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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-12-2011 @ 4:46PM
Matt said...
I used to LOVE tanking on my druid.
He's been a tank since patch 1.6 (1.8?) when feral stopped being as much of a joke.
I had just over 8k health and was very proud of it (that sounds like a joke now with the massive health pools we have, but 8k HP was 2k more than a VERY well geared warrior).
Then came BC and the 1st quest I did gave me a staff with Feral AP.... I couldn't have been happier, and played him as a bear tank, cat dps all the way through BC (only 1 talent setup for both roles since dual spec didn't exist yet).
Along came Wrath, and with it, some nice AOE tanking stuff (maul glyph, berserked mangle, swipe spam). Once again, I played bear tank, cat dps all the way through Wrath (dual spec).
Then came Cata. I was enthusiastic at first... I really was. I tanked the Blackrock 5-man (non-heroic) and lost aggro on almost every group. I thought that it would get better with practice putting lacerate on every mob and thrash... it didn't. I feel like a vanilla warrior who had to tab around putting 3 sunders on every mob in the pull, while those same warriors now get the very awesome Blood and Thunder talent + several AOE threat generators.
Eventually (around level 63-64) I gave up on tanking entirely and just ran as cat dps. Cat dps is fun, engaging, and it feels really awesome to use the cat charge and fly in at my target. After gearing up to what I felt was fairly respectable dps, I considered what to do with my other spec.
I re-gemmed some of my cat gear (since there really isn't much of a difference between cat and bear gear other than gems, enchants, and trinkets), threw on some tanking trinkets, and tanked 1 heroic..... I haven't tanked on my druid since. We made it through with no wipes, and only 1 dps who kept attacking a different target from mine and so died over and over (and over and over). The abuse he and his pocket healer heaped upon me completely cured my desire to tank randoms ever again.
I now run with a dual dps spec. Moonkin and Cat. I can do respectable dps with either, and sometimes change specs if a fight is more punishing to one or the other (example: I HATE Cookie as melee, but it is downright fun as a caster...). As a druid, I am rarely asked to provide CC -- though I've also noticed that CC is getting used less and less now -- and the no-pressure, just do lots and lots of damage atmosphere is really a breath of fresh air to someone who has taken on the tanking responsibility (I didn't really have any alts until late Wrath -- now I have a bunch) since Vanilla.
TLDR: Tanking is not much fun anymore. Especially as a druid. :P
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