AOE Tanking Group Dynamics

[BossHaug]

Hello all, i'm new to tankspot. I've been a warrior for 3 years but wotlk is my first time doing end game raids and heroics (The World of Warcraft Armory)
I have problems tanking when there are 4 or more mobs occasionally. I'm not sure if its me or the groups that i run with. Some groups go smooth and I rarely lose a mob. Other groups i'm in are harder, typically when there is a fury warrior or mage. I rotate on TC, 3 target cleave, two target devestate. I also use shield slam, revenge,SW, and Conc Blow, SBlock when available.
I've main tanked 10&25 man OS, 10 man VOA, and a few other heroics successfully. I haven't done H HoL, HoS, OK.
I've attemted H CoT once and we failed.
I've also done H UP 3 times before they fixed the bug on the third boss. Now that they have fixed the bug in H UP we have to run the gauntlet on the third boss and it seems impossible for me to keep aggro. It seems that TC, SW, and cleave are my only AOE. my cleave is very slow and SW has a 20 second cooldown. I've only attempted this once since the patch but the group had extremely good dps. fury war, hun,rog, druid heals. we were going through the trash mobs and first two bosses like it wasn't even on heroic. I did however have a hard time keeping aggro on the trash mobs even though with other groups in the same heroic i've done well.


Am i doing something wrong or did we not have a good strategy for the gauntlet? We tried moving fast and slow but we ended up dying near the end. I'll start off holding aggro good until near the end of hallway when more mobs come out and spread out farther apart. It seems as if a prot Pally is better for the H UP gauntlet and CoT. OS and VoA were easy since there are only a few mobs at a time.
I've noticed in other posts that some tanks rotate between Mobs and use devestate and come back to the skull. But when there are many Mobs, that seems impossible. Also, i don't use any macros or addons. I appreciate any help. i feel i'm a great tank except for these few situations.

[Zed]

well based on your gear, you should not have a problem. so it has to be out of your rotation/movement/dps not giving you time to get aggro.

you say you use cleave? dont. TC and SW whenever its up and tab-targeting SS and Devastate. Hunters and especially Fury wars can give you trouble aggro-wise with their aoe's (less for hunters since they can feign). Use vigilance on whoever is outputting the most threat. Make liberal use of taunt and warbringer to pick up any strays/new spawns. dropping TC can be enough to keep adds on you until youve devastated them a few times. also, in the case of plate dps, they can afford to take a few hits if they pulll aggro in the UP gaunlet

the other thing is, with this gaunlet in UP and CoT you have to be constantly moving. for example, after the fight with the chrono lord in CoT, you have to move up that alley quickly... as in pulling the next group before dps has finished off the current one.

war aoe tanking is harder than say dk aoe tanking, but not so much that those encounters arent feasible. you just have to be more on your toes. and it goes without saying... GET OMEN. as a tank you absolutely need to know your threat on a target. if you are only going to have 1 addon, this has to be the one.

[BossHaug]

Thanks Zed,
I backed off the cleave and started a rotation as you mentioned and that worked great. I have to get use to tabbing because it didn't seem to go to the target i thought it should have most of the time which was a little frustrating. I was able to complete the UP gauntlet on the third attempt. The group i was in went a little slower and the melee dps didn't run in front of me.
I'll download OMEN tonight and use it.

Thanks for the Advice,
BH

[Phatomus]

It helps to turn your toon when tab targeting. If you are facing one direction while tabbing you will more than likely cycle through the same series of mobs. In situations like UP I find turning, even slightly while tabbing through the mobs helps me hit them all a little quicker.

[Foreverlad]

In pugs, it'll be much tougher to get this going, but if you can get reliable guild runs, this little piece of advice is a lifesaver: All DPS should be /assist ing the Tank at all times.

If you're forced to bounce between mobs and your Alt key never seems to target who you want it to, the surest method of fluid aggro holding is making certain DPS is always trained on your mob.

As a hunter I have 2 macros I use for this: One sets my target as my focus (mousewheel up), the other (mousewheel down) /assists my focus.

Mind you, this won't help with AoE DPS and this is a tanking forum, so I'll just shut up now =P

[Gyunikuana]

The only reason I don't care for people /assisting me is because when I switch targets to throw up a SS or Dev, sometimes a DPS will /assist then, and end up pulling after I go back to my original target.

I SW and TC every time the CD is up and put a skull icon (hotkeyed to my numpad) on the target I start with. By the time that one dies I'll have enough threat on the others.

If AoE is being used, I hit cleave if I have alot of rage, but TC and SW have provided me with enough threat so far. As long as the AoE doesn't start immediately with the pull I'm usually ok.

[Goresaw]

Zed, why do you say not to use cleave? If you aren't cleaving, how are you dumping your rage? I find when I forget to spam it enough I get pegged out at 100 rage. It might be a gear issue though, I'm not in all epics yet.

[Morgo]

When there are more than 4 mobs, I feel it's more a question of deciding how much threat is enough. Sure, shockwave and TC on cd, but other than that, I find that I myself assist the dps most of the time, I just watch the nameplate healthbars and "loosing threat" messages, and adjust my momentary focus accordingly. this way, I usually don't loose mobs, and if I do, I usually have it already targeted, taunt and follow up with a high-threat move and done.

[Zed]

Zed, why do you say not to use cleave? If you aren't cleaving, how are you dumping your rage? I find when I forget to spam it enough I get pegged out at 100 rage. It might be a gear issue though, I'm not in all epics yet.

i know a lot of people have used glyphed cleave for multimob tanking, but for me at least tab-targeting has worked out just fine, so I leave that glyph spot open for other things.

for rage dumping, TC and Heroic strike in this case, even SS helps if I dont proc it by the time the cooldown wears off.

also if you look at Bosshaug's armory page, you see his tanking weapon is slow, so cleave's not coming up very often... hence its not going to be helping much is dps is going all out. in this case you wanna push you attacks, ie instants like devastate and revenge. so, rage dumping will be harder with a slow weapon.

[Bung]

Am i doing something wrong or did we not have a good strategy for the gauntlet?

Hey boss there is a gimmick to H UP for the gauntlet. Obviously it takes a good team too and yes a warrior tank is not ideal for the gauntlet but it can be done. First farm 5 spears and run out so that it resets. Run back in before boss respawns and head to entrance where mobs spawn from. If you are standing in the doorway facing mobs when it starts use a well timed TC and you will c like 15 mobs on you. Hopefully you have good aoe as you will deal with 4-5 groups of mobs while staying in that same spot. After your DPS launch 5 and boss lands you have to quickly turn around and tank boss. From there its just a matter of everyone knowing to run during whirlwinds. Hope what I wrote makes sense to you.
Bung

[BossHaug]

Bung, thanks for the advice. I ran again with guild and had no problems. I'm noticing in some of the PUGs i have issues mainly because they attack the same time I do or after my first swing. My guild members usually lets me get a few sunders on a target first. We died a few times but a few were undergeared and I was third in dps.

ZED, i still haven't got the sword out of UP. I have enough emblems of heroism to buy the epic sword from vendor but it only has crit and no defense attributes. The weapon i have now is extremely slow and I have problems generating rage because of that. I thought if i bought that sword it would help. i'll still have 540 defense.

[Zed]

ZED, i still haven't got the sword out of UP. I have enough emblems of heroism to buy the epic sword from vendor but it only has crit and no defense attributes. The weapon i have now is extremely slow and I have problems generating rage because of that. I thought if i bought that sword it would help. i'll still have 540 defense.

Well, maybe on the sword. White damage only give you so much rage per swing, and a lot of your rage should be coming from blocking/getting hit. Theres a quest in Zul'Drak that has you kill an elite, and gives you a choice of three weapons, one of which is Empty Void . this could hold you over until you get the UP sword or something better.

dont know if you already have, but check out this post Pre-nax gear list - weapons, it used it to gear up my tank.

the badge sword could work, again more dps is more tps. but i guess i would emphasize hit and expertise stats if you're going to get a non-tank stat sword/axe/mace.

keeping aggro on groups of 4 or more ( i hate the dragonflight squads in VH) open with TC and then shockwave. then tab target SS/revenge/devates, always prioritizing SS and revenge if they are up. by the time the shockwave wears off, the CD on your initial TC will be up, so use it again. big groups can be a pain in the ass if someones focus firing one of them instead of aoe'ing, but you just gotta be ready to throw taunts and cycle through targets making sure your on top of threat.

[dyls]

Man, I re-glyphed for cleave (+1 extra target; now hits 3) and bound it to mwheel-up (mwheel-down is HS) and I go nuts with that thing and don't really feel I could do without it now, for aoe tanking.

I do have a 1.6sec weapon though, which would make a lot of difference (cleave hits a LOT, it's almost guaranteed to run me dry of rage if I use it every swing as part of rotation)