Burst threat with...Mocking Blow? Strange but true!

[Kojiyama]

So, to make a somewhat long story short: events last evening led me to do some testing on Mocking Blow. Along with many Warriors, I hadn't given it much thought beyond being a backup taunt for the last 5 years or so, and really didn't consider the semi-recent changes to its overall working mechanics and Glyphs.

After some testing with Satrina's mod, I confirmed a few rare tests a little while ago that the base threat of Mocking Blow is 3 times the damage dealt.

I also confirmed that the Glyph of Barbaric Insults - Item - World of Warcraft doubles this, making it 6 times the damage dealt.

Furthermore, as Glyph of Mocking Blow - Item - World of Warcraft is a Minor Glyph, this can easily be increased.

On a crit last evening with both glyphs, I was able to get over 32,000 threat from a single execute of Mocking Blow. I was a bit amazed by this.

While it may not be appropriate for all points in time, fully raid-buffed and glyphed the average threat from a single Mocking Blow execute could easily reach into the mid-20k range. In fights where aggro was on the edge, it could be worthwhile to drop, for instance, Glyph of Blocking (which is of minimal advantage with current gear) for this.

Even with only the Minor Glyph, fully raid-buffed the average threat per execute of Mocking Blow is often still higher than any other ability we have--potentially up into the 12k+ range. This seems to make the minor glyph fairly interesting, especially considering we rarely use our 3rd minor glyph slot for anything important.

Anyhow, while it may not be game-changing I found the lack of information on this previously a bit odd and figured I would share my findings.

(It is also worth noting that as the threat is directly tied to weapon damage, using it as initial aggro with a slow two-hander gives ridiculous amounts of threat in a single execute. I'm pretty sure one could break 40k threat with a crit 2-hand Mocking Blow in a raid environment. Again, ridiculously situational but, IMO, kinda interesting to know. )

[Aggathon]

Might be interesting to put it in a simple Taunt macro

/cast Mocking Blow
/cast Taunt

[Dreador]

Might be interesting to put it in a simple Taunt macro

/cast Mocking Blow
/cast Taunt

/cast Taunt
/cast Mocking Blow

You want the taunt first, because if you just got threat from the mocking blow, the taunt does nothing for you if you already have aggro, and if the mocking blow doesn't give you aggro, you didn't really do anything for yourself. Taunt first, giving you the threat from the primary aggro target, then hit it again for a huge threat increase.

[Eravian]

/cast Taunt
/cast Mocking Blow

You want the taunt first, because if you just got threat from the mocking blow, the taunt does nothing for you if you already have aggro, and if the mocking blow doesn't give you aggro, you didn't really do anything for yourself. Taunt first, giving you the threat from the primary aggro target, then hit it again for a huge threat increase.

Also, both Taunt and Mocking Blow make the target attack you for a certain amount of time, so it may be the most beneficial to stagger use them a few seconds apart for a nice ten-second or so window of boss attention in which you don't have to worry about anyone else getting hit.

[Papapaint]

Sounds like a great way to give the tank with the 190% damage buff a bit more breathing room and up overall rdps on festergut.

[Synapse]

Doesn't mocking blow fudge taunt DR, though? You want to keep it away from bosses you have to taunt often. These tend to be the types where such extra threat are useful too, sadly.

[Dreador]

I don't think it messes with taunt DR, since mocking blow doesn't taunt the target. One of the glyphs used to make it taunt, but this, like challenging shout is now only a temp spell, not a threat exchange.

[Aggathon]

Doesn't mocking blow fudge taunt DR, though? You want to keep it away from bosses you have to taunt often. These tend to be the types where such extra threat are useful too, sadly.

The taunt DR is now 5 taunts, and mocking blow is on a 1 minute cooldown, far longer than the 18 second DR, I doubt it would matter. I THINK fixates are on the taunt DR but I'm not sure.

Also, taunt neither activates or uses the GCD as far as I recall, meaning it doesn't matter what order you put them in in the macro because unless you do a cast sequence if it's just

/cast taunt
/cast mocking blow

they're both going to go off at the same time. Basically what I'm saying is this macro turns taunt into hand of the righteous or w/e that pally single target taunt is that does crap tons of damage.

[Dreador]

Even still, I may just keep em separate. On my bind, 1 is taunt and shift 1 is MB.

[Synapse]

The taunt DR is now 5 taunts, and mocking blow is on a 1 minute cooldown, far longer than the 18 second DR, I doubt it would matter. I THINK fixates are on the taunt DR but I'm not sure.

Also, taunt neither activates or uses the GCD as far as I recall, meaning it doesn't matter what order you put them in in the macro because unless you do a cast sequence if it's just

/cast taunt
/cast mocking blow

they're both going to go off at the same time. Basically what I'm saying is this macro turns taunt into hand of the righteous or w/e that pally single target taunt is that does crap tons of damage.

Depending on how often you taunt, it will indeed become a problem. 3 at gormok were already enough. It'll be no different with 5 depending on how often tank swaps have to be made, especially in 25m.

Also, sending taunt before mocking blow matters because they're still going to be sent in sequence, gcd or not. If you send mocking blow then taunt, and send taunt then mocking blow, there is difference.

[Aggathon]

Depending on how often you taunt, it will indeed become a problem. 3 at gormok were already enough. It'll be no different with 5 depending on how often tank swaps have to be made, especially in 25m.

Also, sending taunt before mocking blow matters because they're still going to be sent in sequence, gcd or not. If you send mocking blow then taunt, and send taunt then mocking blow, there is difference.

Tanks taunts are far enough apart. Saurfang and Gunship: I'm on a boat are the quickest at about 20 seconds minimum. Probably about 30 seconds on Deathwhisper, and like a minute and a half on festergut.

[Airowird]

Definately worth looking into. I wonder if the threat with either glyph is good enough to use just as a rotation....

[Kojiyama]

Definately worth looking into. I wonder if the threat with either glyph is good enough to use just as a rotation....

Due to its edge on Devastate, I estimate it would be worth around 150-180 TPS when Glyphed to weave it in the 3rd slot along with Shockwave/Concussion Blow cooldowns. It would be more of a TPS increase than Glyph of Blocking if used this way.

It's not a massive TPS increase in such a way, though, although it is an increase. I think it's probably best for burst threat (start of the fight/aggro wipes, especially) or if you are falling behind for some reason.

I used it a few times when DPS were creeping up on me tonight and it really helped level things out. Think it's a really nice tool, and very powerful when glyphed.

If others haven't already, I will try to run some tests in regard to if it messes with Taunts at all. Not certain if it does or not.

[Airowird]

With BQS it does about the same threat on my warrior as a Shockwave if I use the Minor Glyph.
Without the Glyph it runs about 10% behind on Devastate.

But it scales extremely well with a slow weapon.
Using a 2.60 speed weapon, it is about equal to Shield Slam without any Glyph.
On the other hand, with a 1.5 weapon (no glyph) it does as much threat as Revenge.

Ah well, guess that one gets added to the spreadsheet

[Panttz]

An interesting find.

Just on the topic of minor glyphs. Are Commanding shout, Charge, Thunderclap, Bloodrage the most common still? Is there room to put in the MB glyph?

[Tengor]

Regarding the minor glyphs, I think the commanding shout one is more optional, and with the T10 4pc bonus we do no longer have a use for the bloodrage glyph.

[Aethelas]

Nice read! I've wondered about the glyphs for a while, really good to see some numbers and options.

The only, and most obvious problem to this threat beast is the cooldown on the ability.

I considder anything with a cooldown more than 30 ish seconds only an incidental addition to a rotation. The minor glyph is something I can considder, but I'd expect to get a lot more mileage out of a major glyph like shockwave with a 2 piece T10 bonus, for example.

I guess if you can spare the minor glyph that it could be nice to use in a rotation as an opener to spice up your initial lead. It'd have to be a serioius contender to a shieldblock+shieldslam combination in that case.

[Dots]

If others haven't already, I will try to run some tests in regard to if it messes with Taunts at all. Not certain if it does or not.

At least for warrior, all three taunt and 'force to attack' effects share the same DR. As far as I know, this true for every taunt and fixate, but I don't know for sure about non-tank abilities like Distracting Shot (that just never happened for me).

[SquishemHard]

Mocking Blow definitely fudges with taunt DR... That said, they also removed Taunt DR from all mobs by default and said they would only add it to things that could lead to taunt being abused.

[Kojiyama]

I guess if you can spare the minor glyph that it could be nice to use in a rotation as an opener to spice up your initial lead. It'd have to be a serioius contender to a shieldblock+shieldslam combination in that case.

As mad as it sounds... I'm toying with the idea of making a macro to Mocking Blow + Weapon Swap (back to 1h + Shield) after a Charge so that I can Mocking Blow with a Justicebringer for initial threat.

May be too risky, but I believe a weapon swap can kick in after an ability usage nearly instantly. Will test it on some normal creatures first, but I'm tempted by the idea of 40k+ crit initial threat amounts.