We've got a full house (of tanks)

A couple days ago our resident druid Grunzford finally hit 80. The last couple of days have been us trying to set him up with whatever crafted and AH gear we could acquire for him. Not the easiest task since apparently the only leather anyone sells these days has spell power on it, but we managed to pick him up enough gear for a starter tanking set.

He did get the opportunity to tank his first heroic yesterday though. A buddy of mine was looking for a quick heroic run and I volunteered the druid. In retrospect, it may have been a bit much to have his first real tanking experience be in Utgarde Pinnacle, but hey - no wipe, no foul. Besides that's how I learned how to tank in 40-mans ("You guys gonna take it easy on me?" "Hell no, get to work.")

It's a little too early to go making any concrete judgments from that small of a sample of experience, but from what he was telling me, it sounded pretty similar to warrior tanking in that it was a priority list. Mangle's sorta their version of our Shield Slam with Maul being the bear Heroic Strike, so it's "hit Mangle when it's up and use Maul when rage allows". After that it's keeping a stack of five Lacerates up (used only as often as necessary to keep the stack up), Feral Faerie Fire when it's up, and Swipe as their filler strike like Devastate is for us.

There are some slight differences, like how our filler strike is what keeps our five-stack up for us instead being a "use every 13.5 seconds" ability, but the main difference is that they don't have proc-related conditions for their priority list. For warriors, we're always watching out for a Sword and Board proc or for Revenge to come up, but bears appear to stick with their basic priority list. They technically have a proc in the form of Omen of Clarity, but that's just a free hit of any kind rather than a specific ability. Since they've got something to press every cooldown and they all take about the same amount of rage, it essentially just becomes a free Maul in the end.

I'm hoping that in the near future, I'll be able to line him up with some more heroic work or perhaps a raid or two to get some better info on how their abilities work. Most of the raid work that comes our way tends to have "send Solannis" in the notes, but we'll see. If I can find work for the lock, then I can find work for a tank.