The state of Druid Tanks

Druid Tanks feel terrible. Phase 2 datamined runes will make it worse, IF they really come. I take it with a grain of salt. But if that is actually what we get, all druid tanks WILL be salty.
Please do something about it.

TLDR from Below:
Switch Wild Strikes with Savage Roar
Improve wild strikes effectiveness for druids like it works with kings buff from hunters
→ Give Swipe proper scaling with a phase 2 rune. (Probably just autohit damage instead of flat)
→ Make Bleeds and Poison work on mechanical mobs somehow
→ Give useful runes for lacking areas in Phase 2, instead of 3min CDs
→ Please make a book “thumbs for druid forms” to be able to use engineering or at least potions and healthstones

Here are the reasons why it feels terrible, with a suggested solution:

  • Survival of the Fittest shares the slot with the actual tank rune.
    Switch Wild Strikes with Savage Roar
    No group (especially alliance) will accept feral druids not taking wild strikes, so we just can’t use SOTF ever.
  • Legs slot has no rune that actually benefits tanking.
    Switch Wild Strikes with Savage Roar (Yes that solves 2 problems for druid tanks)
    There is an interrupt that shares the CD with the interrupt we already have. Bad Joke even with the range difference.
  • Wild Strikes does not improve us, compared to other classes.
    Improve wild strikes effectiveness for druids like it works with kings buff from hunters
    Runes usually improve only the classes that wear it, or at least they benefit more from it. (double effectiveness of kings buff for hunters for example)
    Wild Strikes only works for autohits for druid. Why? That way, wild strikes makes it even harder for us to keep threat. So our rune buffs us even less than other people. What?
  • Swipe doesn’t scale with anything.
    → Give Swipe proper scaling with a phase 2 rune. (Probably just autohit damage instead of flat)
    25 damage on 3 targets for 20 rage and no extra threat. That spell is useless in SOD without rune fixing.
  • Lacerate will be useless in Phase 2, because of mechanical unit bleed immunity.
    Mechanical units could bleed oil if you need a reason. Or create a completely new mechanic like bleed immune enemies take 60% of bleed/poison damage instantly. Make it a book to switch from instant less damage to full dot damage or something like that.
    Other specs could use this too like cats or rogues with bleed and poison and it would prevent all these abilites getting completely useless for 3+ months, even tough they may be less effective. Less effective is still better than useless.
  • Both new tank runes are 3min cooldowns (probably, if you don’t change it)
    Instead tackle the biggest issues, that can be fixed with new runes, which are swipe being useless and heavy rage issues at the start of the fight and at trash.
    Berserk, a 3 minute cooldown which makes another rune more useful for 15 seconds. This rune is even useless if you don’t use mangle rune. Who thought, that would be a good idea? Please keep runes at 1min cds max or they will feel terrible

Oh and one more thing: Please make a book “thumbs for druid forms”. I want to be able to use engineering or at least potions and healthstones without getting killed instantly, because i’m not a bear anymore for 1 second.

There may be better solutions, but the classic team is actually really good, if they take the time to think of something nice (love the heal mage). So these are just my suggestions. The reasons, why it feels terrible may be shared among all druid tanks tough.

Thanks for reading.

EDIT: Typos

1 Like

Sunfire might be the go to in Gnomeregan. I couldn’t agree more with you about savage roar and wild strikes changing places.

I really hope they put a molten blast, furious thunder equivalent for bears swipe to make them competitive in aoe.

guy who designed hunterchanges had some extra time, so he got bears as well.

I just don’t get the cleave ability being on a 3 min CD lol. I mean it’s completely useless for anything other than some boss encounters that might spawn adds that need picked up. Doesn’t help with dungeon running or clearing raid trash at all.

Just have mangle or lacerate replace swipe like it does for Claw in cat form. Reduce the damage as necessary and add additional threat to compensate.

According to some log statistics, druid have:
the worst dps,
the worst threat,
and the least popularity (3,2%) among tanks.

Definitely getting the least attention from developers.
They don’t need to be the best, but being so much worse than other tanks is just disheartening.

Druid power!

It’s funny that locks can use potions and everything else in demon form, but druids can’t. Apparently because the paws…

Druid tanks is fine

Does blizzard even read EU forums?