Threat management on Feral Druid tank (New player)
I'm a level 80 Druid Tank and so far, i don't have problem with threat management until reaching level 80s heroics.
I have around 3.4k Gear Score and I always have problems with threats generated by party mates with Gear Scores of 5k+ because of their insane DPS.
https://imgur.com/gallery/CtfqhJV
Note on this image: I have 3.3k GS in this instance (currently farming emblems for gears) and the mage has 5.4k GS
For this instance, the mage is blaming me for his 5+ deaths and calling me 'stupid' and thus, my motivation to make this post.
I am currently using this combo for threat generation on single or two targets:
Fearie Fire -> Mangle -> Maul -> Lacerate -> Maul -> (Switch Target) -> REPEAT
Activate Berserk if losing threat -> Enrage - > Barkskin -> Spam Mangle
Growl and Challenging Roar for last resort
Are the Gear Score and their insane DPS are to blame or my combo does not do the trick? New combos are also welcome if you have better suggestions.
You're playing it as if its a vanilla wow bear druid, especially with that target switching. It's not necessary, just maul and swipe what is in front of you. Use both of those abilities all the time, they will generate enough rage from the critical hits so you can continue to recast them. Use Swipe on bosses too, after you stacked up Lacerate because each critical hit causes your Savage Defense passive to trigger which reduces damage taken.
Lacerate is a complete waste of global cooldowns on trash packs, its only useful on bosses and Mangle should only be used on your primary target in the trash pack that needs to go down first.
Faerie Fire was useful during those early 15-40 levels but after that it becomes obsolete because it generates so little threat when you could have Swipe'd for more threat, even on a single target. Use Faerie Fire only on the bosses.
I have taken your advise and it actually makes sense. But there's one thing i'm still baffled about.
As far as I know, Maul is the bread and butter of threat generating skill (You can correct me if it isn't). But unlike the other skills, it depends on the attack speed of the bear. During dungeons, I sometimes fall behind on threat generating because of the bear's attack speed especially if one of the dps does not care if he's hitting too much especially when he has way higher gear scores than mine. Does haste affect the bear's (or perhaps the cat's) attack speed?
And also isn't it better to have an AGI item rather than dodge chance on lvl 80 gears? (only if you have items to choose between the two e.g. trinkets)
Now all you need to do is:
Pull with Faerie Fire > Mangle on CD > Lacerate to 5 Stacks > Spam Swipe
If it's an aoe pull just skip lacerate and spam Swipe.
Since you now have mangle bound to everything, you'll have tons of threat on your primary target, so you can switch targets to generate more threat if you're having an issue with the group's cleave out-threating your swipe. Personally, I'd save berserk for opening threat on bosses and packs that need to die fast.
I'd agree with your assessment that gear is causing an issue with your threat in 5 mans, unfortunately that's just the way it is until your gear gets a bit closer to theirs. Get used to taunting all the time until then.
As others have stated - use everything all the time.
Get a glyph of Maul to hit 2 targets.
Keep maul on at all times.
Use Faerie Fire off cool down
Swipe swipe swipe
Mangle on different targets
Lacerate 5 stacks up keep 100% on boss, and can even have upkeep of 100% on 2-3 targets at a time.