The Disappearance of the Bear

Wow.com today ran a good piece on bear tanks: The Disappearance of the Bear. This is a topic near and dear to my heart. As bear tank, I was our guilds main tank throughout Burning Crusade and our Karazhan runs. However, after leveling my bear to 80 and running Naxx with my bear, I quickly became very disillusioned about my spec. Pally tanks were basically better at everything, especially AOE threat. So eventually, I switched to Resto and then Balance and stopped tanking on my druid altogether. That was a sad day for me. Balance is a lot of fun and I am doing well with the spec, but i will always be a bear tank in my heart.

I think the article hits on a lot of reasons why bear tanks are quickly becoming extinct on WOW, but it lacks focus. To me, there are only a few main reasons for the decline. In my opinion, the problems with bear tanks are pretty specific to 10 man raids and heroics.  Which is what the vast majority of players run in the game. Too often, Blizzard focuses is on 25 man raiding guilds which represents a vary small percentage of the player population.

Here are the reasons I see for the decline in bear tanks.

(1) Druid Tanks are Single Target Threat Tanks in an AOE World
No one uses crowd control any more. Ever! So AOE threat generation is a requirement to tank. Druid tanks have the weakest AOE threat of any tank in Wrath. Pally and DK tanks are vastly superior in this area.

(2) Lousy Itemization
I know you are supposed to get Rogue gear and tank with it. But it doesn't "feel" like tank gear. It feels like you are the red headed step child who gets everything as hand me downs. Plate tanking gear has a lot of stamina on it. Heck, feral tanking gear had a lot stamina. Rogue gear does not. So it just feels wrong for tanking.

Plus as pointed out in the article, it can be difficult to get when several people are rolling for the same thing.


(3) Nothing Outstanding about Bear Tanks
In Burning Crusade bear tanks had amazing health and physical damage mitigation. We were the preferred tank against magic wielding bosses because of that extra health. I don't think there is anything about a bear tank in Wrath that makes it superior as a tank. Pally's have really nice self healing abilities. Death Knights have all those cool anti-magic spells.

What did Druids get?  Some sort of invisible damage absorbing bubble that only procs on crits and last for 1 hit. Cool....  Not!!!! You can make all the excuses you want. But the bottom line is, Druid tanks are currently an inferior option in the game. While they remain one, their numbers will continue to shrink.

PVP Tip: Kill the Healer First

If you play Alliance in the Vengeance battle group you have probably heard this 100 times: Kill the *#!*ing healer. Now the reason it gets said so much is that pick up groups often fail to use this basic tactic when PVPing. Failing to kill an opposing healer quickly, usually leads to lost objectives and lost battlegrounds.

By ignoring a healer on an opposing team, you are essentially making all their DPS classes invincible.  I don't know how many times, I have seen team members ridiculously throwing their toon at a Warrior or Death Knight with a healer standing right behind their foe. It only takes 1 or 2 folks in a group to do this and your attack or defense of an objective will end in an epic fail. So what to do?

Detecting a Healer

The first step is to simply detect the healers presence. Green swirlies around an opposing toon is a dead give away. :)  Pay attention to the health bar, if it gets topped off, healer. Most melee classes have some sort of healing abilities, but only Palidins and healing classes typically can top of their health.

Targeting the Healer

Once you have figured out your current opponent is getting healed, you need to find the healer. Now a lot of healers can be pretty arrogant and will just stand in the open and heal. Thus, they are very easy to find and target. Good healers will try to hide themselves somehow. Behind some terrain, a building, whatever. In that case, your tab targeting should pick them up.

When starting a fight with another group, any DPS class should be looking for healing classes and targeting them first, period. You may want to CC other classes if you can, but eliminate the healer must come first.

Killing the Healer

Killing some healers in PVP can be extremely difficult, resto druids for example. But once you have targeted a healer, your primary goal should be to harass them. Make them put the focus on their toon and only. This will give other players a chance to actually kill a few of the opposing team. Also, since most players like to focus DPS other toons, by you attacking a healer, you are more likely to pick up help taking the healer down.

As far as making the actual kill, stuns are generally the most effective tactic against any healing class. If you can stun a healer at less than 20% health, you have a chance of bursting them down. Of course mortal strikes, silences, and such work well too.

So next time you PVP, remember the opposing teams are not invincible, they just have a healer. Find it and kill it first.

Resto Druid Pre-Naxx Gear - Part I

Recently, I was able to purchase the dual spec option for my Feral druid. After trying Boomkin and being very disappointed with their PVP survivability, I tried a Restoration (Resto) spec and love it. So over the past few weeks the gearing up process is in full swing. Here is some of the information discovered during that process.

With the new season of arena, last season's arena gear is purchasable with honor. And given the gear's quality, there are a number of items in this list. If you are not a PVPer, I highly recommend doing the Wintergrasp weekly quests. Usually, there are so many people in there, no one will notice you aren't into PVP. Just stay near the action to complete the quests and you will have enough honor to purchase something in a few weeks.

There are are only a few good items for each slot. Not a lot of itemization for druids. If you have a weak item in a slot, check out the Overcast crafted set. It includes very solid pieces that can be used as a baseline for building your set. Many of those pieces are included in this list.

Update 6/6: Rearranged the data a little bit. Comments at top, made list more tabular.

Head
Helm of Anomalus would seem the best overall. But the PVP and vendor options are also good.

Hateful Gladiator's Kodohide Helm - PVP Honor, 49600
Helm of Anomalus - Heroic Drop, 21%, Anomalus in The Nexus.
Helm of the Majestic Stag - Vendor, Honored with the Kirin Tor
Overcast Headguard - Leatherworking, AH

Shoulders
Not a lot of options for the shoulders.

Hateful Gladiator's Kodohide Spaulders - PVP Honor, 31600
Silent Spectator Shoulderpads - Heroic Drop, 22%, Svala Sorrowgrave Utgarde Pinnacle.
Overcast Spaulders - Leatherworking, AH

Back
Really like the Deadly cloak here. But there are lots of options.

Deadly Gladiator's Cloak of Deliverance - PVP Honor, 38000
Wispcloak - Tailoring. AH. Often found on auction house for 600G.
Reanimator's Cloak - Drop, low rate, Trash in Drak'theron Keep, BOE
Shroud of Moorabi - Heroic Drop, 24%, Gundrak, Moorabi
Subterranean Waterfall Shroud - Heroic Drop, 20%, Akn'kahet: The Old Kindgom, Jedoga Shadowseeker.

Wrist
There are some good options for the wrist. Really like Culling of Strat drop here.

Deadly Gladiator's Armwraps of Salvation - PVP Honor, 31600
Plague-Infected Bracers - Heroic Drop, 11%, Chest after Mal'ganis, Culling of Strat.
Handler's Arm Strap - Heroic Drop, 21%, King Drek, Drak'tharon Keep
Wound-Binder's Wristguards - Vendor, Honored Knights of the Ebon blade
Overcast Bracers - Leatherworking

Hands
Not a lot of options here. So I have included one cloth piece I actually use as well.

Hateful Gladiator's Kodohide Gloves - PVP Honor, 31,600
Grotto Mist Gloves - Heroic Drop, 21%, Hadronox, Azjul-Nerub
Gloves of Northern Lordaeron - Normal Drop, 18%, Chest after Mal'Ganis in Culling of Strat.
Overcast Handguards - Leatherworking
Moonshroud Gloves - Tailoring

Chest
Very limited options here. The UP drop is very good. BOE item so you may be able to buy at AH.

Hateful Gladiator's Kodohide Robes - PVP Honor, 49600
Ymirjar Physician's Robe - Drop, Low rate, Trash in Utgarde Pinnacle
Overcast Chestguard - Leatherworking


Waist
Another slot with pretty limited options. The PVP belt or Hall of Lightning belts seem to be he best options here. 40 Badges for a belt seems a little ridiculous to me.

Deadly Gladiator's Belt of Salvation - PVP Honor, 49600
Vine Belt of the Woodland Dryad - Vendor, 40 Heroism Badges
Belt of Vivacity - Heroic Drop, 21%, Halls of Lightning, Volkhan
Overcast Belt - Leatherworking


Legs
The Earthgiving legguards rock. Better start saving your gold now. :)

Earthgiving Legguards - Leatherworking.
Hateful Gladiator's Kodohide Legguards - PVP Honor, 49600
Kilt of the Forgotten One - Heroic Drop, 19%, Akn'kahet: The Old Kindgom, Herald Volazj
Overcast Leggings - Leatherworking


Feet
The crafted boots look like a good option here.

Deadly Gladiator's Boots of Salvation - PVP Honor, 39600
Earthgiving Boots - Leatherworking
Boots of Transformation - Heroic Drop, 20%, Gundrak, Gal'darah
Overcast Boots - Leatherworking

Summary

Hopefully, you can get some decent gear one way or the other. In part II, I will go over weapons and accessories to complete your set.

Welcome

Welcome to Warcraft Casual! This is a blog devoted to the casual player. Folks who play 4 to 16 hrs a week and like 10 man raids, heroics, alts, leveling, questing, and battleground PVP. The typical WOW player. Hope you enjoy it!