Threat and TAnk Classes

[Shamago]

One thing that threw me for a loop when I started bear tanking was dealing with skills both on and off the gcd. For bears your typical on gcd rotation is Mangle -> lacerate -> lacerate -> Mangle -> lacerate -> lacerate -> Mangle -> lacerate -> swipe -> Mangle -> swipe -> swipe -> Mangle -> swipe -> lacerate -> .... On boss fights I do start with berserk and just Mangle until berserk is down then start into the normal rotation.

you basically get 2 gcds between every mangle. Initially you always use lacerate until you get a 5 stack. Once the 5 stack is up I always use swipe between mangles hitting lacerate every once in a while to keep a 5 stack up. Where it gets tricky is weaving in maul. Because maul is used on swing and is off the gcd there are times where you actually have to hit 2 buttons at once. This is the same with heroic strike. Coming from being a healer and caster dps I never had to push a button more than once per gcd. It took a bit to learn to maintain the perfect on gcd sequence and always make sure maul was queued for every swing.

If you're starting with berserk make sure you have a bleed up (lacerate if there aren't any steady-bleed players around), you need both the mangle debuff and a bleed up for maul to get maximum damage bonuses and maximum threat.

As far as maul goes, you can generally just punch it before every GCD skill. If you punch it right after something else you may get "another action is in progress" type errors, it can behave strangely at times. Also maul will disable itself if you run low on rage or are not facing your target when your swing comes. Just keep an eye on it to make sure it's lit up, and don't be afraid to mash it, you can't toggle it off by hitting maul again.