Please note, moonkin tanking is a relativly new concept so aspects in this guide are very much subject to change as more experience of moonkin tanking is gained.

A. Why be a moonkin tank?
B. Advantages and disadvantages of a moonkin tank.
C. Tools at the disposal of a moonkin tank.
D. Talent builds for a moonkin tank.
E. Primary stats of a moonkin tank.
F. Equipping your moonkin tank.
G. How to moonkin tank.
H. Class synergy with a moonkin tank.

A. Why be a moonkin tank?

First things first, let’s begin by explaining why you would want to tank as a balance druid in the first place.

The main principle behind the strength of the druid class allways has and allways will be its capability to fulfill any main group role as needed; in effect it is THE ultimate support class if played to its maximum potential. Unfortunatly many druids do not put the effort in to fulfill multiple roles and rather specialise in one aspect of a druid to the extreme, be that DPS, Tanking or Healing.

At first glance of the balance tree most people see it as a mix of dps with great backup healing potential, but believe that they sacrifice their ability to tank, these balance druids are also those who tend to collect a lot of cloth armour and are what is know as a “clothkin”. If you take a closer look however you will notice that we have many tools and attributes that allow us to retain our tanking ability.

Our Moonkin form boasts the same potential for armour as our feral counterparts Bear form and many balance druids have complained before that they feel they are a high threat caster; they view the high threat as a bane to achieving maximum dps, I view it as a means to retain our trinity of DPS, Tanking and Healing potential. And so the Moonkin tank was born, a high mitigation, high threat, ranged tank.

Why be a moonkin tank? To retain your versatility as a druid, able to adapt to any situation as needed. You can spend hours looking for a tank, or you can tank it yourself.

B. Advantages and disadvantages of a Moonkin tank.

So now we know why YOU might want to become a moonkin tank, but theres a large issue that needs to be addressed, why should anyone else take you as one? Its true that traditionally a moonkin is not a tank, we have no taunt ability for a start and we do not get spoon fed tanking kit like a warrior would, however all the disadvantages can be overcome and there are several unique benefits to a moonkin tank that nothing else can rival. Outlined below is a balanced overview of the pros and cons of following the panzerkin path for your use and for whatever guild leaders you may be trying to convince.

The Disadvantages

Health pool :- Unlike a feral tank or a warrior a moonkin tank gets no boost to their health pool and so is in a similar situation to a protection specced paladin. With a lower health pool you are more vulnerable to bursts of damage and your healers have less room for error. You can however compensate for this somewhat with itemization, stamina trinkets and stamina gems are what you need.

No Taunt :- Not an issue for boss encounters but is noticable against trash, a moonkin tank has no snap aggro abilities and so you need to plan your pulls carefully as you have less room for error. With practice though you can speedily assign targets to your group and get used to creating solid aggro on multiple mobs. It does however remain a problem with mobs that de-aggro you through fears or other such means.

Mana Based Aggro :- Only an issue during long boss fights, unlike a rage based system which produces threat infinatly, a moonkin tank needs mana to generate threat. We have a large amount of tools at our disposal to regain that mana but ultimatly there comes points where you need to lower your threat output in order to regenerate. This can lead to bursts of high and low threat, however your groups can easily compensate for this by keeping an eye on their threat meters for changes in pace, you can also create macros to let your groups know that you are regenerating mana so threat will be lower.

Low Avoidance :- Generally it is hard to kit yourself up for avoidance (dodge rate) as a moonkin tank. Unlike a feral we have low agility leading to fairly low dodge rates, this can be a problem against bosses with strong special abilities or stacking effects like mortal wounds (10% less healing taken per stack). Luckily we can still gain bursts of dodge from trinkets like Moroes’ pocket watch to help clear such effects from us.

The Advantages

High Mitigation :- Like our feral cousins a moonkin tank has extraordinarily high armour values and can hit the armour cap to achieve a 75% damage reduction against bosses, this acts to soften the lower effect of our lower health pool considerably and was the basis of druid tanking pre TBC. Ontop of the high levels of armour we also have access to barkskin for damage reduction above and beyond the 75% any other class can achieve albeit temporarily. With correct timing on your barkskin a Moonkin tank can mitigate more damage than any other class.

High Initial Threat :- Unlike traditional tanking classes who start with a low level of threat and a steady threat rate, a moonkin tank has very high initial threat levels with rapid threat gain to begin with, this makes them excellent for assigning to a raids primary nuke target as it allows raid dps to begin practically the second you pull.

Ranged Threat Generation :- Several encounters have aggro resets and knockback effects inbuilt, a moonkin tank has no problem re-establishing threat after a total aggro wipe (for example Blackheart the Inciters’ mind control in Shadow Labs) While a more traditional tank has to chase around after the boss with potentially no rage.

AoE Threat :- Similar to a protection paladin a moonkin tank is excellent at tanking large groups of non-elite mobs. The combination of Thorns and Hurricane creates more aggro than other AoE classes and deals significant damage in its own right. This allows fragile cloth casters to nuke down packs of mobs with minimal risk while you benefit directly from the protection of hurricanes attack slowdown combined with barkskins mitigation.

High DPS :- Unlike other tanks who cause relativly low damage per threat point, a moonkin tank produces threat at a 1:1 ration to their DPS, This leads to you being effectivly an extra source of damage at the same time as being a tank which in turn leads to faster kills and instance clearances.

Consumable Access :- While our feral cousins cannot use potions and the like in forms, our moonkin form can happily use such items giving us an extra lifeline that a bear tank does not have, compensating for our lower initial health pool.

C. Tools at the disposal of a Moonkin tank.

Wrath :- The main tool in your armoury as a Panzerkin; this provides the major bulk of your threat, being one of the best scaling damage spells ingame. It also more importantly has a 70% knockback resistance through talents coupled with a short cast time, allowing you to use it reliably while being attacked.

The main drawback to wrath however is that it is also one of our most mana inefficient nukes around so the benefits come at a price and you will have to be mindfull of your mana regeneration rates.

Moonfire :- The high mana cost of moonfire coupled with consistent use of wrath prevent excessive use of this spell but it is usefull nonetheless. If you do loose aggro on a target often a moonfire after your wrath cast provides a big enough burst to pull aggro back, furthermore the dot will then increase your threat generation temporarily.

In short it is your emergency threat tool to be used sparingly due to its high mana usage.

Starfire :- There is one time and one time only that you should be using starfire as a panzerkin and that is when you pull a mob either from fresh or from a CC effect. It is our biggest nuke and so gives us the best initial threat especially if followed by a moonfire however with no knockback resistance its use once you are in combat is highly limited.

Insect Swarm :- Not only does insect swarm provide extra threat but it also gives some measure of avoidance, especially in boss encounters you should keep this up all the time, it costs little mana for its damage output and it also does not reset your swing timer, after casting insect swarm it is worth waiting a while for your weapon swing animation before you begin casting again, this will give you a melee hit to regenerate some mana.at little loss to threat generation.

Barkskin :- With a 1 minuite cooldown you can utilise barkskin on every pull you do and infact this is one of the biggest boosts to a moonkin tanks mitigation going. At the armour cap of 75% reduction this boosts you up to 80% reduction, the less your armour though the more benefit you will see. Equally barkskin will act to reduce magic damage giving a means beyond spell resistance to mitigate spell damage.

Hurricane :- Your main tool for AoE tanking, but equally of value against high damage of mobs to slow down their attack speed although the extra protection comes at a high mana cost. A good example of when you may want to use hurricane against a boss is in Auchenai Crypts when Exarch Maladaar summons the Avatar of the Martyred.

Innervate :- As a moonkin tank you have two options for your innervate use; if used on yourself you can carry on casting longer before having to regenerate however you are likely to have a low spirit so the mana return will be fairly low. The other option of course is to Innervate someone else, allways keep an eye on your healers mana, if he is running low use it on your healer, if not feel free to use it on yourself.

Cyclone :- Cyclone is a massive boost to our tanking capabilities, with talents it is 100% knockback resistant and can be applied to most mobs throughout instances. Usually you can control your second nuke target with cyclone and your primary target will be dead by the time cyclone has diminished. As well as its control potential it provides fantastic damage mitigation completely cutting out a mobs damage on you. You should generally allways have a cyclone up on one target or another either as control or damage mitigation.

Furthermore cyclone can act as a taunt replacement, if one of your group pulls aggro from a target you are not currently killing you can control it with cyclones giving the player a chance to get out of danger. If you were fast on getting your cyclone up then it is not too hard to regain aggro with a wrath+moonfire as cyclone wears off.

D. Talent builds for a Moonkin tank.

Key Talents

When designing your moonkin tanking build there are four talents that are essential to the build. These are Control of Nature, Celestial Focus, Balance of Power and of course your moonkin form. Between these talents you become knockback resistant and gain enough spellhit to minimise resists against non boss mobs. With that in mind there are 3 main talent builds each with slight advantages in different areas.

47/0/14 :- http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=MxcrziIsguVoZxVcz

The traditional DPS moonkin build, it provides the best mana efficiency and regeneration out there and boosts your melee attacks with omen of clarity, it is however the most fragile of the three builds.

42/11/8 :- http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=MxcrziIsgu0oxMhoZV0h

A PvP orientated build and the best balance arena build going, its weakness is in the lack of Wrath of Cenarius which leads to a lower threat output compared to other builds but its strength lies in its cheap shifting costs couples with the ability to use your feral forms stuns and interrupts.

53/8/0 :- http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=zxcruiIsguAox0h

A raiding focused build, this provides the best threat generation and protection along with the raid utility of improved Faerie Fire. It is however nowhere near as good at PvP and is less mana efficient than a 47/0/14 build.

E. Primary stats of a Moonkin tank.

+dmg/healing :- Our main method of boosting our threat output, our spells scale amazingly well with higher spell damage, especially if you have Wrath of Cenarius. Note that you do not need tons of spell damage in order to hold aggro, 600-800 buffed suffices.

+Spellcrit rating :- Spell crit takes up a lot of stat allocation points on an item, so while it is a nice way to get a threat boost beyond your spelldamage it is far more efficient to go for pure +dmg. Furthermore the more predictable you can make your threat the easier it is for other people to get used to how hard they can nuke. Nice to have but by no means should you activly seek this out.

+Spellhit rating :- Initially not important to your tanking, balance of power covers your spell hit requirements for normal instances and heroics. If you want to tank in Karazhan or beyond though then spellresists start becoming a factor and so spellhit becomes necessary to lower gaps in your aggro generation from resist streaks.

mana/5s :- Moonkin tanking is highly mana intensive, the more mana regeneration you can get the longer you can generate a high amount of threat. And when it comes to regenerating mana nothing beats MP5.

Int :- Besides the secondary benefits of more mp/5 and spelldamage you gain from a high int this will effect your starting mana pool, the larger your initial mana pool the more threat you generate during your initial high threat phase before you need to regenerate. You should aim to be able to tank a 4 mob pack without needing to regenerate your mana. An 8k mana pool will suffice.

Stamina :- Unlike a feral druid we get no boost to our healthpool making stamina even more important for us to offset that weakness. A 10k unbuffed healthpool will suffice for most heroics.

Agility :- A good way to boost our avoidance, agility provides the most efficient means to boost our dodge rate but is hard to itemise for. You can however enchant for it with ease. Agility also acts to boost our base armour levels providing a decent amount of damage mitigation ontop of the avoidance.

Strength :- .While not a priority stat to seek out strength does have one important effect, it boosts your attackpower which inturn provides a stronger mana return from your melee hits. . Not a priority to gather by any means but if you use a large amount of feral items the strength is by no means a waste.

Resilience :- In order to tank heroics and raids it is highly important that you make yourself crit immune, to do this using defense however is nearly impossible for a panzerkin; luckily however resilience works to reduce crit rate in PvE encounters too so with a easily attainable 224 (5.6%) resilience you become immune to critical hits.

F. Equipping your Moonkin tank.

Itemizing your Panzerkin is a tricky buisness, how far do you take your armour levels? How much dodge do you want? Is it worth sacrificing some spelldamage items for feral equivilents to boost your strength and agility? The truth is that there is no ultimate answer to these questions, top end moonkin tanking is still in its relative infancy so nothing is set in stone; however you will want to follow these general stat recommendations

· A spelldamage of 500-600 unbuffed will let you generate a level of threat comparable if not above that of a protection warrior
· You can tank normal instances with low armour levels but to tank heroics 20-22k armour is advised, if you want to start tanking in raids 26k+ is what you want.
· HP levels of 10k unbuffed will see you through a majority of heroics but to raid tank you will want as large a healthpool as you can manage.
· Total crit immunity is achieved at 5.6% crit reduction, you can get this by both defense and resilience so watch both levels closely.

Outlined below is a list of some of the best kit out there for moonkin tanking, there will likely be other options so feel free to experiement, note I have removed the links to wowhead to provide a cleaner look.

Tier slots (helm,shoulder,chest,gloves,legs).

(Merciless) Gladiators Wildhide :- The Gladiators Wildhide sets provide you with a good selection of sockets coupled with high amounts of damage, armour, mana regeneration and most of the resilience you need to become crit immune. The 10% cheaper moonfire bonus is a good asset too. This is a good starting point for your panzerkins kit from which everything else works around.

The difficulty here is that you need to do arena matches to collect these sets, if you are good at arena then the merciless set is obviously the one to go for but for the average player the benefits of the merciless set over the extra cost are not huge. Collect what is achievable for you.

Malorne Harness :- The Malorne Harness will provide you with a much higer armour level than the Gladiators Wildhide sets but at the price of less stamina coupled with no mana regeneration, spelldamage or increase to your crit immunity. If you are going to use a large amount of Malorne you will want to use a caster weapon to compensate for some of these losses.

Neck

Veteran’s Pendants :- There are two versions of the PvP necklaces that are of use to you namely Dominance and Conquest. Each comes with high levels of stamina and resilience coupled with the flexibility of a socket; Dominance will provide you with slightly higher stat pools while Conquest will provide a larger threat output however both are suited to your needs.


Back

Thoriumweave Cloak :- With the highest armour and stamina available on any cloak this is a no brainer. The only reason to take a Gilded Thorium Cloak over this would be if you have not reached crit immunity.

Bracers

Veteran’s Wyrmhide :- The Veteran’s Wyrmhide bracers provide the best thrat and mana regeneration capabilities out of the high armour bracers out there coupled with a boost to your crit immunity. All feral bracers available to you have a minimal armour advantage which is nowhere near large enough to offset the decrease in threat generation you would take by choosing otherwise.

Belt

Belt of Natural Power :- The Belt of Natural Power provides a massive boost to your tanking with substantially higher armour levels than a Wyrmhide belt combined with insanely high amounts of stamina and the flexibility of two sockets. The main drawback is that you will need a crafter with access to both the pattern and the nether vortex which can make this a rather costly item to aquire.

Tree-menders Belt :- The Tree-menders Belt provides nearly as much armour as a Belt of Natural Power would but is very low on stamina comparitivly. It is also a lot easier to collect being a drop from heroic ramparts however without the stamina advantage the benefits of this over a Wyrmhide belt are dubious.

Veteran’s Wyrmhide :- Again the Veteran’s Wyrmhide option provides a good mix of all your essential stats with a high level of stamina providing a nice overall boost to your tanking and threat generation.

Boots

Veteran’s Wyrmhide :- While there are high armour feral boots out there, to collect ones with a significant mitigation advantage requires you to be in top end raid content and so are inaccessable to most, The fantastic Wyrmhide option however is available to all and relativly easy to collect.

Rings

The Seal of Danzalar :- Ideally suited for moonkin tanking the seal of Danzalar is a real gem for us, however it is tricky to get, dropping from the second SSC boss. That said a fair few smaller guilds are still capable of collecting this so you may be able to get a shot at getting one of your very own.

Violet Signet of the Great Protector :- While there are other high armour rings out there, this one is the best excluding the afformentioned Seal of Danzalar. It is equally very easy to gather its first version from just a single run into Karazhan.

A’dal’s Signet of Defence :- If The Seal of Danzalar is unaccessable to you then you will need to look for an alternative armour ring, the second best to your violet signet is this, being a reward from turning in the head of Magtheridon.

Relic

Idol of the Avenger :- There is only one obvious choice for you here, the Idol of the Avenger provides a direct boost to you main tanking spell and scales with talents making this by far your best relic choice.

Trinkets

Icon of the Silver Crescent :- A great trinket for boosting your threat, with a large passive amount of spelldamage and a great temporary boost for high pulling threat this is far and away the best damage trinket you can pickup.

Badge of Tenacity :- The best armour trinket going but quite difficult to gather as it requires you not only to learn the Shaartuul encounter at Ogri’la but to also get lucky. You may see one turn up on the AH but be prepared to pay a high price.

Darkmoon card Vengeance :- The best stamina trinket you can get, it also gives you a small increase to your threat generation, great if you want to step into raid tanking and need all the health you can get.

Moroes’ Lucky Pocket Watch :- The main use here is to provide you emergency amounts of dodge to clear stacking debuffs from you, only of great use in certain encounters but can be a lifesaver.

Alchemist’s Stone :- Although only for an alchemist this is also a very strong trinket selection providing a boost to all base stats and the extra potion effectivness is a huge asset when combined with rejuvination potions.

Weapons

Earthwarden :- Relativly easy to get an Earthwarden provides a good boost to your melee mana regeneration and armour levels but is low on stats. Depending on your level of gear however it may not be the best choice but this will definatly service your needs for a long time.

Wildfury Greatstaff :- A lot harder to aquire than an earthwarden but is a significant upgrade for your stamina and melee mana regeneration, The best defensive weapon you can currently aquire.

(Merciless) Gladiator’s War Staff :- If you stock up on a large amount of feral armour you will need to compensate for the drop in your caster stats with a more offensive weapon, the best of which are the gladiators staves which provide high levels of spelldamage and stamina, coupled with some crit immunity and the hard to get spellhit.

(Merciless) Gladiator’s Maul :- The other side effect of going for a large amount of feral armour is that while using a caster staff to compensate for lower spelldamage you will have relativly poor melee mana regeneration, however as your armour is not tied to your weapon you are free to swap in a high FAP weapon during your regeneration cycles.

Gems

Any sockets you have from your kit selection then need to be filled with gems, this is where you can compensate for weaknesses in the kit available. Generally you should aim to socket for stats you cannot otherwise get or you want to maximise. The 2 main choices here are stamina and spellhit. You will notice on a majority of the kit above that there is no spellhit on them and yet it is an important stat if you want to tank in raids, this makes it a logical choice to socket for. Likewise a Panzarkin suffers from a lower healthpool so anything you can do to boost it is a good idea.

Enchants

So you have your kit and you now have it fully gemmed, now its time to enchant it, listed is the best enchant available per item slot.

(Helm) Glyph of Power :- while there are tanking glyphs the spellhit from the glyph of power outweighs the mitigation benefits.

(Shoulder) Inscription of Discipline/the Orb :- Tanking inscriptions provide mostly a dodge benefit which is hard to take advantage of, Increasing your threat output with damage inscriptions is the better option.

(Cloak) 12 Agility :- is the best enchant for your cloak providing the highest armour boost than other enchants.

(Chest) +150hp :- At top end, you need as much health as you can get.

(Chest) +15 Resilience :- If you are short of becoming crit immune a resilience enchant to your chest can help get you there.

(Bracers) Spellpower :- A spellpower enchant gives you a decent increase to your threat levels and gives you the most stat points for the slot

(Bracers) Fortitude :- As ever though, more health is never a bad thing, if your threat is fine a fortitude enchant is a good option.

(Gloves) Spellstrike :- Spellhit is hard to gather if you are raiding, get as much as you can, where you can.

(Legs) Runic Spellthread :- A runic spellthread provides a significant increase to your threat generation while still giving you a good stamina increase.

(Boots) Fortitude :- Not many choices for you here but more health is a fine choice.

(Weapon) Spellpower :- If you need the spelldamage don’t hesitate to throw this on even a feral weapon.

(Weapon) Major Agility :- A 350 armour boost in moonkin form from the agility is nice to have but generally its better to take a spellpower enchant and find armour from alternative means.

G. How to Moonkin Tank

So now you know what spells you can use and what kit you should be aiming for, lets discuss how you go about actually tanking and the preperations you should make.

Pulling :- Before you pull a pack you will want to assign target to your group, the easiest way to do this is with raid icons, skull is normally the primary nuke target, assign a different symbol to each person eg, blue square = mage polymorph target. Make sure everyone knows their targets from the first pull of an instance, 5 minuites explaining things at the start of a run allows you to just keep assigning targets and speed through the instance.

You will also want to assign a target as the second nuke target for once the skull is dead, when you pull this will also be your initial cyclone target. Then once everyone is ready its time to pull; Charge up a starfire on the main nuke target then while it is casting select your secondary nuke target, once your starfire lands on the primary target cast a moonfire on the secondary target, likewise moonfire any uncontrolled mobs in the pack to create initial aggro on them, kite them a little in order to get time to do this if needed.

The Fight :- Now you have initial aggro on multiple mobs, it is time to start killing some of them, begin by casting cyclone on your secondary nuke target, you now have to build aggro on your main nuke target, select it and cast two wraths followed by an insect swarm, wait for your weapon swing animation to start then select the secondary nuke target again, recyclone it and move back onto the primary target.

Your threat level may be getting low on the main target compared to your groups dps so you may have to throw up a moonfire ontop of your wraths to keep aggro but by the time the second nuke target breaks out of your cyclone again the primary target should be dead or near death. Finish off the primary target and begin building more threat on the secondary target, if there are more targets on you or a mob has broken loose from CC your cyclone is now free to deal with them, use it as needed. Work your way through any non controlled mobs in a similar fashion then pick off the controlled mobs one by one.

Boss Tanking :- This is where it becomes more about your cast cycle, regeneration cycle and ability to use your lifelines effectivly. The default cast cycle is to pull with a starfire then follow up with a wrath and insect swarm, you then keep casting wraths while renewing insect swarm as it wears off. After casting insect swarm wait for your melee hit then continue with the wrath casts. The exact number of wraths you cast varies depending on crits and how many knockbacks you take but you normally get 4 casts off before needing to reapply insect swarm.

4 Wraths and an insect swarm costs just over 1100 mana, with a feral weapon equipped and full raid buffs you can regenerate 400-500 mana per melee swing reducing a casting cycles cost to 7-800 mana. This is further reduced by your mana regeneration however it is absolutely essential to land those melee hits as it almost doubles the length of time you can cast for before needing to regenerate.

Regeneration :- I have mentioned many times throughout this guide that there comes a point where your mana runs out and you need to regenerate, once you do run out of mana or you hae built a significant threat buffer you need to change your casting cycle. The main difference is that you cut wrath entirely out of your cycle, instead you want to be getting as many melee hits in as possible while still putting out threat, the best method to do this is through your DoT’s, A combination of Moonfire and Insect swarm coupled with your melee hits retains a dps of 3-400 depending on your kit but at a net mana gain. The trick is in getting the maximum number of hits in.

Start the cycle with a moonfire cast followed by an Insect swarm, this will cost you 575 mana, the moonfire is cast before swarm as it resets your swing timer, then you land melee hits, depending on your weapon speed you should be able to land a 4th melee hit a second or so after your moonfire DoT wears off, so do not be in a hurry to keep your DoTs up constantly. With 4 melee hits again depending on your kit you should be regenerating 1200-1600 mana per cycle if not more for a large net mana gain, since you are not constantly casting you will also gain your full mana regeneration for a few seconds giving you another 3-400 mana. If you have a shaman in your group you can further boost your regeneration with windfury, if you get a windfury proc not only do you get a chance at a double Elunes grace proc but your AP for those hits is significantly increased, its entirely possible to regenerate over 1000 mana from a single windfury proc.

Ontop of this regeneration cycle you can utilise your potion stock and your innervate should it be necessary to get back to a full dps cycle quickly for example the boss has enraged and needs to be taken out of an enrage phase quickly.

Learning to Dodge :- As investigated by Alathon, you cannot dodge while casting so making use of burst dodge trinkets or a reasonable dodge rate from agility can be tricky. In a normal casting cycle you will be able to dodge during your instant casts and between casts of wrath which makes your dodge rate about 30% effective. However this does not make dodge or burst dodge useless. There are two actions you can take to make effective use of your dodge.

· Time your casts so you are not casting when special attacks hit, a lot of boss special attacks are on a predictable timer, if you are not casting at that time you retain your chance to dodge during a potentially high damage burst, combined with burst dodge trinkets this is how you can clear stacking debuffs from yourself.
· Stop casting when below half health, your healers should be keeping you topped up near full health most of the time, if they are struggling to keep you up and you have a good threat buffer don’t be afraid to stop casting to utilise your dodge


Lifelines

I have mentioned as well that you have several lifelines available to you, some are naturally available to you while others need you to activly seek them out. Below is a listing.

Potions :- A Super Rejuvination Potion is by far and away the best potion for a panzerkin, not only does it act as a health restore option if you get low but it will also top up your mana. Do not utilise them as mana potions though, rather a health potion with an additional mana boost. For that reason carry a stack of mana potions too for general dps usage or encounters where you need mana for threat but are under no major risk of death.

Passive Items :– Although not as powerfull as potions we can utilise our passive item timer in moonkin form aswell to give us an extra lifeline. The most powerfull passive items come from herbalism being the Fel Blossom and the Nightmare Seed. Seeds can also be bought from the AH but go for a high price. If you have a warlock in your group however you can utilise healthstones instead as the best passive health restore item available however you can only use one healthstone so for long fights other consumables allow you to re-use your passive item timer.

Barkskin + Hurricane:– This is truly our last resort, the combination of barkskin and hurricane against a boss reduces damage significantly and lowers the attack speed to buy you precious seconds, while it may buy you time to act as a lifeline it is far more effective as a pre-planned tool to reduce damage during periods of boss enrages and the like. Even then however the high mana cost of hurricane makes this a double edged sword.

Warstomp :– Bosses are immune to stuns but packs in heroics pose a serious threat, warstomp is a fantastic lifeline against larger numbers of hard hitting stunbble mobs.

Evasion mode :– This requires both Moroes’ Lucky Pocket Watch and the Badge of Tenacity to pull off but by activating both trinkets at once you gain a sizeable boost to your evasion rate for a few seconds, with a half decent agility you can avoid over 50% of attacks, not a guarenteed lifesaver like a potion but an excellent option and a great way to avoid special attacks.

Consumables

Before entering into an instance there are certain consumable buffs you should stock up on to give yourself every advantage you can get.

Food buffs :– Spelldamage food such as Blackened Basilisk provides a good damage buff along with a small boost to your innervate potential and is in most cases your food buff of preference, however some situations call for the maximum health pool you can achieve so keeping a few Spicy Crawdad in stock.

Weapon Oils :– Superior Wizard Oils are cheap to make, last through death, have multiple charges, provide you with a large boost to your threat and last a long time. However if you use an oil be warned as you cannot benefit from Windfury

Flasks :– If you are going to invest in a flask for a raid then the damage flasks give you the best benefit, Flasks of Supreme Power are obtainable relativly easily. Also in 2.2 there will be a new flask that boosts nature, holy and arcane damage by 80 although the higher cost may not be worth it to some.

Battle and Guardian Elixirs :– Alternativly to flasks the best way to boost your mitigation is through Elixirs, they come with the big disadvantage of being removed upon death but are individually much cheaper. For a battle Elixir the elixir of Mastery comes out ontop. As a Guardian Elixir the Elixir of Major defense gives the most protection, combined the two elixirs will give you a good amount of armour and a general stat increase.

so now you know what kit to use, what spells are usefull in what situations, how to fully prepare yourself for an encounter and what to do when you get there. You know what cast cycles to use and what to do when you run out of mana. Next let us cover how other classes within the game synergy with your tanking to make things easier for you.

H. Class synergy with a Moonkin tank.

Warriors :- A warrior provides one of two direct boosts to your abilities, Commanding shout acts to boost your health pool by a large amount compensating for your lower HP, while Battle shout acts as a good AP boost during a regeneration cycle. Out of the two you will be After the Commanding shout, especially if raid tanking.

Warlock :- The synergy you gain with a warlock is entirely health related, the imps blood pact is a nice HP boost but not as strong as a warriors so is only of great use when maximising your health for tanking in raids, their other synergy with you is the supply of health stones but they do not need to be in your group for you to benefit.

Shaman :- One of the strongest classes to compliment your own, They provide strong boosts to your abilities via totems, and each specialisation provides its own unique benefits, an elemental shaman gives you a spellhit boost, an enhancement shaman provides the best boost for your melee mana regeneration along with a threat boost via stormstrike while a resto shaman brings you more mana with manatide and defence against knockbacks with his earthshield.

Default totem setup would be, Strength of Earth, Wrath of Air and Mana spring, with speciality totems being placed as needed/dependant on spec.

Rogue :- Rogues provide no great boost to your tanking abilities and gain no real benefit from being in your group.

Priest :- Holy or disc priests can provide you their benefits while staying outside your group, the true benefit of a priest for you is a shadow priest; their Vampiric Touch acts as a great boost to your mana regeneration allowing you to stay in a high dps cycle for longer. Likewise you can innervate your shadowpriest to keep the mana flowing into you and the rest of your group.

Paladin :- While a paladins blessings are of great benefit to you upping almost every aspect of your play, you do not need one in your group to benefit from them. The main benefit of having a paladin in your group comes from their Concentration aura which ontop of Celestial Focus gives you a 100% knockback immunity allowing for more wrath casts per cycle albeit at a higher mana consumption. Equally a paladin benefits greatly from your aura to save them mana. In a raid environment though your knockback needs are catered for by Earthshield.

Mage :- A mage does not directly benefit you by being in your group however they do benefit greatly from your aura, if you have spare slots a mage will love you for the crit aura.

Hunter :- A hunters main boost for you is their trueshot aura for your regeneration cycle, however other classes provide a larger boost so hunter is not an optimal choice.

Druid :- You benefit little from a feral druids aura and they benefit little from yours, If you have a restoration druid healing you though and a spare slot it is worth placing them in your group for their aura.

So what would be the optimal group in a raid to support your tanking?

Shaman and Shadow Priest are no brainers, leaving two slots to play with, depending on what you are tanking you can either bring two casters into your group to have them benefit from your aura, or go with a warlock + warrior combination to give you the highest possible health.

With a combination of shadowpriest, a shamans mana totems and a retpally keeping up judgement of wisdom on a boss the amount of mana you regenerate is quite insane. Add on potions, a strong elunes grace proc and a self innervate while raid tanking and most of your mana issues become non-existant. Infact it is entirely possible to go for a full 10 minuite encounter without needing to go into a regeneration cycle once.


Thanks to everyone out there who had the guts to let me tank for them repeatedly, without the extensive testing of the moonkin tanking concept this guide could never have been made.

Further thanks to Alathon and all other contributors to this thread in helping develop this guide.

Final thanks to Aztecs for giving me the opportunity to tank raiding encounters.

Vengeance 3....coming soon.

.... god

marry me lol

Seriously considering giving this a go.

No. You will get crushed to death.

You keep mentioning the armour cap and such, but most druids have trouble as it is reaching that even with ordinary feral gear, what are you using to achieve it plus spelldamage?

Nice post even though I didn't read it all. Good luck doing anything more than easy heroics with a good healer on you tbh. Moonkin tanks simply are not viable and will never be viable. Boomkins weren't given extra armor so they could tank. It's for defence against melee attacks in pvp.

The reason most druids specialise for one roll is because you simply have to for end game content. Ferals fill the dps / tank roll, balance fills the dps / offheal roll and restos for the imba healing.

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Q u o t e:
Nice post even though I didn't read it all. Good luck doing anything more than easy heroics with a good healer on you tbh. Moonkin tanks simply are not viable and will never be viable. Boomkins weren't given extra armor so they could tank. It's for defence against melee attacks in pvp.

The reason most druids specialise for one roll is because you simply have to for end game content. Ferals fill the dps / tank roll, balance fills the dps / offheal roll and restos for the imba healing.

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Yet the only thing Moonkins dont have which Feral druids has, is a taunt and some extra HP.. Taunt is made up by huge aggro and we can get the hp some other way...

Most bosses are immune to taunt so it makes no difference on boss fights anyway..

There's a lot more than just the loss of taunt. What about the feral talents that increase tanking ability like thick hide, feral instinct, heart of the wild, improved leader of the pack, survival of the fittest, primal tenacity and predatory instincts?

So without these you are already gimped.

1. To increase your survivability you have to wear a lot of items that have stam and agility which means you are gimping your mana pool and spell damage, your means of getting threat. Even wearing this gear you will still not have the health / armor / dodge / defence of a feral so your healers lives are gonna be a lot harder.

2. You cannot possibly generate as much threat as a bear with this gear.

3. Your fights depend on your mana pool which is going to be gimped. You will not survive long fights and maintain agro over dpsers.

4. Show me 1 balance druid that has ever tanked anything above a heroic, or even a heroic for that matter.

5. Without survival of the fittest how do you propose making up the crit immunity needed to tank anything above a normal instance without further gimping your other stats?

Sorry to be a negative nancy but moonkins simply weren't made for tanking and just because you can tank a few normal instances doesn't mean the trend continues on into heroics and karazan.

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Q u o t e:
You keep mentioning the armour cap and such, but most druids have trouble as it is reaching that even with ordinary feral gear, what are you using to achieve it plus spelldamage

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With the kit listed you can reach 28-30k armour, from here lay on hands, inspiration or ancestral fortitude pushes you over the armour cap just like it would for a feral, indeed many feral druids stop at around 28k armour precisly because with those buffs any extra armour becomes relativly pointless.

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Q u o t e:
There's a lot more than just the loss of taunt. What about the feral talents that increase tanking ability like thick hide, feral instinct, heart of the wild, improved leader of the pack, survival of the fittest, primal tenacity and predatory instincts?

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Thick hide is included in 2 of the talent builds i have shown, and out of the other talents you list the only one that is a significant loss is heart of the wild for a higher health pool. However fully kitted out a tanking moonkin can reach over 12k hp unbuffed, generally only about 3k less health than a feral druid in bear form.

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Q u o t e:
2. You cannot possibly generate as much threat as a bear with this gear.

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Actually a moonkin tank can generate alot more threat than alot of tanks depending on situation and equipment. Many moonkins allready push a tanks threat hard with just starfire casts, a wrath casting cycle generates insane amounts of threat.

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Q u o t e:
3. Your fights depend on your mana pool which is going to be gimped. You will not survive long fights and maintain agro over dpsers.

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Thats where paying attention to your casting cycles is needed, with an efficient cast cycle, a few potions, a self innervate and the possibility of a shadow priest it can be a long time untill you need to go into a regeneration cycle. And then with a little luck on windfury you can be back to full mana within a minuite if not less.

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Q u o t e:
4. Show me 1 balance druid that has ever tanked anything above a heroic, or even a heroic for that matter.

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I myself have tanked 2/3 of the heroic instances ingame and have tanked in karazhan upto prince.

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Q u o t e:

5. Without survival of the fittest how do you propose making up the crit immunity needed to tank anything above a normal instance without further gimping your other stats?

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And that just shows you did not read the guide, resilience also affects PvE crit against you, the 5 pieces of gladiator kit on your set slots alone give you nearly enough to reduce crit rate by over 4%, from there its not hard to make up the other 1% with defense or more resilience.

You realise you can't dodge while casting, right?

You also need 490 defense to be crit immune, good luck getting that while keeping your other stats up.

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Q u o t e:
You realise you can't dodge while casting, right?

You also need 490 defense to be crit immune, good luck getting that while keeping your other stats up.

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To be fair he has stated that he intends to replace defense with resilience - but still, imo, this is a fairly far fetched way of tanking when we have a perfectly good bear form capable of dodging.

The only merit seems to be that Barkskin can be used, but tbh, I think any boomkin is going to struggle maintaining aggro with gimped spelldamage.

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Q u o t e:
You realise you can't dodge while casting, right?

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actually you can. done it many many times.

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Q u o t e:
2. You cannot possibly generate as much threat as a bear with this gear.

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I LOL'ed.

We get told we over aggro like hell even if our gear is rubbish.. and now we got someone telling us we can't generate the aggro needed to tank?!

When I first respeced to boomkin and i went to my first kara raid as a boomkin had 500 spell dmg and I was generating about 600TPS (Without salv) whereas the tank was generating about 400-500.
Now I generate about 1k TPS wihtout a salv whereas my tank generates about 750 - 850. Everyone else in the raid generates about 350 - 450.

I've tanked in boomkin in 90% feral gear. Only my rings, shoulders,helm and 1 trinket was caster gear. I've happily tanked heroics and karazhan and OT at Gruul with this gear on and I have no problem generating threat even though my spelldmg is gimped alot.

And the poster of this thread has tanked beyond Heroics. Thats two druids in one thread which have tanked beyond heorics and your telling us we can't?

Show me where it says u cant dodge while casting? do you have proof.