PvE Feral Tank Druid
Best Professions
Pre-Raid Gear
Best in Slot (BiS)
As a Feral Druid tank you’re going to be a highly sought after addition to a raid group as an off-tank. Not only do Druids bring great utility, but there’s so much overlap between tanking Feral and DPS Feral that during one-tank fights or fights with downtime for the off-tank you can really get some licks in on the boss!
Feral Tank Druid in Cataclysm
In Bear Form you’ll have excellent survivability, solid AoE and ST threat, and provide your raid with plenty of bonuses for existing. When you don’t need to be a big burly bear to absorb hits you can go straight into Cat Form and show up your raid’s DPS players with considerable output of your own. For information on how to sharpen your claws to get your DPS up to snuff, check out the PvE Feral DPS Druid Guide! Since the two share the same talents for the most part the rotation and playstyle will be largely the same.
With Cataclysm comes some useful tools and major quality of life options that really make bear tanks a lot more fun to play! First off, you’ll have Feral Aggression giving you the ability to stack Faerie Fire to max on your target with a single cast. Lacerate now only stacks up to 3 times. Between the two of those quality of life buffs, you’ll have a lot more room in your rotation to press other buttons (Although your rotation will remain fairly simple, still). We also have a new AoE spell, Thrash, that should make it much easier to hold threat in larger packs. A big utility buff is introduced with Stampeding Roar allowing us to boost movespeed of any raid/group members within 10 yards by a whopping 60%! And lastly, our defensive cooldowns have been changed so that Survival Instincts is a 50% flat damage reduction and Frenzied Regeneration gives a 30% increase to max health as well as a buff to our healing received. Both are very strong, but are on long cooldowns.
You’ll also still have Rebirth and Innervate as added utility that you bring to a raid, but make sure not to shift out of bear until you’re safe to do so or all that utility will eat dirt alongside your squishy humanoid body!
Feral Tank Druid Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths
- Large Health Pool
What might one-shot another puny humanoid tank could be shrugged off by your mighty bear visage. You get an absolute ton of free stats through Bear Form that can make you quite the beefy bear. This will also help you out a bit when getting pummeled in bear and stacking your Vengeance passive. - Great Utility
Whether it be the easy application of Faerie Fire, a b-rez with Rebirth, a raid-wide movement speed buff with Stampeding Roar, raid buffs with Mark of the Wild and Leader of the Pack, or being a mana battery for your healers via Innervate you’ll bring something to every raid group! - Can Easily Flex Into an Extra DPS
As said earlier, you share most of the same talents with your Feral DPS counterpart as well as still make use of Agility. The fight only requires one tank? Maybe there’s a big chunk of downtime where you’re not getting wailed on? Easy, smash that Cat Form and get those murder mittens ready! Your damage output is going to be better than other tanks in similar gear – a huge boon to get you into raid groups.
Weaknesses
- Less Defensive Options Than Some Other Tanks
While you do have strong defensive options in Survival Instincts and Frenzied Regeneration, they’re both rather long cooldowns. You also rely more on mitigation (Things like Dodge), your large health pool, and armor rather than shielding or blocking damage. This can make you tougher to heal as it’ll use more resources to keep you topped up. - Gearing Can be Awkward
You’ve got a few things going against you besides the fact that you’re a tank and just a lower priority in general. One, you wear leather gear. Two, you still use Agility. Three, you’re the only tanking class in this position in Cataclysm. This puts you in an odd position where you might have to fight over gear with DPS players, and at the same time you’ll have less tank-focused pieces to potentially get.
Best Races for Feral Tank Druids in Cataclysm
Horde
HordeTroll
A strong option for more DPS-focused interests with the Berserking and Beast Slaying racials at your disposal. While you will also have Regeneration to help out with self-healing, it’s not enough to make this race worthy of consideration on its own.
Tauren
For those looking to beef up their tankiness, this is going to be your best bet on the Horde side. Endurance will offer a 5% increase to our base health. While this doesn’t account for health gained from gear, it’s still free stats that we make good use of. Nature Resistance is also present, but nothing to write home about.
Alliance
AllianceNight Elves
Surprisingly the Night Elves are the tankier of the two options on Alliance side with their Quickness giving some free mitigation and the underwhelming Nature Resistance helping out as well. That said, neither of these racials are game-changing.
Worgen
Worgen have some benefits in that they offer Viciousness, which gives a free 1% critical strike chance. Darkflight also gives us another speed boost option, which is always welcome to help with positioning as a tank. Since a lot of our draw is going to be the damage we can do as an off-tank, this is likely going to be the superior of the two options for Alliance. They also have an excellent introductory area for those seeking to level from scratch.
