PvE Feral Druid Tank Rotations & Cooldowns – WoW Classic

wow classic pve feral druid tank rotations cooldowns

Feral Druid Tanks have a way easier rotation than Feral Druid DPS, with their rotations becoming complicated only if they choose to play as an Off-Tank since they have to follow the Feral Druid DPS rotation. As such, players choosing to only Main-Tank will find themselves having a much easier time than players who choose to perform multiple roles.

We’ll showcase both the Tanking and Off-Tanking Single-Target Rotation, along with the AoE Rotation and Utility spells.

Single-Target Tanking Rotation (Bear Form)

  1. Upkeep Dire Bear Form (At all times!)
    • Only Change Form when necessary to provide crowd control/utility
    • Don’t change Form as long as you have elite/boss mobs attacking you!
  2. Cast Thorns on yourself and upkeep it!
  3. Cast Faerie Fire (Feral) and upkeep the debuff!
  4. Cast Demoralizing Roar to debuff enemies and upkeep it
  5. Cast Feral Charge to engage mobs or reposition yourself
  6. Cast Growl if you need to taunt the target
  7. Cast Maul (Main Ability – Threat Generator)
    • Consistently press Maul as it’s off GCD and can be combined with other abilities
  8. Cast Swipe (Spam Swipe whenever above 50 Rage)

The rotation for Single-Target is very simple to grasp as long as you don’t overspend your Rage! While there are not many buttons to press, correctly managing your Rage Pool is what Feral Druid tanking is all about! There are 5 main Threat-generation tools to have in mind: Thorns, Faerie Fire (Feral), Demoralizing Roar, Maul, and Swipe.

Thorns will always be active on you acting as the first Threat Generation tool while Demoralizing Roar should be used as soon as possible. Faerie Fire (Feral) should be used as you move towards your target and it can be followed up with Feral Charge as an engaging tool. However, while Demoralizing Roar does generate aggro, it will only be used to upkeep the effect as the other abilities generate far more aggro.

Since Faerie Fire (Feral) generates aggro and has no cost while also having a low cooldown, you will consistently use it on cooldown to increase your Threat while also conserving Rage. Maul is your main Threat Generator, acting as a replacement for your Auto-Attack that is off GCD. Since it generates the highest amount of aggro among all of your abilities and is not affected by the GCD, you will consistently spam it, even when using other abilities. As long as you don’t end up Rage starving yourself, you will always use Maul.

Swipe is the main Rage Dumper ability besides Maul, being an ability that you will always use when above 50 Rage. Since Swipe deals fixed damage and is not affected by Attack Power, you won’t want to use it more than Maul, as more damage generally means overall higher aggro.

Off-Tanking Single-Target Rotation (Cat Form)

Powershifting Macro

#showtooltip 
/cancelform
/cast Cat Form
  1. Start the fight in Cat Form
  2. Cast Faerie Fire (Feral)
    • Refresh it when it’s about to expire
  3. Reserve Tiger’s Fury for Burst
  4. Cast Shred to build up Combo Points twice
  5. Powershift (Macro)
  6. Recast Shred until 5 Combo Points
  7. Cast Ferocious Bite whenever you reach 5 Combo Points
  8. Powershift (Macro)
  9. Repeat Rotation starting from Shred (Point 4)

The Off-Tanking rotation is the same as the one of the Feral Druid DPS. Basically, you will want to Powershift, utilizing Shred as your main Combo Points generator and Ferocious Bite as your main Finishing Move. Powershifting should occur right after two casts of Shred, with the purpose being always to generate 40 Energy through the Furor talent, and 60 Energy if you have the Wolfshead Helm. Ferocious Bite will take priority over Shred when 5 Combo Points are generated after which you will continue using two Shred casts between each Powershifting cast.

AoE Rotation

  1. Upkeep Dire Bear Form (At all times!)
    • Only Change Form when necessary to provide crowd control/utility
    • Don’t change Form as long as you have elite/boss mobs attacking you!
  2. Cast Thorns on yourself and upkeep it!
  3. Cast Demoralizing Roar to debuff enemies and upkeep it
    • Cast Demoralizing Roar to generate Threat at the beginning of the fight and when any new pack joins the fight
  4. Cast Faerie Fire (Feral) and upkeep the debuff!
  5. Cast Growl if you need to taunt the target
  6. Cast Challenging Roar to AoE Taunt all targets around you
  7. Cast Maul (Main Threat Generator)
    • Rotate Maul casts on multiple enemies by tab-targeting
  8. Cast Swipe (Main AoE ability)
    • Spam Swipe as long as you have at least 2 targets on you

The AoE rotation for the Feral Druid Tank is extremely similar to the Single-Target rotation! The main difference between the two is that you now have to consider Challenging Roar as well for possible dire situations where you must instantly tank all nearby mobs that might threaten your allies and the fact that you must tab-target and rotate your abilities between all targets that you are currently tanking.

The rest works exactly the same with Faerie Fire (Feral) being used on cooldown, Maul remaining your highest aggro generation tool and Swipe being used as a Rage Dumper. What you have to do is simply consistently switch between targets on every target that you are tanking and use at least one Maul on each every few seconds to maintain Threat.

Utility

  1. Upkeep Dire Bear Form as much as possible for the Leader of the Pack buff.
  2. Upkeep Faerie Fire (Feral)
  3. Gift of the Wild/Mark of the Wild (Upkeep it)
  4. Innervate (On high-priority targets)
  5. Rebirth (Only on targets called out by the Raid Leader)
  6. Thorns (Always upkeep on Tanks)

In terms of Utility, Feral Druids tanks can’t properly use their tools without getting out of Dire Bear Form. The only utility tool they can use is Faerie Fire (Feral) while all other tools can only be used in Humanoid Form. By far the strongest tools in their kit are Rebirth and Innervate, but they can only be used when Off-Tanking, as getting out of Dire Bear Form can spell instant death depending on the encounter.

Thorns should always be kept on both yourself and the Off-Tank/Main Tank and should always be used before the beginning of the encounter. The same goes for Gift of the Wild/Mark of the Wild as it should be active at all times during PvE content

 

About the Author

Nevermore

Hey there folks, I am Nevermore and have been deeply passionate about WoW for more than a decade. Whether we talk about the hidden mysteries of Azeroth or the otherworldly Outland, my journey brought me here to share the things that I have experienced with you all.
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