Cataclysm Classic Feral Druid Tank Talent Builds

Feral Tank Druid, like most Cataclysm specs, is heavily restricted to its namesake specialization tree, Feral Combat. You will always want to put points into this tree first and foremost, with the few leftover points after you hit the capstone talent, Berserk, being dedicated to passive damage and survivability increases in the Restoration tree.

The main decisions are whether to maximize Perseverance for more survivability or go into pure Feral DPS talents such as Blood in the Water for more DPS while not actively tanking.

In this section, we will go over some of the key talents you will use when you are playing a Feral Tank Druid. Be sure to understand your most important talents as they are vital to play the build to its top strength.

• Feral Swiftness — increases your movement speed while in Cat Form by 30% and chance to dodge in any animal form by 4%. This is a great talent which allows you to move much faster from very early on.

• Primal Fury — gain 5 Rage whenever you critically strike in Bear Form. This increases the value of critical strike rating and is helpful for extra Rage generation.

• Feral Aggression — causes your Faerie Fire (Feral) to apply its maximum possible armor reduction effect right away, allowing for much more DPS early on in the pull.

• Feral Charge — charges a nearby enemy, immobilizing it for 4 seconds. Its true value comes from the follow up talent, Stampede.

• Stampede — after using Feral Charge you gain 30% melee Haste for 8 seconds. This is very helpful to quickly generate Rage, especially at the start of a pull.

• Thick Hide — increases Armor while in Bear Form massively and turns you into a real tank by making you uncrittable by enemies.

• Leader of the Pack — your main raid buff; it increases the critical strike chance of nearby allies by 5% and causes critical strikes to regenerate your Health and Mana once every 6 seconds.

• Survival Instincts — your main defensive cooldown, it reduces your damage taken by 50% for 12 seconds.

• Natural Reaction — reduces damage taken while in Bear Form by a gigantic 18%, increases dodge by 6%, and you generate 3 Rage every time you dodge while in Bear Form. Overall, an extremely strong talent for defensive purposes.

• Endless Carnage — increases Pulverize duration by 8 seconds, making it a good quality of life talent.

• Pulverize — consumes Lacerate stacks to grant a strong critical strike buff. This is your main maintenance buff, as it can be kept up 100% of the time with good planning.

• Berserk — grants free Mangle procs from Lacerate tick damage. You can also activate it as a skill to cause your Mangle to hit 3 targets and have no cooldown, making it a strong DPS cooldown for Feral tanks, especially in AoE scenarios.

Prime glyphs are new to Cataclysm, giving you a third "row" of glyphs you can use on your character. While there are a couple of different options to choose from, there are some very clear front runners for each specialization.

• Glyph of Mangle — increases the damage of Mangle, one of your main damage abilities.
• Glyph of Berserk — increases the duration of your Berserk by 10 seconds.
• Glyph of Lacerate — increases the critical strike chance of Lacerate by 5%, making it a fine damage increase.

Major glyphs typically offer utility-based options and can be highly situational. While there are many different options for Feral Tank, we will list below the ones we find more useful.

• Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration — causes healing on you to be 30% higher when Frenzied Regeneration is active, for more survivability.
• Glyph of Maul — makes your Maul ability hit one more target for 50% damage, increasing cleave DPS.
• Glyph of Faerie Fire — increases the range at which you can pull enemies with Faerie Fire (Feral).

Minor glyphs typically provide very minor benefits. Your choices will typically depend on what quality of life increase is the most meaningful for you. We give a few suggestions below.

• Glyph of Challenging Roar — reduces the cooldown of Challenging Roar by 30 seconds, allowing you to use it more often.
• Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth — removes the reagent requirement from Rebirth, saving some gold over time.
• Glyph of Dash — reduces the cooldown of Dash by 20%, increasing your potential mobility in the process.