Alright, so…
… as you embark on this BEAR tanking adventure…
… the very FIRST thing you have to tackle and overcome…
… and I’m just speaking from MY experience… and my failure…
… the very FIRST thing, as a BEAR tank…
… do not STARE at the bear’s BUTT!
You may soon notice that BEAR tanks have this four legged posture… and they sorta stick up their butt right at the camera… like RIGHT AT YOUR FACE.
Listen to my advise… don’t look at the butt! Don’t pay attention to it… you may try to move the camera, but the BEAR will realign itself back into a BUTT-CAMERA-FACE position.
Anyways, if and when you overcome this FIRST obstacle, cause I believe in you…
… you will ALREADY have become a better BEAR tank than I ever was and would have learned EVERYTHING I could teach you.
From here on out you’ll have to seek higher masters to teach you further.
BUT REMEMBER… a day will come when you will have learned everything others may teach you and further mastery lies in an adventure you set out alone. It is a lonely depressing situation… to have no masters, no mentors… no one to go for answers and guidance… in that place, it’s just you and your failures…
…
Don’t forget where you came from, and why you set out on this journey. You will have become the master others seek for that comfort of mentorship.
Do not learn by creating a new character. Bear tanks are notoriously awful in when they gain their skills.
Remember, Druid, as a class, is designed to heal. Not to tank. Tanking is an afterthought by the developers, and sometimes not even that. You will struggle if you tank while leveling because very little thought was ever put into when you gain your tanking abilities.
Start with your current character.
Also, regarding tanking dummies, the rage you get from being attacked is trivial (3 per). Take the Blood Frenzy talent (which you should take anyways) and you will EASILY recoup the lost rage from missing auto attacks. Practice your rotation on dummies. A lot.
The most important thing to learn for tanking is something nobody ever talks about: monster AI behavior. Your job as a tank is to control the monsters. You need to understand how the AI thinks, in order to do that.
Movement is also important. Learning how to move just enough to get the monsters to do what you want them to do, without under- or over-shooting.
The monsters will jostle all around you, because mobs in WoW try not to stack on each other (even though the game lacks collision detection).
The mobs will overshoot through you. You try to move back 10 yards and if you’re not careful, they’ll all run through you and start attacking from behind.
If there’s something like Sanguine and you’re in a tightly enclosed space, you need to learn how to back up JUST enough so that the mobs are out of the last sanguine pool (preferably as it’s dropping, and before it ever ticks) but taking up minimum space. And adjusting for the fact that they’re going to fidget some after moving. And the only way to learn these is to practice. With real content. Not with leveling dungeons.
Yep. I know I’m going to just SUCK at this until I’ve seen it and done it some. Fortunately, I have the gift of guildies who are being really sweet about this. /grin. They’re really trying to encourage me to just do it and are offering me keys to deplete. Ha ha.
I’ll get in there with them tomorrow and tell y’all how the poop-storm went.
Just get some guildies with 120s they want to gear and work m0, then pick the key you’re most comfortable with and repeat. They gear up, you learn tank.
Personally I’ve tanked M+ before but never gotten really high IO scores on any roles, and 8.2 was my first time tanking as a Bear. It helped that I had gotten a warforged trident from Crucible of Storms just before 8.2.
I think the best way to learn is just jump into it. Seems like a lot of people say it’s boring but I find bear tanking enjoyable, but never was given the chance to tank high keys with the guild at the time despite being capable. You’ll definitely be weak on pulls so either use Ironbark or Survival Instincts, and don’t be afraid to kite, like Adilith said.
Ursol’s Vortex and Typhoon are great for displacement and repositioning mobs or to allow for Necrotic stack reset (may also require some help from your group such as stuns and slows), and of course Soothe is great to get rid of raging effects on mobs without needing a Rdruid. Also aim for 100% uptime on Ironfur.
I only started tanking after I had like, 200k more hp than needed for the content (low M+), so if I messed up and pulled too much, I wouldn’t die instantly and it would look deliberate
I also learned by watching other tanks when I was DPSing. Looking at what they pull and how and what they skip. Like in Freehold, there’s that pack to the right after you go up the stairs at the start of the dungeon: that pack needs to be aggroed but then you just keep going and LoS them around the corner so they come to you. When I first started I didn’t realize this and foolishly fought them there, resulting in 3 more packs coming in. Only after I saw a few tanks do the LoS trick it became a lot easier.
Don’t. Don’t bother learning bear. I have a 474 bear and it is the most unfun and annoying set of spells to use. It is also VERY weak. They have been lowest ranked and least used for tanking for a LONG time.
I would suggest warrior or brewmaster. Solid picks, WAY more fun to play. More mitigation and mobility.
Hey just letting you know. You can still practice in the MoP Proving Grounds by visiting your class trainer.
Tanking is fun! You are the head of the group. You see pace the content. Gear is important but mechanics are too!
Don’t have mobs hit your back as they will crit you make sure you position mobs in front of you!
Study your class mechanics, know your spellbook! Some studying to do!
Don’t be afraid to die. Just tell your group you are new to tanking.
Jump into it. I jumped into it leveling a new toon when I started, although I did start on my feral druid in wotlk. It could be fun! Just make sure you are with people who know your new and as you practice stuff becomes like instinct.
But as I’m sure you know, holding aggro isn’t really the main point of tanking anymore. Skittish presents a unique challenge of course but tanks generally serve as navigators for the route, they have to be alert to what the rest of the group is doing and ready to pounce if there are patrols or if the fight has add spawns, and then of course their core gameplay of using active mitigation and big CDs to prevent damage. For raids you have tank swap mechanics.
Additionally, I find when I tank I naturally drift into the role of pseudo-raid leader whether I like it or not. Someone has to be doing it of course and it often falls to the tank, as the tanks often have spare “mental cycles” so to speak to be alert for these types of things and call them out when they see them. DBM type stuff helps with a lot of this but some mechanics aren’t on a consistent 1:1 schedule, or even when they are complications in the fight may require improvisation.
I just hope the randos you group with are nicer then they are when I monk tank. On my DK? Generally no problems. My monk? People complain and get mad about nearly everything.
Hey bubba, I’m gonna be using ring of peace when the healer is at 40% mana and I’m out of charges and at 70% stagger. Yes, that makes aoe tricky. On the other hand, we have three packs at once. Figure it out.
I’ve played a tank since BC. Not a world first raider or even a mythic tank. I’ve done heroic for tanking.
But tanking is not hard. In fact I love the role the most out of any role because of how simple the role is to me. Again, not a mythic tank so that’s most likely leagues harder.
But tanking for dungeons. I normally just chain pull. So one pack, try your best to tab target to get interrupts off to keep them bunched up together so the DPS can be happy making their meter numbers higher. Might be easier if you have some unit frames which show spell casts. You’d be surprised how many DPS don’t interupt. So you’ll be a hero if you can do it.
If you notice your health above 70%? Try another pack. If you can handle two packs at once, go for that from now on. Be sure to always check your healers health bar. After 15 years most healers are experienced especially at max level, so I tend to trust them. So I don’t even really look at my healthbar too much because that’s their problem.
Just go for it. People who complain to a tank about going too slow are dumb. But if your DPS are complaining, don’t be afraid to pick up the pace. The pace of the dungeon in set by everyone. Just need to find the right balance.
But in pugs if you can try to be quick, DPS like that because they just waited 15+ minutes for that queue and want to go go go.
If I had to think of an analogy I treat tanking like walking with a toddler while holding their hand. I need to check for speed, make sure they don’t fall on their face, and then watch everything else.
I’d say for you, just make a new bear and go for it.
Bear is good in myhic plus, I have only timed as high as +19 but they are good. Start off with some low keys to get used to it and get your bars and buttons where you are comfortable with them. Don’t listen to the people that say bears are not good, they don’t play them, they just watch videos of other people playing the game. But starting off low and moving up is the best way to learn, reading guides will only get you so far. Just hop in there and swipe and thrash your way through!! Have fun, sorry not more insightful
