Bear Shaman - Feat Advice

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Bear Shaman: Revised leveling build and feat advice
June 14, 2008 by ferv0r

Blood Fever vs Untamed Regeneration

With the significant reduction in Untamed Regeneration’s regeneration and increase in vulnerabilities, it becomes a good situational tool instead of a skill you run all the time. Blood Fever’s 20% damage increase becomes a more attractive option.

Untamed Regeneration (UR) is no longer a must have skill for many BS’s. It is still a very good skill, but one that should be managed properly. Preliminary testing has shown that invulnerability works differently in PvE vs PvP. In PvE, it is a straightforward % increase in damage. In PvP, it appears to impact the chance of critical hits and increases the damage as well. Running UR in PvP is a quick way to die, especially with the BS’s small health pool.

Aspects can be clicked on or off instantly, with a 5 second cooldown between changes. If you have Blood Fever (BF) and UR, learning to switch between aspects depending on your situation can be a powerful tool.

For leveling purposes, at low levels, the regeneration from UR is less impressive. The immediate 20% increase in damage from BF speeds up killing, which is the primary task when leveling.

At higher levels, picking up both aspects can be helpful. With the nerf, some BS’s are skipping UR in favor of other skills like Balance of Nature and Saintly Warrior. Remember that potions are always cheap and work well to supplement your natural regeneration.

General Notes

Many of the feats are underwhelming (especially the feats deep in both trees) or just broken, so some of the feat choices are not set in stone and can definitely be tweaked to suit your playstyle.

With the UR nerf, another very good option for BS’s is to get 5/5 Ether Flow, 5/5 Spirit Armor and 3/3 Saintly Warrior. Spirit Armor provides additional melee invulnerabilities which is a good thing and Saintly Warrior provides a lot of stamina when solo leveling. In most cases, if you are willing to use potions, this is unnecessary, but it’s still nice to not have to worry about downtime.

In my leveling build, I skip back and forth between the Spirits and Wrath trees. I do this to try to get the most useful skills at that time. Some of the skills are decent at lower levels, but do not scale well. So it’s sometimes better to get these skills early when it could be helpful. Feel free to shuffle the feats around to suit your playstyle. Every level, look at your progress in both trees and decide which is best for you, instead of blindly following my build.

Leveling Build

5/5 Blood Warrior - Adds a damage buff to your primary heal over time (HoT) skill. Casting spells does not break combos, so you can cast Blood Flow in between combo swings.
5/5 Empowered Renewal - 50% damage increase for the hit that triggers renewal. This is arguably the most useful feat and one you should learn to use properly as soon as possible. Use it immediately before the final blow of your combo. This should usually be the last blow of the Crush Armor combo.
5/5 Improved Spirit of the Bear - Significantly increases your health buff. One of the BS’s weaknesses is a small health pool and this skill is essential.
5/5 Aspect: Blood Fever - 20% damage increase with a 22% reduction in healing power. During solo leveling, the 20% damage increase is a good tradeoff to speed up killing. Turn off the aspect if you need more healing, especially in groups.

Feat build at level 28 (conanarmory.com)

1/1 Manifestation of Rabies - 30s short range area damage (40s cooldown). Decent damage when you first get the skill, but it does not scale well with level. It is useful for PvP because it pops people out of stealth. If you plan to get this skill, get it now when the damage is useful or wait until much later to use as a PvP skill.
5/5 Nature’s Wrath - Very high chance of proc. Adds a secondary heal to your primary HoT.
5/5 Animalistic Fury or 5/5 Ursine Onslaught - Increase to your standard melee attacks (but not combos) vs 40% damage increase for the Ursine Brawl combo. Someone parsed their combat logs and found that Animalistic Fury added more DPS over time. The problem is the very long cooldown on Ursine Brawl. For PvP, Ursine Onslaught is the better choice.
3/3 Aspect: Untamed Regeneration - Some BS’s now choose to skip this skill, but I still think it has its uses. It provides good regeneration for health, mana and stamina at the cost of -15% invulnerabilities.
2/5 Animalistic Fury or 2/5 Ursine Onslaught - Whichever skill you didn’t get earlier.
3/3 Improved Grizzled Hide - Adds 3% invulnerabilities and increases the grizzled hide defense bonus by 30%. Very helpful for the relatively squishy BS.
2/3 Poisoned Hide - ~25% of triggering a small poison DoT when hit by melee. Small, but noticeable DPS increase.
1/1 Rupture - Increase damage of one of your primary combos (Crush Armor) by 10% and decreases the cooldown by 1.5s.
1/1 Battle Roar - 3% damage buff, moderate health buff for entire group. 30s duration, 60s cooldown.
3/3 Ursine Roar - 10s debuff that reduces damage by 15%. 60s cooldown. Instant cast.

Feat build at level 50 (conanarmory.com)

1/3 Ursine Rush - A charge. Additional points increase DoT damage (not recommended).
3/3 Poisoned Hide
5/5 Animalistic Fury or 5/5 Ursine Onslaught - Filler. Can spend the 3 points on anything else.
2/2 Weight of the World - Next 3 attacks do +40% damage and -25% movement snare. 2min cooldown. Great in PvE and essential in PvP to increase your burst damage.
3/3 Stone Hide - Recent testing has shown that this skill does provide a percentage based reduction in damage in PvE and PvP. Instant cast, 15s duration, 90s cooldown.
3/3 Rampage - Provides a good damage boost and health regen. Very nice because it is a passive skill that triggers off any attack. BS’s have tons of other hotkeys/skills to worry about and it’s nice to have a good passive skill.
5/5 Blood Champion - 10s buff that provides 20% damage every 2 minutes. Primarily for PvP burst damage, still a good way to increase your DPS. Consider getting this skill sooner if you play on a PvP server.
1/1 Rune of Grounding - 90% spell immunity for 15s, but snares you. Great against casters. Use Ursine Rush to close the gap.
1/1 Grace of Nature - Removes roots for your entire party. Provides 6 seconds of immunity, with a 40 second cooldown. Good for PvP.

Feat build at level 70 (conanarmory.com)

2/3 Deft Renewal or 2/3 Manifestation: Regrowth - Add a 5% evade bonus with 10s (?) duration to your standard group HoT or a small 30s HoT with a 60s cooldown. Grants a small bonus to survivability to your BS and group. Pick whichever better fits your playstyle. Deft Renewal is an easier choice because it is linked to a spell you already use, instead of adding yet another spell to your loaded hotbars.
5/5 Balance of Nature - Moderate (30% to 40%) chance to add a short stamina regen buff to Blood Flow.
5/5 Claws of Life - ~90 natural regen (at level 80, scales to level) with a small proc heal.
3/3 Deft Renewal or 3/3 Manifestation: Regrowth

Feat build at level 80 (conanarmory.com)

Other Options

5/5 Rune of Slaughter - Not useful in solo PvE, but can help in groups when facing epic mobs and in long PvP encounters.
General Playing Advice

The BS is not a tank, no matter how tough you look. In groups, wait for your tank to establish aggro before jumping in with HoT’s and combos. BS’s have limited crowd control abilities.
If you get in trouble in groups, remember you can always double-tap back for evade buffs and active block. That’s better than running around, which makes it impossible for your tank to help you.
Take full advantage of food buffs and potions. I always carry a big stack of food and a ton of stamina and health potions. Potions stack to 50. They are cheap and help immensely to your survival and killing speed.
For melee combos, only the position of your target when you swing your last attack matters. After that, it doesn’t matter if the target runs around. In PvP, you can wind up your combo while running around.
Casting spells does not break combos. You can cast Blood Flow in between swings. This is useful for some of the procs that depend on Blood Flow.
If you can find a leveling buddy that specializes in AoE attacks, it can significantly help both of you. The ToS and PoM are leveling machines by themselves, but with another healer, it’s even better. The mages are also much better when supported by heals, especially the HoX.