Mocking Blow and Aggro Issues

[Fejer]

Hi all,

I went back to tanking a month or so ago after DPS'ing since WotLK came out. Typically I OT'd until a few weeks ago as our MT is on a leave of absence. Here's the issue I am having, and let me know if I am doing something wrong here....

We aquired a pali offtank a week or so ago and it has been a bit rough going. What has happened consistently, and I watched it today specifically just to be sure - is on boss fights, trash, whatever I lose control of the main target to the OT. Sequence is typically:

Taunt - almost instant loss of control to OT
Mocking Blow - same thing... and I know there is no way 6 seconds transpires because Taunt is still on cooldown.

Then I'm standing there without Taunt, without Mocking Blow and the adds are running through the group. Sometimes Challenging Shout is available and that gets burned too, but if not its ugly.

I thought Mocking Blow would lock the target to me for 6 seconds irregardless, but it does not seem that way.

Its not really an issue when working with other tanks, but my rotation is usually Taunt/Thunderclap/Devastate x3 or Revenge if it is up. The pali tank is putting up some strong DPS, in the 1400 to 2k range where as I am down around 1 - 1.1k. Any ideas or thoughts are appreciated.

The World of Warcraft Armory (http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Eldre%27Thalas&n=Fejer)

[Drivel]

Don't open with taunt imo.

Shield slam

[Muffin Man]

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/50984-taunt-mechanics-guide-discussion.html the DR's cause taunt/mb to do wierd things sometimes.

Also, look around for some information on threat rotations. You have a pretty low threat opener, which is probably causing a lot of your early problems, which are compounded since you already used taunt putting it on DRs.

At the least you should be pulling with Heroic Throw not taunt.

[Fejer]

Awesome guys... thank you

[Molohk]

Worth pointing out, I frimly believe it's the job of the tank to keep aggro away from DPS and Healers, but it's not the job of the tank to keep aggro away from other tanks trying to pull aggro.

Pallies are aggro powerhouses, they start with a full mana bar and have shiny wings for awesome burst in threat. If a pally wants to pull away from a warrior, he most likely will. On AoE packs the difference will be greater, you can't really compete on AoE aggro, so you might as well pick yourself one or two targets and let the pally grab everything else. On bosses, I don't see why you would be competing over threat, if you're the assigned tank he needs to back off on his tps (and viceversa).

[~Luffie~]

As people said here already, don't pull your primary target with taunt.

The only time I do is when the next mob is patting away when we're chain pulling. A lot of times during chain pulls, Heroic Throw is on CD, so I use it as a range pull, but I always immediately charge (when the mob is in range) and shield slam the sucker in the face.

Most of the time I tank with a pally and during multiple mob pulls, he often pull mobs right off me. When he does, I don’t even try to get aggro back. I just will run around watching sheeps or watching for other CC’ed targets that gets accidentally broken. To me, who gives a crap if he pulls agro on trash mobs? As long as shit is getting tanked everything is cool.

If your OT pally is pulling the boss off of you, then you should speak up or just get hunters to MD you. ;)

[Fejer]

Again, thanks much. I am going to start logging the raids and parsing those with WoWCardioRaid so I can get a better idea of what I am doing as well. Just because I think I am handling the fights a certain way doesn't mean thats reality. Any suggestions on how to get a better picture of what is happening would also be appreciated.

I hear you on trash mobs etc. As long as its all under control I have no problem with stepping behind and doing Demo shout or whatever to help the fight. What I try to do is grab and turn first target away from group so that I can present them for best damage and keep an eye on the raid in case anything goes wrong. I would see him on main target and then the rest of the mob run back through to ranged. Since I have nothing left on CD its frustrating.

I am going to spend some time really working out what I should be doing and logging whats going on. I've been saying for a while now we need stats for the guild so we can tell whats going on. I'm not an officer so its not really in my hands, but it makes sense.

[Molohk]

If your OT pally is pulling the boss off of you, then you should speak up or just get hunters to MD you. ;)

When the pally is not supposed to pull from you, vigilance on him !

[Bulk]

When the pally is not supposed to pull from you, vigilance on him !

Putting vigilance on a prot pally will make him quite sad - vigilance overwrites their blessing of sanctuary.