Tanks with large furry bottoms everywhere are rejoicing at the recent post of Pantone of Mal’Ganis wherein she reveals a macro to allow bears to use potions midcombat:

#show Lesser Healing Potion /castSequence [stance:1] reset=3 Dire Bear Form, Lifebloom /stopcasting /use Lesser Healing Potion /stopcasting /use Master Healthstone /stopcasting /cast [nostance] Dire Bear Form

Purportedly, this macro can shift you in and out between 0.5 and 0.7 seconds depending upon latency. Sadly, our ursine brethren still lack the ability to use potions while shifted. Let’s hope for the addition of a right-clickable potion hat some time soon.

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So lately I’ve seen another spate of threads on the Shoulderpads of Assassination. Rogues complain that Druids roll on them, that they are selfish and little better than thieves. Druids complain that Rogues are selfish and narrow-minded.

So here’s the deal: In Auchindoun, the dungeon complex in Terokkar Forest’s Bone Wastes, there is a place called the Sethekk Halls. The final boss of Sethekk drops the Shoulderpads of Assassination. These are one of 3 leather Dungeon 3 armor sets. The set bonuses for the Assassination Armor are clearly Rogue-centric. Still, there is no class label on them.

As a result, Feral Druids want these shoulders for tanking. Tanking, you say? Why the hell would Bears want those things for tanking? Rogues use them for DPS, after all. Well, that’s what’s at issue.

Short of raiding, there are only a few sets of shoulders that measure up. Common wisdom holds, in fact, that these are the best pre-raid non-PvP shoulders available, primarily according to Emmerald’s list. Interesting that they don’t actually hold that spot.

Still, they hold spot 13 overall, and of those that meet the criteria there are only 5 pieces that rate better, all greens. Looking down the list to the set that is widely regarded as the ‘Feral’ set, we find the Wastewalker Shoulderpads clocking in at 24 overall with 5 greens of Stamina or of the Monkey between them and the Assassination shoulders. Sitting at 35 on the list is the one that most Rogues tell us to go get, the Sun-Gilded Shouldercaps, or as we like to call them, Boob Shoulders.

So the complaints are rolling in from random Rogues on the Druid forums complaining that Druids ninja’d their shoulders and Druids shoot back that they’re the best pre-raid non-PvP shoulders we can get. Who’s right? Both? Neither? Do we care?

Well, the root of the problem is craptacular itemization for Bears. Still. After all the wonderful changes that HAVE gone in for Bear Tanks, the fact is that the people making items still don’t know how to itemize for Feral Druids. Certainly we have some apparent flukes like the high armor quest rewards, the Earthwarden and the Heavy Clefthoof set, but when you start to check the Dungeon sets and the Tier 4-5 sets, it begins falling apart all over again.

So what do Druid Tanks do? We pick up Rogue gear. See, high armor is important – very important – but equally important are Stamina and Agility, and Wastewalker is seriously lacking Stamina. I’m not sure anyone can make a good case for a tank settling for an item with half the Stamina sported by an alternative.

What’s interesting is that according to the method used by Emmerald to determine the usefulness of an item for a Bear, there are 5 green items that rank better than the Assassination shoulders. Interestingly, the only options of these I’d really consider are the ‘of the Monkey’ items. Stamina items, while nice, are single-stat items and lack mitigation beyond armor and health. The Monkey items at least add crit and dodge in addition.

So, we ask ourselves, why shouldn’t a Bear Tank just pick up some Dragonhawk Shoulderguards of the Monkey?

Two reasons:

First, they are greens with random enchants. This alone ensures that you may never see them drop or see them up for sale. Their very nature means that I have a better chance to see Assassination shoulders drop…more than once. Statistically, the Assassination shoulders are just more accessible.

Second, why should Druid tanks be denied decent enough itemization that they HAVE to turn to Dragonhawk shoulders? Something smells funny here, and it may not just be my wet fur.

I wear the Assassination shoulders. I socketed and enchanted them. I love them. How did I get them? Simple. I ran Sethekk with my friends. I helped a guild Rogue get his and he helped me get mine. I’d certainly have rolled on them against any Rogue I didn’t know personally and I’d have made this clear from the start. That way, if anyone takes issue, we get it out of the way before the run commences. Some people may not be happy with this method, but until the shoulders say Class: Rogue on them, they’re fair game for anyone that can and will use them.

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Boubouille over at MMO-Champion recently posted an in depth preview of patch 2.1.0 (registration required to view) which — among tons of other content — includes pictures of Tier 6 armor for all of the classes. Every time the graphics for a new tier of armor is released, it gives me hope that the previous tiers will somehow become more accessible, but I suppose that’s the original EverQuest player in me. I don’t like the look of the druid Tier 6 armor, but I suppose we look like totems in treeform so we may as well look like totems out of treeform, too. As always, the priest equivalent looks amazing, and I admit to feeling armor envy. I wish someone would tell the basement programmers at Blizzard that nature includes more colors than green and brown. There are purple mountains, blue skies, and every other color in flowers. I’d like to see more colors incorporated into some of our armor sets.

The stats on all Tier 5 armor are also getting an overhaul, and the MMO-Champion article includes links to the updated Nordrassil Harness (Feral), Raiment (Restoration), and Regalia (Balance) sets. In addition to the armor preview, the Gift of the Wild spell icon is getting a facelift. Before my dual-purpose macro for casting Mark/Gift, I created a macro that used a different icon for my Gift spell, so it’s nice to see them recognize and correct this annoyance.

There is a ton of additional information applicable to all classes — including all new jewelcrafting recipes, Darkmoon Faire upgrades, new mounts and weapon graphics, and reputation guides for Skyguards and Netherdrakes — so be sure to check out the article for yourself!

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Ah, the wonders of patch day. What will it bring? How will I react? Will my character’s capabilities be recognizable? How many of my mods will break? All questions every World of Warcraft player asks whenever the new patch rolls.

Luckily, we get to see them to up on the Test Realm and since they rarely change before going live, we can safely assume the changes are accurate. Going down the list, here’s what matters to Bear Tanks.

• Epic Flight Form

This one takes us back to Sethekk Halls, a place many of us have come to despise after running it over and over for our shoulders we had to deathmatch Rogues in order to get. According to the testers, we pay for the skill up front before embarking on the quest so those that bought their epic mounts beforehand aren’t screwed. This is a good thing. The new boss may be a summonable like those for the Dungeon 2 questlines, or it may just be an addition to the dungeon. No news on that front that I’ve seen.

So I suppose this doesn’t really have anything to do with Druid tanks, but it’s something we’re all interested in. After all, who doesn’t want twin plasma cannons?

• Barkskin

The duration is dropping to 12 seconds and the cooldown reduced to 1 minute. Not a bad tradeoff considering it can now be used in forms and during some conditions.

• Feral Charge

Oooh, a nice change here. Anyone that tanked Ras Frostwhisper back in the day or has PvP’d against a Frost Mage will appreciate that Feral Charge isn’t affected by slowing effects anymore. I think our groups will appreciate that, too.

• Mangle

So Mangle, after receiving a fairly severe nerf in the last big patch, is being rebuffed. It’s getting a +15% damage shift and an accompanying -15% to threat generation. Theoretically this means it will be more useful for PvP and perhaps when things go south when soloing while not boosting our tanking threat, an area that’s showing more and more concern from the developers.

• Equipment

This is, perhaps, the most exciting thing about the patch notes. In it, at least 6 pieces of Feral gear used by tanks are being reworked. I’ll start with the one true nerf.

Supple Leather Boots are losing 30 Attack Power and gaining a mere 3 Strength. A nerf, but it sure makes picking the boots from the Heavy Clefthoof set easier for those that haven’t made the shift already. Read on.

The Heavy Clefthoof set is being redone, and when the changes were first announced, I nearly panicked. They told us that the armor would be increased but that the Stamina and Defense would be going down. All I could think was that since my armor already broke 20k I didn’t desperately need more but that I did need more health since I don’t quite have 12.5k unbuffed health.

My fears were for nothing. Between the three pieces of Heavy Clefthoof, we are gaining 658 armor, losing 23 Stamina, and losing 12 Defense Rating.

Those of us with Thick Hide will be gaining more than 3.5k AC from this while losing a miniscule amount of Stamina overall. Defense also suffers but ultimately it’s only a drop of 5 or 6 points of Defense. I have 430 right now myself and since I only benefit from half Defense’s features losing a bit for other stats is just fine.

The real balancing of this comes in the buffs to Earthwarden and Braxxis’ Staff of Slumber. Both items are getting 39 Stamina, making the Heavy Clefthoof Stamina nerf ultimately a buff. After all, I don’t know any serious Druid tanks that aren’t using one of those two items unless they’ve found an epic that’s better (I think I saw one on the boards, but I can’t remember for sure). Most of us are going to use one of these two weapons, though, due to the fact that any Druid can acquire them given enough time – no access to raiding required. Even those that get better will likely start with these and use them extensively.

What I find funny about this is how many Druid tanks on the official boards are just now saying that this is THE pre-T5 tanking set. In my humble opinion it always has been. Certainly there are other items that previously had more armor, but the sacrifice in Defense and Stamina was rarely worth the tradeoff. Regardless, more and more Druids will now be seen in the getup I’m wearing already, one that makes me look like an extra from a Mad Max movie or a Dungeons and Dragons 3/3.5 character in their dungeonpunk aesthetic.

Regardless, this patch is a good one for Druid tanks, no question.

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In the all-too-frequent comparisons of druids and priests as primary healers, one of the tools that generally stands out is the priest ability Fade. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this ability:

The exact effect of this ability is to reduce a priest’s threat level by 1500 points for 10 seconds. At the end of ten seconds, a priest regains those 1500 points of threat. The assumption is that the 10 second reprieve of Fade will allow a priest to scale back her healing so that the tank can regain aggro. It should also prevent a priest from having to exacerbate the problem of gaining healing aggro by healing herself.

Until recently, aggro reduction was an ability limited only to priests and rogues. However, when content patch 1.9, the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj, went live an epic-colored trinket quietly made its way among the Revered rewards for Cenarion Circle:

That sounds suspiciously like the description for the priest class ability, Fade, with the added benefit that the threat reduction isn’t time-limited but is actually a permanent threat reduction. At the time, Fade (Rank 6) was the highest available with a threat reduction of 820 points. So for a mere month of ridiculously arduous reputation grinding in Silithus, land of a thousand bugs, a druid (or anyone else) could have a permanent threat reduction equal to 80% of that available to priests! Also notable is that, unlike the rogue ability Feint, the effect of this trinket is not targeted; it effects all hostile creatures within 30 yards.

I completed the reputation/badge grinds necessary to obtain this item four months before the BC release. While I found it to be useful in raids, I frequently used my Mindtap Talisman and Royal Seal of Eldre’Thalas instead. It really wasn’t until the release of the Burning Crusade and an almost endless number of 5-man instance runs that I have come to appreciate the benefit of these items.

I presently have one trinket slot dedicated to having one of these items equipped at all times. I use the TrinketMenu addon to queue my threat reduction trinkets in order of decreasing power. This ensures that a fresh trinket is swapped in whenever I’ve exited combat after using one, allowing me to perma-fade at least once a combat. Trinketmenu also lets you bind a key to each of your trinkets, allowing you to respond instantly when an enraged mob comes charging at you, causing him to do an immediate about-face toward your tank.

For those of you interested in trying this tactic out for yourself, here’s a list of the aggro-reduction items that I’ve found, their relative strengths and weaknesses, and how to acquire them:

Acquired from the quest Voidwalker’s Gone Wild in Hellfire Peninsula. Arguably the easiest of the threat reduction items to obtain.

Drop from Grandmaster Vorpil in Shadow Labyrinth. Highest value available outside of those requiring a reputation grind.

Acquired at Exalted reputation with the Keepers of Time faction. Shortest cooldown of any of the aggro reduction items and some very nice stats while equipped.

The obvious downside of using the above items is the loss of one or more trinket slots. Which is a small price to pay for the ability to emulate the core ability of another class, especially when you consider that the effects on a trinket are often on-use anyway. Nonetheless, here are some additional options to consider if you don’t want to forfeit a trinket. They can also be used in conjunction with one or more of the above if you prefer:

Purchased from the Sporeggar at Honored reputation. It has one of the lowest threat modifiers, and you’d be giving up a cape slot to use it. Nonetheless, I will sometimes equip both the cape and an aggro-reducing trinket on fights I know are likely to be problematic for my tank.

The recipe for Shrouding Potions can be purchased and learned at Exalted reputation with Sporeggar. They require 3 Ragveil and 1 Netherbloom to make and reduce your threat by 800. The downside? They share a cooldown timer with Mana and Health potions.

Aggro-Reduction Immunity:

Some mobs, most notably who have wonky aggro to begin with, are immune to the effects provided by these items. It’s worth remembering which of these mobs cannot be affected so that you don’t waste a cooldown for a higher value trinket trying to survive (and, presumably, find some other means of survival). Fel Overseers from Shadow Labyrinth and Moroes from Karazhan are two such mobs.

Rules of Threat Generation:

1. Each point of healing done generates 1/2 the amount of threat for each point of damage done.
2. For the mob to turn to you, you must exceed the tank’s threat by 10%. If you’re standing outside of melee range, you must exceed the tanks’s threat by 30%. This makes the strategy of standing near mobs which AOE fear in the hopes of getting feared along with your tank more dangerous should you be unlucky enough to resist since you’ll be more likely to attract his attention than any casters foolish enough to be standing at range. (As of Patch 2.3, mobs that cast Fear no longer reprioritize their targets by who remains unfeared.0
3. Both the Priest and Druid class have 5-point talents in their healing-focused talent trees to reduce healing threat across the board by up to 30%, and warriors can increase or decrease the amount of threat they generate depending upon their choice of stance (Defensive versus Berserker).
4. Finally, you must exceed the threat value of another player by 10% before the mob will switch its target to you.

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