[Druid] Where are all the Bear Tanks, ya'll?!

[Javan]

Don't discount the viability of PvP gear to tank as a bear. The budgeting for stamina, along with the decent Agility, works quite well for us. And, you add in budget for Crit Rating to help with Savage Defenses. Obviously, the resilience is a mostly-wasted stat, but several PvP gear items are currently best-in-slot for progression bear tanking.

But when it comes to gemming / enchanting - Stam > Agi > Dodge > Defense. A 16 agility gem is far superior to a 16 dodge rating gem, and with the introduction of 8 agi / 12 stam purple gems, those should replace any of the old 8 dodge / 12 stam purples.

From my experience with gems, a pure stam or pure agility gem is superior to the Defense / Stamina greens. Usually, the socket bonus isn't good enough to make up for the loss given the smaller benefit from Defense rating for bears.

Additionally, Polar Gear is great for fights like Sapphiron, Hodir, or Iron Council, where the goal is to survive big hits or mitigate cold damage, but it shouldn't be used as the be-all, end-all for gear.

If you still have questions on rotations, while I don't have the exact rotation handy, you want to do something along the lines of:
FFF, Mangle, Lacerate, Swipe, repeat Mangle, Lacerate, Swipe until 5 stacks of Lacerate, then Mangle, Demo Roar, Swipe, then Mangle, Swipex2, repeat - making sure to keep FFF, Demo Roar, and the 5-stack of Lacerate up. Maul anytime you're not rage starved. With the duration of FFF, you shouldn't have to worry about it except on really long fights, but it's not bad for the threat burst. Realistically, with this rotation and decent gear, you shouldn't have any aggro issues except with well-geared, well-played warlocks.

EDIT - this is my experience from tanking 10/25 OS+1 / Naxx, 10-man Maly / Ulduar, and all heroics 5-mans.

[lythac]

http://thebigbearbutt.com/

But seriously… that whole Bear butt bouncing down the hill was a sight that will stay with me for a while… it was way too easy for me to imagine a similar sight on the screens of every healer I’ve ever had.

Just found the above by googling 4.918498039. Has a few links down the right hand side druid.wikispaces.com looking like a promising one.

[semp]

My bear tank is very fun to play, and i lik the play style so much more than paladin tanking. There are plently of boe epics you can craft or buy cheap soon as you hit 80. There is the LW shoulders, belt, and cloak, along with the polar set (i currently use the boots full time as threat isnt an issue), along with the 60 valor badge bracers (who doesnt have a ton of those still), also the JC craftable rings (both the melee DPS and tank ring) and there is also a boe blue neck that is armor/stam/str/def for cheap. Buying all that is ~2-3k gold depending on how much mats you have and server prices. You can ding 80 and have more than enough gear to tank naxx 10 and maybe even naxx 25. I wish there was a craftable helm with a meta slot as that is still the one piece of gear I cant seem to get My daily rotation of heroics was VH (staff on run 1! yet still no helm), AN (trinket after 10 runs), DTK (ring after 10 runs), Gundrak (Trinket on run 1! Pants after 8 runs, still need hemo ring). Still tring to get the hang of Kitty DPS, geting better but still need work.