Warriors, Threat, and Malygos!

[Skyborn]

First off, here's my armory.

OK -- I've just finished a very emasculating run in 10 man EoE. I would really love advice to help me get my threat back up to comfortable levels. I hate telling my DPS to back off. I don't want to be the weakest link in guild runs, but that's what it felt like tonight when I had 4 DPS at 90%+ threat for most of Phase 1. Even w/ vigilance and intercept I could not keep them off me. I find I fall behind threat when the sparks are double stacked, and during the vortex when the ranged is going nuts and I'm jumping up and down trying to get some hits in.

It never used to be a problem when we were first gearing up, but now that my DPS is geared to the gills I'm having trouble. They probably all averaging about 3.5K-4.5K DPS w/ 10 man buffs. We usually transition into phase 3 with 4:30 left on his enrage. I'm sure that this could be even quicker if I could pump more threat.

I like to think that my rotation is solid. It's a priority queue of sorts, where I prioritize SS, Revenge, then Devestate (to proc SS). I work in Conc Blow, SW, and Shield Bash when they're off cooldown. I refresh TClap and Demo Shout as needed. I ALWAYS keep heroic strike queued if I have the rage for it (last Patchwerk run that I analyzed I had 151 Heroic Strikes and 22 Melee Swings. I know that 0 melee swings is ideal, but I was pretty happy with those numbers anyway).

With the exception of my shoulders, boots, and 1 ring I'm happy with my gear. I was happy with my spec before tonight. I was happy with my gems before tonight. But after seeing myself pulling such low TPS (tonight it was 2.5-3.5K, which seems much lower than my normal numbers and definitely below my patchwerk threat / heroic instance threat). I'm starting to wonder, is it the nature of the fight, or is it just me?

I'm pretty comfortable with my keybind setup, as the only skills I click are vigilance and the health regen skil. In fact, I love the way my keys are set up and they work wonders in stationary fights, but I find that when I'm moving around it gets harder to keep heroic strike queued, it gets harder to get as many keypresses per minute as I usually do.

Anyway, I just made some changes tonight after the fight in the hopes of upping my threat in the future. I respeced, taking 3 points out of Shield Spec and putting it into Imp. Heroic Strike and taking 2 points out of Imp. Spell Reflect and putting it into Impale. I hope this will help my threat output.

I've also started swapping out some of my stam gems for expertise / hit. Before tonight I was sitting at about 29.5k unbuffed, and now I'm down to about 29.1k as I swapped some stam out for expertise. I still have plenty of +24 stam gems that I can replace with +12 stam +8 hit, or +12 stam +8 exp. I think I will go that route until I have as close to 26 expertise and 264 hit as I can get (or is the cap 296?).

Survivability, mitigation and EH seem to be fine, so now I'm trying to rebalance it all with my threat output. Am I taking things too far? Am I not making enough changes, or the right changes?

I know I wrote a novel, but I'd love feedback. I'm pretty stressed and disappointed with myself right now. My guildies kept telling me it was just an off-night and not to worry about it... but everyday I try to bring my best -- and when it's not good enough I get frustrated. And when I get frustrated, I turn to TankSpot, so thanks in advance!
-Sky.

[Raisinghell]

From what i saw on your armory, your hit and expertise are very nice. now they are not cap'd but with those numbers, there is nothing else u can improve upon until gear upgrades. Since threat is based on gear, all you are missing is replacing those few pieces here and there and your threat should jump to normal numbers. From experience, i was in full heroic drops with some naxx10/25 pieces, pushing 4k tps with 15 expertise and 180 HR. after a VERY lucky naxx 25, where i got a ton of new drops, my expertise is now 18, HR took a plummet down to 108... but my tps shot up to 7k+. thats my only answer i can come up with. anyone else can take a shot at it, but im sticking with what i got.
Heres my armory if u want to take a look: The World of Warcraft Armory

[Kasath]

Malygos is the only fight in the game where people actually need to pay attention to their aggro. Don't be upset that you're having problems with aggro.

Are you raid leading? If you are the guy that's calling out spark locations and what-not, try delegating that task to DPS so that you can focus on your rotation.

Get a DPS to watch Omen for you and call out if people are getting close. I do this when I OT in Maly-25, but if I'm main tanking, I'm usually so focused on getting my rotation perfect that I don't talk in Vent.

I work in Conc Blow, SW, and Shield Bash when they're off cooldown.

I'm not sure about working conc. blow or shield bash into your rotation; I wouldn't prioritize those over revenge or SS, and when I MT I usually don't have free GCDs to fit those in.

Do you have the Lavinthor's Talisman? Try using that. Open up by popping Lavinthor's and Shield Block, fire off some big shield slams. For general purpose tanking, I put Shield Block and Lavinthor's into my shield slam macro to make sure they are up as much as possible.

You can try finger pushing Devastate, Shield Slam, and Revenge, and clicking heroic strike to make sure you have it queued up more. That might not work for you if you have a PTT button for Ventrilo, or have to move a lot.

At the end of the day, Malygos is the only fight in the game where threat is an issue. Your DPS needs to watch their threat. I'm in T7.5 level gear fighting for aggro against DPS in T7.5, and when my DPS is standing in 2 spark zones, they will ride my ass on Omen, no matter what.

It sounds like you know what you're doing. Don't feel bad if your DPS is getting close to the threat cap, that's the whole challenge of the Malygos encounter.

[Skyborn]

RaisingHell, Kasath, thank you for your well thought out replies. I've made some changes to my spec, my gear, and my rotation (well, kind of) so I will post my threat on our next shot at Maly.

[Naka]

CB is definately worth it atm, as it currently doesn't trigger the GCD. So you can easily hit it right before any other skill without losing anything except rage.

[haqzore]

Yea, a few of you are simply incorrect about the perfect rotation.

See below:
The Rotation. Its not as Easy as you think. - Warriors - TankingTips.com

Nothing to be ashamed of, I didnt have CB and SW in my rotation before reading this. Are you using deep wounds?

[Nayre]

Also, as Naka said, CB doesn't trigger the GCD anymore (though it's still effected by it), which allows you to effectively do a CB + SS combination, or revenge, or whatever you want, really. It definitely helps with your threat. The same goes for Shield bash, since it's also not on the GCD.

[Skyborn]

I'm not specced deep wounds... I stopped at Impale. Maybe I should though...

Losing 3% block when I respecced has me feeling a little rage starved, I'm not sure if I'm imagining things.

I did patchwerk tonight and only averaged 1440 DPS, where in my old spec 7/8/56 I averaged 1888. Obviously the buffs were probably different but this DPS discrepancy is starting to puzzle me. I'm going to run WWS next time I go into Naxx for a full clear.

Is Deep Wounds still worth it?

In other news, I got expertise soft-capped today (I'm at 21, and 26 w/ my welfed). Now to work on hit.

[Churles]

At first I was thinking it was your hit and expertise, but looking at armory you have a good amount of each, and as you said you are soft capped with well fed.

So I looked at your spec, it can be improved by taking the three out of cruelty and putting them in deep wounds. Yes it is worth it. You may also want to think about switching metas to Eternal Earthsiege Diamond - Item - World of Warcraft.

Other than that, I really can't say whats up. Maybe use elixirs or flasks for threat instead of survivability if you are ok with that. Maybe the 180 ap flask or an expertise or strength elixir.

Anyway, good luck with gearing up and good luck with your next Malygos.

[Skyborn]

OK -- happy ending to this story guys.

We went into Malygos tonight with a full guild raid (last time we had 2 pugs) and we 1-shotted him (and only 1 person died in phase 3). I had no threat issues whatsoever, even with DPS going all out.

And if that isn't sweet enough, Barricade of Eternity dropped and now I'm sporting that as we work on Sarth2D (right now, just waiting on rebuffs as I type this).


For anyone that's interested.
Wow Web Stats

[Seid]

You can always use Taunt and Mocking Blow as backup measures to make sure that Malygos always has eyes for you only.

I know some might consider this as cheats, but whatever works right?

[Gen4200]

Do you have the Lavinthor's Talisman? Try using that. Open up by popping Lavinthor's and Shield Block, fire off some big shield slams. For general purpose tanking, I put Shield Block and Lavinthor's into my shield slam macro to make sure they are up as much as possible.

Would you mind posting this macro, just curious how you have it setup.

Thanks

[Greatblack]

lol your worried about threat when ppl are doing 100%-200% more dps phase 1... you can get constant misdirects and tricks of the trades thats about it.... after vortex i suggest taunting, use whatever u can just keep ur threat up tell ur dps not to be retarded

[Skyborn]

lol your worried about threat when ppl are doing 100%-200% more dps phase 1... you can get constant misdirects and tricks of the trades thats about it.... after vortex i suggest taunting, use whatever u can just keep ur threat up tell ur dps not to be retarded

As raid make-up changes week to week, I'd rather not rely on class-specific thread-reducers to help me hold aggro. If I get used to having MD, Blessing of Sanc, etc then I might get complacent.

It's probably not an issue in 25 mans since you'll pretty much have the same buffs week to week, but I only do 10 mans where the group composition can vary wildly depending on which guildies are on when invites go out.