High-DPS Bear Rotation for Alysrazor?

[ellorien]

Hi,

I'm going to attempt bear tanking a hatchling for the first time this week. I am extremely inexperienced as a bear, and my primary concern is that I might not be able to kill the hatchling in time.

I'm using Ovale, but I believe the suggested moves there are more for threat than for dps. Is there such a thing as a high dps bear rotation, and could anyone tell me what it would be? Or perhaps the high dps bear spells I should prioritize over others? I tried to research it, but there doesn't seem to be much bear dps discussions out there.

Also, would this be a good hybrid spec for it?

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0Zf0GfoubdrfzMcz

Is Pulverize necessary/ a big dps boost?

[Qbear]

Get a resto of boomkin to glyph thorns and pop it on you on cd. Then you can hit any button you want and that bird is gonna get peaced.

[ellorien]

Get a resto of boomkin to glyph thorns and pop it on you on cd. Then you can hit any button you want and that bird is gonna get peaced.

Sadly, I am the only druid in our group. Someone did suggest I pop out to throw Thorns on myself while the hatchling is eating the worm. Feasible or too risky?

[Qbear]

It's both feasible and risky haha good luck!!!

However, for max damage it's worth it to try to get it out. With feather buff I'm sure you can wait for him to turn to the bird move out while casting it and be back in bear before he even turns back to you since he does have to do a full swing animation to eat the worm.

[Leafkiller]

Berserk is up for every add phase. Get a three stack of lacerate + pulverize, and then use berserk. If you have a rogue, then they can ToT you. You can also get Unholy Frenzy if you have an unholy DK. I know one guild actually had their bear tank go kitty when the hatchling was satiated and pop back to bear otherwise (that is something I never tried).

As far as thorns go, casting it while the hatchling is eating a worm and then popping back to bear is not an issue. You have plenty of time to do that. Unfortunately feral thorns* does not do nearly the damage that boomkin/resto thorns do - and it may not be worth doing (I have 176 spell power in my current gear per the armory...).

* "Thorns sprout from the friendly target causing ((178 + ($SP * .168)) *) Nature damage to attackers when hit. Lasts 20 sec."

[ellorien]

Thank you for the tips, I needed specific advice like that. Going cat while satiated sounds risky too, but interesting. If I fail at dpsing enough as bear, I'll definitely give that a go!

[Alaron]

I'm almost positive that Thorns scales off either your AP or SP, whichever is higher.

As for switching out to cast it...eh. In our Alys runs, thorns only accounted for 3-5% of the tank's damage. (That's glyphed, too, so close to 80% uptime.) As long as you're not having rage issues, go ahead...but hell, if you can switch out and cast Thorns, you can switch to Cat and Rake. Taking a single non-Tantrum hit out of Bear is survivable, but I wouldn't make a habit of it.

I find that having DPS spread debuffs to the worms (+4% damage taken, and our PTank loves CoE) is more important.

If things are really bad, start looking for single-target buffs from your DPS...Dark Intent, Unholy Frenzy, etc.

[redline]

You can also eat a few brushfires to start off with vengeance stacked. Depending on the difficulty each tick will get you ~7-15% vengeance. Possibly won't amount to much (especially in normals) but if you're having trouble, every little bit helps. Just make sure you communicate with your healers first.

[ellorien]

Thanks for all the advice! Here's how it turned out:

I basically started off with 3x Lacerate + Pulverize, then hit Berserk + Enrage = Mangle Spam.

It took the hatchling about 3 seconds to eat a worm so I was able to safely shift out, Thorns myself, and shift back before he started hitting me again. I was able to cast Thorns 5x on myself (whenever the cooldown and worm-eating synced) and it was 3.7% of my total damage.

I did a pretty unimpressive 85k dps but managed to kill the hatchling usually while the tornadoes were sitting in place before they begin moving. I think because in the heat of the moment, I was spamming Lacerate too much and Maul not enough. More practice needed!

Is Raking the hatchling better than Thornsing myself while he's eating?

[Laurind]

I wait the first tantrum to enrage+berserk after it for full vengeance, but if you are shifting out... I don't know if that would work as it will wipe your vengeance
Remember to swap glyphs, 10% on mangle is quite a bit, and the lacerate one helps too
FFF before he fixates also.

get a tracker to show vengeance as a bar, it helps.
Never shifted out to thorn myself, I even pre-thorn our pally, and debuff his add too