How To: Tank as a Feral Druid at Level 80

I'm sure you've seen the ads in trade chat: LF Tank and Healer for such-and-such heroic. This guide will teach you, as a feral druid, to fill the role of a tank.

Stats

As far as gear goes, the stats you want are:

Hit & Expertise>Dodge Rating>Agility>Armor>Stamina>All melee stats (attack power, crit, ...)

After you reach the hit cap (295.2) and the expertise cap (443), you want:

Dodge Rating>Agility>Armor>Stamina>All melee stats (attack power, crit, ...)

Bear tanks do not need defense as the talent Surrvival of the Fittest makes all feral druid tanks defense-capped. Also, rings and weapons that have armor on them are only decent, as this armor does not get modified by the bear form multipliers.

To begin tanking heroics, you need at least 20k armor, 25% dodge, and 20k hp UNBUFFED. Unbuffed means no MotW, no thorns, nothing but dire bear form. More is always better, but these requirements are a bare minimum. If your healer is fully decked out in 25 man Naxx gear, then heroics might be possible with less stats. The success of heroics is greatly dependant on the stats of the tank and the healer; if your healer has sub-par gear, then your tnak should have the gear to make up for it.

Specs:

0/60/11 - Fully Talented

0/55/14 - Fully Talented

- Swap Imp Mangle for King of the Jungle if you want.

Bare miniums - Allows for customization. These are the talents that every bear tank must have.

Rotations:

Lacerate up to 5 stacks, Mangle when its up, Maul when you have more than 50 rage. Keep your lacerate. If there isn't any CC'ed mobs and you feel like you have to burn more rage, add swipe in between mangles and lacerates.

Multiple Mobs:

Mangle on the main target, swipe up to 50 rage, then swipe and maul.

That's it! Now go tank some stuff.