Bear druids make great tanks. A bear can tank anything a warrior can, with the proper gear, talents, and player skill. Let’s walk through what it takes to be a good bear tank. For this section of the Druid Guide, we’re going to be talking about a level 70 druid.
Big Picture
Your job as a tank is to pull a mob (or mobs) and hold them in place while your DPS takes the mob down, and your healer keeps you healed.
Here’s a typical tanking sequence for a group of 1 – 3 mobs:
●Make sure the party is ready (targets marked for kill first, kill second, sheep, trap, so on).
●Pull with a Feral Fairie Fire or Star Fire or even a Hurricane (if you have a lot of rage, pull with FFF to conserve that rage).
●Stack a Lacerate on the kill first target.
●Swipe to keep any other mobs interested in you.
●If you have more than one mob, use Demoralizing Roar.
●With the third Lacerate on your kill first target, the DPS should now open up on it. At four or five lacerates, the mob will be glued to you.
●Mangle.
●Swipe.
●When the kill first target has about four lacerates and a mangle on it, Feral Fairie Fire then start Lacerating and Mangling the kill second target.
●Keep swiping as you have more than one mob left.
The above is your basic rotation.
Be ready to use a Growl if a mob turns away from you (Growl will force all close attackers to attack you). Use a Bash on a mob that is attacking your healer (Bash stuns a mob for up to four seconds). Keep Frenzied Regeneration ready to go when your health is low, and you have lots of Rage. In situations where you’re taking on magic users or mobs that don’t hit that hard, pop an Enrage to up your Rage in a hurry (Enrage penalizes your armor). Use Maul to get extra attack power when you have Rage (and time) to burn.
A tank needs to be wary on pulls. Wait for any patrols (or grab the patrol first.) Mark (or wait for targets to be marked) before pulling. Make sure mana users are ready to go.

Carving your way through most instances is like taking apart a jigsaw puzzle. You take one piece at a time; the piece that touches the fewest other pieces.
Tanking for bosses will have differing rotations, depending on the boss. Study up on bosses you’re going to face on sights such as WOWwiki.com and Thottbot.com.
Mark ‘em
Marking is vital for most instances. On heroic level instances and raids, marking must be carefully applied. Mark mobs for:
●First to kill
●Second to kill
●Sheep
●Trap
●Shackle
●Seduce
●And other crowd control efforts
Whoever knows the instance best should be the marker. The tank is usually the one to mark, but anyone who knows how the instance works can do it.
Pull Vs. Feral Charge
Feral Charge has the benefit of allowing you to tank mobs well away from your party, giving you the chance to build up their hate. Feral Charge stuns your victim which is great to get the upper hand on them. Feral Charge has the downside of putting you too close to any other mobs besides the mobs you’re attacking. Pulling brings the mobs to you, allowing you to get them away from their friends.
So you’ll use the above two choice as the situation requires. If it’s safe to do so, Feral Charge away. If you’ll get the attention of too many mobs with a Feral Charge, then pull the mobs to you.
Building Rage
As a bear tank, your attacks are fueled by Rage. Rage is generated by giving and taking damage. Rage decays quickly when you aren’t attacking or being attacked. So it’s important to take talents and use abilities to build and manage that rage.
Swipe is a great attack to build rage, since you are hitting up to three foes with it.

These Feral tree talents are vital to build rage:
●Ferocity reduces the Rage cost of some tanking attacks.
●Shredding Attacks reduces the Rage cost of your mainstay Lacerate attack.
●Primal Fury gives you a Rage bonus from critical hits you land.
You should aim to have a bar full of Rage throughout the attack.
Building Threat
In addition to building Rage, you need to focus on building Threat. As a Tank, threat is caused by the damage you cause to mobs. The Feral Instinct talent on the Feral tree is vital, three points in that increase the threat you generate by 15%.
Mages, Rogues, Warlocks, and other DPS pouring on the damage can easily out threat you. You have to be on top of your rotation of tanking attacks, or the mob will bolt on you. A Feral Charge is a great way to chase down a running mob and keep it from killing one of your casters. If you have good threat built up, the mobs on you will chase after you and you can get control of the situation.
Bear Tank Gear
Let’s look at what a good bear tank needs to be wearing. Here are the stats to shoot for, for beginning level 70 tanking:
●22000 armor
●12000 health
●25% dodge
●415 defense
Armor
●Head: Stylin’ Purple Hat (Leatherworking, AH)
●Neck: Necklace of the deep (Jewelcrafting, AH)
●Shoulders: The Dreamers' Shoulderpads (World drop, AH)
●Back: Bogstrok Scale Cloak (Drops in Slave Pens)
●Chest: Heavy Clefthoof Vest (Leatherworking, AH)
●Wrists: Umberhowl's Collar (Quest reward for: The Hand of Gul'dan; 42,45 in Shadowmoon Valley. Four part quest.)
●Hands: Verdant Gloves. (Quest Reward. Tablets of Baa'ri, six part quest, 58,36 in Shadowmoon Valley).

●Waist: Manimal's Cinch. (Quest reward for: The Hand of Gul'dan; 42,45 in Shadowmoon Valley. Four part quest. Note: this is not a repeat. You’ll get two pieces of tanking gear from this quest.)
●Legs: Heavy Clefthoof Leggings (Leatherworking, AH).
●Feet: Heavy Clefthoof Boots (Leatherworking, AH).
●Rings: Delicate Eternium Ring (Jewelcrafting, AH). For the second ring, the best ring you can find with strength and agility will do.
Early 70 Tanking Weapon:
●Braxxis Staff of Slumber – you may find this random world drop in the Auction House, since it is BOE.
●Earthwarden – Hopefully you have high Cenarion Expedition rep because this weapon can be purchased from them when you hit exalted.
Early 70 tanking gems:
●Solid Star of Elune (+12 Stamina [Blue])
●Delicate Living Ruby (+8 Agility [Red])
●Shifting Nightseye (+4 Agility, +6 Stamina [Red/Blue])
●Enduring Talasite (+6 Stamina, +4 Defense [Yellow/Blue])
Start with this list, and you’re ready to tank early level 70 instances. As you begin to Raid and do heroics, you’ll replace this gear. And your stats should steadily increase as well.
Tanking Assists
There are some help you can get with tanking. Having your group watch their threat helps, and consumables make your job easier.
Threat Meter
A Threat Meter measures who in your group has the highest threat. As the tank, that should be you. Using a threat meter, such as KLH Threat Meter or Omen, will allow the players in your group to tone down their DPS (or healing) when they climb too high on the list.

Consumables
Cooking is vital skill for a tank. You can boost your strength or stamina, giving you more life and the ability to generate more threat.
●Warp Burger: + 20 agility and 30 Spirit. You’ll recharge faster, dodge more, and hit more crits with this food buff.
●Spicy Hot Talbuk: +20 Hit Rating and Spirit. You’ll recharge faster, and get more hits on your foe, very helpful when facing the typical boss, who is three levels higher than you.
●Roasted Clefthoof: +20 Strength and Spirit. You’ll recharge faster, and do more damage.
There are other food buffs than these. You can buy most of these in the Auction House, or make them yourself. Tanking can be expensive, with the repairs and consumables required. That’s why it’s probably a good idea if you max your cooking skill to make gold with it, and make your own food.
Stamina buffs are better than no buffs. But a bear already has so much life (more than any other class) that a Stamina buff has little benefit. Plus many bosses hit so hard that an extra 200 or 300 in life won’t help you much.
Potions and flasks are also vital to tanks.
●Flask of Relentless Assault: Increases attack power by 120 for 2 hrs. Counts as both a Battle and Guardian elixir. This effect persists through death.
●Flask of Fortification: Increases maximum health by 500 and defense rating by 10 (4.2) for 2 hrs. Counts as both a Battle and Guardian elixir. This effect persists through death.
The above flasks are very expensive. They are best bought when you’re in a big raid and don’t want to look bad in front of Guildies, or you are undergeared for your raid. If you can make these yourself, then you are in great shape.
There are other flasks, elixirs, and potions that buff you up for tanking. Check the Auction House, or learn alchemy and make them yourself. A good guild will supply them to their tank for a major raid.

Enchants
Enchanting your weapon to increase your stats is vital to a top-level tank. Enchants are great, but don’t get any weapon enchants that requires a hit to procc. Druids don’t use their weapons, so the enchant is wasted. The best enchant for tanking:
●Enchant 2H Weapon - Major Agility: Permanently enchant a Two Handed Melee Weapon to add 35 Agility. Requires a level 35 or higher item.
This enchant increases your dodge, your chance to hit, and your chance to get a critical hit, and your attack power.
Be sure to enchant the rest of your tanking gear. Some enchants require a player with high-level enchanting skill. Some enchantments (for legs, head, chest) can be bought in the Auction House. Some shoulder enchants can be purchased from the Aldor and Scryer when your reputation with them is high enough.