tankspot video on bear tank is FAIL bigg time, i watched it once and just thougt for me self that when ever i se anyone post a link to it and saying its good id be there saying its not…

you can go look at my feral tank gear i use atm. Alchmoi on Talnivarr EU, im afk from wow atm but i think youd se my gear still on armory.

and btw its my offspec, my mainspec is resto =)

http://quickarmory.com/?n=alchmoi&r=EU-Talnivarr
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0ZEGGscrzceRcczVkbA0z:0nzzmM

I keep maul on CD more or less always. and if i need the extra rage i just skip it one cd .
use FF in the pull/charge moment if i got the time.
always have demo up on my targets (also spec for 40% extra reduction.)
and put out lacerate 2at a time, more if dps is slow in start. and then i just keep it up, max stacked on the boss. maul when i need to have the debuff up.

with my gear i can get to 45K raidbuffed, and still im not the best geared. also im not the best dodge tank either. but then again i dont take mutch dmg. in a 25man raid im like 71-72% dmg reduction on mele hits (spelldmg dmg can be hard if its huge.) i prefer armor/agi/stam/dodge on my gear. and i will be taking out the armor trinket when i get to the point i have enough emblems for that. just to get as close as possible to the 75% dmg reduction cap.

imp mangle = nono… dont need it its just a debuff not a TPS thing (thou it does actually make one do more dmg by just having it on the boss). i do more tps with maul than with mangle so…. and i dont think my maul hit/crits are high realy. only around 4-6.5K in 25man. but if you keep lacerate mangle and ff up on your target and use swipe/maul on CD the TPS is insane.

and on expertise and hit i just say try to keep hit capped (but if your not main tank for a verry progressive guild you dont realy need max hit, for HC runs you can mostly ignore it), expertise you should be above 26 at all times in any mele class. but its a must for a tank. (yes in wotl its not as bad as before but still…).

liked most things i read here thou, just wanted to share my thoughts :)

As i say in The fluid druid blog…

“a paiful thing as Bear its to make clear to all those dps-reccount-zombies, that a Bear needs to generate aggro before the dps-fest begins, damn!!! So i use a more painful way to educate them… the dps-reccount-zombie who steal my aggro, will die… no growl, no charge, no nothing to save her/him, repair bills and zero dps-reccount will get them in line… ”

One technique i often use goes like this 2 targets example… mark {skull} and {x}, all group know {skull} dies first, so i land 1 or 2 full cycle of hits (aggro guaranted), then i change to {X} and land 2 or 3 full cycles to raise my aggro on it and as no one hits this mob im sure my TPS will endure much longer (if AoE dont over pass) , at this point my aggro on {skull} will decay, so i back to hit until it dies… in the case in wich someone steal the aggro on {skull} i just growl, and hold until it dies. This works for me in various situations, when number of mobs increases, the marks increases too, in order of importance and sequence to knock down specific targets. I know this

Mark its a important thing in my tanking style, because its better when a group member says “moon its gonna wipe my ass off” (via ventrilo or similar) then the tab cycle runs more eficciently to identify and focus the menacing mob… in fact i keybinding all icons in my key number pad for flexible situations, sometimes i mark the healers with a well distinctive blue square or diamond, so ease my way to save him if a mob decides attack them, or in a raid scheme, skull goes for another tank and i pick the orange circle (refered to orange durid tankor.. =P) to mark my target, and many situations like that.

Last said, i request some help in order to develop a macro or a suggested addon that allow me select directly a previously marked target, because tab cycle sux in a pull with many mobs and targetings with click mouse over screen its a ass pain in low fps instances.

In example i bind {skull} to the 7 key number pad, {X} to 8, {circle} to 9 and so on… i would like to select directly {skull} with ctrl+7 key number pad, {X} with ctrl+8, etc etc. Help me out please =)

/startattack
/castsequence [mod: ctrl] demoralizing roar; reset=5 Faerie Fire (Feral)(), Mangle (Bear)(), lacerate, lacerate
/use [mod:shift] maul

2. and for aoe funzies I have this on my mousewheel down:

#show
/castsequence [mod:ctrl] demoralizing roar; swipe (bear)()
/cast [mod:shift] maul
/use 13
/use 14

[My tab target pinky is now responsible for "shifting" for maul when I have rage and "ctrling" when I want to debuff with demo roar. Yup, I roll forward for singles and roll backwards for crowds. Whatever try it before you poke holes in it. It's battle tested and crazy DPS approved. I have zero points in improved mangle because it just creates log jammed cooldowns on fff and mangle. Zero points means 2 lacerates for me and repeat.]

I actually feel I have more problems when the DPS start focusing on 1 target, especially when a Destruction Warlock starts chaining his Incinerate, I can just see how the distance between mine and that Warlocks threat diminishes. But then it becomes a game within a game to me, a race to be highest on threat. I must shamefully admit that I were ignorant of FFF being such a huge threat so I’m working on making it a habbit to use, which probably means I’ll have to move around on some of my buttons and re-learn their layouts. The less walking the fingers have to do the easier it is to responsive to unforseen things.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Marking to me is secondary. I only mark the “dangerous” NPC’s for quick burndown, as per the list I wrote in another comment a couple of days back. Often though the DPS doesn’t pay much heed to the marks, but usually it’s not a problem. In TBC I were an avid marker and used Magic Marker for marking packs FAST. I mean REALLY FAST. Just hold my ALT key and fly the mouse over the NPC’s and they were marked for the various CC and tanking. You can still use that addon in WotLK, ofcourse, I just haven’t taken the time to configure the priority.

As I also mentioned in the nameplate post, I use MouseOverThreat to view individual threat on NPC’s. So the moment I see anyone getting past 80% threat on an NPC I’ll switch to that one and focus on it a bit.

Hell, I’ve played a Moonkin and I (like most other DPS) had one eye on Recount on all fights. I were looking at NPC’s health and were often switching between several NPC’s. The main reason is to increase my damage output ;) like if I had Lunar Eclipse and current target had low health, I’d switch to next NPC because otherwise I’d probably waste almost a full casting time of Starfire.

And here comes pet peeve that I feel that DPS should think about when focusing on one target. When you pull agro, don’t continue nuking with your super-duper-damage-and-threat ability (Starfire for Moonkins) but stop nuking until the Tank have agro again. Several times when I’ve been tanking packs and a Warlock chains Incinerate or Moonkin chains Starfire, and they peel an NPC of me, I usually just taunt it once to get it back to me. However, when the DPS just keeps on nuking they will get above me in threat right away again, and my taunt will then be on cooldown, so I either have to wait for Growl to get off cooldown (and most likely have the same happen again) or charge that NPC and drag the rest of the pack around with me in the process.

What I used to do as Moonkin, to keep my damage up but not my single target threat, was to tab to next target and nuke that one while tank gets the one I peeled off back under control. Then when that’s done I switched back. If I didn’t have the luxury of another target to DPS I’d just stand down and do no DPS until NPC was back under control.

I would also like to recommend the spreading of infected wounds, that -20% attack speed is really useful at lowering the damage you take, so if you have 3 or more mobs on you switching targets can help get that spread around