Circle of Tanks

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary tank?
Yigi, Druid, 0/58/13

What is your primary tanking environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
Mostly 10 mans, some 25s

What is your favorite tankng spell for your class and why?
Swipe. I love it's spammability and it's high threat. I would LOVE to say Maul because it just does so much threat and dmg, but I hate the way it works.


What tanking spell do you use least for your class and why?
Druids don't have a very large arsenal of tanking spells, so I tend to use all of them in a normal 10 man setting. In 5 mans i rarely use Lacerate, since it takes 5 GCDs to really make it worth it.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your tanking class and why?
I hate to use the standard "swiss army knife" cliche that druids get, but it really is true. Our burst threat, sustained threat, and survivability are not the BEST, but they are all really good. So I would say, we are very well rounded. A huge strength we also have (while it's not necessarily tanking), is the ability to switch to a very solid healing spec.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your tanking class and why?
Snap threat is our biggest weakness that I can see. The only way we can REALLY frontload a lot of threat is through berserk, which only works if you have 1-3 targets and really gimps your sustained threat in a single mob encounter.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best tanking assignment for you?
Bosses that hit for big numbers, whether it's a spell or physical attack. Our high health pool and good defensive cooldowns really make us perform great during a Plasma Blast, for example.

What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with most and why?
I tank with a DW Frost DK every day, and I love it. Their AoE threat is amazing, so it really counters our lack of burst AoE threat during fights like Mimiron P3 or Jaraxxus adds.

What tanking class do you enjoy tanking with least and why?
I haven't tanked much with paladins in Wrath, although they seem ok. I haven't met any GOOD pally tanks on this server, so I think my view of them is skewed.

What is your worst habit as a tank?
Probably hectic fights where I tend to watch how my raid is performing rather than concentrating on tanking.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while tanking?
DPS who try to run the show. I love suggestions, but when DPS feel like a certain strategy is better because it involves less DPS movement, it irks me.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other tanks?
I feel like we are pretty well balanced. DKs have gotten the shaft a lot recently, but since they started so high during 3.0 and 3.1 they are about on par, if not a SLIGHT bit behind.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a tank?
Mostly just seeing how well the fight is controlled. In most fights, the tanks control the fight. If the tanks are doing their job, there is minimal movement, minimal add rampages, and an overall cleaner encounter. I do look at Omen to see my TPS on occasion, but for the most part if I am holding aggro and know I'm using the right rotation, it's all about the same.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your class?
The fact that we are "mana sponges." Uneducated people feel like the druid class is just supposed to be a high health sponge that soaks up the hits, while they fail to realize that our high dodge and armor make us take a lot less damage than they may think.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new tanks of your class to learn?
How to properly gear. Since druids don't have a "def cap" to worry about, a new druid doesn't have any stats to "aim" for. It's all about knowing the proper balance, and how to gem/enchant properly. The only thing that seperates leather feral tanking gear from feral/rogue dps gear is the gems and enchants.

Effective Health or Avoidance and why?
I raid with a Disc Priest, Resto Shaman, and Resto Druid healer, so I feel like in a lot of cases avoidance really ourperforms EH. If I raided regularly with a holy paladin, or raided 25 mans, EH would be much more important to me.

What tanking class do you feel you understand least?
DKs, although I understand the basics, the ins and outs are foreign to me.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in tanking?
I don't use any tanking specific addons, but I use omen, grid, and spellreminder to keep track of my threat, raid, and cooldowns respectively.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your tanking stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
At this point I mostly stack Agility. To an extent I DO balance it with stamina, but mostly only in blue slots (using agi/stam gems) and in certain enchants where stam is just better than agi.

-yigi