Bear Rotation:

This article is going to be all about holding aggro as a bear. There really isn’t a rotation as much as a priority. Some people will probably say I’m wrong, but then again, I’ve main tanked pretty much every encounter in the game, and have done so for the last three years. Another thing to remember, is there are two different situations that you’ll be up against. First is trash / multiple mobs, and second is boss / single target.

PLEASE NOTE: When Cata comes out, our rotation will change quite a bit.

Trash / Multiple Mobs:

Trash. Nothing is more annoying, but it’s gotta be taken out (Get it? ). Now, there are two ways trash comes in; Patrols, and stationary groups. Both are usually pulled the same way, but patrols sometimes sneak up on you. When they do, you can’t start the way I like to, with a Faerie Fire.

Stationary:

1. Faerie Fire your main target.
2. Get up to the group, position yourself so that you’re facing majority of your enemies, and won’t break CC.
3. Swipe
4. If you have an Idol that increases agility, or AP with Mangle, use mangle now.
5. If you’re not rage starved, spam Maul (should be glyphed so you hit 2 targets) along with spamming Swipe. (Please note that while you’re Mauling, you might want to tab to other mobs so that you build major threat on those as well.)

For mobs with quite a bit of health, when you start your your Maul spam, Lacerate the mobs you’re holding one time each.  This will increase the amount you’re Mauling for due to Rend and Tear.  Also, if you catch a patrol while you’re still tanking a previous group, you should probably skip step 1, and move right to Swipe spam.  We skip step 1 because of healer / dps aggro if the patrol is off to the side and aren’t effected by your Swipe / Maul.

Single Target / Bosses:

1. Pull with Faerie Fire.
2. While still getting in position, Mangle (Mangle is your instant snap aggro move, this will also give you the added Agility / AP if you have those types of Idols.)
3. Lacerate once (This makes Maul hit harder due to Rend and Tear.)
4. If the fight has no fear effects, activate Berserk, and continue spamming Mangle, along with Maul.
5. Once Berserk expires (or the fight includes fears), start Lacerating while Mauling.  Mangle when it’s off cooldown.

Once you achieve 5 stacks of Lacerate, you get into a juggling act.  First off, don’t ever let Lacerate fall.  Second, Mangle every time that it’s up.  If Lacerate is far from expiring, and Mangle is on cooldown, Swipe.  While doing all of these, remember to Maul.

Tips:

There are a few things that I see tanks often doing that just makes things turn south.  All of them are easily solved, just have to keep calm, and think about what you’re doing.

First off, positioning is a pretty big thing for us, it used to be even bigger before they made Swipe a 360° move.  None the less, you need get as many mobs with your initial Swipe, and the following Swipes as well.

Glyph of Maul.  I have no idea how I can stress this glyph any more, but this glyph is huge.  Being able to Maul two targets is HUGE for threat generation on multiple mobs.

Never pull using anything anything other than Faerie Fire or Feral Charge along with Swipe spam.  I have no idea how many tanks pull with Taunt, which is a huge waste, along with not creating any real threat. (Faerie Fire now does quite a bit of damage and threat, along with making your following attacks hit harder due to lowering the target’s armor by 5%).

While we’re on the topic of Taunting, don’t EVER Taunt unless you’ve lost threat on that target.  Taunting any other time is a complete loss.  Taunting builds NO threat, and when your dps actually DOES pull, guess what, you just put your Taunt on cooldown, and the person that pulled will probably die, which means you’re not protecting your party.

Rend and Tear.  This talent helps quite a bit with threat.  Maul is your big threat generate along with Mangle.  While you can’t always spam Mangle, you keep Maul going.  So if you do have talent points in Rend and Tear (you should anyway) remember to Lacerate atleast once before starting up your Mauls.

If you encounter a fight that you seem to be losing threat, especially at the very start, pop Berserk right after you Faerie Fire, and apply one Lacerate.  Then spam Maul and Mangle untill Lacerate has to be reapplied.  Once Berserk has expired, continue with the normal rotation.

Bear Consumables:

There are a ton of foods, potions, elixirs, and flasks that you can choose from.  Some of them seem like a good idea, but you can actually squeeze a few extra stats that are more beneficial.  Please remember that you can only use one potion, and one flask (or one Guardian and one Battle elixir).

Please note: The following lists are in order from what I’d believe is most important to least.

Potions:

• Crazy Alchemist Potion *Requires 400 Alchemy!* (3100-3500HP + Random potion effect)
• Runic Health Potion (2700-4500HP)
• Any resistant potion (I.E. Indestructible Potion (3500 Armor for 2 minutes) or any potion that absorbs any amount of spell damage)
• Powerful Rejuvination Potion (2475-4125HP)

The reason I selected the Crazy Alchemist Potion for the top slot is because of the higher low number compared to the other two health type potions, plus it gives something extra.  Sometimes it can be armor, sometimes speed, both beneficial, and according to my research, the only ill effect that can come from the potion is the effects of potion of nightmares which will put you asleep.  However, this seems to only happen out of combat.  Also, for the resistant potions, these wont be used very often, and I personally like the instant health than the damage to be absorbed.  As of right now, the only fights I can see where resistance plays a role are possibly Sartharion with 3 drakes up, Hodir, and Sindragosa (though I have done all these fights even on heroic without resistance increases).

Flasks:

• Flask of Stoneblood (Max health increased by 1300)
• Flask of Endless Rage (180AP)

Flasks are pretty easy.  Usually, since you are a tank, you will be using Flask of Stoneblood for the increased health of course.  However, if you find that you’re in a fight that you’re not making the enrage timer for, or find that you lose aggro quite often, I’d try the Flask of Endless Rage.

Elixirs (Guardian):

• Elixir of Mighty Fortitude (Max health increased by 350HP + 20HP5)
• Elixir of Protection (800 Armor)
• Elixir of Mighty Defense (45 Defense)

The Elixir of Mighty Fortitude is on top because flat out there are more fights that have more sources of damage other than physical, so having an overall higher health pool will help you with 100% of the fights.  However, there are still those fights that are physical damage heavy, and the extra armor will do just as well.  Elixir of Mighty Defense was put on the list solely for the purpose because you can still get a little bit of Dodge / miss from it (About 0.4%) and that it should be the last resort as you should already be defense capped through the talent Survival of the Fittest!

Elixirs (Battle):

• Guru’s Elixir ( +20 to all stats)
• Elixir of Mighty Agility (45 Agility)
• Elixir of Major Agility  *Outlands recipe* (30 Agility + 12 Crit Rating)
• Elixir of Deadly Strikes ( +45 Crit Rating)

Battle elixirs are a little more tough to select.  I’d say always go for Guru’s Elixir if you have it available, you’ll be getting more health, dodge, crit, armor, and Attack Power.  Also, the two agility elixirs I’d say would be neck and neck, however, I believe you’d get more out of the Elixir of Mighty Agility just due to raid buffs and such. Elixir of Deadly Strikes also is included just for the fact of Savage Defense, so that’s pretty much equivilant to 0.98% chance to absorb 25% of our AP.  If you find that you’re missing or getting parried / blocked often, you might want to try Elixir of Accuracy (+45 Hit Rating) or Elixir of Expertise (+45 Expertise Raiting).

Food:

• Blackened Dragonfin ( + 40 Agility, + 40 Stamina)
• Spiced Wyrm Burger (+40 Crit Raiting, + 40 Stamina)
• Hearty Rhino (+40 Armor Pen + 40 Stamina) (2.6% Armor pen)
• Fish Feast / Poached Northern Sculpin (80AP, +40 Stamina)

With food and tanking, the biggest thing you’re wanting to be conserned with is the stamina.  Usually with any raiding party, you’ll have someone dropping Fish Feasts and those are super, you get extra AP so more absorption when you crit (along with helping threat), and 40 stamina.  Blackened Dragonfin of course is at the top, because of how much Agility brings to the table in terms of survivability. Hearty Rhino will also help you a little with your aggro as you will hit the mobs harder, in turn creating more threat.  And again, as with the battle elixirs, if you find yourself missing or getting parried / dodged quite often, try the Expertise food (Rhinolicious Wormsteak) or Hit foods (Snapper Extreme / Worg Tartare).

Bear Glyphs:

Untill patch 3.1 bears really didn’t have a lot to choose from in the terms of glyphs. I personally ran around with two bear glyphs and a cat glyph because I would DPS heroics to make money in my spare time (this was the time before dual specs). Even without giving my full attention to getting all bear glyphs, I main tanked every boss encounter, and still have up into Ulduar (Although we have no finished yet.) Now with dual specing however, you CAN give your full attention to one aspect or the other, and with the new glyphs that are out, it is very helpful to be able to focus on a particular job.

Please Note:  I am including every glyph that effects an ability you would use at a bear, even if it’s not useful, so that you don’t waste your money and time on a worthless glyph.

MAJORS

Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration:  This glyph increases healing done to you while having Frezied Regeneration up by 30%.  As a tank, extra healing power equals you living longer most of the time, and usually if you have popped this ability, you’re in trouble, so anything that will extend the duration of you living is always a plus.  This is even more powerful if you actually have healers that do what they are supposed to and have HoTs ticking on you at all times, as this will increase their effects as well, but none the less, if you have a disc Priest or a holy Paladin just booming their cast heals into you, it is still pretty effective.

Glyph of Mangle:  Now that this glyph increases mangle damage by 10%, it’s not a terrible glyph.  It’ll help your soloing, and also, help you with threat.

Glyph of Barkskin:  This glyph reduces the chance you’ll be critically hit by melee attacks by 25% while barkskin is active.  Again this glyph is pretty awful for bears  As any feral druid, you should spec into Survival of the Fittest; not only does it increase all of your stats, and increases armor, but it also makes you over defense cap, and being defense cap, YOU WILL NEVER BE CRIT WITHOUT A DEBUFF ON YOU.  Now, if you do happen to have a debuff on you that reduces your defense you should always have an off tank ready to taunt off you.  The only time this would be of any use for a bear is if your offtank goes down and you have a decrease defense buff, you could probably sit through it, but there are so few mobs that have that ability that you can use better glyphs no doubt.

Glyph of Berserk:  This glyph increases the duration on Berserk by 5 seconds.  Berserk as you all should know, for bears, eliminates the cooldown of mangle completely for the duration of Berserk, and also allows you to Mangle three adjacent mobs (You can also increase the damage done while in Berserk if you spec into King of the Jungle.)  For bear, as for cat, I cant see this being very viable for PvE.  Berserk is a nice to burst your threat, or nuke mobs, but an extra 5 seconds is only going to buy you about 3 Global cooldowns of Mangle, which by my standards, just isn’t cutting it.  Just the uptime that you’d be using this should be a turn off,  if you pop this ability every time it is up in an hour that would be an extra minute and a half-ish of Berserk.

Glyph of Survival Instincts:  This glyph increases the amount of health you get when you use Survival Instincts by 15% of your maximum health, making you Survival Instincts grant you 45% instead of just 30% of your max health.  This glyph is HUGE.  Survival Instincts and Barkskin have saved me so many times in encounters that we have to have a cooldown rotation between myself and my healers (examples: 3D Sarth, Mimiron).  Being able to increase the cusion that your healers have to keep you up is amazing.  Just to give you some numbers, back in Ulduar, with Kings, Imp Mark of the Wild, and Fort, I had around 41k health.  Popping Survival instincts unglyphed: 53,300hp  Glyphed: 59,450hp, so for me it’s a gain of 7,150hp during that time.

Glyph of Growl:  This glyph increases the chance of your Growl to hit by 8%.  This glyph is pretty useful since taunting can save your group.  A lot of tank gear does not have hit, so you have quite a bit of hit to make up to be capped (17% / 16% with a Draenei).  Good thing to note, a lot of the trash / bosses in Ulduar, ICC have tank switching mechanics, so being able to have your Growl hit every time, it makes things go a lot more smooth.

Glyph of Maul:  This glyph allows you to hit an extra mob with Maul.  This glyph is A MUST HAVE.  This will help you a ton keeping aggro on trash and multiple boss mobs.  The only thing you have to really worry about is keeping away from CCed mobs, as it will break it if it hits it.

MINORS

Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth:  This glyph allows you to use Rebirth without a reagent.  This is extremely useful so that you never have to exuse “I forgot my nuts!”, and you have a few places free in your bags because you no longer have to carry the reagent around.

Glyph of the Wild:  This glyph lowers the mana cost of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells by 50%.  Not a super strong glyph, but it makes things move faster after a wipe or if someone dies and you rebirth them and need to apply the buff to them without the hastle of drinking, or waiting for mana to regen.

Glyph of Thorns:  This glyph increase the duration of Thorns by an extra 50 minutes when applied to yourself, (increasting the duration to an hour.)  The extra damage helps a ton to keep aggro, so this is always nice to put on yourself, and with the extra time, you wont have to keep applying it to yourself.

Glyph of Challenging Roar:  This Glyph reduces the cooldown of your Challenging Roar by 30 seconds. Challenging Roar is a 3 minute ability, so this glyph reduces it to a 2.5 minute cooldown.  I personally do not use Challenging Roar often, but if you seem to use this ability often, I would pick this up.

My Personal Picks:

Majors:

• Glyph of Maul
• Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration
• Glyph of Growl

 Glyph that almost made the cut:

Glyph of Growl:  Only use this if you find yourself missing quite a bit, I have a bit of hit, so this isn’t as useful as it once was.

Minor:

• Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth
• Glyph of Thorns
• Glyph of the Wild

If you do find yourself wanting the Challenging Roar glyph, I’d replace Glyph of the Wild with Glyph of Challenging Roar.