Threat being a non issue....do you like? - Page 6

**Xav** · #**101** 10-20-2008, 06:13 PM

Source: Sparan
Shwat?

What was confusing about it?

**Kazeyonoma** · #**102** 10-20-2008, 06:17 PM

I think it's just confusing for tanks to realize the threat potential of Conc blow and Shockwave.

They both hit for 75% of your Attack power.

That means if you have a certain level of AP (it's not that hard to break it if I recall) that shockwave and Conc blow BOTH will out threat devastate. So it is smart to replace devastates with them until they are on CD, then you go back to the SS>rev>dev>dev rotation and hope for SnB procs.

Sparan · #**103** 10-20-2008, 06:20 PM

My understanding was that there was no argument assuming you're wearing all and only tanking gear that devastate > conc blow on account of the snb proc chance. I suppose if you're in the situation where you have SS up in 1 GCD and you would ordinarily dev then you should Conc (provided you have sufficient rage, obviously) to maximize threat, but that's something of a minority case, and probably a miniscule tps bump at best for a lot of focus.

**Xav** · #**104** 10-20-2008, 06:25 PM

Eh, with raid buffs, in nearly any tanking gear, your Conc blows will massively out-threat Devastates. The proc chance can be worked in as you said, towards the end of a cycle, but otherwise, you may as well just replace devastate with a conc blow when you can. More damage, more threat!

Sparan · #**105** 10-20-2008, 06:29 PM

Eh. What do dev's avg with a 5-stack up? Say... 550? And CB are maybe sitting around 1050 raid buffed in normal gear? I don't know that I can safely assume that throwing in CBs is actually more net damage. Plus let's not forget that you get 15% crit on devs that you won't get on CB. Math crafters around to confirm/deny?

Muffin Man · #**106** 10-20-2008, 06:32 PM

Source: Dragaan
I guess I'm being a little selfish for liking the old system better. It was challenging and fun for me, but I guess for the majority of casual players it was a little too much to keep up with. I also understand that DPS is the new thing to push for instead of TPS. For me it's just not the same tho. If I don't hold a specific level of DPS at all times, nothing terrible's going to happen. With threat it was different tho. I liked knowing that my threat was being chased and, in some situations, that people were TRYING to pull from me. That made it more exciting than just pushing DPS.

Wow Web Stats

Here is a link from our post-3.0 raid. My DPS was doubled, even tripled on certain encounters. But this run was depressing. I just hope things will be a lot more challenging at 80.

Look at it from the other side of this too. Remember in the old days if dps wanted to, they *would* pull and there was virtually nothing you could do about it. My hunter friend made a comment the other day saying that now that tanks have been fixed dps can do their job properly.

Tanks always complain about dps half-assing it and still doing just fine and having an easy role. But it's cause and effect, dps couldn't actually go all out, play a tight rotation, ect. because tanks weren't designed to keep up.

Now I am with you in that this imbalance was fun to manage. Rushing in and getting as much aggro at once was fun. Marking up a kill order and knowing how much aoe threat to put out to keep ahead of the healer was a science. And nothing was more satisfying than timing a concussive blow so that the 5 second stun was exactly the time it took for dps to go all out and burn something down.

There's no way I could do any of this tightrope walking with a pug (which is why pugs were hell). I ran heroics with the same group of in-game friends and really got a rhythm going. But that's how I felt, at least the hunter felt bored not being able to do anything except autoattacks and I'm sure the Pally/Rogue got frustrated sometimes watching things die waiting for a change to go nuts and have some fun. Actually I know the Rogue got bored, since he would solo the assassins in blood furnace just for kicks (no help at all, not even heals).

**Kazeyonoma** · #**107** 10-20-2008, 06:35 PM

My conc hit for over 1400 most of the time. So... not sure if I emphasize str more than the usual tank though.

Dragaan · #**108** 10-20-2008, 07:40 PM

Source: Xav
And on a side note, you weren't using Concussion Blow, which is a key threat ability for us now!

Yea, I wasn't too sure if it really helped that much (at least when wearing full tank gear). The only time I did use it was on twins after Sacrolash died and I was dual wielding (hit for over 3k). How much are your conc blows hitting for in raids while wearing 'normal' tank gear?

Edit: Nm, I should have read the rest of the posts first, lol.

Jasra · #**109** 10-20-2008, 10:01 PM

There's a lot of Kool-Aid being served here. It's fun and novel and relieves us of huge burdens we used to carry, but substituting the very high bar of really controlling a fight in 2.4 with the "challenge" of spiking a dps-meter is simply less satisfying over the long run.

Like with every design decision, it's a matter of tradeoffs and degree. It may not be a popular opinion here, but they could have easily provided a modicum of relief to the worst impact threat areas without pardoning reckless dpsing and mediocre tanking. I'll play the game and definitely have a blast with the novelty and all that. However, I can't drink the Kool-Aid and say that this severe of a shift will be the better long-term solution.

Megatrohn · #**110** 10-20-2008, 11:33 PM

I think most people realise that the situation might be different in Wrath but the important point is:

The fact that the game is now more forgiving of mediocre tanking doesn't mean that we, as tanks, should tolerate being mediocre.

We should do our best regardless of the situation.

Dots · #**111** 10-21-2008, 05:21 AM

Source: Sparan
I'm afraid you're incorrect. If you go back and reread my post you'll see that what I was after you about was the following post of yours:

And, I happened to make the comment before you even mentioned anything about AE damage and its associated threat. I can't find a good way to construe "hitting the wrong mob" as a comment about AoE damage so I'm gonna go ahead and assume that you didn't bother reading what I was quoting before posting about it.

I'm gonna go ahead and assume that you didn't bother reading the whole thread, including the post I made before the one you quoted and the one I was replying to. If you did, you would know that I was talking about AE'ing.
Anyway, semantics.

To add something constructive, Concussion Blow or Shockwave will almost always be better than a Devastate if your Shield Slam is about to come off cooldown, assuming you have plenty rage at the moment. Unless of course you are dealing with one of those fancy models that can't be hit by Shockwave.

Pitbully · #**112** 10-21-2008, 06:59 AM

First off, great post Xav, you couldn't have said it any better. Coming from someone who has played BOTH sides of the table deep in Sunwell, tanking was extremely frustrating, at best, and it was very easy for the DPS to completely walk away from the tanks in threat.

I had about the worst situation imaginable for a tank in T6 content. I started as our guilds MT while we we're deep in Sunwell. We had lost basically our entire tanking core, due to RL issues, school, ect...and It was either pick someone from the guild or risk recruiting an unknown, the officers asked me to step up and I was happy to do so. Only problem being, I was no where near geared as our previous tanks. Basically, I had starter pieces from BT and other T6 content and our entire DPS core had finished or nearly finished sets from Sunwell. You can only imagine how frustrating it was trying to stay ahead in threat.

Before I became a tank, I played a mage. Pretty simple, spam fireball...don't let scorches fall off...make good use of your cooldowns, bam, your doing 23-2500 dps...I honestly had no idea how important the GCD was for tanks and only realized it when I started mashing buttons, waiting on the GCD so I could shield slam/dev/hs/ect...again....to make more freeking threat. I remember PLEADING with our former MT to do more threat on fights like Brutallas...and he was doing great threat. There was simply nothing more he could do. I would end up blowing a full invis in less then a minute of the fight, completely wiping my threat, only to catch him again, long before the boss died.

My guild got server firsts on every boss in Sunwell, up to the Twins. We killed the Twins on May 29th. With the nerf patch last week, we finally rounded up enough old raiders plus alot of new recruits this week and killed Muru. We probably had close to 200 pulls on Muru back in June and July, shortly before our guild nearly imploded. Our best attempt was 23% (phase 2), pre nerfs. Up until last week, we had pretty much given up on Sunwell and we we're waiting on Wrath to launch to hit it hard again. Yes, Sunwell got nerfed HARD. But for guys like me, who had been grinding on that place since it opened, it was very satisfying to see that $#@$er die, nerf or not. We killed Muru and I was the Main Tank. The best part of it was after the kill, I got tells from about 4-6 people in the raid saying, "your $#@$ing threat was amazing" and "that was an awesome pickup, great job". One hunter even wispered me saying, "you had 10k threat on him before I could get a misdirect on you ffs.."

Dreador · #**113** 10-21-2008, 07:21 AM

Source: Pitbully
We killed Muru and I was the Main Tank. The best part of it was after the kill, I got tells from about 4-6 people in the raid saying, "your %*($ing threat was amazing" and "that was an awesome pickup, great job". One hunter even wispered me saying, "you had 10k threat on him before I could get a misdirect on you ffs.."

This kind of $*(# is a great e-peen booster. Even after the patch, when I almost worried the crap tanks in the guild might hold a torch, I was getting public praise for my single target an aoe threat again further affirming why I am their main tank and why my teammates are taking direction from me. Our top DPSers have always played smart, riding the ceiling just low enough to put out top-5 quality numbers, and now they have even more room to do so, even more room to shine on their precious meters that the few have worked very hard to be on top of.

Elyvern · #**114** 10-21-2008, 08:13 AM

I too come from both sides of the coin, but in my case, it was a matter of raiding SWP as my mage and tanking ZA (timed runs sometimes) for my SWP geared guildies on my t5/badge geared warrior.

I honestly did not envy my guild's MTs for the work they had to do in SWP pre 3.02. As Xav mentioned, it was not acceptable to ask dps to "hold back" on SWP bosses because that way lies certain wipe. 3-4 fireball crits at the start of Brutallus and I'd have to pop invis, knowing full well I would need it again towards the end of the fight, but I had no other choice.

Conversely, when I was asked to tank ZA because our MTs weren't online, I cried silently, because there was absolutely no way I could hold threat vs dpsers with gear at least 1 tier above me on top of the time limit on a bear run.

I don't have a beta account, and I can only give Xav's account of how it's going to be at 80 the benefit of a doubt. Because right now, those same guildies that I could never catch up on threat? On single-targets, I sit comfortably at 200%-300% tps ahead of them without even trying hard. I've been attempting to switch my mindset from generating aggro to generating damage, and I'm not exactly thrilled with that because I rolled a prot war to tank, not to dps and definitely not to boast that "I came in 10th on the dps list!" in a raid. After the euphoria of respeccing and rediscovering the talent tree, I'm a mixed bag of emotions right now.

Is threat generation too high? I believe so, because any dps gains I make will just serve to raise my tps as well. The reason why I chose to concentrate on my prot war above my druid and pally was precisely because it was challenging. To me, prot wars are blessed with the arsenal of every tank in the game, the only catch is we can only use those skills in a limited way. Making good use of those limited skills to successfully replicate what is considered the niche of another tanking class was one of the reasons why I wake up every day to tank. I'm going to set myself to attempt to generate enough threat solo in 10 secs flat to allow dps to aoe entire packs down as my new goal just to see if I can.

Right now, single target tanking is a joke. I do sincerely hope that something gets changed along the line in WotLK - ie. no more tank and spank fights because threat generation makes them so laughable now. And please, putting threat dumps would be a really lazy attempt to buff such fights.

Crossing my fingers really hard right now.

**Kazeyonoma** · #**115** 10-21-2008, 10:52 AM

Try to limit the swearing and cursing when we're in the theory and articles forums yeah guys?

Mayoche · #**116** 10-21-2008, 11:38 AM

Hi guys,

I'm glad people like Xav got a break from Blizz on the broken threat
mechanics.
I can't say I ever had to watch my threat very intensively in the fights I am in, and that's because I've just started tanking heroics and I've always outgeared my fellow DPSers. I guess I won't ever have to now.

About the challenge of tanking and how it has been nerfed, I'd say that Blizzard has managed to get themselves a lot of breathing room in fights dynamics.
If the tank no longer have to spin a perfect threat rotation at every seconds to keep the DPS happy, he/she will have plenty of opportunity to work on mobility and survivability or other fun things that can happen in a boss fight.

Here's a crappy example: Suppose that for some reason, the tank would be the player in the best position to activate a gizmo across the room from the rest of the raid that prevent the Boss from getting a super-buff.
Well, he'll have some time to do it without risking losing the aggro.

See the drift? I don't know if it's gonna happen but it's now possible.
Like we could start seeing tanks running back to the lolwell to get a free renew now and then when the casters are group-silenced...

I don't know if any of this make sense ( truly, I'm noobish in this tanking business) but I hope we'll see Blizz using the space on the threat front to put us more creative fights mechanics.

Just a though,

Mayoche

djiss · #**117** 10-21-2008, 02:08 PM

One thing the patch did, give me a reason to do heroic "again". Fun

pre 3.0, I had nothing to get from heroic. No gear, no rep, even badge weren't needed beside to make some extra money. In this situation, running h.SH with a pug was just pure masochism.

Now I log and look for any heroic group who need a tank, just for the fun. Fun of beating people on DPS, fun of beating my time to clear a dungeon, fun to see those mage who couldn't let me build threat now beg me to let them drink and get their mana up, fun to wear my avoidance gear don't get rage starved.

"Djiss, you almost made me get 3 heart attack during the run, you're a scary tank, but goddamn it was a quick and fun run."
Comment like that make my day. They had fun, I had fun. We all win.

Dreador · #**118** 10-21-2008, 02:32 PM

Source: Kazeyonoma
Try to limit the swearing and cursing when we're in the theory and articles forums yeah guys?

Sorry

We get emotional

**Kazeyonoma** · #**119** 10-21-2008, 03:05 PM

No big deal, that's what we have the general and off topic forums for =P

Thortok · #**120** 10-21-2008, 04:47 PM

Source: Mayoche
I'd say that Blizzard has managed to get themselves a lot of breathing room in fights dynamics.
If the tank no longer have to spin a perfect threat rotation at every seconds to keep the DPS happy, he/she will have plenty of opportunity to work on mobility and survivability or other fun things that can happen in a boss fight..

...I hope we'll see Blizz using the space on the threat front to put us more creative fights mechanics.

This is one of the angles that I've been trying to highlight.

Less things you absolutely MUST do = More different things you are ABLE to