Well here it is. The Bear guide compilation. This is not ALL my work by any means. My goal here is to collect all the good information for you and present it in 1 place. Much thanks to Yawning, Alaron, Leafkiller, and Reesi who did most of this guide. I have marked my comments in this color
1.Talents, Bonuses, and Mastery
Talents -
Below is a list of talents what I consider mandatory and what I consider optional. Keep in mind that you will have to take some of the optional talents to get to the lower tiers, and that some will be better than others for this choice]
I currently use this build at the moment
2.Bonuses-
Aggression
Increases your attack power by 25%
Vengeance
Each time you take damage while in Bear Form, you gain 5% of the damage taken as attack power, up to a maximum of 10% of your health.
Feral Instinct
Reduces the chance enemies have to detect you while Prowling.
Mastery -
Mastery: Savage Defender (Level 80)
Increases the damage absorbed by your Savage Defense ability by 32%. Each point of Mastery increases the absorb by an additional 4%.
What is Mastery? Mastery is a new-fangled stat that works the same as any other rating stat. X amount of Mastery Rating will give you Y amount of Mastery. For each point of Mastery that you have, the value of your Mastery Bonus will increase. In the case of Bears, Savage Defender. So, if you have 1 Mastery, your Savage Defense will increase the absorption amount by 36%.
3.Stats, Gearing, and Reforging
Stats
In no order of importance:
Agility
Grants AP, Crit, and Dodge. No longer grants Armor.
1 Agi = 2.5 AP (2.625 AP) [2.8875 AP]
1 Agi = 0.0030783% Crit (0.0032323%)
324.85 Agi = 1% Crit
1 Agi = 0.0041054% Dodge (0.0043106%)
243.58 Agi = 1% Dodge
Strength
Grants attack power.
1 Str = 2.5 AP (2.625 AP) [2.8875 AP]
Stamina
Grants HP and some AP through Vengeance.
1 Sta = 17.1402 Health (17.99721)
Critical Strike Rating
Increases chance to crit.
1 Crit Rating = 0.0055779% Crit
179.28 Crit Rating = 1% Crit
Haste
Increases attack speed.
128.05701 = 1% Haste
Dodge Rating
Increases chance to dodge.
1 Dodge Rating = 0.005687% Dodge
176.71899 Dodge Rating = 1% Dodge
Hit Rating
Increases chance to hit.
120.109 Hit Rating = 1% Hit
1 Hit Rating = 0.0083256% Hit
8% Hit = 960.872 Hit Rating
Expertise Rating
Decreases an enemy's chance to dodge and parry.
30.0727 Expertise Rating = 1 Expertise
Level 85 mob = 5.0% (Dodge) / 5.0% (Parry) = 601.454 (20) / 601.454 (20) Expertise Rating
Level 86 mob = 5.2% (Dodge) / 5.2% (Parry) = 631.527 (21) / 631.527 (21) Expertise Rating
Level 87 mob = 5.4% (Dodge) / 5.4% (Parry) = 661.599 (22) / 661.599 (22) Expertise Rating
Level 88 mob = 6.5% (Dodge) / 14% (Parry) = 781.890 (26) / 1684.071 (56) Expertise Rating
Mastery Rating
Increases your Mastery. Points in Mastery increase the effect of Savage Defender.
179.28 Mastery Rating = 1 Mastery
Armor
Decreases the amount of physical damage you take.
1 Armor = 3.2186 Armor (Bear + Thick Hide)
1 Armor = 3.282972 Armor (Bear + Thick Hide + Meta Gem)
Armor cap (75% DR) for Lvl88 Boss mobs = 97717.5 Armor
Gearing
Gearing up is a bit different this time around. It's now pretty difficult to achieve hit and expertise caps, so get that where you can. However, with the addition of Mastery, you should start thinking of it like the old defense. You want it on as many pieces as possible, which brings me to my next point.
Accessories. Ideally, Bear gearing now dictates the use of Agility/Stam accessories instead of tank accessories. This is because DPS accessories had their base stamina raised to match the stam level of the tank accessories, and through reforging, Agi/stam pieces typically have more survivability. However, and here's where it gets fun, tank accessories can, and should, still be used if there is not an optimal agility accessory for that slot.
What do I mean by optimal? Mastery. As I stated above, you want as much mastery on gear as possible. So if you have a tank accessory that's dodge/mastery and don't have an agi accessory with mastery, you'd use the tank one. Do not use plate DPS pieces, as those are not a good source of dodge, even with reforging, thus lowering your survivability.
The best agility pieces in general will be ones with Expertise/Mastery(until soft cap) or Crit/Mastery as their secondary stats.
For stat priority on gear (read: not gems or enchants), Dodge > Mastery > Expertise(to dodge cap) >= Crit > Expertise(beyond dodge cap) = Hit > Haste. Through the use of spreadsheets, it's been determined that expertise is slightly better than crit for mitigation until the dodge cap has been obtained.
Get Expertise through gear, but don't sacrifice Mastery for it.
Mastery
Mastery is an odd little beast for bears. Why? It has a softcap, but what that softcap is will vary between every single fight. It is entirely dependent upon incoming damage. Why does it have a softcap? Vengeance doesn't gain when damage is absorbed. Since SD increases the size of our absorb, it affects the maximum vengeance you can have at any given time. For any type of progression, this shouldn't ever be an issue or a concern.
If you're not tanking progression, you should only need a comfortable amount of mastery and can then gear/reforge for more threat/dps.
Reforging -
Reforging is fairly simple. Reforge the least wanted stats into Dodge Rating.
4.Gems, Enchants
Gems-
Gemming has a bit of an option now. It isn't just "zerg the heck out of stamina to live". Yes, Stam is still somewhat important, but not as much with gems. Good socket bonuses ought to be gemmed for now. What constitutes as a good bonus? Just about anything with an Agility or Mastery or Stam bonus. This means more hybrid gems.
The following gems are the best for survival:
Austere Shadowspirit Diamond
Delicate Inferno Ruby
Polished Ember Topaz
Shifting Demonseye
Regal Dream Emerald
The not recommended, but usable, gems:
Solid Ocean Sapphire
Puissant Dream Emerald
Guardian's Demonseye
Accurate Demonseye
Adept Ember Topaz
Enchants -
Head:
Arcanum of the Earthen Ring
Shoulders:
Greater Inscription of Unbreakable Quartz(preferred)
or
Greater Inscription of Shattered Crystal
Chest:
Enchant Chest - Greater Stamina
or
Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats
These two are so close in value that it doesn't matter much. 75 stam gives more health, 20 stats gives more threat and a slightly larger SD absorb. I recommend +20 stats.
Belt:
Ebonsteel Belt Buckle
Legs:
Charscale Leg Armor
Boots:
Enchant Boots - Assassin's Step
or
Enchant Boots - Earthen Vitality
or
Enchant Boots - Lavawalker
Bracers:
Scroll of Enchant Bracer - Major Stamina
or
Enchant Bracer - Dodge
Gloves:
Glove Reinforcements
or
Enchant Gloves - Greater Mastery
(Reinforcements are superior... Still.)
Cloak:
Enchant Cloak - Protection
Weapon:
Enchant 2H Weapon - Mighty Agility
or
Enchant Weapon - Windwalk
5.Threat Generation and Macros
Berserk now has 2 effects for Bears. The first is the on-use spell that causes Mangle to have no cooldown and hit 2 additional targets for X amount of seconds. This is always what it has been.
The second is what is more important. The second ability is a passive bonus that allows your Lacerate ticks to proc Berserk(NOT the on-use spell). This proc will reset the cooldown on your Mangle ability and it will cost no rage. So, if Mangle is on cooldown for 4 more seconds, and you get a Berserk proc, you can hit Mangle again, thus starting the 6 second cooldown again.
This random buff will cause an organized chaos in your rotation, because essentially you are getting a Free Mangle randomly while doing your rotation. As such, the Bear rotation will become a list of threat priorities rather than something that is static. Mangle is the anchoring point. Its damage and, by extension, its threat has been increased to the point where it is mandatory to react to Berserk procs and Mangle cooldown.
Pulverize is an interesting little mechanic. It consumes the 1 thing that gives your rotation more threat: Lacerate (and by extension, Berserk procs). That can be worked around with good timing and planning.
Maul - Maul now costs 30 rage to use. This is significant when choosing to use it. It has a 3 second cooldown and is off the GCD. Use Maul when you have over 60 rage, at the least. Try and use Maul when you have a Clearcasting proc. Early on in a fight, Maul's TPR is very bland. Start stacking vengeance, and it will begin to hit fairly hard.
You can Maul on CD on raid bosses. Most people are reporting little-to-no rage problems.
Faerie Fire(Feral) - Unfortunately, FFF's threat has dropped below our other abilities. Using it in a time of little-to-no rage (below 15) is better than doing nothing at all, and aside from refreshing the debuff, is the only time it should be pushed. In WotLK FFF was to be used on CD not matter what boss. It is no longer that way.
Thrash - Shiny new AoE spell to be used in addition to swipe. It is, at this point, worth it to incorporate it into the single target rotation as well.
Single Target rotation
Use Mangle as soon as you have enough rage. Keep using it whenever it cools down.
Keep demoralizing roar up on your target.
Keep Faerie Fire up on your target at 3 stacks unless someone else in your raid is doing this for you.
Lacerate to 3 stacks.
Dump excess rage by using Maul.
If lacerate is at 3 stacks, debuffs are refreshed and mangle is unavailable, pulverise and re-apply lacerate to 3 stacks.
Multiple Targets
Use Mangle on your primary target as soon as you have enough rage.
Use Swipe and Thrash on every cool down as soon as they become available.
Use Demoralizing Roar and keep it up throughout the encounter.
Start tab selecting through each mob and apply Lacerate and mangle as much much as possible in between using swipe and thrash.
Dump excess rage using Maul.
Why use Demoralizing Roar?
[Demoralizing Roar] is one of the most important aspects of your rotation and must be kept up at all times on both single and multiple target rotations. This ability reduces your incoming damage and if kept up at all time will basically mean you take 10% less damage overall constantly. Unlike other tanking cool down abilities that reduce damage, this one can be used at all times and will make healing you significantly easier. This is even more important considering the stage of the expansion we are currently in as gear means balancing mitigation and avoidance are a top priority for all tanks.
Macros -
I don't have very many... But I will post the one most of you are wondering about. That is the Maul macro. Yes, you can still have Maul macro'd to your attacks since it IS off the GCD and can be used with other attacks.
The biggest change is that you will want a modifier condition even more if you happen to be low on rage (which doesn't seem to be all that often, tbh).
Please take note that Blizzard has changed the syntax (again!) to many of the Bear and Cat abilities. The correct syntax is now (Bear Form), with no space between the parenthesis and the ability. Example: Mangle(Bear Form)
#showtooltip <Spell Name Goes Here>
/cast [nomod] Maul
/cast Mangle(Bear Form) *** Use any spell name here.
The [nomod] condition is really nice to have. If you ever find yourself starved and don't want to hit maul, all you need to do is hold down Shift, Alt, or Ctrl while pressing your hot key and Maul will NOT fire off.
/cast [mouseover, harm, exists, nodead] lacerate; lacerate
You also need to Macro Swipe and Thrash together. This allows you to use your AOE abilities with 1 button every 3 seconds.
---------------------------------
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What do I reforge to?
A: Haste into Dodge, mostly. Following spreadsheets and calculations done by Fasc and Zarko in the Tank community, as well as the folks over at EJ, it has become apparent that Bears are balanced around reforging unwanted stats to Dodge.
Q: What are the best gems?
A: This answer is going to change depending on your gear point, and even how capable your healers are. Right now, when everyone is grinding heroics and looking into entry level raids, Agility is the primary stat. Agility, Agility/dodge and Agility/Stam will provide the best amount of survivability early on. Whether or not Stamina will make a scene remains unknown.
Q: Why does it depend on your healers?
A: Gemming isn't as major as it was, though it's still important. As such, your healers will be the deciding factor on how you ultimately end up gemming. If your healers have no issue keeping you up, go for agility. If they can't keep up with the damage or are running oom, go for agility. If they can't keep you alive, but aren't running oom, go for more stamina. Always keep a dialogue open with them for as long as their mana matters.
