Holding aggro

[Bleyde]

Sorry to post a question that probably appears here multiple times but I couldnt see anything obvious...

Im a lvl 77 warrior and so far have had no real issues with tanking in any instance (a little in Sunken Temple but nothing major) but last night in Drak i had a real issue with a Retri Paladin over aggroing me. He was the same level but every fight I had to keep chasing his mob. We only did about 5 encounters and then he bailed whinging that I sucked (which maybe I do...!)

I marked the Mobs clearly so that they knew orders etc. and went through my normal rotation...start with Charge, Shockwave, Thunderclap and then going through the mobs with Devestate, Shield Slam and Revenge as and when I could. Normally this has worked for me well, but last night was an epic fail....

The only thing I could see him doing was that he was doing Consecration (or whatever the Lvl 77 equivelent is). Surely this isnt the issue?

Is there another rotation that I should be using or is it just the possibility of him muntering the wrong Mob?

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

Bleyde

[Walters]

Ret pallies who outgear you can make it really hard to hold aggro not only off them but off the rest of the group because you spend so much time taunting off of them.

A good solution in general is to tell whatever dps is pulling off you to tone it down.

If that doesn't work, there are a few things you can do on your end:
For starters, you should put vigilance on any dps class who seems to be pulling a lot of threat (a good addon you might want to download and install is omen threat meter if you don't already have it).
As for your rotation, warrior threat depends SO much on the amount of rage you have and if you open with Shockwave, that's 4 seconds of mobs not beating on you, not feeding you rage. Shockwave is better used conditionally--maybe if the pally pulls aggro off you, you shockwave and buy yourself time to taunt. Using shockwave in general while you're at low rage should be avoided unless it's an emergency stun to keep your healer or dps from getting squished because you cant really generate rage while everything that was hitting you is stunned.
If you find yourself aoe tanking often, I use a spec and glyphs that I've seen very few warriors duplicate. Using the cleave glyph allows you to hit 3 targets with cleave and is probably just about as effective as if not more effective than shockwave when it comes to building and maintaining threat on multiple targets because cleave, in contrast to shockwave, has no cooldown. If you're willing, it might be worth getting the cleave glyph and throwing cleave spam into your rotation--it's not for everyone but has worked really well for me and frees up shockwave for more conditional use if and when bad ret pallies pull off you.

[Bashal]

Did you put vig on the ret pally?

...did the ret pally have righteous fury on? I keep coming across ret paladins that have that turned on, I think it has something to do with pvp.

Aside from that, ret paladins just pull a lot of threat. Period.

But I heard they had this thing called "hand of salvation" that's good for lowering their threat. It's just too bad that a lot of the ret paladins I come across seem to not even know it's in their spellbook, much less on their action bar.

I love the ones that actually use it.

[Jaeden]

Might not be critical at this time, but get your expertise and defense up some. Other than that he needs to watch his threat.

[uglybbtoo]

This is a known scaling problems I have discussed here before after levelling 3 diff warrior tanks you wont be able to get around them till you are 80 and get some gear.

The pally will be stacking strength ignoring all other stats for him strength converts to spell power which means consecrate gets stronger.

Your hit will be abysmal at level 77 I am guessing it will be like lower than 70 and your attack power will be low as well because you will be stuffing stam and defense. Next you probably filled out your prot talent tree but probably haven't got down to deep wounds on the arms tree.

The basic problem translates to alot of thunderclaps miss and you don't have deep wounds so the pally's consecrate quickly overcomes your agro on off targets. As bash said also target the pally and make sure he doesn't have righteous fury which increase his threat by 90%.

Between level 74 and 80 your worst nightmare are ret pallys and elemental shaman dps with lightning bolt spamming.

The easiest way is to simply ask the ret to not use consecrate some will get all anal about it but the scaling at lower levels between classes is not linear nor does blizz go out of there way to make it so.

[kazajhodo]

Hey there! Sounds like your doing alot of stuff right and others are screwing up. Here's the deal, there are alot of players in this crazy wow universe that suck. Capital fail mode. First things first, just make sure the scrubkins are waiting for at least one tclap. No matter how good you are one of the most important things as a warrior tank is keeping control of your group. If the dps is crazy, tell em to wait two claps or whatever, it's better than wiping. But honestly, after one clap you should be able to keep all targets under control under heavy aoe. Assuming your sustaining your threat of course.
Your issue is non tanking chars using tanking moves and pulling aggro. That's it. Dks and paladonts are notorious for this, Noe tore ee ous. I've been lvling my first warrior with a priest bud, we've both played for like 5 years and said what the hell- let's start friend accounts, pick two classes we've never played before and go nuts. So I'm a tank and he's a priest- and of course I'm not 80 yet, 63- so it's still easy. Here's what always works for me unless there's a stupid dk or pallydope that don't know what dos means.
Oh, and use recount to keep track of dmg. I'll once in a while have people complain about me holding aggro when they're using their aggro stealing moves. Simple fact is, if they're doing less dmg than you and pulling aggro- THEY are TANKING, not dpsing. Doesn't matter what they say. I've had pallies pulling 40% plus of the raid dmg and still not had trouble controlling the mobs.

Try this. Get the cleave glyph, use a faster weapon...bout 1.80-2.40 closer to 1.80 the better. Cleave is swing based, so faster swing equals 3 targets hit more often. More threat, more dmg, more props. When you use it you don't need to be neat and tidy either. Remember, 3 targets, so think current target and one to the left and right. Don't target the left or right one next, go one more over, or 2 even, ftw.
Next, get glyph of resonant power. I might get some argument here, and yes glyph of devestate deals amazing single target threat...however I say sunder like normal on bosses and tclap and cleave everything to death. Here's the deal, tclap is fantastic, good dmg, good effects, excellent theat in dstance-expensive though. Without the glyph, which makes the clap cost 5 less rage, the clap would be my 2nd highest dmg under cleave, oh and that's with the 3 point first tier prot talent. With the glyph and talents, including the -3 rage cost for offensive abilities talent in the prot tree....you can get tclap down to about 8 or 9 rage. Cheap, effective, tons of aggro, tons of dmg. in fact with the glyph I usually clap nearly twice as much as my 2nd highest dmg and the clap runs about 30% of my dmg. That's alot if threat.
You've gotta look at the other side of this as well, and that other side is efficency. Your saving 11 or 12 rage PER clap!! That's huge! And you take those savings and put them into other moves. Think about how many times you clap per pull...5 @ least? So if nothing else that's 60 rage that is more effectively placed into other moves. Cleave is 15 rage, that's 4 more cleave possibilities...per pull. Per pull. Say you make 50 pulls in a run, that's 5 claps per pull, 250 claps, times 12 saved rage per clap...my head just exploded- 3000 saved rage, 200 cleaves. Say you hit for a low 400 per cleave, x3 guys with the glyph, 1200x200=240,000dmg? So not only are you improving your aggro and control of multiple mobs, but your overall becoming much more effective and efficent.

[Bleyde]

Now my brain hurts as well! Ok...think I've got something to work with now...thanks for all the advice guys (and gals)

[Selene]

Did you put vig on the ret pally?

...did the ret pally have righteous fury on? I keep coming across ret paladins that have that turned on, I think it has something to do with pvp.

Aside from that, ret paladins just pull a lot of threat. Period.

But I heard they had this thing called "hand of salvation" that's good for lowering their threat. It's just too bad that a lot of the ret paladins I come across seem to not even know it's in their spellbook, much less on their action bar.

I love the ones that actually use it.

Not sure on Hand of Salvation but there is a Blessing of Salvation, but only Pally Tanks get that if they spec for it.

As to running around with Righteous Fury on I have no clue on that.
I know a friend of mine ran with it on all the time, but she kinda "tanked" as dps when doing stuff that isn't Instance related. I never turned on it with my Pally, so the few times I have tanked, I tend to forget to turn it on... >.>

[Bashal]

Not sure on Hand of Salvation but there is a Blessing of Salvation, but only Pally Tanks get that if they spec for it.

You're thinking of blessing of sanctuary. Hand of salvation is what replaced the old "blessing of salvation" which reduced threat by a flat 30%:

Hand of Salvation
Places a Hand on the party or raid member, reducing their total threat by 2% every 1 sec. for 10 sec. Players may only have one Hand on them per Paladin at any one time.

As far as I know, you don't have to spec into it, every paladin has it. They just. Don't. Use it. :P