Feral Tank Druid Level 58 Boost Guide

The purpose of this guide is to help you decide on whether you want to boost a Feral Tank Druid to Level 58, and to give a quick rundown on talents, important spells, and stats so that you can start playing right away!

Feral Tank Druids are the ultimate hybrid in TBC Classic, with their defining characteristic being that their main talent tree, Feral has both tanking and melee DPS talents, allowing for talent builds that can do both at 90% of the power of a fully specced Druid tank or melee DPS. They also bring Leader of the Pack, a unique party-wide buff.

This means that, besides being amazing tanks, Ferals have the ability to deal significantly higher damage than other full specced tanks when not tanking, which can be a significant raid DPS increase, and they have much higher durability than having DPS Warriors off-tank, which is the highest raid DPS option.

Strengths

• Quick leveler and strong solo class, able to stealth, deal high burst damage and heal;
• Best tank / DPS hybrid class, as most talents, and even gear, can be shared between both roles;
• Great physical group support with Leader of the Pack and Improved Leader of the Pack.

Weaknesses

• Defenses are gear dependent and surviving can be a struggle until good gear is attained;
• Weak scaling with gear due to reliance on feral attack power on weapons and dots / energy, which do not scale with secondary stats;
• High skill cap class, requiring good dot management, tanking know-how and the advanced powershifting technique for maximum DPS when not tanking.

NightElf is the only race available. They have some defensive benefits with Quickness, as well as Shadowmeld, which is of limited usefulness for Feral Druids due to their cat form stealth.

Tauren is the only option and is, fortunately, an excellent race. War Stomp is very reliable and can usually be used for an emergency Regrowth in most types of content. The 5% increased health from Endurance is great, especially when under pressure.

While it would usually not be mentioned, Cultivation deserves a special mention here because Druids are the best gatherers in TBC Classic, now that they can interact with most objects without needing to leave form. This includes the new flight form variant, making Tauren Druids very good for gathering duties!

Finally, Tauren have a larger hitbox — especially male Tauren — which grants them slightly increased range, but also allows them to be hit by enemy attacks and abilities more easily.

The talent build listed below is a jack-of-all-trades with which you tank, DPS, PvE, PvP, and level to 60, while using only the talent points available at Level 58.

The most important new TBC Classic talent is Mangle, which improves Feral Tank Druid damage and provides an extra debuff that increases the damage of other druids and rogues in your group.

Most of the tree was also made stronger, often by combining several talents into one that has multiple useful benefits, such as Primal Fury.

If you are interested in making a tree purely for leveling purposes, we would recommend the build suggested on the Feral leveling guide, instead.

The list below compares the relative value of 1 point of the stat, or rating in the case of Hit Rating, for example.

1. Expertise up to the 6.5% cap vs bosses;
2. Agility;
3. Stamina;
4. Physical Hit up to the 9% cap vs bosses, 5% in PvP;
5. Strength (1 Strength = 2 Attack Power baseline but Druid gets extra from Heart of the Wild and Blessing of Kings making it stronger than raw AP);
6. Critical Strike;
7. Haste;
8. Dodge;
9. Defense;
10. Attack Power;
11. Resilience;
12. Armor;
13. Armor Penetration.

This is the stat priority that will generally get you the best balance of threat vs effective health. Stamina is of special importance for Feral tanks, as it gets multiplied into 1.7 stamina per each point of stamina you get on your gear after all buffs and bear form are accounted for.

Having a huge health pool is fundamental for bears as unlucky crushing hit streaks will always happen from time to time, and healers need time to react to this sort of damage.

Expertise, Agility, and Hit are excellent for both threat and mitigation, making them all-star stats for a tank Druid.

For single target:

1. Keep Demoralizing Roar up;
2. Use Mangle (Bear) whenever available;
3. Use Maul if it will not delay a Mangle cast.

Against multiple enemies:

1. Keep Demoralizing Roar up;
2. Use Mangle (Bear) whenever available;
3. Use Swipe if Mangle is not available;
4. Use Maul if you still have excess Rage.

Engineering gives multiple useful bonuses for Feral Tanks, such as the extra damage from Super Sapper Charge and Gnomish Flame Turret, the party haste buff from Gnomish Battle Chicken, and powerful stamina trinkets Goblin Rocket Launcher and Gnomish Poultryizer.

Enchanting also has significant personal benefits due to exclusive ring enchants which will increase your throughput for all of TBC, especially once you can enchant stats on rings, but even striking will be strong early on.

Leatherworking is also a strong profession as it allows you to craft and use the Primal Intent set set, which can be used to fill gear gaps early on. You will also be able to craft your own Strength of the Clefthoof set You will also get Drums of Battle, which are an important consumable only brought by Leatherworkers, although the early versions of drums require you to go out of form, which is not recommended while tanking.

Jewelcrafting has relatively weak personal benefits early on, but allows you to craft Hard Khorium Choker by Sunwell, which is a good reward for picking up this profession.

Finally, Alchemy is an excellent gold maker with its transmute recipes and the new elixir, potion, and transmute masteries making it a strong support profession for your alts.

While not all abilities in your spellbook have the same degree of importance, they all have their uses, which we will try to quickly explain in the following sections.

While in Bear Form or Dire Bear Form you will use Rage instead of Mana or Energy. When you deal auto-attack damage or take damage you will generate Rage, which can then be spent on attacks or Frenzied Regeneration.

• Bear Form and Dire Bear Form turn you into a bear, drastically increasing your armor and health. This is the form you will want to be in while tanking.
• Growl taunts the target to attack you. This is a critical tanking ability, which can save the lives of your teammates.
• Challenging Roar growls every nearby target to attack you for 6 seconds. While it has a large cooldown, this is invaluable for AoE tanking in emergencies.
• Mangle (Bear) is a strong attack that costs Rage and has a small cooldown. It also debuffs the target with 30% increased bleed damage taken. Use it whenever available.
• Maul a strong attack that empowers your next auto attack but makes it cost Rage instead of granting Rage, so should only be used when you have excess Rage.
• Swipe swipes in front of you, dealing damage to all targets. This is meant to be used against 3 or more targets.
• Demoralizing Roar decreases the attack power of all enemies around you.
• Bash stuns your target for a few seconds.
• Frenzied Regeneration is a cooldown that converts Rage into health, healing you over a few seconds.
• Feral Charge charges your target, rooting them for 4 seconds and interrupting any spell cast.
• Enrage generates Rage but also lowers your armor for a short time.

While in Cat Form, you will have two resources to deal with: combo points and Energy. Energy automatically regenerates over time and is used for abilities such as Mangle, which generate combo points.

Combo points can be accumulated up to 5 and are spent on finisher abilities that use all combo points at once for an especially powerful effect (such as Rip).

Powershifting is the act of using Furor and Wolfshead Helm to gain a lot of Energy each time you shapeshift into cat form. Because you can shapeshift from cat into cat for the cost of Mana, you can continually repeat this when at 0 Energy to gain free Energy, allowing you to use your abilities continuously!

These abilities use Energy and generate combo points:

• Claw uses Energy to generate a combo point and deal extra damage. It is a weak ability, but due to its lack of positional requirements and caveats, also one of the most used abilities until Mangle replaces it down the line.
• Rake is similar to Claw but deals less upfront damage while bleeding your target to deal some extra damage over time. Because the bleed cannot crit, this is generally weaker than Claw.
• Mangle (Cat) is also very similar to Claw but deals a lot more damage and leaves a debuff increasing bleed damage taken by 30% on the target, which is helpful for your follow up abilities.
• Shred is your strongest attack once you have its support talents, but can only be used from behind the target, which prevents it from being used much while soloing.
• Ravage can only be used while stealthed and behind the target and deals a lot of damage to the target, as well as generating a combo point. This is the favored way to open until Pounce is unlocked.
• Pounce is also only usable from stealth but stuns the target and deals bleed damage instead of doing direct damage. This is the favored way to open on most targets due to the lack of positional requirements and the stun can help mitigate damage taken.

These abilities use combo points for a powerful attack:

• Rip is a powerful bleed that consumes combo points and Energy to put a damage over time effect on your target. Against targets that will live through its full duration, this is one of your main damage dealers.
• Ferocious Bite is similar to Rip but deals its damage instantly. However, it generally does lower damage than the bleed over its full duration, especially when heavily reduced by target armor.

These are other utility abilities that are only usable while in Cat Form.

• Faerie Fire (Feral) is a free talented Feral version of Faerie Fire that can be cast in Cat and Bear form. It lowers the armor of the target and makes them unable to stealth while active. You should always use this after opening on an enemy, as it provides a free damage gain.
• Prowl allows you to go into stealth. This drastically lowers the range at which enemies can see and attack you, and gives you access to some abilities that can only be used while in stealth. You can only go into stealth while not in combat, and being attacked or using any ability while stealthed will bring you out of it.
• Tiger's Fury consumes some Energy to give you a 6-second buff that increases your damage done. This is not particularly strong and is mostly used for extra burst on the opening, as it is one of the few abilities that does not bring you out of stealth when used.
• Dash increases your movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds on a 3-minute cooldown. A useful mobility cooldown.
• Cower lowers your threat against your current target.
• Feline Grace is a passive that makes you take less fall damage.
• Leader of the Pack is the final talent in the feral tree that passively buffs your and your party members' critical strike chance by 3%.

These are other abilities that all Druids possess and which are part of your utility package. We will list the most important ones at the top, but you can read about all of them if you want to learn more about being a Druid.

Every ability below will take you out of form when used, making them very dangerous to use while actively tanking anything in bear form!

• Mark of the Wild is a unique Druid buff that increases your target's stats, armor, and resistances while active for 30 minutes. Keep this up on everyone in your group.
• Thorns buffs the target for 10 minutes, causing enemies who attack the target to take a small amount of Nature damage for each attack. You should always have this active on the tanks, including yourself.
• Omen of Clarity is a 10-minute buff that causes your melee attacks to have a chance to make your next ability free. This activates very often as a Feral Tank and is routinely used for extra damage or free healing.
• Barkskin is a defensive cooldown that reduces your physical damage taken by 20% for 15 seconds on a 1-minute cooldown. This is usable while stunned.
• Innervate greatly increases the target's Mana regeneration for a short time, making it especially good when used on targets with high Spirit.
• Rebirth allows you to resurrect a group member while in combat.
• Remove Curse removes a curse from your target.
• Abolish Poison removes a poison from your target every 2 seconds, for 8 seconds.
• Hibernate is a crowd control ability that puts a beast to sleep for 30 seconds. This is usable on enemy Druids while they are in animal forms.
• Entangling Roots is a crowd control ability that roots the target in place for up to 27 seconds depending on the rank.
• Nature's Grasp is a low-level talent in the Balance tree that puts a 45 second buff on you. While active, the next target to damage you will have Entangling Roots cast on them. This is a great ability to use when trying to run away!
• Rejuvenation is a heal over time effect you can cast on yourself or allies to heal them every few seconds for a while.
• Regrowth is a heal with a shorter cast time that does a burst of healing and puts a healing over time effect on the target.
• Healing Touch is a powerful heal with a longer cast.
• Tranquility is a powerful healing cooldown that, while channeled, heals party members every 2 seconds for 10 seconds on a 5-minute cooldown.
• Moonfire is an instant cast, damage over time effect.
• Wrath is a casted ability that will deal some Nature damage.
• Starfire is a slightly lower casted ability that will deal a higher burst of Arcane damage.
• Hurricane deals damage to targets in an area for every second while you channel. This ability has a 1-minute cooldown.
• Faerie Fire curses the target, lowering their armor and making them unable to turn invisible or stealth while active.
• Soothe Animal reduces the range at which a beast will attack you.
• Track Humanoids allows you to track nearby humanoids, including players, on your mini-map.