Have I put too much focus on surviving?

[therman]

I've been doing heroics out the wazoo since I hit 80, and have been using demog's gear guide to gear up. I think I've done a pretty good job, with just heroics/rep gear I've gotten to 28k unbuffed HP and ~42% dodge/parry, while still being uncrittable. Which means I can take a hit.

Unfortunately, I'm still a recruit in my guild, so I haven't had much chance to tank in Naxx, but last night the raid leader decided to try me out, and I tanked thaddius25. Long story short, no complaints from the healers, but my TPS sucked.

So my question is, have I put too much focus on merely surviving? I've never had a problem holding aggro before, even during TBC. Or is it because I'm coming from a casual/friend's guild into a hardcore raiding guild where the DPS are pushing it to the limit even more so than any of my casual friends ever did, and I just need to get used to it.

[Optimoos]

Well, this could be a combination of both, although likely more of the second. Looking at your armory, your hit and expertise are OK for a tank... not stellar, but not abysmal either. However, your numbers are better than mine and I don't have many issues holding threat.

Now, on the second point, let me give you a personal example. I have a mage friend who I swear has some mad WoW hax0rz. He was putting out 2600 dps BEFORE the 3.0 patch, and always always always was threat capped. Even after our threat "buffs" he still rides my ass. Most of the time when I'm in heroics or boss fights, I'll be generating 2.5-3k tps on bosses and by the end of the fight be miles ahead of the dps. He, however, will always find a way to keep up or at least be closer than anyone else.

Long story short, if you're running with a bunch of pro dps, they will definitely make your TPS an issue, especially if you're not doing a good job of it.

[Krysana]

Are you using concussion blow and shockwave in your rotation? They are pretty good damaging (damage = threat now) abilities. Did you get the glyph of blocking?

[therman]

Have glyph of blocking, no I don't use conc blow or shockwave. I was under the impression that while they're damaging abilities, because they could not proc SnB, that they weren't worth it on single target/non-stunnable targets(bosses)

[Krysana]

You should definately use them when you have 5 sunders stacked and when your revenge and shield slam are on cooldown.

And for Thaddius, are you close enough to others so you can get the + damage buff too? It can stack up to 40% or 50% in 10-man.

[Suvega]

Your block could be suffering, I currently don't know how to inspect block VALUE in armory, however you shoudl be around 1k?

Either way, decide if impale is a good choice, and ensure you use a correct rotation (i.e. avoid devestate as much as possible, lolspam heroic strike to dump rage)

Take a look at threat rotations under theorycrafting here, it could enlighten you on how to build threat. Although devestate spam does infact help proc SnB, this proc + weak threat from devestate does not out weigh your shockwave hitting for 2.5k .

Only exception is when you blow shield block, spam your devestate to help proc a SnB to shield slam for 2-4k