Druid • Feral Tank • PVE
Feral Tank Druid (PVE)
Bear Form tank with strong physical mitigation and reliable threat generation.
Gear & Stats
This section covers recommended gearing for Feral Druid tanks in Phase 1 PvE, including a Pre-BiS set for early gearing and a Phase 1 BiS set for Karazhan, Gruul, and Magtheridon. Feral tanks naturally excel at single-target threat and effective health, but your gearing choices still matter a lot because bears can be crushed by raid bosses and do not have the same defensive cooldown toolkit as shield tanks. As a rule, you want to build a balanced set that keeps you alive through unlucky crushing streaks while still maintaining enough threat to comfortably hold bosses against strong DPS. Expertise, Agility, and Hit all improve both threat and reliability, while Stamina and Armor are your backbone for survival.
Feral Tank PvE Pre-BiS
Feral Druid Tank PvE BiS (Phase 1)
Stat Priority
Threat and Reliability First
Expertise to the 6.5% dodge cap versus bosses, then Agility, then Stamina. After that, get Physical Hit up to the 9% cap versus bosses. These stats reduce misses and dodges, stabilize your opening threat, and scale your core abilities.
Caps and Targets
Expertise cap versus bosses is 6.5% dodge reduction (26 expertise skill, which is 200 expertise rating). Hit cap versus bosses is 9%. Hitting these goals helps prevent early threat drops from missed Mauls or dodged Mangles.
After the Core Stats
Strength is strong for threat because it becomes more valuable with Heart of the Wild and Blessing of Kings. Crit and Haste are solid threat scalers. Dodge and Defense add mitigation, while Armor remains your primary physical mitigation layer.
Stamina Note
Stamina is especially valuable for bears because it is heavily amplified by Bear Form and talents. A large health pool is fundamental because crushing blow streaks can happen and your healers need time to react to spikes.
Gems, Enchants, and Practical Notes
Gemming Approach
Use Stamina-heavy gemming when learning content or when you are taking large spike damage. If your survival is comfortable, you can lean into Agility and Expertise to improve threat and smoothness.
Weapon and Feral Attack Power
Weapon DPS is irrelevant in forms. What matters is Feral Attack Power and stats on the weapon. This is why staff choices that provide Feral AP and strong secondary stats are so valuable for tanking and also remain useful when swapping to Cat DPS.
Defense and Resilience
Defense helps reduce crit chance and adds small avoidance, but it is uncommon on feral gear. Resilience can also help reduce incoming crits and adds durability, but it is generally a lower priority than the core threat and survival stats for PvE tanking.
Armor and Magic Damage
Armor is your primary physical mitigation stat and one of the main reasons bears are so stable into boss melee. Against heavy magic damage, armor does not help, so Stamina becomes the most reliable way to increase effective health for those encounters.