PvE Feral Tank Druid Rotation & Cooldowns

PvE Feral Tank Druid

Gems, Enchants & Consumables

Stat Priority & Reforging

Best Professions

Pre-Raid Gear

Rotation & Cooldowns

Talents, Builds & Glyphs

Best in Slot (BiS)

Addons & Macros

The rotation for a bear tank is going to be fairly simple and beginner friendly. The cooldowns are going to be important to be strategic with as bears don’t have quite as many ways to keep themselves alive in dicey situations as one would like. That said, the complexity is going to jump up if you plan on min-maxing any downtime by hopping into cat to do DPS. Check out the PvE Feral DPS Druid Rotation & Cooldowns guide for further information on a cat DPS rotation, as it’ll be the same for us.

Single-Target Rotation

1. Keep Demoralizing Roar up if no equivalent debuffs are being applied.
2. Cast Mangle whenever it’s up.
3. Cast Pulverize to consume stacks of Lacerate and keep the buff up on yourself at all times.
4. Cast Lacerate to keep stacks on your target.
5. Cast Thrash to apply a bleed.
6. Make sure Faerie Fire is being applied to your target.
7. Use Lacerate as filler.
8. If rage-capping and no relevant buffs, bleeds, or debuffs need re-applying then use Maul to spend surplus.

This rotation is mainly about keeping your target debuffed, keeping Pulverize up on yourself, and throwing in some bleeds for good measure. It’s suggested to start in humanoid form and then shift into Bear Form to make use of the rage gen from Furor – at least until you’ve got your rage rolling.

AoE/Cleave Rotation

1. Keep Demoralizing Roar up if no equivalent debuffs are being applied.
2. Use Berserk and spam Mangle for the duration.
3. Swipe as much as you can.
4. Cast Mangle whenever it’s up.
5. Cast Thrash to apply bleeds in an AoE.
6. Use Lacerate as filler.
7. Use Maul if rage-capping and no high-priority abilities are available.

This is mainly going to be about your Swipe, particularly if the amount of targets increases past 3. Past that it’s just about keeping a few bleeds up, and thankfully we now have Thrash as an AoE way to do that.

Defensive/Utility Cooldowns

For defensive options you have Barkskin at a 20% damage reduction on a 1 minute cooldown. A fairly light cooldown, but how often you can cast it still makes it valuable. For more serious damage being taken you have your 3 minute cooldown, Survival Instincts, with a more substantial 50% damage reduction. Lastly, you’ll have access to Frenzied Regeneration, which will boost your max health by 30% and increase healing effects on you by the same amount for 20 seconds since we’re running Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration.

An important utility cooldown added with Cataclysm would be Stampeding Roar, giving anyone within 10 yards of you a massive 60% movement speed buff! With proper coordination and timing, this can make raid mechanics much more manageable. You’ll also have access to Rebirth and Innervate if the situation calls for them and you’re able to swap out of bear without eating dirt.