NOTE: If any ferals want to add to this, please just post a reply and I will find a way to work it in.

Tanking Gear

A good website to reference about gear upgrades is http://www.emmerald.net/ . It may not always be 100% correct, as alot of it comes down to choice, but genearlly it will guide you in the proper direction. I will give you a quick run-down of particularly easy to get tanking pieces now, and then tomorrow I will follow up with DPS gear. (Try to break this into 2 pieces just for the sake of my poor memory :P ) Another good reference is the EJ Feral Druid Megathread.

There are ALOT of VERY good badge pieces/auction house pieces for tanking. My reccomendations (in no particular order here):

• • AUCTION-HOUSE GEAR
• [Heavy Clefthoof Leggings]
• [Heavy Clefthoof Boots]
• [Heavy Clefthoof Vest]
• [Stylin' Purple Hat]
• (Depleted) [Badge of Tenacity]
• **[Belt of Natural Power]**

• • BADGE GEAR
• **[Slikk's Cloak of Placation]**(35 badges)
• **[Band of the Swift Paw]** (35 badges)
• **[Idol of Terror]** (20 badges)
• **[Necklace of the Juggernaut]** (25 badges)
• **[Tameless Breeches]** (100 badges)
• [Ring of the Stalwart Protector] (60 badges) {{{if you are going to be doing malts, go for this last and attempt to pick up mag's head for **[A'dal's Signet of Defense]**. also, get the tanking ring from kara}}}

• • SOLO QUEST GEAR
• [Verdant Gloves]
• [Staff of Beasts]
• [Mark of the Ravenguard]
• [Umberhowl's Collar]
• [Manimal's Cinch]
• [Cloak of the Valiant Defender]

Get exalted CE rep and get an [Earthwarden]. It will hold you over until SSC (or mount hyjal if that stupid ass staff in SSC never drops *coughcough*). If your druid is an LW, try to get your hands on the pattern for **[Boots of Natural Grace]**. For trinkets, try to get **[Commendation of Kael'thas]** and either **[Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch]**(kara) or [Badge of Tenacity](AH)

The badge gear would be a good goal assuming you are running kara/heroics frequently, fill in with PVP gear as is necessary. All items denoted with a "**" are items that I am still actively using in my tanking set in mount hyjal and BT. The usual numbers that I have seen given as the "ready to tank kara" are:

• Uncrittable
• MINIMUM 16k HP (the more the better)
• 20kish armor
• 30%(ish) dodge

However, with the gear that I have listed above, you will be WELL beyond the bear (U C WUT I DID THERE???) minimums. And by "well beyond those minimums" I mean nearly SSC ready.

The Spec

The greatest part about being a feral is that it is a "one spec fits all!" setup. The most basic tanking set up is shown in THIS LINK. Since we are not required to respec for different jobs, you can see any of the raiding feral's armory for their own personal preference. Mine leans towards what is shown in THIS LINK. Whatever you do, you MUST have 3/3 Survival of the Fittest. Feral druids need a total of 2.60% decreased chance to be critically hit to be uncrittable (156 defense iirc). It is almost impossible to do if you do not take SotF, as you will then be required to hit 5.60%.

Tanking General Tips

When tanking one on one you should always be mashing buttons. Hit mangle EVERY time it is up, it is your main snap threat generation. Get lacerate to a 5 stack and keep it up for the entirety of the fight. If you are the only feral, keep Faerie Fire up. If there is no warrior, keep Demoralizing Roar up. If you have the rage, make use of maul, but beware, maul has a very painful effect on your rage. It is not an instant attack, but instead replaces your next attack; this means that you cannot generate rage on your next attack (unless the maul crits, in which case you gain 5 rage via talents).

Tanking multiple monsters at once can actually be kinda tricky (yeah yeah, i know, swipe spamlololol). If you have set monsters you are tanking, you should be attempting to get both up to 5 lacerates and keeping that up, filling with Swipe as you go. However, there will be those pulls (H. Ramps comes to mind) where you will be tanking 3-4 monsters at once. In these instances, focus on one monster to really heavily generate threat on to, and just hit the other 2 with swipes to keep them off of the healer. To do this, you will be making sure to mangle every 6 seconds (as you always will no matter what the situation) on the main target, and then hitting swipe whenever mangle is on cooldown.