Aggro Issues

I'm having trouble holding and even getting aggro! Here's my armory:

The World of Warcraft Armory

I'm just tanking heroics.I usually start off with faerie fire, and feral charge in, and then do the like a swipe. I usually try and AoE in small packs (obviously). And it never fails I lose aggro immediately! I usually follow up with a few swipes. What should I be doing and is my gear and spec OK? I'm very new to feral tanking. I followed this video for tips on tanking but it hasn't been working for me... http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f64/5...ion-guide.html

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bearrorist

I'm having trouble holding and even getting aggro! Here's my armory:

The World of Warcraft Armory

I'm just tanking heroics.I usually start off with faerie fire, and feral charge in, and then do the like a swipe. I usually try and AoE in small packs (obviously). And it never fails I lose aggro immediately! I usually follow up with a few swipes. What should I be doing and is my gear and spec OK? I'm very new to feral tanking. I followed this video for tips on tanking but it hasn't been working for me... http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f64/5...ion-guide.html

---

First - what kind of DPS are you taking in? Overgeared and inattentive? Do they target your target, or randomly choose one?

Second - your spec looks good, good choices of glyphs. Rotation sounds pretty reasonable, though I will say I usually don't charge in [except for a few specific pulls, like ToChamp trash before Eadric/Paletress]. If mobs move out of the way before you get to them - very easy to happen for larger pulls - swipe might miss.

Aside from that - pop Berserk on bosses [or large/nasty trash], and otherwise just do your best to maintain aggro on multiple mobs.

To check - you are using Maul at every single opportunity, right?

What about any handy macros? For marking? Swipe/maul macros?

I have a bar with all my abilities macro'd with maul in addition to them, and a bar without.

The easiest way for me to hold aggro above the DPS is to always remain one step ahead. I charge in and try and get a couple of swipes/mauls before they are in range. It's ok if you have a straggler from the last pack they are killing off while you engage the next one.

Also, if you are having problems with AoE packs, you should be swipe/maul'ing and then tab target mangle'ing mobs. So Mangle swipe swipe, tab, mangle swipe swipe and repeat.

Oh I'm ending each fight with like 80-100 rage too. Problems with this? Solutions?

it's normal to have a ton of rage especially if you are multi-mob tanking.

Quote:

---

Oh I'm ending each fight with like 80-100 rage too. Problems with this?

---

Make sure that you are mauling all the time. Period. You should charge in, swipe, and maul. Switch to another target and keep doing this. Do this over and over again.

I use toggle on next strike to remove/add maul to macros, but most of the time? I don't bother. I just maul.

Quote:

---

Also, if you are having problems with AoE packs, you should be swipe/maul'ing and then tab target mangle'ing mobs. So Mangle swipe swipe, tab, mangle swipe swipe and repeat.

---

If you're doing this for more than 2 mobs, you're doing it wrong. Mangle is a threat loss on mobs compared to swipe, and while it does boost maul threat it doesn't do it so much that it makes up for the loss of threat on swipe. To put this in perspective - every time you mangle you do about twice the threat that one hit of swipe does per target. With three targets, swipe does overall 1.5x the threat of mangle.

Really, there's not a lot you can do other than maul/swipe. If you really feel fruity you can throw in a mangle/lacerate on a target to put more single threat on that via mauling, but most of the time it's unnecessary unless you also need damage.

If you're having problems pulling and keeping everyone on you, I'd recommend pulling with hurricane. But even that's usually not necessary. Just enrage, charge, swipe.

Finally, consider strongly picking up more expertise. Those shifting gems could probably be better used as expertise gems for you.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by felhoof

Make sure that you are mauling all the time. Period. You should charge in, swipe, and maul. Switch to another target and keep doing this. Do this over and over again.

I use toggle on next strike to remove/add maul to macros, but most of the time? I don't bother. I just maul.

If you're doing this for more than 2 mobs, you're doing it wrong. Mangle is a threat loss on mobs compared to swipe, and while it does boost maul threat it doesn't do it so much that it makes up for the loss of threat on swipe. To put this in perspective - every time you mangle you do about twice the threat that one hit of swipe does per target. With three targets, swipe does overall 1.5x the threat of mangle.

Really, there's not a lot you can do other than maul/swipe. If you really feel fruity you can throw in a mangle/lacerate on a target to put more single threat on that via mauling, but most of the time it's unnecessary unless you also need damage.

If you're having problems pulling and keeping everyone on you, I'd recommend pulling with hurricane. But even that's usually not necessary. Just enrage, charge, swipe.

Finally, consider strongly picking up more expertise. Those shifting gems could probably be better used as expertise gems for you.

---

There's my first problem, I wasn't mauling. I macro'd it in now to mangle/swipe.

I use a mouseover macro for lacerate:

/cast [target=mouseover] lacerate

I just hover my mouse over the target I want to lacerate and hit the button.

You could use a mouseover macro for some other single-target ability if you dont like lacerate; it keeps you from having to re-target stuff.

The rest of the advice in here is pretty solid, a new weapon will also serve you pretty well. Sadly you already got one of the better one from heroics, Marrowstrike might be good for threat purely for the higher item level, and thus higher Feral Attack Power. Naxx for either Staff of Plaguehound or Origion of Nightmares will do you good as well. Or if you got a group that is comfortable with it try and swing a Uldur 10, ignis has a nice spear.

Macro it in to lacerate and faerie fire too. Heck, macro it in to almost anything that you do regularly when tanking. You should always be mauling whenever you can. If you want to be pro, you can put in some modifiers so that when you hold down shift you don't maul - but the general rule is always be mauling.

Maul on single targets is 60% of your threat. On multiple targets it's still a large chunk of threat, especially if you switch targets.

I personally don't use macros just my preference but I do rely heavily on my key bindings.
Some of the main key bindings I use is
1 Mangle
2 Maul
Q Demoralizing Roar
E Farie Fire
R Swipe
T Bash
Tab Lacerate (in case you're curious I rebind target nearest enemy to mouse scroll down, I love this when I'm pvping trying to target another stealthed, I can spam that mouse wheel down all day)
My rotation is different for trash pulls than single target boss fights (I pretty much use Darksend's rotation he mentioned in his video on single target fights).
I have maul glyphed to hit 2 targets.

When I go in I FF and Charge as you said then I make sure I get one or two swipes off and that they hit all targets, If I miss a couple such as in some of the pulls in Nexus I move accordingly, once I'm satisfied that I have at least one swipe on all I mangle skull begin to go back and forth between R (swipe) and 2 (Maul) working in a mangle when needed and refreshing FF and Demoralizing Roar. I listed my bindings because 2 & R keys are comfortable distance on the keyboard for me and I don't feel like I'm trying to make a Dave Matthews chord on guitar. I've found with the swipes and the maul hitting two targets I keep adequate threat.
I too have a lot of rage still throughout the fight and end in many cases. My personal experience is sometimes it is much more difficult to dump rage than warriors. On my warrior I can dump excess rage sometimes it seems just by think about it.