A guide to tanking

[LadyPeorth]

My experience with Paladin tanks is limited at best...but here is a guide I wrote up for my guild. I'm not an awesome tank (I can break 1000 TPS but I go down to 0 rage pretty quick), but I have tanked all of Karazhan as both Warrior and Bear, as well as two out of the six bosses of ZA and some of the trash on SSC. Yes that's not very much and I'm pretty sure my method of tanking will change, but here goes either way...

Welcome. If you've walked into this topic, you're well aware of the Holy Trinity that has been passed down since the dawn of Everquest. The Trinity is as follows:

Tank (takes damage)
Damage Dealer (deals damage)
Healer (heals damage)

This discussion is on the part of the tank, who's sole purpose is to hold the monster's attention by doing songs and dances so that he doesn't notice that overzealous rogue sticking a sword in his ass.

Tanking Terms aka "Listen up, I ain't gonna repeat myself"

Critical Hit - 2x damage bonus attack. It takes -5.6% crit to become uncrittable to mobs.

Defense Rating - Increases Defense skill. It takes 30 Defense Rating to equate -1% crit and +.25% to miss/dodge/parry/block.

Resillience Rating - Increases Resillience. It takes 39.4 Resillience Rating to equate -2% crit, -4% crit damage, and -2% DoT damage.

Dodge - A form of mitigation. It takes 18.9 Dodge Rating to equate 1% dodge. A dodge is a 100% mitigation (negates all damage), yet administers no rage. Warriors receive 1% dodge from 30 agility, Paladins receive 1% dodge from 25 agility, and Druids receive 1% dodge from 14.7 Agility.

Parry - A form of mitigation. You gain 1% chance to parry for every 31.5 Parry rating. Parry is 100% mitigation and reduces your swing timer by 40% (meaning you get 40% haste for your next swing). The haste effect stacks twice. Druids cannot Parry.

Block - A form of mitigation. You gain 1% chance to block every 7.88 Block Rating. Blocking is minor mitigation. It will not block full damage unless you have enough Shield Value/Strength to completely negate all the damage. Block mitigation comes in after all other forms of mitigation. Druids cannot block.

Crushing Blow - A form of attack only mobs can do. Crushing blows deal roughly 1.5x normal damage. A tank's ultimate goal (excluding Druids who cannot reach it), is to become uncrushable. You need 102% mitigation (Parry/Dodge/Block/Miss) to hit uncrushable

Attack Table - Generally, a table the game rolls a dice for. On this table is: Dodge, Parry, Block, Full Hit, Crushing Blow, Critical Strike, Miss. By increasing some values, you can push other values off the table and thus making them moot.

Uncrushable - When a tank achieves 102% Mitigation (via Block, Dodge, Parry, Miss), the tank is unable to be hit by a crushing blow, and in fact is also immune to normal hits. All attacks will either do 0 damage or be reduced by blocking. This is the ultimate goal of a tank.

Tanking item choices aka "Heal the bear"

Each tank needs to gear differently and no one stat should be sacrificed for another. All stats play a key roll in a tank's life.

Warriors: Defense - Stamina - Mitigation > Agility - Strength > Armor > Everything else.
Many people shrug defense after hitting -5% crit, but doing so is actually a bad idea. More defense = more mitigation. If HP was all that mattered, Warlocks would be tanking. Stamina is obviously good, more HP = live longer. Mitigation is just as it sounds and is defintely worth getting. Agility helps dodge and crit, while Strength increases AP and Block value.

Paladin: Defense - Stamina - +Spell Damage > Int - Mitigation - Agility - MP/5 > Strength > Everything else
Yeesh. Paladin tanks have it rough. Not only do you need everything a warrior does, but you also need Int, +Spell damage, and +mp/5, all of which are really scarce on gear. MP/5 isn't as critical with Spirtiual Attunement, but it does help. It should always be remembered that Paladin's generate hate PURELY through their spell damage (unless using Seal of Blood). I'm not going to lie. If you're going Prot Pally, you really need to do gear homework.

Druid: Resillience/Defense (till uncrittable) - Stamina - Armor - Agility > Strength > (Resillience/Defense after uncrittable) and everything else
Druid tanks have itemization fairly easy. Two of the four key stats are available on most rogue gear. Armor is tricky to come by, especially with Blizzard's lack of making armor kits/enchants stack into bear form. Agility gives an insane amount of dodge for druids and ups crit rating as well. A bear only needs 60 Defense Rating or 68ish Resillience (with 3/3 Survival of the Fittest) to hit uncrittable.

Tanking Tools aka "Mash the go button."

Warriors
Heroic Strike - I misjudged Heroic Strike. It's a rage dump, lowering your rage, but it generates a decent amount of hate and alternating Heroic and Devestate/Sunder can cause your threat to skyrocket. Sadly, you really need to be taking heavy damage to keep up the spam of both.

Mocking Blow - A tanking ability in Battle Stance. A crappy tanking ability in a non-tanking stance. You will probably never use this ability and that is a good thing. The hate it generates is limited, it pulls you out of the safety of defensive stance, has a two minute cooldown, and the "forces monster to target only you" effect doesn't work some of the time. Perhaps the most fun use for it...is in PvP...nothing annoys a warlock/hunter more than seeing his pet leave the priest to go on to a warrior.

Sunder - Ahh good ole Sunder. Sunder generates a decent amount of hate, lowers armor to allow more damage which makes more threat, and has enough talents to squeeze it under 10 rage. If you're not protection specced, this will be your key tool. Drag it to the bar and erect a shrine to it.

Shield Bash - Dazes the target at later levels (causing more Heroic damage) and stops spell casting. Many people work it into rotation. If your target can be shield bashed, save it for stopping the spell (some rogues still don't kick). If it can't be, go crazy.

Thunder Clap - A once weak, but now very strong tanking tool. It adds a minor hate spike, lowers enemy attack speed, and is a special kind of nature damage (effects those immune to nature but can still be resisted). The only hampering is its hefty rage cost. A great tool for AoE tanking and a solid tool for bosses.

Demoralizing Shout - An overlooked ability when it shouldn't. 10 rage to lower enemy AP...doesn't seem too helpful does it? An untalented Demo shout lowers Gruul's Hateful strike damage by 1000 damage. It generates pitiful hate, but the lowered damage is worth the minor cost. Usually the second thing you should drop after a sunder effect is on the enemy.

Shield Block - Spamming this ability raises your uncrushability to max or close to max for a bit. Illidan's fight actually causes a wipe if you spam Shield Block, so do use it responsibly. It increases your block chance by 75% for 6 seconds or 1 block (2 if talented) and has a 6 second cooldown.

Revenge - Heroic Strike Version 2.0. Becoming available after you preform a mitigation act except being missed, it delivers a bit of damage with a threat bonus. Originally, the damage was pitiful. Blizzard has since jacked the damage up to a nice respectable amount and yet still kept it having a fairly high threat modifier. With talents, the cost is brought to 2 rage. Definitely an awesome choice and should be used any time the little button lights up.

Shield Wall - The "Oh sh*t" button. Reduces all damage taken for a time by 75%. If you're hitting this, it's go time. 30 minute cooldown means it's mostly a one shot deal. Your last ace in the hole. Use it wisely.

Taunt - Ahh taunt. Instantly sets your hate to the highest target. Does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING if you're the primary hate target. Has a 10 second cooldown and a lot of mobs are immune to it. My advice for taunt is: Unless you're picking up a CCed mob or it's a special case (Bear boss in ZA), you should never need to taunt. It's important to note for Damage Dealers, if you get aggro and you see the little taunt icon to SLOW YOUR DPS DOWN. If you crit right after taunt, you have to wait about 7 more seconds for it to come back up, during which the mob will enjoy your tight ass for its raping pleasure.

Intimidating Shout - Causes fear in enemies around you for 8 seconds. If they're feared, they're not hitting you. Also the main target will be stuck in one place cowering. Problems are that feared mobs run everywhere and that damage breaks the effect really easily.

Challenging Shout - Causes all enemies effected to have their threat towards you maximized. Great for dragging an entire group off the AoEing classes.

Last Stand (Talented) - Increasesyour HP by 30% for a bit. An "oh sh*t" button, but usable a bit more due to lower cooldown.

Concussive Blow (Talent) - Stuns the enemy. 45 second cooldown and only good for trash. Still if Shield Bash is on cooldown, it makes for a handy second spell stop.

Shield Slam (Talent) - Deals damage, dispels magic, and causes high threat. Only thing that sucks is the cooldown. It's damage is modified by your block value, which you're semi-stacking up anyway so expect to see very good numbers out of it. Your number 1 source of threat outside of Sunder.

Devestate (Talent) - Originally, a crappy talent. Devestate did horrible damage and worst of all, horrible threat. However, Blizzard changed this last patch. Devestate is now effected by Sunder talents (Improved Sunder mostly) and now does its own threat + one application of Sunder. Devestate is now the second best Rage to threat generating ability (just behind Shield Slam). It is highly advised to grab Devestate and replace your sunder button with it.

Commanding Shout - Increases HP of those around you. HP = good.

Intervene - A weird charge that's incredibly annoying to use. I wish Blizzard would fix it already or make it less of a pain to work right...

Spell Reflect - An extremely fun talent. It's usable on a lot of things, but not everything. First of all, only single target spells (few exceptions) can be reflected. Not all spells can be reflected though so keep your eyes open. Still, nothing feels better than blasting someone with their own spell.

Paladins
Seal/Judgement of Crusader - Increase attack speed and AP. The seal itself is garbage, but it's not the seal you want...it's the judgement. Seeing as how a paladin's full threat is holy damage, this judgement makes your hate go up. There are other judgements that work as well, but if you can, you want Crusader up.

Seal/Judgement of Righteousness - Deals holy damage. Plain and simple. Holy damage = threat.

Seal/Judgement of Wisdom - Only use when badly OOM. Otherwise Crusader all the way.

Exorcism - Holy ranged Damage to an Undead/Demon target. Useful for pulling if your target matches the criteria. Also a good burst of threat.

Seal/Judgement of Vengance/Blood - Blood is more of a PvP/Retadin spell, but being healed restores mana. Vengance is a DoT that stacks. Blood gets power from AP, Vengance from +spell damage. I'm not 100% sure how they compare to Seal of Righteousness, but I think its a mixed fight.

Concencrate - Monster apparently don't like their shoes getting scuffed with holy energies. Generates a good amount of threat all over the place. Only thing that sucks is the mana cost.

Righteous Defense - A ranged taunt that effects three targets instead of one. Defintely a very nice ability.

Righteous Fury - It's a magic effect, make sure to have it up...especially if it is dispelled. Talented, it turns into Defiance + Defensive stance. If you're tanking, this is up...all the time.

Retribution Aura - Deals holy damage when hit. I think it's safe to say everyone knows what Holy Damage is to a paladin tank at this point. DOES NOT STACK WITH DARKMOON: VENGANCE.

Blessing of Sanctuary (talent) - Lowers damage taken, deals damage when blocking...deals HOLY damage when blocking. Definitely the tanking blessing.

Avenging Wrath - Increases damage by 30%. La la la...the Paladin + damage equation again.

Holy Shield (talent) - An awesome ability, pushing a paladin to near uncrushable for a fairly extended period of time. Also causes holy damage when you block, while increasing your chance to block.

Avenger's Shield (talent) - Captain America go! Causes good amount of threat and is really funny to watch.

Druid

Maul - Bear version of Heroic Strike. Bears and their high STR and AP weapons make this ability a great one for getting hate, plus because a bear's attack speed is a set 2.5, makes it so you don't have to scramble to mash it.

Swipe - Bear AoE...used to be absolutely nasty and allowed AoE grinding. Sadly, it is no longer the case and barely holds hate. Make sure everyone focuses on the target you're actively attacking and not a side swiped one.

Bash - One minute cooldown stun. The only bear interupt besides Feral Charge.

Feral Charge - Bear intercept. Also interupts spells and immobilizes. Definitely worth the talent point investment...even if you do look goofy while charging.

Demoralizing Roar - See Demo Shout.

Mangle (talent) - Ahh mangle, truly a gem. High damage, increases bleed damage for Lacerate, and has a pretty nifty animation. When you see the button twinkle, mash it. This is one of the key go buttons.

Lacerate - Go button 2. Lacerate is actually a rage dump. It causes bleed damage on hit (special kind of bleed damage) and causes a stacking debuff, assuming the target can bleed.

Faerie Fire - Bear's crappy sunder. Doesn't stack, low armor reduction, 6 second cooldown. It's free though...besides one talent point. Just slap it on whenever it is up. It does cause some threat and is ranged, but don't expect to hold hate on FF alone.

Thorns - Damage = Threat. Nuff said.

Growl - See Taunt

Enrage - Causes your armor to drop (base armor, which doesn't effect that much) and generate 20 rage over 10 seconds. Good for getting rage if you need it, twice over. You take a bit more damage, but that gets your more rage.

Frenzied Rejuvination - Not a bad skill but definitely no longer a good one. Converts 10 rage per second into health, each point converted into 10/15/20/25 health. A 2500 heal over 10 seconds at 70. Really pathetic but it does generate threat and can help take some small stress off the healers.

This concludes the tanking guide as of now...I'll probably add in talents later, but you get the general gist of how it works. Also, if you have any advice, changes you'd like to see made, please suggest them. As I said, my experiences are limited.

Edit: Adjusted thanks to manorath.swe (Removed Light, Adjusted Wisdom, added Exorcism, added final values for -crit, uncrushable numbers)

[Kartio]

Well... You just tell what abilities do. Maybe when your updated its nice.

[LadyPeorth]

An updated has been asked for, so I must give. Sit your butts down, take out your notepad, and listen up cause this will be on the test. Today's topic:

Tanking Talents aka "I'm cat specced!"

Now if you're here, you play WoW. If you play WoW and have at least hit level 10, you know what talent points are. But, we have to go over what they are anyway. Talent points are first awarded at level 10 and you are given one per level till you reach the maximum level of 70 (current maximum level). This means a total of 61 talent points. Every talent is 1-5 points to max it and each talent improves one ability/one set of abilities/overall preformance. Generally, each tab or tree is used to dictate what your character is...the more points in a specific tree, the more often you will call your character that spec. For Druids, the tanking tree is Feral. For Warriors and Paladins, the tree is Protection. This being said however, we will cover all trees. Some of them have useful abilities, most however do not. In early parts of the game, an off spec (a person specced for a position is asked to do something else ie: Shadow priest healing, Moonkin healing, Feral healing, etc etc...mostly its with healing).

IMPORTANT NOTE: Talent points are a basis of opinion mostly. Some people like this talent, other people do not. Take each description with a grain of salt as these are all my opinions.

In this update, we'll be covering every talent that has some merit to tanking. Generally, this means not dipping past the 21 point talents in every tree unless otherwise specified. We'll start with our furry friends...the druids.

Druid Tanking Talents
Balance Tree: Why am I starting with the balance tree? Originally, the balance tree had Omen of Clarity, an awesome tanking tool...but that has since moved elsewhere. The balance tree sucks if you're a tanking druid. There are at most two talents that make tanking slightly easier, and neither merits enough points to get them.
Nature's Reach - (Tier 3 aka 10 points into the tree) Increases range of Feral Faerie Fire. If you're tanking, the monster is in your face. If you're pulling, generally it's not the range of your pull but rather what is around the mob/in the way that you are not trying to pull. A very weak talent, but still worth mentioning...no it's not really worth mentioning either. Still it effects a tanking move.
Improved Faerie Fire - (Tier 7 aka 30 points) It's 30 points in, not sure if it is Feral Faerie Fire, and the effect is pretty dinky. Grants a +1% bonus to hit per point for up to +3%. Not too shabby as hitting is important for a tank. Problem? Well not sure if for feral faerie fire and sure as hell you aren't gonna be swapping much while tanking to apply it if not, and that it is 30 points into the tree. If you're taking this, you probably already took Boomkin form and should just be a boomkin.

Feral Tree: If you're in this tree, you're tanking. Nuff said. You wanna DPS in kitty form? Play a rogue. Most of the abilities in this tree cover both bear and cat form, with only a few talents effecting cat. Anyway...let's begin:
Tier 1:
Ferocity: See this talent? Invest in it...now. Reduces the rage and energy cost of 5 abilities, one point per point invested...5 abilities you will ALWAYS be using (except Claw, which is replaced later). This is a key talent for everything Feral and considering the other option is only okay and this option is something that makes Warriors and Rogues shake their fist in jealousy...yea...you'll be dumping five points into this.
Feral Aggression: Increases attack power lost by 8/16/24/32/40% from Demo Roar and increases Ferocious Bite damage by 3/6/9/12/15%. It improves one tanking tool and an...okay ability. Compared to Ferocity though, it's like comparing a bronze sword to a golden rocket launcher with a beer hat. It's not a bad talent, but generally you won't be taking points in it.

Tier 2:
Feral Instinct: Threat increased in bear form by 5/10/15% and reduces chance to be seen while Prowling. Defiance for bears along with Master of Deception. If you're tanking, you'll be taking this.
Brutal Impact: Increase stun duration of Bash by .5/1s. If you PvP or solo, that one second is enough to pop out for a regrowth + rejuv and back to bear. Most mobs are stun immune but considering the long timer on it, it's definitely one to consider.
Thick Hide: Increases armor by 4/7/10%. It should be noted, the armor increase happens before the bear armor increase, making this talent absolutely wonderful for a bear tank. Bears are all about high armor and high HP. This helps with one of the two. Invest in it and your blubbery bear bottom will definitely be absorbing more blows. Do remember though that damage reduction caps at 75%.

Tier 3
Feral Swiftness: Cat move speed up outside by 15/30% and chance to dodge up by 2/4% in forms. The move speed is nice for leveling, it's the dodge change we're looking at. Druid dodge is easy to get, but this is essentially a 2 point talent for what normally is a 4 point talent. Dodge is also the only form of Druid Mitigation besides armor and high HP. A definitely good choice for a tanking druid.
Feral Charge: Run like a goon towards an enemy, immobilizing them for 4 seconds, interrupting any spell and canceling the school for 4 seconds, 5 rage cost, 8-25 yard range. Bear interception. Has immob instead of stun and cancels spell casting. Called the weirdest counterspell ever, it gets a bear from point A to Mob B. You look...really goofy while doing it, but its uses are invaluable. Stops runners without using that annoying 1 minute cooldown, stops casters again without the 1 minute cooldown. Take it, love it.
Sharpened Claws - Increases critical hit chance by 2/4/6% while in forms. Once again, all other classes hate you for this talent. There's are mostly 5 points and do 1% less crit chance. This unlocks an awesome tanking ability so invest and watch those big bold numbers pop up more often.

Tier 4:
Shredding Attacks: Lowers the energy cost of Shred by 9/18 and the Rage cost of Lacerate by 1/2. An interesting talent, but whether it is important or not remains to be seen. Lowering costs is always good, but bears tend to have plenty rage as it is. I like to take this, but it's up to you.
Predatory Strikes: Increases Attack Power by 50/100% of your level in forms. A required talent for a better talent. At max level, it's +70 AP...woohoo. Yea...it's nice, but if it weren't a pre-req.
Primal Fury: Gives a 50%/100% chance for an extra 5 rage/1 combo point when you crit with abilities. Warriors and Rogues loathe you now. This talent is gold and is worth every point. You just crit with Mangle? 10 rage total price. You just crit with Lacerate? 8-10 rage cost. You just hit three enemies with Swipe and crit all three? 0 rage cost. With Sharpened Claws as a pre-req, this talent gets even tastier.

Tier 5
Savage Fury: Increases Claw, Rake, Mangle (cat) damage by 10/20%. Originally effected also Maul, Swipe, and Mangle (bear). Does not anymore so it's useless for tanking.
Feral Faerie Fire: Allows you to cast a FREE Faerie Fire in Cat/Bear form. Yes a FREE spell. No rage, no energy, and just a dinky 6 second cooldown on a 40s duration spell that lowers armor and prevents stealthing. 1 point is almost a sin at how good this talent is.
Nurturing Instinct: Raises your healing by 25/50% of your strength. If you're not impressed, you're correct. If you are, consider this. Assuming you stacked nothing but +STR items, you might be able to hit 500 strength. 500 STR changes to +250 healing. Most of the level 70 healing items are +227 healing. Yea...this talent is garbage. Skip it.

Tier 6
Heart of the Wild: Increases Intellect by 4/8/12/16/20% in caster form, Stamina in Bear form by 4/8/12/16/20% and AP in cat form by 2/4/6/8/10%. Holy Beejesus. If you're salivating, you're correct. This talent is delicious as the most moist cake that is not a lie. It's good for a pie person as well. Take it, love it, question how you lived without it, then marry it.
Survival of the Fittest: Reduces chance to be hit critically by 1/2/3%. Also increases all stats by 1/2/3%. All stats 3% is a nice thought, but it's the critical hit that's the selling point. Bears have horrible time getting defense (resilience is everywhere) and this talent makes it less likely you need a metric ton. It reduces the requirement from 5% to 2%, shaving 60% of needed defense away. It'll get you into raids faster and make you tank better faster.

Tier 7
Primal Tenacity: Increases chance to resist stun/fear mechanics by 5/10/15%. Stun and Fear are two very common effects. Resisting them is nice, but some people argue the usefulness in PvE. When it procs, it is a god send...when it procs of course. It's a love it or leave it talent. Flip a coin if you can't decide
Leader of the Pack: Aura giving +5% crit to melee/ranged damage in your party. It has an incredibly big range, the value of 5 talent points, only costs 1 talent point and has a kick ass upgrade. Why are you still reading? Dump the point in now!
Improved Leader of the Pack: Causes critical hits when affected by Leader of the Pack to heal the person by 2/4% of their max life. 6s cooldown on the ability. So now not only do you crit more, but you also heal when you crit. Once again, two points in, never look back. Takes strain off the healers and that is always good.

Tier 8
Predatory Instincts: Increases critical hit damage by 2/4/6/8/10% and chance to avoid AoE attacks by 3/6/9/12/15%. This is a unique talent. The +crit damage is very nice, but it's the AoE that shines. Any AoE falls into this category...melee, ranged, and magical. Likewise, if it has a stun/fear effect (Intimidating Roar), it stacks with the chance to resist fear/stun mechanic if you also have Primal Tenacity. Double the chance to avoid AoE Fear/Stun. A glorious talent, especially for avoiding the dreaded Cleave.

Tier 9
Mangle: Mangels the target for 115%(Bear)/160%(Cat) normal damage +X extra damage. Increases bleed/shred damage by 30%. Awards one combo point (cat only). Replaces Claw for Cat and becomes a key hate grabber for bear. It's instant, it improves Lacerate, it costs 15 rage with Ferocity, and has a scant 6 second cooldown. Worth the point. Take it, never look back.

Restoration Tree: The healing tree...it has a few fairly good moves for a bear and should be your secondary tree outside the primary one. I won't be going over talents that don't effect tanking. The tanking talents are:

Tier 1:
Furor: When shifting into Cat/Bear form, has a 20/40/60/80/100% chance to give you 40 energy/10 rage. Converts your mana into rage. Very helpful in PvP (shift straight to feral charge for example). Extremely helpful at the start of a fight or when you bash any enemy to heal, you come back to something besides an empty bar. The better of the two talents
[i]Improved Mark of the Wild[i]: Improves the effect of Mark of the Wild by 8/16/24/32/40%. Mark of the Wild is a small buff that improves everything. This talent turns a small buff into a slightly bigger buff. Most druids will take Furor over this, but this is a viable option as well. Call is yours, but my favor goes to Furor.

Tier 2:
Naturalist: Reduces casting time of Healing Touch by .1/.2/.3/.4/.5 seconds and increases physical damage done by 2/4/6/8/10%. Kind of an odd talent, but as a bear tanks with damage for threat, a needed talent. 10% more damage equals 10% more threat. Nuff said.
Natural Shapeshifter: Reduces cost of shapeshifting by 10/20/30%. A hit or miss. If you find yourself switching a lot, it helps, but most of the time you'll be in one form...bear.

Tier 3
Intensity: Allows 10/20/30% of mana regeneration to occur while casting and causes Enrage to instantly generate 4/8/10 rage. If you don't spend 3 points in Natural Shapeshifter, this is definitely the other place to put them. Causes Enrage to give you 30 rage as opposed to 20 and furthers your mana regen if you shift between bear and caster. Again...see Natural Shapeshifter. This talent, like it...is hit or miss.
Omen of Clarity: Allows the user to enter a clear casting state from melee hits, reducing the next ability's cost to 0. Wait what? Yes...this is a god spell. It's spell stealable, a buff, has 30 minute duration but is the envy of all other classes. Any melee hit/ability can set off this ability giving you a free ability. Free bash, free swipe, free mangle, free maul, free roar...free free free! 11 points into Resto tree and definitely worth every 1 of them.

That's it for druid talents. I'll be posting Paladin talents and Warrior talents in a few days as well as making other tweaks. Once all the information is pushed out (talents are the last piece), then will actually come the "How to Tank" part of the seminar.

[manorath.swe]

Exorcism does 619 to 691 damage to a single undead or demon target at up to 30 yards. Great spell to use in combination with divine shield during pulls.
490def / 5,6% less chance of being critted.
Crushing blow immunity is at 102,4%
Always keep Crusader instead of JoWisdom unless your badly oom, and forget JoLigth since its heals wont help you.
Retribution Aura Does Not stack with darkmoon card: vengance

Another general tip for you is to give some tips how and when to use the skills.

A question to you, are you braging about bursting 1000tps or keeping it during the whole fight?

[LadyPeorth]

Exorcism does 619 to 691 damage to a single undead or demon target at up to 30 yards. Great spell to use in combination with divine shield during pulls.
490def / 5,6% less chance of being critted.
Crushing blow immunity is at 102,4%
Always keep Crusader instead of JoWisdom unless your badly oom, and forget JoLigth since its heals wont help you.
Retribution Aura Does Not stack with darkmoon card: vengance

Another general tip for you is to give some tips how and when to use the skills.

A question to you, are you braging about bursting 1000tps or keeping it during the whole fight?

Thanks for the tips. I'll add them in in a sec and quote you for them. I can burst 1000 TPS pretty often, but I can only maintain around 800-900 most of the time. I'm trying to find a way to constantly hold 1000 TPS, but so far my only option for that is a major rage dump. I'd either have to downgrade my armor or switch from mitigation to full out HP/Armor.

[Derpa]

This guide went bad when I read

Dodge is "A form of mitigation"

Please learn some more about tanking before making a guide....

[LadyPeorth]

This guide went bad when I read

Dodge is "A form of mitigation"

Please learn some more about tanking before making a guide....

Dodge is 100% Mitigation. Mitigation is defined as to lessen in force or intensity. Considering a dodge drops all incoming physical damage taken to 0 for a single hit, that does mean it is mitigation, unless you wish to say a Dodge nullifies all physical damage for that single hit, which is also correct.

Armor is mitigation, it lowers the damage you take. Block is mitigation, it prevents (if your shield block value is high enough)/lowers the damage you take. Dodge and Parry both lower the damage you take to 0, thus count as mitigation.

Dodge is also the only form of preventing damage that a Druid can do. Otherwise, they get hit for full damage or crushing blow.

If you want, I'll change Parry and Dodge to avoidance.

[LadyPeorth]

Well bet everyone was expecting more talents...not today. Today...actually gonna tell you how to tank as a druid. We'll cover five mans and raids. It will be assumed that all raid mobs are taunt immune and all five man mobs are not. Remember this is not always the case.

5-mans:
1) Pull mobs with Faerie Fire/Feral Charge. Depending on the location of your target mobs as well as surrounding mobs, Feral Charge is sometimes the better opener...especially if your ranged DPS happens to be one of those "blow all trinkets on a PoM+Pyro at start" types. It won't save them, but it will but them a little time. If you lack the rage for a feral charge, shift out of bear into Tauren/NE form and then back in. There is really no reason a bear should not be entering a fight with 5 (after Feral charge) to 10 rage.

2) Mangle First, then Lacerate, and if you have the rage, cue Maul. If you don't have enough rage for Lacerate but enough for Maul, use Maul. You want to pump out as much damage for threat as you can. Throw in Demo Roar after 3 Lacerates.

3) Use Mangle whenever it is up and hammer Lacerate. If you still gain rage while doing this, cue Maul up each time till your rage starts to lessen. The Lacerate - Maul combo plus the Mangle every six can drain your rage very fast, but will put out a huge amount of threat.

4) If CC breaks early, try to Feral Charge the mob and Growl. Do NOT Lacerate. Use a Maul or a Mangle to keep the hate on you, but switch back to your normal target. If your normal target is dead, start Lacerating. If not, wait till CC re-controls their mob.

5) Growl every CCed mob before engaging. Healing has a universal aggro on all mobs currently engauge. The first thing you want it to attack is you. It's not necessary to growl/taunt a mob after its been CCed, but it is good practice.

6) If your DPS refuses to counterspell/kick/Earth shock, use Bash. It's on a one minute cool down but it is better than being hit by 1k-2k elemental damage. Otherwise, save Bash for stopping an attacker when Growl is cooling down or for a mid fight heal.

7) Do not try to mid-fight heal often. It looks cool, looks skillful, and can cause wipes. Showboating is fine if you got it down to a science, otherwise don't risk it.

Feral Charge spell interrupts. If you can, use it to engage a caster mob mid-cast.

9) Frenzied Regeneration is marginally helpful. Don't expect it to save your butt and it drains your rage.

10) Don't be afraid to use enrage if vs non-brutal trash . Likewise, if a mob hits for elemental damage only, blow Enrage whenever.

11) If you run out of Rage to mangle, stop cuing Maul till you have enough.

12) If you must tank more than one mob: Mangle + Lacerate, target next one, apply two Mangle, back to first Mangle + Maul + Lacerate x 2, second mob Lacerate, first mob Lacerate x 2 + Mangle. Keep repeating. You want the first DPS target to be only hitting you. Likewise, toss in a swipe every so often to help, but do not rely on swipe alone to hold the hate. If you have to tank three mobs at once, you will be relying on Swipe and Demoralizing Roar. Warn your group to be careful.

13) Don't forget Barkskin. The effect caries over into Bear form and is very helpful if you're going to pull a nasty mob. It'll only last for the start of the fight, but it definitely help.

14) Blow your AoE taunt when things go bad, but remember to try and swipe if 2-3 mobs or at least hit each mob once with some ability.

Raids:
1) Almost always things will be marked. Verify your marks and confirm if you're picking up any CCed mobs afterwards.

2) The more organized you and your raid are, the easier things become. Take time to study the mobs and what abilities they use.

3) When your mob is dead, either grab a new tank target or swap weapons, shift to cat/caster and aid that way. As a druid, you can do many things.

4) If you are an OT, keep your hate in check. Bears can put out serious threat if they're not careful so make sure you're watching threat meters.

5) If while OTing, your rage generation is low, dump all rage you can, swap to caster when safe, then back to bear for rage. Likewise, if anyone has died and you are asked to battle rez/innervate, do so.

6) You might be asked to heal, so make sure you have a "decent" healing set. Feral first...healing second. Druids can definitely play a boy scout (always be prepared) type deal, but don't overload your inventory if you don't have to.

7) If you're AoE taunting, expect to die. Either make sure you can handle it or if you're saving people, they know to run.