This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Live
PTR
10.2.7
PTR
10.2.6
Beta
Fed up with feral
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
Lightrain
Every class has it's utilities. Learn your class. A good rogue stops runners. A good sham will off heal whenever needed. A good kitty dps will do the same, or shift and growl off a mob that is a bit too much for your tank or some adds that wandered in. This is for ALL classes.
Outlands tanking is a bit rough for a learning druid. You have to learn how to tab target and spam high threat abilities. Learning what to use when while tanking is key. Pugs don't help the situation either. They will a lot of times do damage to mobs that aren't the main target, and you have to at least hit each mob once or the healer will pull aggro. Generally, I start with a mangle/maul combo followed by tab swipe a few times, then maul the main target again. hopefully one of these crit. If you get a crit mangle or maul, you put yourself in the lead on threat by a descent margin. Then maul each of the off targets in turn. Make sure you are facing all the mobs attacking you. You won't dodge a mobs attacks when it's behind you.
Tanking is a trial and error skill. You have to do it, and learn the mechanics in order to be good at it. IMO, learn to enjoy tanking. At 70, during your pvp grind, you will most of the time get little to no heals. Soak up the attention while you can enjoy it. =)
Post by
Angelyne
A feral that prefers to DPS is fine. A feral that refuses to tank is not. I think that is the mindset that is frustrating, and those people are out there. There is no "dps spec", feral is a tank/dps spec.
In your example of the versatility that can be brought, a lot of it involved tanking. So long as you're willing to do it, great. If not, you really are just a huntard that refuses to trap.
I guess we aren't thinking of the same thing when we use the term "tanking". For me tanking an instance is being MT throughout. You are doing all the marks, and making all the pulls and bearing a lot of the responsibility for wipes. That is what i find stressful. Just going bear to growl a tank off a squishy, or taking over for a pull because the MT is afk, is not tanking in my mind (although in strict terms it is). Does anyone actually say no, I won't go bear for any reason? Geeze make a rogue then. I was doing SM a while back and we had a druid who refused to heal. I was healing (as a feral lol) and would, for obvious reason, run out of mana pretty quickly. So during a longer fight i am OOM, I ask the druid, please heal the tank. He said I don't heal and the tank died......./kick
I have a (sorta) funny story from last night. I was asked to tank SL. I told the guy, that I rather not as it was not a good instance for a druid who is still a beginner tank. (lots of multi pulls and there was only one cc in the group). He says ok, have fun. 10 minutes later, he asks again, hey can you tank anyway? I laughed and told him he must be really desperate. But I agree anyway so long as he realizes that I'm a noob tank. So we did it. We did wipe many a times (not all were my fault), but we got through it all, including the last boss. Funny thing is I actually found the bosses easy to tank. It's those damn multi pulls that I hate. Don't think i'll do it again, until there is more cc in the group.
Post by
121787
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
116387
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Angelyne
How about the strategy of pulling your secondary target with moonfire (and maybe 2 secondary targets if you are quick) in other to gain some lead time to establish aggro.
Post by
JamieK
just say your cat dps. there shouldnt be arguements about it its plain and simple you dont wana tank.
This is the most frustrating mindset currently prevalent among Feral Druids.
An equally geared feral druid will rarely beat another equally geared rogue. Rogues are meant for DPS. Druids sacrifice DPS capabilities for the ability to tank. That is what the Feral tree is all about: versatility in groups and raids. The idea of a feral druid being "purely DPS" is like a mage being "purely DPS": no sheeping, no CC, nothing but Scorch and Fireball spam.
Sure, you can claim to be "only DPS", but it will greatly reduce your chances of getting into groups, as well as propogate a bad reputation for feral druids amongst the gaming population.
Dude, just because a rogue does better dps, doesn't mean everyone that wants to do dps has to be a rogue.
I have a feral druid and i hate healing AND Tanking, i have tried them both and i honestly sucked at it and i
Post by
144872
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
JamieK
You really do not get it.
so, i am not going to repeat myself.
I don't mind off-tanking, but i refuse to tank full time.....if i wanted to do that crap, i would have rolled a warrior.
But your immature sarcasm is not helping this topic.
Just because i don't like healing or tanking fulltime or that i didn't have fun playing my rogue, doesn't mean i am a quitter.
So, are you telling me, you would pay to play a game to play a class you didn't find enjoyable or a role you didn't enjoy??
If you would, you are a sucker.
What i was saying, in my opinion, just because you think it should be like this, or like that, doesn't mean it should be like that for everyone, the world doesn't revolve around you.
I was just saying, that a Feral druid shouldn't be forced to tank full time with any request to do some dps to be laughed at, then ordered to just tank or f**k off.
I hate tanking, it doesn't mean i wouldn't offtank some mobs, you know if its required, but i primarily prefer to dps and i honestly found the rogue boring.
Being able to change into a cat is really cool and MUCH more enjoyable then the rogue and bringing up that stupid Kitty adventure game is just really pathetic.
I just personally see it, that if you don't particually like being the main tank, you shouldn't be demanded to do it in EVERY damn group you join.
I would be happy with something like this.
'Hey, can you main tank?'
'well, i don't really like main tanking, though off-tanking, i don't mind doing, but i enjoy doing dps'
'ohhh, i see, ok, i will mark with a *diamond* that you will need to tank until the main tank can get the aggro'
that would be fine.
but this however....
'hey, can you tank?'
'Well, i don't really enjoy main tanking, but i wouldn't mind off-tanking, i enjoy dps far more'
'oh......dude, reroll a rogue you f**king noob'
is NOT ok.
that is the type of thing i HATE on this bloody game, i just think this game would be more enjoyable if players would accept the classes to do any role that its capable of doing it.
Nothing wrong with that.
Post by
109094
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
JamieK
Well, i get into a hissy, when they say druids can't dps at all, its just really stupid.
Post by
Kaitain
Well, i get into a hissy, when they say druids can't dps at all, its just really stupid.
I understand you don't like immature PuG players telling you what role to play, nobody does, but for raids it's an entirely different story.
The Raid Leader has to design optimum synergy within the groups. To raid at a high level into end-game 25-man content is not about what roles people like to play, it's about what the raid needs. A lot of classes can do a lot more DPS than cats if played right, and Raid Leaders want to maximize the raid DPS in any way they can, so your DPS output simply doesn't justify you being brought along primarily as a DPSer. You provide the mangle debuff, which is nice, but as far as i understand it only affects rogues using rupture (and other feral druids that are not tanking). You have your group aura (5% crit), but other classes also have buffs and debuffs to consider, so that aura is really not needed in more than 1 group.
End result: in 25 man raids, you are likely to be the only feral druid in the raid, and you are likely to be told to tank and off-tank a majority of the time. If you are not accepting of that reality, you won't get far in endgame PvE. To a lesser extent this is true in 10 man content as well.
Having said all that, that you are wanting to do Raiding is only very vaguely implied in your posts so i'm not sure this is fully relevant. But if you do go that way, be aware of what the situation is.
Post by
144872
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Scammich
I have to agree with Foley.
If you are raiding as a feral in 10 or 25 man content, you will be tanking. I pretty much have bear gear on unless it is a boss fight that only requires one tank. As we buff for the boss fight, I switch to cat gear and get to rip and shred to my hearts content. We typically raid with 2 feral druids. Myself and one other. I am mainly in the melee group while he is in the tank group.
When we do trash, I always have bear gear on, even if I was not assigned a target, once you get into 25 man content you need lots of tanks running around, keeping mobs off DPS and healers. I do not like tanking in 5 mans, but will do it. For those that don't like tanking 5 mans, 25 mans is much easier tanking on a bear druid.
1. The group is obviously organized enought to get through content, so you don't have to worry about someone hitting on something that shouldn't be.
2. Multiple tanks are employed (which is another reason feral druids are great) most of the time at least 3 tanks are holding crap on trash. If 2 of them happen to be bears, they can switch to dps mode when not needed to tank, especially on boss fights.
3. Our aggro generation is ridiculous, not many people are pulling aggro off something you've been beating on, waiting for it's turn in the rotation to die, unless they don't have salv, or you forgot to take it off from when you were kitty (oops)
I lost my point... oh, you are going to have to tank as feral in raids. You will get time to kitty deeps, but if I told the GM, I don't bring tank gear I am strictly Deeps, he would laugh and replace me. We will never do enough dps to warrant a primary dps role. Once I got over the fact that I will always do dps in the 4-8 range depending on what is going on, I became comfortable with my role in life. I am there to tank on trash or when things get bad, I'm there for B-Rez and innervate, I'm there for my crit aura, and I'm there to provide DPS when I'm not doing those things. Oh, don't forget you can heal and cast tranquility. When the raid is taking massive damage, I'll pop out and throw my tranquility out. It eases the raid helaing a bit on tough boss fights, and makes me feel like a contributing part of the team when I see the melee near death and then get back to full health.
Know your roll as a feral and you will love it, refuse to contribute any of those aspects that make us a great raid member and you are fail.
Post by
Scammich
Sorry, forgot to add. I understand the other posters comment about 5 mans. Yes it sucks that people are not usually accepting of the fact that ferals can dps, but because of the limited nature of a 5 man, you aren't going to have many opportunities to DPS unless you make the group yourself and bring a tank and healer.
I've DPS'ed many 5 mans and have only done so because I knew the people I was grouping with. People are going to expect feral's to tank, especially with how hard it is to find tanks and healers for 5 mans. DPS is easily replaced in those scenarios, a tank or healer is not. It's like a QB for a football team compared to a HB. You can run an offense technically without a HB, but you can't without a QB. Guess what? We're the TE.
Post by
109094
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Angelyne
To be fair, the OP said he didn't mind off-tanking which is usually what a druid does in a raid anyway. He just doesn't like being a main tank.
And I fully understand his position. Tanking is actually difficult and requires a specific skillset. Pretty much anyone can DPS. You just need to be able to follow instructions and know your spells/abilities. Tanking is a different matter.
I find tanking very difficult. To me the biggest difficulty is trying to keep track of all the mobs in a battle. It's challenging enough to try to hold 1,2 or 3 mobs already. Then I have to keep an eye out for the ones that break away from CC and beat on the squishies. Its like trying to juggle in the street while dodging incoming cars.
Did the old Hillsbrad Foothills instance last night where I was DPS. The tank was pretty unexperienced (like me). We wiped at the final battle where you assist Thrall in gaining his freedom. Then we started again and this time I stayed bear and OT and made sure to fight in sight of to the healer and taunt off any mob that tried to beat him up. That worked beautifully. Then i went cat to fight the big boss.
I thought that was great. Got to DPS got to OT, got to innervate the healer, even got to use hibernate on the dragonkin. (no battle rez this time around, but the last one I saved the fight by rezzing the healer).
Personally, I think that in some ways, it's better to have a DPS cat in a group than a Bear tank. If you are tanking, that's pretty much all you can do. Are you really going to break form to cast innervate or battle rez the healer while you got 3+ mobs beating on you ? Maybe. Unlikely it will work as you are probably low in health by then.
The name of the game of a druid is versatility, but when you are main tanking you loose a lot of that versatility because you are by necessity locked into your role.
I think that because of the shortage of tanks, and the fact that our DPS kinda sucks we were railroaded into being either tanks or healer.
Post by
111881
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Angelyne
Do you like that build Podog. I had a similar one and respeced to get primal tenacity and feral aggression and dropped nurturing instinct and Natural Shapeshifter. Now I find that my heal sucks and that I am always oom. Yet I seemed to still get feared as much as before.
I might just go back to my previous build.
Post by
144872
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Angelyne
Thank you for that extremely insightful post Foley. I shall henceforth refer all new druids and struggling new tanks to this post as it is for sure THE definitive post on tanking. Now I have everything I need to know. LEARN TO PLAY YOUR CLASS and remember to use four 4 finger unless you are maimed. I expect, with this advice, to be a master tank as soon as I log on this afternoon.
.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.