how about making the tier set for druid for tank ?
They arent.
There really isnāt one, nor ever was.
The only ones kinda close are tier 0/0.5 and are not exactly what iād call tank
gear, more like definitely not healing gear.
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If anything the pvp set is designed for feral. We can do just fine with non set pieces and tank just fine. MT raid bosses isnāt a problem for bear. I havent gotten to tank Firemaw or nef yet but everything else has been cake.
Blizzard had no idea what they were doing with the classes back then. āIf it can heal, give it heal sets.ā That was the only thought they gave it. Even when raids had practically no druids because people donāt want to heal with that class, they didnāt care enough to change it. They were still making content for this game while the population numbers were there, and did nothing to change class designs. āNo one wants to heal as druids, and warriors have 10+ every raidā¦ why donāt we change druid sets to feralā¦ā Never occurred to them.
That said one of our guildās best tanks is a fat bear.
am glad to hear that.
But bwl gear really help bear a lot
0.5 is sort of hybrid/solo farming gear.
Just bide your time until TBC is rereleased. Look up druid tier 4 
If im in my full mitigation gear in already armor capped with a priest crit and stoneshield. Itās only going to get better when i get malfs chest the chromag cloak and all that sweet aq loot.
If im not mistaken, tanking Nef is like the hardest boss to tank for feral because of the whole, āyour in cat form now lolā mechanic. Losing the innate HP boost from bear form along side HotWās 20% stamina / armor rating drop from no bear is brutal. You can make it work but the path of least resistance is to just add tank / do damage during this fight TBH. Definitely would not recommend doing it unless its an oh turd moment
Firemaw just needs you to toss on the good ole FR set and know how to time your taunts if I remember right. Bears have some really good stats/threat in full FR gear.
Really though its all about farming those MCPs for feral anyway. Moar threat means moar damage ectā¦
You are correct. Nef is suboptimal and bad luck will do you in. Firemaw is easymode if you have FR and Ony cloak.
Except at the start of the game, and almost up to druids class redesign, they were terrible tanksā¦less so terrible dps, and moderately good healers.
This is nothing like the current system in retail though. Thereās definitely a shortage of tanks if I get whispers from strangers asking me to tank their dungeon or raid.
yeh the nef could be brutal even with a stoneshield pot. Iām there ready to tank fm with my fire set on, We just havent needed me to jump in yet.
sadly this is so true. Balance had talents to improve its weapon damage in the initial tree ffs.
People just didnāt know how to gear druidā¦ or about pummlers. Almost nobody was lvl 60 by the time druids were fixed .The armor/threat buff to 360% was in Patch 1.2.0 - 18 December 2004 like a month after the game came out.
New Spell: Gift of the Wild (Level 50) - Longer lasting Mark of the Wild spell that buffs the entire group. Requires a reagent to cast. (Spell is available via loot drop only.)
Bear Form: Armor bonus increased from 65% to 180%.
Dire Bear Form: Armor bonus increased from 125% to 360%.
I think the big thing was pummelers TBH. Those things really make or break bear tanks in raids because what are bears but worse warriors if they donāt do stupid amounts of threat? Arguing to be sub optimal in a raid will always net you bad times, especially back then when people were significantly less informed about mechanics.
I knew this guy on Dalaran back then who was a druid that was very enthusiastic about bear tanking and did it pretty damn well. He definitely used a lot of the stuff that we see in BiS lists gear wise know if I remember right. The main issue for him was that holding aggro was really really hard in a raid. Part of that may be because we were horde (WF + no bosalv). In hindsight Iām fairly certain that the real issue was the no knowledge about MCP. That guy could definitely hold his own as a tank in the 5 man content and I do remember him serving as an OT for a while in his guild raids.
Agreed. Bears have always made great offtanks when threat doesnāt matter, but a bear with a MCP takes less damage than a furyprot with 2 1h and does about the same threat. Bears are in a good place now. Just glad my guild drags me along since they are kinda try hard.
I think the best reason to bring a bear is that they tend to soak all the āgarbageā gear for a raid. That and how the feral druid is pretty damn flexible. Being able to OT/decurse/moderate dps/meh heal is stupid useful when your raiding with sub 40 people like i have been in classic.
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Not only that, it helps gear the other warriors faster. Not all feral tank loot is unwanted tho. Boots of the shadow flame are highly sought after. Just glad my guild knew they were bis forever for beefy bois.