hi guys, currently only low level (16) but i find tanking rfc so hard as in keeping agro,
anytime any dps hits a mob they agro to them even with a couple points in the agro talent.
i even have swipe now trying to aoe large packs but its hard to keep agro and taunt is on a 10s cd
does it get any easier with level?
I have a few thoughts –
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Yes, it gets easier. I find a good bear that HoTs themselves before a pull and has 2-3 GCDs to “round up” mobs to be a great AoE tank.
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You might have to manage your expectations if you’re coming from retail. Threat matters a lot in classic, and it is really easy to rip agro off a tank, even a pretty geared one. DPS are supposed to help you with this by giving you a bit of time to establish a lead, ranged should be at least 20 yards away for the extra threat pull threshold, paladins can put Salvation on particularly strong teammates (like frost mages), etc. You’re just going to have to expect one or two to “get away” from you, and you do your best to taunt one, stun another, etc.
Does it get easier? Yes, but tanking as a Druid is still obnoxious because you won’t have Mangle or Lacerate for snap-threat until TBC. Then in WoTLK, Druids get the Natural Reaction talent that gives rage when you dodge – which combined with Primal Fury means you cant really run out of rage even if you try.
if you intend to tank as you level, focus on getting the 2/2 Primal Fury talent. This will give you rage when you crit, so Swipe becomes more reliable for generating rage.
Threat matters in classic. Your threat should be fine as a bear so if your dps are pulling, let them die and think about what they did. Better they learn in RFC than later in the game
When I first started in RFC, it was rough, for sure. It gets more feasible as you get up in levels and especially when you get gear. Faerie fire (feral) talent will help with a free “filler” ability to generate threat between swings, but Maul is the bread and butter of keeping threat, IMO. Swipe feels like a trap early on when rage is far too precious to waste, as its damage is pitiful, apparently due to no scaling with attack power. Maul gets a nice threat multiplier on top of its scaling damage, so I put all my rage towards mauls to keep threat on targets. Maybe someday I’ll have more rage than I know what to do with to dump into swipes, but that day certainly hasn’t come yet.
I find once you get used to mauling everything, you start getting a feel for using as little rage as you can in a pack, so you can save some for the next pack. Then, at the next pack, you can open by throwing out demoralizing roar to snap a small amount of threat on all mobs, then maul-tab-maul between them all to really secure your hold on aggro. Then, when I feel I’m in a comfortable spot threat-wise, I let the white auto-attacks build my rage up until I need to throw another maul to keep a hold of aggro. Additionally, I like to use enrage as soon as the last mob goes down to add some rage before the next fight, but also to prevent the out-of-combat rage bleed-off while it’s active. I think it really adds up.
I haven’t really messed too much with the regrowth/rejuv-before-pull strategy, as I went full feral tree from the get-go, and not taking Furor in the resto tree makes shifting to caster form forfeit all my saved up rage. Having zero rage at the start of the fight is when I particularly feel the struggle to hold onto things as a bear.
When I leveled a Druid back in 2019 classic, I went for a NS + feral build. I got furor relatively early on. I started all pulls with pre hoTing myself and it seemed to work pretty well. Definitely gearing for crit helps.
All tanking sucks early on, it won’t be until mid 30s where druid, and warr can generate enough rage to do abilities.
Once you get rage back from swipe crits you’ll start speed clearing.
it gets easier. for multiple mobs use swipe, then change a target and use swipe again, change target use swipe again. repeat that pretty much the entire fight.
there is no real aoe tanking, you can hit a few mobs at once but its not an area of effect.
at 16 you probably just dont have the gear necessary to generate enough threat yet. it gets easier.
also, tell your dps to allow you to generate both threat and rage before they open up.
get details! and use tiny threat and then chastise the dps for not paying attention to threat.
To add to the previous poster, it’s always best to mark the first kill target as skull and use the time to build threat on the other targets once first target is locked on you.
I leveled as feral and am now tanking 60 dungeons as a bear and god it feels pretty good to know druid tanking is just rough in general lol
sounds like dumb gameplay
And bear swipe has no AOE cap in WoTLK. it’s so easy, Eyr, you could probably tank a Halls of Lightning run and wipe less than five times, Eyr.