"I prefer the bear for my *tenacity* pet because of the Demoralizing Roar ability to *further* reduce the damage taken."

The bird will fail to provide the damage reduction he said he's looking for. If he's looking to do more damage, he'll not bring the bear, but then he won't be looking for that debuff, either.

Sorry, should've been more specific. I was referring to the section on 5-man pets, where Frostheim says,

"If you're pretty sure that your group is going to have these covered, you could consider bringing the bear for the 10 percent reduced physical damage taken for your tank."

If you're bringing a pet to a 5-man for the debuff, why not the Carrion Bird, which'll do more damage?

Truthfully, the bear's demoralizing roar isn't much use in an instance group. All four tank classes have the same debuff. Warrior and Bears have it naturally as a class skill. Paladins have it as a single-point talent which applies it through two of their most used tanking abilities. Death Knights have it roughest, it's a 2-point talent applied through one of their AoE abilities, Blood Boil, but that's still pretty easy to do.

Your tank really doesn't need your pet to apply the debuff for him, he's going to be doing it anyway. Better for him to be in the habit of using said ability. If there's no buff you can provide, bring a ferocity pet.

Honestly, if I see a hunter bringing a bear to a 5-man, the first thing I think is, "This guy is either too lazy to have more than one pet on him, or he's a moron."

Of all the buffs and possible damage-dealing abilities we can bring through our pets, I'm not sure why anyone would bring a buff that's not only already in the group but also in someone's standard rotation. Especially if it's specced into damage reduction and high threat instead of damage dealing.

I think some of you are getting confused. All tank classes have the attack SPEED debuff. The 10% physical damage reduction comes from Resto shaman, Holy priests (used to be disc priests), etc.

So, for example, you have a holy paladin healing your 5man, and the tank (or everyone) is just getting pounded by physical damage. Bringing the bear out wouldn't be so bad.

No, Ben, you're getting two different things confused.

The healing buff you're referring to is http://www.wowhead.com/spell=16236. That's the shaman version obviously, and there's the priest's Inspiration which has the same effect. Both are procs that reduce by 10% the physical damage taken by the player.

The debuff that a bear or a carrion bird can provide is this http://www.wowhead.com/spell=50256. As has already been said, all four tank classes can provide this debuff, either baseline throw Demoralizing Shout or Demoralizing Roar for warriors or bears, or by talenting into Vindication or Scarlet Fever for paladins and death knights. These debuffs reduce by 10% the physical damage dealt by the enemy.

So, the healing buffs reduce the damage taken, while the demoralizing debuffs reduce the damage dealt. A subtle distinction, but an important one.