Threat being a non issue....do you like?

[chun]

Great thread!

Particular thanks to Xav and Sparran (sp) for a lot of really nice insight.

Whether we like it or not, the game has changed, and part of our role
is to adapt to that, and determine how to provide the maximum benefit
we can to our groups.

Given that now most +threat has been replaced with +dmg, when
you (at least as a warr tank) begin to push for higher and higher threat
ceilings, our new mini-game is to do incredibly high dps. It also provides
a really easy well to see which DPSers are slacking.

We all know the stories / remember the experiences of us mashing
buttons as fast as we can on almost every single raid pull, while folks
"in the backfield" just yap away. Now, when they do that and aren't
focused on the task at hand, we'll out damage them.

There is no greater shame as a DPSer than to be below the tank in
total damage done.

My only caveat is that at least at present, it seems survivability has
been de-emphasized a bit, but that could simply be the nerfed TBC
raids, and may (hopefully) change again in WOTLK.

Thanks for the insight guys/gals.

[Andomar]

Hopefully they won't nerf heroics much, the content is a lot more balanced this time around. TBC heroics were way too hard for the rewards.

For someone like me, heroics are the end game. They were extremely challenging till half a year after the expansion. That was a fun time. I actually tanked the pre-nerf Shattered Halls... in blues! That was sooo cool.

I'm looking forward to that again. I know you get better rewards from 10 and 25 mans, but those have always been more about being in the right guild and reserving 3 days a week for raiding....

[Dreador]

Survivability de-emphasized? How about all of the TBC raid content nerfed and your healers being buffed to the teeth? As has been stated, you're now playing with level 80 abilities in a nerfed level 70 environment, it will get harder. Sure, Xav's video of Utgarde displayed him speed-pulling a 70 instance in DPS gear. It wasn't a heroic, how much defense did you have the first time in ramps? I think your last paragraph will prove true in Lich King, survivability will be re-emphasized and you will find good use for your now-buffed array of oh-shit! buttons.

[ElfTheHunter]

Granted I'm an inexperience tank pre 3.0 (still building my kara/t4 set) and I have not trully "embraced" tanking since patch yet - I ran a kara and one heroic... But from my experiences, threat is too much.

Now, I KNOW that I'm speaking from the non-broken part of the game, and that sunwell geared warriors is where true end-game is and that is what the patch is fixing. And I hear all the "dps is the new game", "outland is nerfed, wait for wrath", etc and it's all true - but I worry about the dps direction.

The fact is, in PVE, there's three distinct roles: healer, dps, tank... the healers job is to keep everything alive, the dpsers job is to make everything dead, the tank's job is to make everything hit him. The cross-role responsibilities were very limited, and thus made each role important. The healer should not be dpsing the boss, the dpsers should not have to take hits from mobs, and it was not the tanks' job to keep dps high.

With the new scenario, our job is to dps as well as to tank. It feels sort of like our role has shifted a little from tanking towards dpsing (basically our attention i mean, we shouldn't focus 100% of our attention in solely tanking anymore). I'm not saying that's bad or anything, and I understand the whole 80 abilites in 70 world - but to me it feels like becoming a tank is less distinctive now.

If threat was broken - which I believe you guys 100% - then you fix it, you don't make it trivial. Now, of course, I didn't play beta, so if encounters force us to rely on movement/positioning or threat is still a concern or whathever that makes 80 world work for the new mechanic - great! And if not, I will of course adapt - I'll try to out dps my dps and point it out but I'll miss being a seperate entity from dps.

But the fact that shamans are getting hex - well, it gives me hope that CCing and threat reducing moves won't become obsolete in northrend.

[Dreador]

This thread is getting legendary quickly. I'd like to reiterate a previously made point: Make sure you are reading through the entire thread before responding.

[Nicki]

I got really annoyed on my paladin particularly as too single target threat gen where i simply can not hold aggro off t6 locks and mages at times...So threat being a non issue is great..

However As a ret paladin I still push atleast too 2/3 of tank threat and i have over aggrod in heroics. I wouldn't say threat is a complete non issue id just say its definately hard to catch up now...At 80 i can imagine threat being 0 issue ofc.

[ElfTheHunter]

Sry about the double post... and I realize the train of thought is of topic and useless (fantasy land some like to call) but after reading my post above it felt a little too QQy for no reason.

I'm not saying the game didn't need fixing, and I'm not saying that they didn't fix it, I just wish they would have fixed it in another direction, say by making shield block a shared cooldown with revenge (a shield block somewhere between pre3.0 and post) but forcing you to make a decision between more threat or more mitigation. So that if you always choose mitigation you force dps to slow down a little to not come within 10% of your threat, and if you always choose revenge you force healers to step up and risk ooming them. Thus your role would remain the same (take hits) but there's more "approaches" so that you can adjust to your group makeup (overgeared dps/healerz).

Anyway, I know it's pointless, and I'll drop it, just didn't like how that post felt

edit, it is epic indeed (good thing it's a good read)

[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.

[Amabar]

I'm gonna reiterate one final time for people that continually complain that they preferred the challenge. If you can't find some way to challenge yourself, then you aren't trying hard enough. There's ALWAYS something to work towards. So what if it's harder to fail? I mean, if you really want to fail you can just take a few abilities off your bar, I'm sure you find the right combination and you'll fail just fine. But I think that you'd prefer to succeed.

Just find something new for YOURSELF that you'd like to try for. See if you can still hold everything while not wearing full threat gear. Try not using cleave. See if you can do triple or quadruple single target threat. See if you can top damage meters. But by god, if you lose aggro on a SINGLE mob EVER after bitching that it's too easy, then you sirs have failed. Really, really badly. Make up your minds, face reality a bit, take a deep breath, count to 10. We're all in it to win it.

[Dragaan]

Amabar, a big reason that people are QQing is that when tanking was harder there were less good tanks around. So it was more of an e-peen boost to those of us that were good. This is exactly why I said above that I guess I am being selfish.

[Thortok]

There's two things I see with a lot of the hesitation/complaints about the new tanking paradigm.

1: "I liked being special just cuz I was a good tank."

This translates to me as: I liked only having to / being able to do one thing. Many are complaining about the lack of challenge, when the new challenge is to DISTINGUISH yourself as a good tank in the new paradigm. You can't complain about a lack of challenge in one sentence, and then say it will be harder to prove that you're awesome in the next. Either it's harder, or it's easier...

There will still be awesome tanks, and mediocre tanks, and crappy tanks. The results have simply shifted.

New Awesome tank = you just got your run done in record time because they blasted through it and topped dps meters, plus didn't need that much healing because they used their mitigation abilities wisely;
instead of: he held all the mobs and no one died.

New Crappy tank = all they did was hold the mobs (maybe even nobody died), but the run took forever;
instead of: they couldn't hold threat and we kept wiping on easy shit and and now everyone's wasted half their night and has a big repair bill for nothing.

I think most will appreciate the lowered costs of mediocrity, even if it makes proving your excellence harder.

Part 2: Some tanks do things other than tank. Things that were way harder (or just less fun) for tanks than most anyone else: Solo, farm, quest, pvp....and hell I haven't run an instance that isn't a 25-man with one of my favorite people in my guild because he happens to also be a tank. Now 2 tanks = ok.

Although part two is not the focus of this particular thread, I think it's worth mentioning as it is a large factor in the new dynamic.

To sum up--there will always be things you can't do; reach for those and you'll never lack for a challenge.

[Dots]

AoE threat is too high RIGHT NOW, for Dungeons.

I've been playing quite a bit at level 80 in beta and it's just the same there in heroics and raids, without completely outgearing the content.

A test: enter a raid instance and try tanking a boss using only tclap. Did that work? If so, please share your secrets. If not, feel a little silly at thinking that if a dpser focuses the wrong target that tclap still managed to outthreat them.

And your point it? Do DPSers only use AE spells when fighting a single boss? Didn't think so.
I was talking about mindlessly AE'ing everything, not about someone focusing the wrong target.

[Kromzul]

Forcing DPS to slow down isn't fun for them or you. That's not something we need in the game.

I absolutely agree that warrior threat scaling was broken. Completely, irredeemably broken. Gear upgrades sucked, the game experience sucked (at high gear levels), it was all bad. That part needed fixing, and they mostly have. I'm still slightly concerned that the only real mitigation benefit to Strength is the marginal additional block value, meaning that many tanks will still choose mitigation-oriented gear if it's available (perhaps irresponsibly), which means that Blizzard has to strictly enforce the Strength-on-tanking-gear itemization policy for it to work. If they added some small amount of additional armor (or other defensive stat) based on Strength, then I think it could solidify the idea that gear with Strength is always the best choice, even if a survivability-only piece is introduced.

And, on a related note, I do think they could afford to tune the threat multiplier on damage down a small bit. Right now, it looks like tank threat generally vastly higher than DPS threat, and it doesn't need to be *so* stark of a difference that threat becomes a non-issue. Truly incompetent players should still be able to lose threat to DPS classes of similar gear levels, while exceptional player should basically never be in danger of doing so (which was not previously the case in TBC or in 1.0). The fact that threat is so high is one reason why tanks will probably choose any survivability-only piece that's introduced, thus recreating the situation we suffered from.

The very-high-threat situation is also one reason why Vigilance is still conceptually broken. I think threat siphon mechanics are fundamentally risky, but even moreso when the siphon level is so marginal that you can afford to put it on another tanking class so that they receive the alternate benefits of the buff (3% damage reduction). They really need to revise this talent to (a) ensure that it retains its focus on DPS classes, so that it's not rewarding to put it on other tanks, (b) not turn it into a threat-generating ability that relies on the performance of anotherp layer, and (c) preferably make it do something for the person who casts it.

So here's a recap:

1) Tune the threat multiplier down slightly so that threat isn't a *complete* non-issue for competent tanks, while still retaining the general scaling mechanism.
2) Make Strength a bit stronger in terms of survivability, to make items with Strength be unequivocally desirable compared to survivability-only items.
3) Make Vigilance be less annoying.

[Sparan]

And your point it? Do DPSers only use AE spells when fighting a single boss? Didn't think so.
I was talking about mindlessly AE'ing everything, not about someone focusing the wrong target.

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:

It is partly a problem with tanking mechanics because AE threat is too high. If someone is hitting the wrong mob, I don't really see a reason why he shouldn't get aggro. Even DPS classes can be asked to use their brains during trash.
That is the only gripe I have with the way tanking works now.

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.

[Sparan]

Sorry for the double-post, but I'd rather keep this separate from what's above.

1) Tune the threat multiplier down slightly so that threat isn't a *complete* non-issue for competent tanks, while still retaining the general scaling mechanism.

I'm inclined to agree with you *if threat becomes a total nonissue on single targets*, but I'm reasonably sure that we won't be completely clear on whether or not that's the case until we're raiding at 80 and all of the classes are balanced properly. Beta does give us some good indication of things, but honestly a lot can and will change for each class b/w beta and release, so I'm content to leave such decisions for another day.

[Xav]

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.

Dragaan, as confident as you seem to be in your abilities, I just don't see how you can enjoy the way tanking was prior to 3.0. Yes, it was extremely challenging. You needed to be a great player to even stand a chance vs geared-to-the-teeth DPS. But we also needed a lot of accomodations to keep things running smoothly, typically other people doing Demo/TC. Putting out 110% effort on everything start to finish, while other roles can put out maybe 50% effort and still be extremely effective.

Nothing got me more angry than working my ass off during an entire Sunwell clear trying to keep mobs off of people while they can fairly effortlessly mash one button to put out their maximum DPS and make my job harder while doing so. They don't even have to be labeled "bad" players, but it was just such a change of roles.

I pushed myself to the absolute limit during Sunwell progress over half a year ago. I never once let up, and always had to do the same. Meanwhile, many other classes and roles can afford to relax a bit and go easy. The tank cannot.

It's not an issue of "not being able to take the pressure" at all - I know I can, and I have, and I've proven it. But it was just a skewed game style how some classes are so different from others at different points in the game.

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

[Warwench]

I say dont touch a damn ting till we're 80, then see how threat is.

We cannot make any decent decisions based on what we are seeing right now.

[Xav]

I also want to say that I think the huge gap between tanks and DPS in Wrath right now (beta, at 80), is going to diminish as time goes on. Sort of like the way the gap right now @ 70 and the gap at 80 is a lot larger.

Once level 80 dps start getting fully geared out in later tiers of gear, I expect the lead tanks have over the DPS will be much smaller and, while we'll still be comfortably ahead, it wont be nearly as big as it is now.

Just think back to first hitting 70, if you were in decent gear to start with (say, Tier 2 or above), we got our new ranks of tank abilities and we were actually pretty effective tanks. Only later in the game/tiers did it start to no longer hold up vs the DPS.

Naxx is basically that same progression point, as fresh 70's were to heroics/karazhan/etc.

[mavfin]

I say dont touch a damn ting till we're 80, then see how threat is.

We cannot make any decent decisions based on what we are seeing right now.

^^This^^

I have a feeling that Blizz will tweak it after a couple of tiers of raid gear at 80 if they feel they need to. They're taking the conservative approach at the moment, as they've been bitten in the ass on gear scaling before. (1.0 Fury warriors anyone?)

[Sparan]

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

Shwat?