Just would like to wish everyone a Happy Turkey Day and that i’m not actually dead from not posting for so long. I’m thankful for my family as well as my guild-mates on WoW, for making a normal MMO something special. Who can forget my readers as well (as small as my group is) thank you for reading my posts, I really do hope they were helpful and wish you a happy Thanksgiving.

Hello again! Today I came up with the idea of showing some of the add-on’s I use as well as how they help me with bear tanking. Below is a screenshot of me, I tried to have all the add-on’s show up without actually being in a instance/raid.

You may need to click on the picture twice to get the full version to see the small key on the bottom-right but, i’ll list it here as well.

1 – X-perl unit frames Perl, with Extra stuff. Much enchanced from Nymbia’s Perl UnitFrames, and a complete replacement for Blizzard’s default unit frames, including raid frames and raid tools, with little remaining of the original Nymbia code.

(Main reason i took this…“Debuff Highlighting in standard debuff colours on all friendly frames. Priority given to show debuffs that you can cure first.” Now that doesn’t mean I dont pop out of bear form so i can take off that poison on the rogue but, just so i know what debuffs are flying around and if i should taunt off people or not. The 3D portraits is a plus.)

2 – MiksScrollingBattleText MSBT is designed to be an extremely lightweight, efficient, and highly configurable mod that makes it easier to see combat information by scrolling the information on the screen in separate, dynamically creatable scroll areas. It is a replacement for Blizzard’s Floating Combat Text and Damage output.

(Great add-on to see what debuffs you’ve recieved as well as notifys you what the mob your targeting is doing. Seeing how much damage your taking getting punched in the face helps too.)

3 – Feral by Night In one addon you will have a suggestion monitor for the next move, debuff/buff monitor, stat frame, trinket monitor, energy, omen of clarity, rage, casting bar and many other goodies.

(Helps me with my feral tank rotation for more TPS [Threat per second] as well as notifys me of cooldowns that are up.)

4 – Bartender4 A full ActionBar replacement mod. It provides you with all the features needed to fully customization most aspects of your action and related bars.

(I didn’t like how all the action bars were so split up so i got this mod and compacted them together, another great thing about this mod is you get extra bars for more buttons!)

5 – Recount a graphical damage meter

(This add-on will list pretty much anything, from amount of deaths to how much rage you’ve recieved, i use this to see the progress of new recruits.)

6 – Big Wigs a boss alert mod. It consists of many individual “boss modules”, mini addons that are designed to trigger alert messages and timer bars for one specific raid boss each. Modules are activated when you target or mouseover a Boss, or if any other BigWigs use in your raid does. In most cases only one module will be running at any given time.

(No one likes a tank that does not know the boss is about to one shot him with a ability, this is what Big wigs is for.)

All these add-on’s might take some time to put together snugly in your UI but, once you do you’ll be glad you took all that time to set it up. There are FAQ’s on curse.com to check out when confused how to set up your add-ons. If you’re still confused let me know with a post or contact me in-game (Server: thrall, US  character: Ashwane) and i’ll do my best to assist you.

Thanks for curse.com for their amazing selection of add-on’s and website.

~Callieta (a.k.a Ashwane)

Just finished our first run through TotGC (Trial of the Grand Champion) 10 man, and wow 3/5 of the bosses already down. Oh yeah we wiped alot of times and trust me i’m not saying its “lol ez mode” i’m just surprised how great of a guild we turned out to be and proud of our new recruits.

Also sorry i havn’t been posting very much, to be honest i’ve run out of things to talk about bear tanking. If anybody has any ideas or questions please feel free to post, i’m very active just at a sort of “blog block”. (?)

Callieta

Recently MMO-Champion posted tier 10 set bonuses and 3.3.0 patch changes along with some pictures of the set armors. Right now i’m loving the druid feral set bonuses, finally making enrage in bear form not a bad thing to do.

As for the armor, it looks like they took the plant/root route.

Druid Set Bonuses

• Item-Druid T10 Feral 2P Bonus – Your Swipe (Bear) and Lacerate abilities deal 20% additional damage and the cost of your Rip ability is reduced by 10 energy.
• Item – Druid T10 Feral 4P Bonus – Your Enrage ability no longer decreases your armor and instead decreases all damage taken by 12% and the periodic damage done by your Rake ability can now be a critical strike.

• Item – Druid T10 Restoration 2P Bonus – The healing granted by your Wild Growth spell reduces 0% less over time.
• Item – Druid T10 Restoration 4P Bonus – Each time your Rejuvenation spell heals a target, it has a 2% chance to jump to a new target at full duration.

• Druid T10 Balance 2P Bonus – When you gain Clearcasting from your Omen of Clarity talent, you deal 10% additional Nature and Arcane damage for 6 sec.
• Druid T10 Balance 4P Bonus – Reduces the cooldown on your Eclipse talent by 6000.

Druid 3.3.0 patch changes

Feral

• Prowl is now a one-rank skill and reduces movement speed by 30%

Restoration

• Rebirth: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas
• Rejuvenation: Rank 15 of this spell was providing a 15-second duration. It has been correctly reduced to 12 seconds.

• Gift of the Earthmother: Redesigned. This talent now increases spell haste by 2/4/6/8/10% instead of its previous effect.
• Tranquility: The cooldown on this spell has been reduced to 8 minutes, down from 10 minutes.

Pets

• Avoidance (passive): Now reduces the damage your pets take from area-of-effect damage by 90%, but no longer applies to area-of-effect damage caused by other players.

It seems resto druids are getting a buff now that haste will effect HoT’s, blizzard will be releasing a glyph that decreases the time between ticks for Rejuvination.

(Thanks to MMO-Champion for the info/links, here’s their website).

~Callieta

Hai thar! As you know the tanks on world of warcraft can’t help but get their faces punched in during raids and instances, to deal with this problem there are cooldowns which might save your furry ass, they are…

Survival Instincts – Increases your maximum health by 30% (45% with glyph)

Frenzied Regeneration – Turns 10 rage per second for 10 seconds into .03% of your health per point of rage (basically 40% health back with a full rage bar) (20% increased healing taken if you have glyph)

BarkSkin – Reduces ALL damage by 20% (Glyph sucks dont bother…unless your PvP resto?)

Now lets set up a regular encounter with a “Boss A”. Boss ‘A’ has a nasty (insert damage other than physical) spell that can close to kill the main tank. When he’s about to use said ability, use bark skin to reduce the damage to save the healers some mana instead of randomly.

But, while your tanking lets say there are some adds floating around and tank B is busy tanking them, well lets say he bit the dust and needs a battle rez, using all your cooldowns you AoE taunt the mobs and tank them all until he’s back up. If you dont know how to make a macro it should look something like this…

[Oh Shit]
/cast survival instincts
/cast frenzied regeneration
/cast barkskin
/use (whatever your trinkets are)

You need to be careful when to use SI and FR since they’re on a cooldown that is longer then most boss fights, so use it when you are positively sure you need to.

Examples of when to time your barkskin cooldown in Ulduar:

Ignis: If your MT, use when he casts Scorch (the one that places a fire on the ground)

Razorscale: Phase 2, when she is about to flame breath and your in front of her

XT-002: If you get light bombed/gravity bombed while OT, or temper tantrum while MT

Assembly of Iron: Tanking steelbreaker, use when he casts fusion punch.

Tanking Runemaster, use when his runeshield is up

Tanking Stormcaller, Phase 3, when he lifts into the air and he’s right on top of you

Kologarn: If your picking up adds, use when his arm is about to go down. If your tanking his torso use after one stack of Crunch Armor

Auriaya: Immediately if you are tanking cats, if on Auriaya save if you run into a void zone while fleeing in fear

Freya: Only use barkskin if you’re the OT and picking up adds, best used during the 3 elementals as alot of non-physical

damage is flying around

Hodir: Frozen Blows, for the love of the Earthmother use it during frozen blows!

Mimiron: Phase 1 = when he Plasma Blasts you

Phase 2-4 = Whenever off the CD

Thorim: Hard to say, most non-physical damage can be avoided if your careful enough

Tunnel: While tanking mini-bosses

Arena: Adds start to pile up

General Vezax: when he casts Surge of darkness

Yogg-Saron: Phase 1: If you have Sara’s Fervor

Phase 2: Grabbed by a constrictor tentacle or tanking a crusher tentacle

Phase 3: Save for when you need to use your “oh shit” button

Remember! only YOU can prevent for…er i mean Raid wipes, cya next time!

~Callieta

Today’s 10 man ToC run went very smoothy today with only one spot we had to fill with a non-guildie. The only boss we had the most trouble with before the patch was Faction Champions. Then I find out they actually nerfed them as soon as we’re about to pull (I didn’t read all the patch notes ok?). I’m guessing they nerfed just their damage since our cloth wearers are not dying left and right from the melee mobs. On a side note, I hope we might start trying hard mode, regular 10 man ToC is becoming too easy as we blew through it. Only done hard mode once and i guess the word “hard” is there for a reason.

After the raid we decided to get as many 80’s as possible to farm the direbrew daily quest in BRD for, hopefully, the BoE mace. One brewfest ram dropped along with a bunch of level 200 trinkets (really wish we could DE/Vendor the damn things) sadly no BoE mace yet.

~Callieta

This post will give a list of what 1 stat/rating will give while in bear form as well as feral tank spec, some examples of gear you should be looking for. Along with a list of glyphs and gems.

Base Stats

1 Strength = 2 AP (.5 absorb from savage defense)

1 Agility =    .02% dodge, 2 armor

1 stam =        14.9 Health

Ratings

Dodge Rating =    .014% dodge

Defense Rating = .04% chance to miss/block/dodge/parry (.08% avoidance total)

Examples

Helm:       Shroud of Darkness

Chest:       Drake Rider’s Tunic

Weapon: Enraged Feral Staff

Ring:        Mobius Band

Trinket:  Essence of Gossamer

Relic:      Idol of the Corruptor

Glyphs

Glyph of Barkskin – PvP glyph against melee, since you are already defense capped from talents it’s useless in PvE

Glyph of Berserk – Good boost in threat at the start of a pull but, on a three minute CD.

Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration – Increases ALL healing taken, this includes the heal from the ability

Glyph of Growl – If you are low on hit, you could take this so you don’t risk growl missing if a mob gets away

Glyph of Mangle – Other than maybe wanting to keep the mangle debuff on more targets, this one is useless

Glyph of Maul – Great for pulls that do not need AoE but still have multiple targets you need to keep on you (Usually 2-4 mobs)

Glyph of Survival Instincts – This glyph plus Frenzied Regeneration have an amazing synergy together as it increases the healing you get from Frenzied regeneration

Gems

Red - Delicate (Agility)

Purple – Shifting (Agility/Stam)

Blue - solid (Stam)

Green - Enduring (Defense/Stam)

Yellow – Thick (Defense)

(If the socket bonus stat doesn’t help tanking, dont bother matching them [ex: Crit, haste, Str, AP])

As for my opinion on what your health and dodge should be looking like unbuffed, i’ll just be giving a speculation so this isn’t 100% accurate. *throws a pinch of salt at you*

Heroics/10 man naxx = 20,000-24,000 health, 20-25% dodge

25 man naxx – 10 man ulduar = 26,000-30,000 health, 30-35% dodge

25 man ulduar – 10 man ToC = 32,000-34,000 health, 40-45% dodge

25 man ToC = 36,000+ health, 50%+ dodge

Thanks for reading, and happy tanking!

~Callieta

(Thanks to wowwiki.com for some of the information, as well as wowhead.com for the item links.)

First off if you rolled a druid, congratulations! You chose one of the two classes that can tank, dps, or Heal in one sitting (the other being the paladin) but i’ll be focusing on just the tanking part. Druids have different forms, just to list the basics there’s…bear (tank), cat (dps), travel (40% run speed increase) and aquatic form (50% increased swim speed). You wont be able to do any real tanking until level 10, which is when you get bear form. Than get dire bear form at level 40, which is the equivalent of plate armor for warriors/paladins.

I’ll just list the damaging / aggro abilities and what they do, when to do them, and maybe some useful things about them…

Maul – A strong attack that increases melee damage by (Rank #) and causes a high amount of threat.  Effects which increase Bleed damage also increase Maul damage.

-Works just like the warriors’ heroic strike, in that it increases the next auto attack by a certains amount.

-You lose the rage you would’ve gotten from said auto attack.

-This ability is best used when you’re not low on rage, spamming maul while low on rage leads to being rage starved.

-Glyph of Maul allows this ability to hit two targets

Swipe – Swipe nearby enemies, inflicting (Rank #).  Damage increased by attack power.

-Your “sort of” AoE ability, a 360 degree swipe that hit everything within a 5 yd radius (even if it says melee range) [Fixed, thanks "Xarnen" ]

-Weak compared to other tank’s AoE abilities, ask the dps to wait for 2-4 swipes before going

-Each target you swipe that crits gives you back 5 rage, if you have 3 mobs and you crit all of them, you pretty much get the rage back on swipe

-Best used when there’s more than two targets to keep aggro on

Faerie Fire (Feral) – Decrease the armor of the target by 5% for 5 min.  While affected, the target cannot stealth or turn invisible.  Deals [AP * 0.15 + 1] damage and additional threat when used in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form.

-Decent amount of aggro for a ability that costs zero rage

-Can be used as your ‘mob puller’ as well as a nice aggro boost

-Use this ability whenever the cool down ends

-”[AP * 0.15 + 1]” means if your attack power is 1000, this ability would be doing 151 damage

Mangle (Bear) – Mangle the target for 115% normal damage plus (rank #) and causes the target to take 30% additional damage from bleed effects for 12 sec.

-Probably your best bet at the start of a pull to keep solid aggro

-Keeping mangle on the target is important as it goes well with five stacks of lacerate

-Rotate this ability with faerie fire for amazing single target aggro

-Talented ability, not baseline (learned from a trainer)

Lacerate – Lacerates the enemy target, dealing (rank #) and making them bleed for (rank #) over 15 sec and causing a high amount of threat.  Damage increased by attack power.  This effect stacks up to 5 times on the same target.

-Wont get this ability until level 66

-While stacking 5 lacerates sounds like the first thing to do, the bleed effect is the high aggro part of the ability, meaning you start out slow and might lose aggro from a gung-ho dps

-Keep a eye on how long you have left on the DoT, re-stacking lacerate isn’t fun

-Be sure to not hit a mob with this ability that is marked for CC as the DoT will keep breaking the polymorph, trap, sleep, ect.

TALENTS/SPEC

Here’s a small list that i thought up on the spot, if you’d like to add anymore or question why i pick (insert talent here) dont hesitate to comment and i’ll add in your spec into the list.

What i’m currently using – 0/60/11

Sacrifice Primal gore and ILotP for Master Shapeshifter – 0/55/16

Alternative to the above spec, 0/55/16

Bear PvP, 0/51/21 (?)

ROTATION

You could spam your abilities and hope for the best (I still do sometimes) but, if you want to keep aggro here’s a small rotation to get you started.

Single Target – Faerie Fire, Mangle, lacerate, lacerate, (optional) Demoralizing Roar, (Repeat)

-You want to keep a eye on your rage, if its above 30-40 go ahead and throw in a maul as its off the GCD (Global CoolDown) and I didn’t add it to the rotation because of that reason

Multiple targets – Swipe + Maul spam / or Berserk, Mangle + maul spam

-This can be alittle iffy, because you have to keep switching targets to hit every mob with maul as well, swipe is there to keep mobs you havn’t hit with maul yet in check at the beginning

Thats all, hope you find this information useful/informative, if you have any questions, speak freely and i’ll try to answer them ASAP. Next up: Gear, enchants, and glyphs!

~Callieta

EDIT: I did something stupid and didn’t add the most important part of the post…TALENT TREES! *bonks self in the head*

Having found out some of my guildies had blogs I thought “Hey, why not join in?!”

So i’ll be mostly talking about bear tanking and their mechanics in the game (along with the occasional rant or two). Please feel free to send any questions my way and I’ll do my best to answer them (’stupid question is the one unanswered’ motto).

Hope you stay tuned as i’ll try to post more topics.

~Callieta