Bear Tanks in BWL

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
163

I can’t speak for what he did, but opening with Improved Lay on Hands is absolutely overkill in any situation, and wastes a cooldown. Threat isn’t an issue in our guild unless DPS think they’re cheeky and try to start damage as soon as the boss aggros.

From what I last saw of his gear, he was only missing 1-2 min/max pieces upon entering BWL. Beyond that, I don’t know about consumables, and we don’t require BL consumables for our raid and leave those entirely up to the individual to farm for. However, he did have more HP outside of bear form than I did when we were both buffed. (I think I was around 6460~, and he had 6600+? I know he was over 8100, at least, in bear a couple times that I saw, but again, I don’t recall buffs. He’s been gone for a while now, replaced with a cat druid.)

As for the other post, the OTs apply Thunder Clap (such as myself), but the frequency of this varies from boss to boss. Our MT is very geared (and not even close to BiS, since BWL is mostly caster loot so far), but I throw it on during the lull between forced tank swaps. Demo Shout/Roar is always on, though.

Broodlord one-shot me the first week, but I had JUST taken the official OT spot after our last OT gquit overnight with no notice, after getting all of the gear funneled to him. I was very undergeared to be tanking BWL, as I was designated to be a primary DPS warrior forever, and the other warriors (namely both of our Sulfuras/BRE warriors) were being given the gear for OTing. After the first week, I’ve survived Mortal Strike every time, and it only takes a Greater Stoneshield. At the current stage, our MT doesn’t even risk dying anymore. But the first week our feral kept getting bulldozed on Broodlord and the drakes once he was swapped to. Nobody knows why, other than that he could’ve been extremely unlucky.

Anyway. I think the emphasis on Feral’s strengths vs. Warriors’ tanking strengths is overkill. We ran both just fine, but like I said… we replaced our feral’s tanking spot. We just happened to have another warrior prepared to be the tertiary tank before we recruited another druid, and we opted for a cat druid, since the new warrior is cool with their tanking spot, and it doesn’t negatively affect our raid’s performance. I’m confident that, had we gotten another bear druid instead, it wouldn’t have mattered either way, except maybe having an additional 3% crit buff for another party.

164

Druid threat on Vael, what are you doing and how long before you have enough threat for the DPS to go full tilt?

Do you need to farm MCP for that?

165

Ooooooo I misunderstood. Thanks!

166

Yes. It is our single biggest steroid and we can have it active for a solid 1:30. Throw it and a Flask of the Titans on and most woes simply disappear.

167

Wow, alright so that’s quite specifically the BiS for druid tank and DPS, is there any other weapons that can compete?

Are the feral attack power weapons even close?

168

Nope! Even Atiesh pales. As we get more and more base stats, attack power diminishes on a per-point basis. 50% Haste is multiplicative with everything else and only competes with the meager 6% you can slap on with enchants.

It truly is that good.

169

Does +haste on gloves work well then for druids? It would rationalize as so by means of your points made. Maybe that meager amount is not enough, but it stands to reason that it would… Would that be better if stacked with libram haste head / legs?

Do weapon weights also work out?? Do they even work?

I know that’s an expensive adventure for a disposable MCP, but hey!

170

For threat? Yes, Haste is the best you can put on head, gloves, legs, and on the MCP itself.

Strength is the next one.
Agility fulfills both TPS and TTL benefits, which is why a lot of folks favor it because it sorta catches everything at once.
Stamina and Bonus Armor obviously are just for EH.

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171

Alright that makes perfect sense, thank you!

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172

Why on earth can’t threat meters show GBoK?

And if the pally has done all the TPS he needs to do buffing the first 7 warriors, then if there are 11 warriors he should have some GCDs left over to do uh, well uh, whatever pallies do, I never really played one. But I would think it should be something good enough to make up for the loss of the all important MT DPS.

173

It’s fine to use an non-MCP on farm raids, trash, dungeons, etc, but for progression or fights you still struggle with it’s a requirement for threat.

Sad how overly insanely OP MCP is for a feral tank or dps.

174

I’d love to see Blizz test the theory that people are “better” now as follows:

Make subtle, entirely undocumented changes such that BiS for one class in retail now drops only from a single boss in a normal dungeon from Mists of Pandaria.

See how long it takes Method to figure it out.

175

An additional rez and innervate. But it’s your guild! And always better to not have to recruit for a spot. Wonder why your feral was getting smashed. Normally we have a heals not in LOS on Firemaw or a bad aoe stun on a boss if I die. Wonder if he was built for more threat than mitigation. Oh well, his loss.

176

You just spam Maul + Swipe.

My group waited 5 seconds, but next week we probably won’t be doing that. Maybe a GCD or two at most to make sure the first few Mauls do not miss. If they both crit, I’ll probably never lose aggro after that.

Absolutely. I use MCP on every boss except when I’m tanking adds and threat/DPS doesn’t matter, i.e. Garr.

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177

Alright, cool thank you much. We have a bear druid and we’re always looking for ways to improve. I don’t actually know what he’s doing or how he’s geared and he seems to be doing fine but we wait like what seems like eternity before we start DPS on any bosses in BWL. He’s our off-tank, but think it would be cool if we could use him on MT for certain fights where it will be of massive gains.

178

Take a look at logs and/or log the fights if you aren’t already. Looking up that kind of stuff is what logs were made for.

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179

They’re good, but I wish they were better at tracking what buffs are used and when.

They tend to be less than accurate in this regard, oft times it will show common raid buffs but ignores world buffs and many consumables.

I suspect that whatever library they’re utilizing is incomplete.

Maybe I am viewing the thing wrong but this has been my experience with Warcraft logs classic.

180

I’m pretty sure it just tracks when things are applied or fade, so for instance if your logger doesn’t record until people all zone in and they all have world buffs, unless those world buffs fade sometime during logging, the log can’t know they have them, at least by usual methods.

I’m not sure how to correct that as I’m not an addon expert but there’s got to be some kind of inspect or aura ID call that can be pulled at the start to get existing buffs/consumables.

But yeah, this is my biggest gripe about WCL as well.

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181

To explain…GBok buffs all players of the same class at the same time. It’s an instant cast that uses a 1.5s Global Cooldown. The more players of that class present then the more threat is causes per cast.

Blessing threat is the level at which the spell is learned…ie Greater Blessing of Kings is 60 threat per person. Imp Righteous Fury increases that threat by 90%, so GBoK is 114 Threat per player cast on.

GBoK = 150 mana, 1.5s, 100 mana per second.

7 Warriors = 798 per 1.5s, 532 TPS
10 Warriors = 1140 per 1.5s, 760 TPS
15 Warriors = 1710 per 1.5s, 1140 TPS

In addition Paladins auto attack using Seal of Wisdom with Judgement of Wisdom on target, in addition to auto attack, and Rank 1 Holy Shield /w Blessing of Sanctuary up.

Depending on Weapon thats about 100 to 150 DPS depending on weapon, in addition to the above values.

However what should also be kept in mind is that GBoK is AE threat if the mobs in question have awareness of the Paladin. Sadly it is tough to avoid this because healers are healing tanks…and Paladins are Blessing Warriors, which means GBoK can functions like an AE tuant on trash if there is a vast disparity in threat levels.

To answer your last question…Paladins can also supply and aura for their group in addition to Judgement of Wisdom for the entire raid, as they use it for necessary mana regen to retain GBoK spam.

182

It simply could have been the Druid.

All 3 Drakes are conjunctive spike mechanics. Firemaw is Flame Buffet running, Shadow Flame, and Melee + Thrash.

Shadow Flame is usually around 150 DTPS and obviously you wear an Ony Cloak.
Flame Buffet can be 200 DTPS for a tank with 200+ resultant FR.
Thrash being Thrash…

If he was paper or wasn’t wearing solid FR gear he was going to get spike.

Flame Buffet isn’t that bad with FR, even though it combines to form a spike…but if he was skimping alot on FR…then that would get pretty ugly when he got Thrashed.

Only thing I can think of because Thrash isn’t small fast hits which prioritizes shield block…it pretty much affects both Bears and Warriors equally because block is still a small value measure against hit size.

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