BC tanking equipment ( druid ) Basic Guidelines and Benchmarks . While bear tanks have a fair amount of flexibility in their gear selection , from feral pvp gear , feral pve gear , to even rogue pve gear , there are a few basic guidelines that a feral tank should " bear " in mind . These are not in any particular order , as a good feral tank will work to balance all these items while meeting minimum specifications . With Survival of the Fittest ( a talent that every feral tank should have ) which gives 3 % decreased chance to be crit , you need a Defense skill of 415 , or a total of 5 . 6 % decreased chance to be crit , in order to be uncrittable against the average boss - level monster , who is always considered to be 3 levels above you ( Your mileage may vary in regards to Sunwell Plateau due to the hidden Sunwell Radiance buff - it is generally believed that this is a harbinger of things to come in WOTLK ) . This is of critical importance for a feral tank as a bear can never become immune to Crushing Blow s . Any defense over the cap of 415 is largely wasted . Some will argue that the added defense skill still gives you some bonuses to dodge , however you are much better dumping the extra defense points and investing in additional agility or stamina . Some of this anti - crit can also come from Resilience , a stat that is very common on easily - obtained PvP gear , for example the Dragonhide Battlegear and all the arena sets . Its value compared to Defense is disputed at various level of the tanking progression , as it is weighted differently in the item budget . In either case : Druids can reach the highest levels of raw damage mitigation through armor . At 31 , 672 armor , a feral tank will reach the 75 % cap for damage mitigation from armor against a level 70 mob . The cap against Raid Bosses ( level 73 ) is 35 , 880 armor . Agility and dodge are key feral tanking stats as they are the only method a bear has to avoid incoming damage ( as opposed to a Warrior or Paladin ' s block and parry ) . A newly 70 feral tank should aim for a dodge in the 30 % range . Once a bear moves deeper into the raiding environment , they should have enough knowledge to determine how they want to spec their gear . As a general rule of thumb , agility is preferred over dodge as agility adds slightly to your armor and critical rating and scales with stat buffs such as Blessing of Kings . The last key stat for a bear tank to focus on is stamina . Feral tanks can reach the highest levels of hit points of all the tanking classes . This is important to a feral tank since without block , parry , and immunity to crushing blow s , their only option is to " eat " the spike damage . A new feral tank should aim for 12 , 000 to 14 , 000 hit points self - buffed . If you have reached the defense cap of 415 , do not be afraid to gem all your open slots with , regardless of gem set bonuses . One item that should be touched on , but is more important for raiders than for the casual bear tank is hit rating . There are many times when adding a little hit rating will have a significant impact in a player ' s threat per second . An important note is that to get crit immune , resilience is also a good option for a bear tank , as 39 . 4 resilience gives the same crit chance reduction as 25 defense . This means roughly that 40 resilience equals 60 defense rating for a level 70 character . Resilience does not give dodge like defense does , but is often easier to obtain and cheaper in Blizzards item budget so overall a slightly better way to get crit immune as stacking defense rating . Crit Immunity Chart . Find the defense rating you have and it will tell you how much resilience you need to be crit immune . This chart assumes you have Survival of the Fittest . Key : Defense Rating - Resilience Rating Initial level 70 tanking gear . The following is a list of tanking gear that is easily attained at levels 69 and 70 that will get you prepared to tank heroic instances and Karazhan Estimated stats with recommended gear : Note : A Feral tank ' s first priority should be reaching the 415 defense cap . If engineering is taken as a profession then a feral druid also has access to the following engineering BoP ' s for which the materials can easily be farmed or bought : PvP tanking gear . Depending on your taste for PvP it is possible to obtain several good tank items though Battlegrounds or Arena . Listed here are those obtainable though Battlegrounds . Equivalent items obtained from Arena points are often slightly better but also of course harder to get . Several of these items also make good cat dps items . Best Tanking Gear for Entry level raids . This gear is collected from entry level raids ( Karazhan , Gruuls Lair ) , quests and Leatherworking patterns . Those stats depends on various buffs , enchanting and gems . Sources . This table and stats was created using Rawr - Druid Calculator Software Additional input and research from A newer version of this site can be found here and includes changes in patch 2 . 3 , but not yet the items with a < Random Enchantment > , so checking both sites is advisable .