Post by Thror
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0ZxGGscrzceocczVkbAThis is a spec for lvl 72. It should give you more damage output than you have now. Improved Mangle is a good talent, but its single target only. You need more AoE damage, and that you can get from Naturalist.
Your gear seems okay, 11500 hp is definetly good for elf form at lvl 72.
If there are critters in the dungeon, kill them. They will give you little Rage boosts between pulls. Utgarde Keep and Drak Tharon Keep are very rich on critters, and you can easilly conserve your Rage even on longer run parts. When a fight is about to end, and you have enough aggro, stop mauling for a sec, and do 1-2 normal melee attacks, to boost your rage up. Run to the next pack, kill a critter between the packs so your rage doesnt fall, charge, and start swiping.
Do you spam your keys? You know, like... do not just wait for the GCD... click... wait for GCD... click. That is not effective. The best way i spamming keys. You mash your Swipe for the entire fight like there is no tommorow, ensuring the new Swipe will come through exactly after your GCD is down. Dont let the DPS pull, if they pull, you are not obliged to be a hero and save everyone. If you pull, you should be able to Swipe-spam the monsters so they do not run from you. You use the Glyph of Maul, which is always a good thing.
Also, do you spam Maul? I have maul bound to the number 1, and i am used to spamming it 24/7. I renamed my ring finger to maul finger.
Always have nameplates displayed. You display nameplates by pressing V. If something attacks you, there is a red aura around the nameplate. If something starts losing aggro, its orange. If you are about to overragro something, its yellow. If you have too little threat on it, it has no aura at all. When you tank, make sure to keep all the nameplates red. If something turns orange, target it, Maul+Mangle once, and keep Maul+Swiping. If something runs away, target it (its easier to target monsters by clicking their nameplates), taunt it, Fearie Fire it, Mangle it, and go on Swiping.
You usually do not have to use Demoralizing Roar, even though it does help, your healer should be able to keep you up. Using a GCD for DemoRoar wastes a GCD that could be used for Swipe.
Post by Bobblybook
Bears don't have that many tanking abilities compared to other classes, so macroing them probably isn't a great idea. I play a bear tank and have offtanked ICC so hopefully I can be of some help.
First of all, in AoE pulls if you have a strong AoE'er (an active AoE such as mage blizzard or warlock seed of corruption), or even passive (warrior whirlwind, bladestorm, pally divine storm etc. which will hit any targets nearby) then you will probably need more threat on the offtargets than just swipe spam.
Often I find I build enough threat on the main target very early with the first combo of abilities, and you can spend a few seconds after that maintaining aggro on the others (tab target mauls, FF and mangle while swiping). I find a maul and one other attack will hold mobs until they die provided I keep swiping.
If you have dps that splits single target dps (one dps class on each target etc) you'll probably find it hard to keep aggro, I still do.
In pulls like that, or when you get adds during a fight and you need to get solid aggro fast, either pop AoE taunt, or if you already have aggro on them, Berserk and mash mangle and maul (do not swipe, FF or lacerate while berserk is up - use every gcd on mangle). Keep in mind that taunt doesn't give you an aggro buffer - you get the same threat as the player it was targetting, and if they continue to dps they're probably ahead of you on threat already, so you need to establish additional aggro FAST before the growl wears off.
You probably already know this, but growling while you have aggro is useless since it doesn't do anything at all but waste your cooldown. The best way to hold aggro really is to never lose it - once you get caught up chasing and chain-taunting a mob its very difficult to get back.
Your gear and enchants look fine, except those pants. Also one thing to mention is it's often a good idea to pop your AP trinket once you get to the mob, giving you a boost to your initial aggro.
Another couple of tips regarding your cooldowns. Spamming barkskin is good like you seem to be doing, it's a 1 min cooldown so don't save it for boss fights etc.
Frenzied Regen. Don't use this when you drop below 50% hp. It eats a LOT of your rage and the healing isn't great. If you have frenzied regen glyph then yes, it does increase healing done to you during that period, but I've never had to use it in a 5 man and it can potentially destroy your short term threat generation. A better cooldown to use is survival instincts, which gives your healer some buffer time to top you back up. Regen can be good to use on big AoE packs and when you know you will always be capped at 100 rage no matter how much you spam.
Also do not use berserk when you drop below 50%.. it does nothing to help your survivability. Use it for the Mangle-cleaves (the distance mangle stretches with Berserk up is huge, I've hit targets well out of my melee range using that, try on test dummies next time you're in a city) and to break fear if you need to. It's really a threat builder, not survivability.
Just checked your talents now, and there's a few things you should get. The spec Thror suggested is a good one, but if you want to keep some cat talents for levelling, just make sure you pick up these:
Survival Instincts - this is a MUST for tanking, and can be useful for soloing too. Use as I suggested above.
Naturalist - this is also a must get, once you get the talent points for it. 10% flat increase in damage is huge and will make a big difference in your threat.
Primal Gore - also a MUST get talent for tanking. This helps threat considerably. My critrate in bear is currently about 45%, that's an insane increase in threat from this talent alone.
Speaking of lacerate, some people might disagree with me, but do NOT use it on trash, it's a waste of rage. Use your GCDs and rage on direct attacks such as mangle and maul, or AoE's such as swipe or berserked mangle spam. Only on bosses keep lacerate up, and even then if you're having rage issues, slow-stack it. To do that, make sure you have a timer mod or you have the duration of abilities shown on the target frame. Use lacerate once, then continue with your normal abilities, then just before it's about to expire from the target, use it again to stack to 2 (Feel free to do this a second or two early incase your attack misses and you lose the stack). Rinse/repeat during bossfight - once it gets to 5 stacks do the same thing, just refresh before it expires. The reason for this is other abilities cause more threat on trash etc, and the damage on lacerate only shines on boss fights once you have mangle up (for extra bleed damage) and can focus on timers. Don't worry too much about how many stacks you have, as long as it's at LEAST one. It's important you have at least 1 stack on because coupled with the talent Primal Gore, a crit from lacerate's dot will proc
Savage Defense which gives you damage absorption. If you're spamming enough abilities you should really have savage defense up for every boss hit (maybe not yet because your crit may still be low, but you get the idea).
Sorry about the giant wall of text, but I'd rather give more info than less. Any other questions feel free to ask.