and take control of the boss since they do not worry about mana.

For another example, send a warrior, DK or paladin tank in to a fight and they get disarmed, this will pose a large issue, as attacks tend to require that weapon to be in hand. How do you solve this?  Send in the bear.  You can’t disarm a bear tank.  For feral druids, weapons are nothing more then “stat sticks” and are not actually needed to be able to attack.

Now there are many many more examples I could go over, but I think you get the point. Each tank is designed to be able to deal with at least 1 situation far better then any other tank class. It is one of the many ways Blizzard keeps the door open for them to be more and more creative with boss fights.

Below I have put together a little diagram of where some of a tanks strong points are and some of the weak points are.  Now keep in mind that this in a normal situation and this does not cover every pro and con.

Warrior Tank: Good at single target tanking as they build up threat quickly in that aspect. They have very good mitigation and damage reduction abilities. However they can struggle generally with AoE tanking so this class would need to work harder to keep aggro on multiple mobs

• Warrior Pros: Shields give a large addition to damage mitigation. Can recover quickly from a knock back with the use of charge. Can use Rallying Cry to temporarily increase the groups health if a fight starts to go wrong.  Is totally immune to mana burn since the class does not use mana. Can switch in to berserker or battle stance to dps in a one tank raid boss fight.

• Warrior Cons: If disarmed, makes it almost impossible to generate threat. Must be careful of rotation so as to not run out of rage, no rage and you cannot generate threat.

Paladin Tank: Good at AoE tanking and have some very good damage mitigation abilities and self-heals. However, not as good at single-target tanking compared to all the other classes so you would need to have a good knowledge of a rotation designed for single targets.

• Paladin Pros: Shields give a large addition to damage mitigation. Great ability for initial threat on multiple mobs. If disarmed, can switch to spell casting even tough less effective. Rage is never an issue as the class uses mana instead. Gets a damage buff when dealing damage to undead targets.

• Paladin Cons: Knock backs are hard to over come with the lack of a charge. Mana burn will greatly affect the ability to hold threat on mobs/groups. If silenced, will not be able to use attacks/generate threat on a target.

Death Knight Tanks: Generally are also good at AoE tanking as well as good at single target tanking but do not have as much mitigation as the other classes. This forces this class to rely on spells that help to avoid damage or restore health more then other classes.

• Death Knight Pros: Personal anti-magic shell helps to avoid magic damage, Bone armor act as a bubble reducing over all damage until it is absorbed. Deathgripmana burn as the class does not use mana.

• Death Knight Cons: Does not use a shield and must make up damage mitigation in other ways. Being disarmed will cause a lack in threat generation. Knock backs are harder to over come as the class has no charge. Must carefully balance the use of runic power with available runes or you will end up sitting there waiting for the ability to use attacks.

Druid Tanks: Similar to DK tanks in that they can hold aggro well on AoE and single target tanking.  Damage mitigation and avoidance are much different for this class as they only have dodge to focus on instead of dodge and parry.

• Druid Pros: Large health pool and high dodge rate helps greatly in survivability. Immune to polymorph, mind control and mana burns. Has talents to reduce greatly the time feared and knock backs are over come by using charge. Can double as dps on a one tank fight by switching in to cat form.

• Druid Cons: Can be less healer friendly if dodge rating and health pool is not where it should be for content running. Must be careful to not run out of rage or tanking will be impossible.

With all this in mind, remember, trying to be the best tank in the game is a futile effort.  Don't try to be the best tank, be the best tank of your class.  This is a attainable goal where the other is not.  Good luck to all tank out here and keep up the good work.  After all, someone has to carry those lazy dps through places, right? (just kidding).

The power of the handy dandy addon....

If you have ever taken a moment to look over the addons on curse.com or wowinterface.com, you have probably been a touch overwhelmed by all the addons that are out there that are supposed to make playing easier in one way or another. With all the addons out there, what are some of the better addons for tanking and all around playing? How do I pick an addon?  How will I know if it's any good?  These are all valid questions, questions that I hear from guildies all the time. I have taken a my current tanking UI and will break it down as to what I use and why.  Maybe this will inform you of an addon that you have been looking for.  Maybe you don't run addons and wanna know how they work.  This should make things a bit clearer. Here is a screenshot of my current tanking UI:

click image to see a bigger view

Ok, now lets break this down in to its parts.  Below is a key.

click image to see a bigger view

1) BasicChatMod: This is a nice little addon to clear up your chat window.  It's also nice if you are lazy like I am and hate having to constantly type /o to talk in officer chat.  Once you enter a chat channel, you stay there until you enter a new one.

2) Bartender4:  This is a very nice way to organize your buttons and make things smoother and easier to organize.  Place any number of action bars anywhere on your screen.  Also allows you to move around your bags, menu bar and everything else.

3) Skada:  This is a nice alternative to Recount.  It will show you any information about the fight from dps to threat to CC broken and so on. Can be set for current fight or over all.  Since 4.1 dropped, I had nothing but trouble with recount, since I switched to Skada, I've never been happier with a meter since I used DiamondThreatMeter back in BC.

4) SexyMap: This is a nice addon that allows you to move your minimap to anywhere you wish.  It also allows you to give it a nice custom look, far nicer then the standard minimap.

5) Raven: This is a buff/debuff display addon.  You can create and move bars that show buffs, debuffs, timers and lots of other things.  Very handy in helping to keep your UI clean.

6) TitanPanel:  This is a nice little bar that sits at the top of your screen, it allows you to display brokers (addons that show things like gold, durability, latency, ect.) and make things far more organized and easier to see at a seconds notice. On TitanPanel, I currently run:

• Currency - This will let you list right on the panel all your currencies, from gold to tokens to points.  Also lets you see what you have on other toons by just hovering over it.
• CPU - Let you see what addons are running and how much memory each one is using. This is a great tool, if you are having lag issues suddenly, you can hover over this and see what is going on. See if an addon pulling more then it should.
• DurabilityInfo - The name says it all, lets you know your current gear durability.
• Volumizer - This allows you to adjust the volume for everything ingame.  No more having to go in to the sound menu and changing stuff for you.

7) TomTom: This is a simple coordinate addon.  It does have nice features such as you can place a "pin" on the map anywhere and you will get an onscreen arrow that will point you the way and how far you are away.  Arrow also works for quests that you are tracking as well as trying to find your way back to your corpse. 

8) DeadlyBossMod (DBM, not pictured): This is a must have to anyone running anything.  It gives you a nice heads up when bosses or mobs are about to do something you should really avoid/interrupt.  Also gives you timers for such things as boss enrage timers, time to next cast from boss, even battleground timers.

9) Altoholic (not shown): This addon lets you see what is on your other toons.  Now not just what they are wearing, but in their bags, bank, AH and you can also use it to look at your alts professions and even link them in chat without even logging out of your current toon. This is a very handy addon to have.

10) Addon Control Panel: This I HIGHLY recommend. This allows you to look at a list of ALL your addons, on or off.  You can turn some on and turn others off, click "reload ui" and POW! no more logging out to turn on or off addons.

11) CBH Viewer: This is what gives me the black gap at the bottom of my screen where all my stuff is.  This doe snot just give you a black area, it actually zooms the screen out, giving it a true widescreen feel to it.  this also allows you to see more and makes tanking a bit easier.

As you can see, I find that a clean UI is a huge benefit for tanking.  The more that you can see, the more control you have on a situation.  You will be less likely to be surprised by a stay mob walking around or miss that fire pillar until it hits you.

I hope these help out a bit and do you as much good as they have done for me. Remember, keep up the good work bears! We gotta show them how it's done!

Gemming and reforging feral tanks

One of the best things introduced in to WoW is being able to reforge your gear. Although a great tool, reforging is a bit of a tricky thing.  It fine tunes your gear, but the second that your gear changes, it becomes the first thing to change to rebalance everything. I have found through my time as a feral tank that reforging should go in the following order:


Expertise Soft-Cap > Hit > Dodge > Mastery > Crit > Haste

Now, lets make a couple of things more clear, this is the base diagram if you need EVERYTHING. Now, if you are at the expertise soft-cap and are hit capped, then you would start looking at dodge next.  Some will tell you that you need to only reforge in to dodge or some will say mastery. My experience has shown me that you will always get the best results by getting that expertise and hit up to where they should be.  Remember, if you can't hit them, you can't hold them and all the other stats seem to become meaningless. If you are not where you should be with hit or expertise, always reforge haste or crit in to the needed stat as these are the last stats you will ever need to worry about.




Gems are also a wonderful tool that Blizzard has given us.  It really can make all the difference if you add the correct gems to your gear.  Gemming should be done in the following priority:

Expertise Soft-Cap, Agility, Stamina, Mastery, Crit, Haste.

You might notice that hit is missing.  You should, as a general rule, avoid gemming for hit.  You can get this through gear, enchants or reforging. People will argue with me on this order, and I'm ok with that.  Everyone is allowed to have an opinion.  However, this order is what I have found works the best as a priority list. Remember, if you can't hit them, you can't hold them.  Secondly, you will have good amounts of stam on your gear as is, getting your dodge rating up should be the highest next priority next to hit and expertise. You won't need huge amounts of health if the mobs can't hit you.

Now the biggest discussion is always "should I got for the socket bonus?".  The answer is yes.....and no.  Let me explain, deciding on if you should go for the socket bonus is entirely based on your stats and what you really need. For example, if you are wearing:


Cuirass of Calamitous Fate
Binds when picked up
Chest Leather
1282 Armor
+120 Agility
+180 Stamina
O Yellow Socket
O Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +12 Attack Power
Durability 165 / 165
Requires Level 80
Item Level 245
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 90 (1.96% @ L80).
Equip: Increases your haste rating by 90 (2.74% @ L80).


As a tank, you will most likely be able to make better use of this chest by tossing in agility and stamina gems.  You could toss in some multi stat gems to get the bonus, but to be honest the +12 attack power is just very much to make it very useful to a tank as opposed to the stats you'd get some solid color gems and forgetting about the bonus.

However, if you had:


Assassin's Chestplate
Binds when equipped
Chest Leather
1669 Armor
+321 Agility
+512 Stamina
O Red Socket
Socket Bonus: +10 Agility
Durability 165 / 165
Requires Level 85
Item Level 359
Equip: Increases your hit rating by 173 (1.44% @ L85).
Equip: Increases your critical strike rating by 243 (1.36% @ L85).


You will every definitely want to put in an agility gem or expertise gem to get this bonus.  The bonus is a sizable plus in a a key tanking stat that it is worth getting.

I hope this helps out and answers some question.  If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to comment on here and I will asnwer them very quickly.


Remember bears, keep up the good work!  We have to show these other tanking classes how it's done!

What we can expect at this point for feral druids in patch 4.2.

Well, it would seem that so far on the PTR, Blizzard likes us.  There are not to many changes for feral druids.  In fact, it seems that most of the feral changes are going to affect cats more then bears. The official patch notes for the PTR 4.2 state:

• Ferocious Bite damage has been increased by 15%. In addition, its base cost has been reduced to 25 energy and it can use up to 25 energy, for up to a 100% damage increase.

• Mangle (Cat) damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 530% weapon damage, up from 460%.

• Ravage damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 975% weapon damage, up from 850%.

• Shred damage at level 80 and above has been increased to 520% weapon damage, up from 450%.
• Frenzied Regeneration's health bonus is now reduced by 50%.

• Swipe (Cat) now deals 600% weapon damage at level 80 or higher, down from 670%.

• Glyph of Berserk duration increase is now 10 seconds, up from 5.

• Omen of Clarity clearcasting buff from now lasts 15 seconds, up from 8 seconds.

Look at these notes, the changes to Glyph of Berserk and Omen of Clarity are the only ones that really affect bears at all, and both of these are changes for the good. 

•  First, I know that I'm not the only one that feels that getting an extra 5 seconds to really pound on mobs with Mangle is a good thing. Mangle does large amounts of damage and when you use Berserk, you hit 3 targets instead of 1.  How can this be a bad thing?  No way I can see, lol.

• Second, the change to Omen of Clarity is a great one. Omen of Clarity reads:

Your damage spells and attacks have a small chance to cause you to enter a Clearcasting state. The Clearcasting state reduces the Mana, Rage or Energy cost of your next cast-time damaging or healing spell or offensive feral ability by 100%.

If specialized as a Feral Druid, Omen of Clarity will also have a chance to occur from your auto-attacks.

To add on to this timer is nothing short of awesome.  You now get more time to use this buff that makes your next attack cost no rage....ZERO!  I know that through my own experiences, it will in fact proc often from your auto attacks. Heck, I've had it proc just from changing in to bear form.  Come on, I get a free attack from the word go?  Thank you Blizzard, you must really like us, lol

The only changes that I am aware of that will be a change for some tanks is Blizzard making strength an undesired stat for us.  At the moment, 1 strength gives us 2 attack power.  This obviously has an advantage in threat since as you hit harder, you build more threat.  Blizzard wants us to focus more on stats like agility and get away form rolling on rings and other items that other tanking classes would use that have strength on them.  This is not a horrible thing they are doing.  Yes, some of us will be forced to make some changes in our gear, gems or enchants.  But with all the gear available in the game, and with the heads up you are getting now, you should b able to make yourself ready for the patch to hit.  The other is the changes to Frenzied Regeneration. Although this might seem like a large hit, but between glyphing in to it and the fact that it will still be a very viable resource in a pinch, I think that this will go almost completely unnoticed.

I'll keep you updated here on any ad all feral changes that come up on the PTR, until then...

Keep up the good work bears!  We gotta show those other tank classes how it's really done!

Nice people make for a great run!

I decided to queue up for the new troll dungeons today.  I figured, it's late, I usually get pretty good groups this time of night.  As usual, as soon as I queued up, I get in to Zul Aman.  This is a fun dungeon, even back in the BC days, I loved this place.  Can give you a bit of a pain, but as long as you have a nice group, it's always fun.  It was myself (bear tank), a warlock, rogue, DK and shaman healer.  We go in and head for the first boss of the night, Akil'zon.  The gauntlet run went pretty smooth, no deaths, which is always good.  So we go up and we charge the boss, the dps down the birds that carry off party members, everyone did their job nicely.....until the storm came up.  As soon as we get the storm, we stacked up and the rogue and DK get insta-death.  No one had a clue what happened, but we killed the boss and moved on, slightly laughing it off. The warlock was kinda pushing us a bit for a timer run, which we rushed off trying to go for it.  


We start killing trash on our way to Nalorakk.  We get to the last set of trash and....I took one step too close.  Oh crap!  No time to CC so we try to burn them all with me holding everything, ouch......dead.  1 mass rez later and we are ready to try it again, timer gone, but no big deal.  We CC and kill that trash and pull the boss, fight goes off smoothly and he's one shotted.


Now we take off and head for Jan'alai and we go to do the first pull, to which the shaman forgets his CC mark and the DK spaces out....wipe.  But again, no one makes a big deal of it and we come back in and do it right.  We get to the last trash pull before the boss and we get 2, yes 2 flame casters in the group.  so we sap, hex and fear 3 mobs and kill 1, then we kill the fear.  I then target the sapped flame caster and charge in, the one I ran past, the hex, comes to and 1 shots the healer, well, we know what happens when the healer is down. lol.  We come back in and the shaman explains that he did not rehex because he saw me going for the flame caster.  The lock informs him that there were 2 and that sap is usually hit before hex because hex can be done in combat.  "Ohhh, crap, sorry. I noticed the name and didn't watch the mark.".  We all gave him a "eh, no big" and continued on one shotting the boss.


We move on to Halazzi and have zero issues and one shot him as well.  Hit Hex Lord  with a snake and demon out...HEX!  BANISH!  SMACK BOSS!  Dead boss, we win, loot!  Went off like perfection.  Meanwhile, we have been chitchatting the entire run.  Just talking about the instance, the gear that has been dropping.  We had a couple of agility BoE rings drop and I won one of them.  "Awesome, and to think I almost bought that 20 mins ago!" which lead to chuckles and talking about loot they had gotten in here in the same sort of conditions.


We get to the last boss and it started off great, adds dead, killing boss.  He changes in to the lynx form and starts beating on my hard, but we're ok.  He spawns 2 adds, I pick them up and start taking a bigger beating, but we are still ok.  I suddenly get 1 shotted, no idea why.  "SHIT! how?" had no sooner popped up in chat then I get a BRez from the lock!  YAY LOCK BATTLE REZ!!!  I pop back up, flip in to bear, pop everything I have to help bring back health while healer is healing,  I round back up the boss and adds, to which we kill the adds and he then switches to the dragonhawk form.  Ok, we got this going very well, killing him, no one standing in fire.....rogue lags for a sec, and that's all it took to kill him.  Boss drops, we cheer and rez while looting.  It was like we had just conquered a raid dungeon, it was not that hard, but we were having that much fun.  The healer then tells me that Not only am I the only tank that he ever ran with that picked up the cat adds, but that held aggro on them.  To which I replied "Thanks!  I do try my best.  after all, it is kinda my job. lol.". 


We all grats each other on a nice ran and after a bout 2 mins of more chitchat about the run, we begin to go our separate ways, actually saying good bye to each other.  It just goes to show you, you can have a run with some "oops" and a few " awww crap, my fault" times, but if you keep in mind that it is just a game and try to just have fun with it, every run can be a great one. Everyone makes mistakes and getting mad and blowing up at people only makes it worse.  I simple, "no prob, we now know NOT to walk up and say "Hi" to the flame casters."  can bring on a couple of laughs and make the run go far more smoothly and make the game over all more fun.

We all like glowing things, the trick is to find just the right glow....

Enchants...

The very concept of enchants escapes some people.  You know you have seen them, running Bastion of Twilight or some other raid or instance.  You look them over just out of curiosity and.....not a single enchant to be seen.  The very idea of not having enchants is bazaar to me.  I never understood it, you are literally cheating yourself and your group.  With out them, you are simply lacking and you could be doing so much more.  Some say, "But was it 80 attack power really going to do?  Probably not much.".  And sure, just 1 enchants won't do much.  But if you enchant everything, you will see huge changes for the good.  Try it, you will see and become a believer.

Since this my blog and I like to cover tanks, we will just focus on tanking enchants.  I'll cover all classes of tanks with some basic enchanting lists.  Since I wanna keep this a bit shorter them my last few blogs, I'll link the enchants instead of listing what they do.  Lets begin with....



Helm

• Druid = Arcanum of the Earthen Ring 150g + Revered Earthen Ring Reputation
• Warrior = Arcanum of the Earthen Ring 150g + Revered Earthen Ring Reputation
• Paladin = Arcanum of the Earthen Ring 150g + Revered Earthen Ring Reputation
• Death Knight = Arcanum of the Earthen Ring 150g + Revered Earthen Ring Reputation

Shoulders

• Druid = Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal 75g + Exalted Therazane Reputation
• Warrior = Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz 75g + Exalted Therazane Reputation
• Paladin = Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz 75g + Exalted Therazane Reputation
• Death Knight = Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz 75g + Exalted Therazane Reputation

Cloak

• Druid = Major Agility
• Warrior = Protection
• Paladin = Protection
• Death Knight = Protection

Chest

• Druid = Peerless Stats
• Warrior = Greater Stamina
• Paladin = Greater Stamina
• Death Knight = Peerless Stats

Gloves

• Druid = Greater Expertise
• Warrior = Heavy Savage Armor Kit
• Paladin = Greater Mastery
• Death Knight = Greater Mastery

Wrists

• Druid = Agility
• Warrior = Dodge
• Paladin = Dodge
• Death Knight = Dodge

Waist

• Druid = Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
• Warrior = Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
• Paladin = Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
• Death Knight = Ebonsteel Belt Buckle

Legs

• Druid = Charscale Leg Armor
• Warrior = Charscale Leg Armor
• Paladin = Charscale Leg Armor
• Death Knight = Charscale Leg Armor

Feet

• Druid = Major Agility
• Warrior = Earthen Vitality
• Paladin = Mastery
• Death Knight = Earthen Vitality

Rings (if you're an enchanter)

• Druid = Agility
• Warrior = Greater Stamina
• Paladin = Greater Stamina
• Death Knight = Greater Stamina

Shield

• Warrior = Mastery
• Paladin = Mastery

Weapon

• Druid = Mighty Agility
• Warrior = Windwalker
• Paladin = Windwalker
• Death Knight = Rune of the Stoneskin Gargoyle

As you can see, there are some differences and similarities as far as what the tanking classes need.  However, they all in fact NEED them.  To not have your gear enchanted, in my personal opinion, is wasting your time and the time of the others in your group.  If you can not afford to get the enchants listed, there are less expensive enchants that will work in their place until you can get the best for your gear. The stats of all these enchants put together will make a very large difference in how well you can do your job. 

Think of it this way, as you are charging in to grab a boss, you see the healer struggling to keep you and the group alive.  Now, you think back as you and the group are wiping that you noticed earlier that the healer had no enchants on his/her gear. Could that healer have had an easier time keeping the group alive had he/she taken the time to enchant their gear to get the best possible results?  You don't wanna be the one that causes a situation like that because you just didn't feel like it or never took the time.  Chances are, there is an enchanter in your guild that will be more them happy to help you out to get the enchants you need.  I know I help out my guildies all the time as well as a few other guild members.  If you wanna win, you gotta put your best foot forward, which includes......enchants.


Keep up the good work bears!  We gotta show those other tanking classes how it's really done!


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Feral tanking builds and other useful information...

If you are a feral tank, you know that there are a lot of different builds out there. Deciding what to put points in over something else can be tough and finding a build and the reason for that build is even harder, I know, I've had to deal with that for years. I'm going to go over my tanking build step by step and explain why I chose to put points where I did.  So, below is an image of my current tanking build...

level 85 feral druid tanking build

Ok, so lets go over this one step at a time shall we, starting with the feral tree

•  2 points in Feral Swiftness because it gives you an extra 4% dodge in bear form, which adds to your avoidance which I spoke of my last blog.
• 3 points in Furor. This gives you 100% chance to gain 10 rage when you shift in to bear form. This might nit sound like much, but if you are caught in a situation where a dps pulls a group and you are not ready yet, the second you get in to bear form, but once you get in to bear form and pop your enrage, you will have more then enough rage to start right off scrambling to get control of the situation.
• 1 point in Infected Wounds.This is one is very nice as it reduced movement speed of the target, which is good, but we want it mainly for the fact that it decreases the attack speed of the target by 10%.  Why don't we put both points in here?  Simple, it does not affect bosses.  Every boss I have found is immune to this, so 1 point is fine for trash pulls.
• 3 points in Fury Swipes as this gives you a 15% chance to deal an extra 310% weapon damage to the target.  This translates in to extra damage and extra threat generation.
• 1 point in Primal Fury.  This is also a nice one as it gives you a 50% chance to gain 5 rage anytime you get a critical strike. More rage is always a big plus.
• 2 points in Feral Aggression.  The main reason for this one is to make it easier to use Faerie Fire. In bear form, your Faerie Fire will automatically stack 3 time with one use.  Since it generates threat and does damage while in bear form, this is a very nice feature to have.
• 3 points in King of the Jungle. Anytime you use enrage you will gain a 15% damage increase.  Now most people say, "but I really only use enrage before a pull to get up rage before I charge in.".  And that is fine.  You can use Enrage all the time it is off cooldown or just before a pull, either way, you will be getting a nice damage buff while it is up.  More damage means faster threat generation and a happy group.
• 1 point in Feral Charge. This is a must have for all bear tanks.  Not only does it give you the ability to charge in the a group of mobs and start building threat on them quickly, but the stun that you get on the target you charge can play a very useful tool.  Say there is a group with a healer and 2 melee mobs, you charge in on the healer which stuns it for 4 seconds.  You swipe/thrash to hit the other mobs to get some threat generation up on them and focus on the healer with the dps.  You can have the healer dead before it comes out of the stun in many cases.  Just remember that this DOES NOT work on bosses.
• 2 points in Stampede. This is the only real case where you will use haste.  It gives you a 30% haste buff after you charge a target for 8 seconds.  This plays in with the scenario described above in charge.
• 3 points in Thick Hide. This is another needed stat for bear tanks.  It gives you an extra 10% armor on all cloth and leather gear as well as an additional 78% more armor while in bear form.  From what I have seen, this does in fact stack.  It also reduces the chances you will be critically struck by 6%, which is always nice. lol.
• 1 point in Leader of the Pack. This is not only a nice group buff (giving the group or party an extra 5% critical strike), but it also causes you to regenerate 4% of your total health while in bear form. Now if you have 140,000 health, you will regenerate 5600 health about every 6 seconds or so.  Not too shabby for just being in bear form.
• 2 point in Brutal Impact. This will increase how long your bash stuns a target by 1 second and decrease its cooldown by 10 seconds.  But the real reason you want this is the fact that 2 point here will decrease your skull bash/spell interrupt by 50 seconds.  This brings it down to only a 10 second cooldown and makes it far more useful.  This will also cause any target you hit with Skull bash to have their spells cost them 10% more mana, which a bit more of a PvP stat, but can come in useful on some boss fights.
• 2 points in Primal Madness.  This will cause your Enrage and Berserk to instantly generate 12 rage.  As a rule of thumb, the more rage you can get, the more you can use to continue to build up threat as quick as you can.
• 1 point in Survival Instincts. Since this reduces all incoming damage by 50%, this is a great ability to use if the healer is running low on manamana while you are only taking half the normal amount of damage.  This is also great for raids if you suddenly find yourself down to just 1 healer on a boss fight that will need to heal 9 other people by himself/herself.
• 2 points in Natural Reaction.  This is another must have for bear tanks.  Reduces damage taken by 12%, increases dodge by 6% and you regenerate 3 rage ever time you dodge an attack while in bear form.  There is nothing here in the talent that is a bad thing.  Everything here is designed to boost your damage mitigation and avoidance. To not put both points here is to be cheating yourself of buff that will help you be a better tank.
• 3 points in Rend and Tear. This will increase the damage done by your maul by 20% to a target you already have a bleed affect on.  If you look through your attacks, you will see you have a few attacks that cause a bleed affect.  Extra damage is always good.
• 1 point in Pulverize. This is a nice item to have in your abilities list.  Deals 80% weapon damage plus 361 damage for each lacerate you have up on a target.  It also increase the critical strike chance of lacerate by 3% per application.  This means that if you stack 3 lacerates up on a target, and you use Pulverize, you will not only do the 80% extra weapon damage and the 1083 damage (361x3), but all 3 of those lacerates have a 3% chance to crit as they are absorbed by the Pulverize.  The damage output on this can be very high.
• 1 point in Berserk. This is a one of my favorites.  It gives your lacerate a 50% chance to refresh the cooldown of your mangle AND make t cost no rage.  That that is without even using the ability yet.  When you use Berserk, your mangle will now hit up to 3 targets and have no cooldown for 15 seconds.  This is a HUGE threat generator.  It's great for boss pulls in heroics where threat can be an issue or in raid boss fights when Heroism/bloodlust/timewarp/Ancient Hysteria is used, allowing your to generate threat faster then the dps are with the huge buff they get.

Now on to the Resto tree.

• 2 points in Natural Shapeshifter.  This will reduce your mana cost of changing in to bear for by 20%.  This is not a bad talent to have as you always have the ability to use your mana in fights, more in raids then dungeons.  On a boss fight where you tank swap, if the dps has some low health, you can always pop tranquility to help out a bit before still having enough mana to pop in to bear form to taunt the boss off the other tank.  Or even tossing a battle rez and an innervate to a dead healer when you have a chance.  Saving 20% mana on shapeshifting can help out int he long run.
• 3 points in Heart of the Wild.  This will increase your stamina by 6% in bear form.  Pure extra health.
• 2 points in Perseverance.  Now a lot of tanks don't put points here and I don't understand why.  This reduces all spell damage taken by 4%.  Now, your normal avoidance is nice, but this will give you an edge because in my experience normal avoidance does not work perfectly against spells.  Here you have a chance to boost that ability to take less damage by instantly decreasing any damage from spells by a full 4%.  If fireball comes flying at you to do 30,000 damage.  With this talent, when it hits you, it will only do 28,800.  Add in any other damage reducers and your are taking far less damage.

I was going to go over glyphs, enchants,. gems and reforging for feral tanks, but I think that this blog is long enough as is for now. lol.  That stuff will have to wait until my next blog.  Until then, keep up the good work bears and remember we have to teach these other tank classes how tanking is really done!

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