Druid Tanking when things go wrong

[frederik]

Most of the time I am tanking 5 man instances with random people. I usually open fights against multiple targets by casting Rejuvenation and Regrowth on myself for additional aggro. Also the healer doesn't have to start to heal me too early. After that I use Enrage when it is not on cooldown. Then I pull the group with Faerie Fire and use Feral Charge. Or when other groups are nearby and the group has casters I break line of sight to make them run to me. Then I use Demoralizing Roar and Maul and use Faerie Fire on the targets on after another. When I have enough rage I am using Swipe in between. If the party members give me the first few seconds of a fight to do this I don't have any aggro problems at all.

But often it is the case that the party is very impatient. People pulling mobs with abilities that cause a lot of aggro. The healer has to heal multiple party members early on. The damage dealers don't focus on a target and the whole group that got pulled is spreaded among the party. This gets even worse when my Enrage ability is on cooldown as I can barely generate any rage in this scenario. That is very frustrating. Are there some tactics I can use to deal with those situations? I am currently level 38 so I perhaps don't have all abilities available druids can have later on.
I tried to communicate this with some groups. And when they really listen and see how effordless a run can be when they just give me the first seconds of a fight they adjust. But unfortunately it barely happens.

Maybe I'm just bad at tanking being seemingly unable to deal with those situations

 

[Spazztastic]

try going to your keybind menu, scroll down to near the bottom and find the 'skull', 'cross', 'moon', and 'diamond', bind these 3-4 to an easy to reach key, and ask for lead every time you tank. you already said you target swap so marking in combat is totally viable.

it's not a guarantee unless the group is pro, but I find skulls help persuade dps a little more, as does the X for second kill target. this will help you prioritize mob threat. also mages can never resist sheeping a moon mark if they can

 

[Magra]

If someone else pulls, let him tank and die.
If a dps pulls threat and keeps nuking, let him tank and die.

Pandaria kids learn they cannot solo dungeons on vanilla and ragequit. Problem solved. :shifty:

 

[frederik]

Thanks for the tip with marking targets. I will do that in the future. But what can a group do when a situation got messy? Just doing nothing (except healing) and let the tank pick up the mobs one by one?

 

[Spazztastic]

well I was talking as a warrior tank's pov, havent tanked nor played much as a druid.
I'm sure there are similarities, I've had those groups where everyone is a dps hero and tries to solo any old mob, chain pulls, healer getting aggro etc. so I understand that sort of pain.
As to minimizing it, you really just have to talk sense into them, before the wipe if you can smell it coming next pull.
protect the healer at all costs (duh)
swipe is the cleave, right? use the hell out of that. your beefy damage is your threat, maybe wait until all of the instance mobs are yellow or below, and maybe your group members a few levels lower as well really helps. group comp is also huge and as a tank you have the power to cherry pick which class(and level) you think works best with you.

also, maybe hibernate and or roots before/after your pre combat hots would help? maxing out group cc = a huge advantage in 5 mans all the way to 60

hope some of this helps, sorry I'm not too exp with druids