Classic Feral Druid Tank Spec, Builds, and Talents

If you were looking for leveling builds, please refer to our leveling guide for Druids.

Unlike lots of other specs and classes, the Feral talent build is quite rigid. This build takes all of the important mitigation talents, such as Thick Hide, while mainly focusing on increasing your threat generated. None of the other talent choices available will provide a damage increase or a reduction in damage taken. Feral Aggression is the only exception, but it is a negligible benefit and not worth the 5 points. The only other potential option is Natural Shapeshifter, if you plan to switch between Cat Form and Dire Bear Form to switch between DPS and tanking. The Bear Druid rotation is based almost entirely around Maul, which most of these talents will either help generate Rage for, increase your threat, like with Feral Instinct, or increase damage done, like with Savage Fury. The more Mauls that you can cast, the more threat you generate, which is one of your main concerns as a tank.

One of Feral's strengths is that it is the only spec in the game that has two intended builds built into a single talent tree. This talent build makes use of that to pick up most of the important talents needed to DPS and to tank, while only making minor sacrifices in each spec. This enables you to swap between DPS and tanking anytime, making you a great choice for potentially off-tanking during a raid. Even mid-fight, you can instantly swap between DPS and tanking whenever needed.

Unlike the pure Tank build, this build has some wiggle room. Most of the choices come down to whether you want to focus more on DPS or tanking. In the first couple of tiers for the Feral tree, you can move points between Feral Instinct, Thick Hide, and Feral Aggression, depending on whether you want more threat, armor, or Ferocious Bite damage. In general, it is advisable to always lean towards taking talents that help you tank over talents that help you do more damage if you are not confident, since losing aggro or dying as a tank can easily be a raid wipe, whereas doing slightly less damage will not cause you to fail an encounter in most cases. You will notice also that this build loses Feline Swiftness and Thick Hide to keep some of the more important damage and utility options. Thick hide is also not as needed since Druids can actually hit the armor cap in pre-raid BiS gear just using consumables.