Post by Qlix
depends on if youre speccd into
Primal Precision. But the soft cap you want to reach is 6.5% through talents and gear
Post by Aadramelekh
What a fuss... Lately I have been analyzing other tanking classes and I honestly believe (although my main and most beloved character is a feral druid, Bear & Cat specs) that with equivalent gear, Bears are inferior by a few percent to other tanks. Sure, for slow & hard hitting bosses Bears might be better since they have 3-4K more HP and 4-5K more armor, but their avoidance is lower than other tanks.
For instance, currently I am geared like this:
Tank Profile. I have a Solid Dragon's Eye in my belt as well. Self buffed with MotW I have about 38K HP and ~41% dodge + ~7% miss (some defense rating) = ~48% avoidance. 30K armor.
I have a Frost Death Knight tank which is a little lower level geared (
Borcea Armory link). Self buffed with HoW he has about 32.5K HP, 27% dodge, 20% parry and 14% miss = 61% avoidance. 26K armor. With full T8.25 + epic gems + decent weapon (
Marrowstrike) he would reach 35K HP.
The Bear has 3K HP and 5K more armor. The Death Knight has 13%(!) more avoidance. Of course, raid buffed the Bear's avoidance goes up nicely via BoK + HoW but at that level the dodge is already so high, that these raid buffs won't translate into more than ~3% more dodge. So the Death Knight will still have 10% more avoidance while also having more than enough HP & Armor to fulfill the '5 second rule' of survival against hardest hitting bosses.
Paladins and Warriors don't have 61% avoidance, they have about 57-58% self buffed. However they can reach almost the same amount of HP as Bears (I have seen Warriors running around with 39K HP unbuffed and they still had ~56% avoidance, which is slightly higher than a raid buffed Bear) and their Block stat has now effectively been almost doubled, leaving our Savage Defense in the dust. They also have ~3K less armor, but still...
Bottom line: Bears don't have 'OMG so much more HP' than other tanks. Not after the nerf to Heart of the Wild from 20% to 10% bonus stamina in Bear Form.
Bears do keep an advantage in armor and HP. But other tanks have higher avoidance by values anywhere from 9% to 13%. Block values have been doubled so Warrior and Paladins again beat Bears in trash mob and fast / low hitting bosses. Shifting some stamina to agility would be the answer (while keeping above the 5 second rule standard) for Bears. But then we'd only gain 2-3% more avoidance (still lower than other tanks) at the cost of having as little HP as any other tanks have, only with ~4K more armor raid buffed.
Bear tanks are almost on the same playing field with Death Knights, Warriors and Paladins. Trading some avoidance for a minor HP / armor bonus. That is all. Stamina isn't everything for a Tank. Stamina is most valuable until the Tank reaches the '5 second rule' threshold (surviving two hits from the hardest hitting boss in the raid content). Above that it's only a bonus. Above that, 9-13% more avoidance wins, even against 4K more armor.