A threat issue

[Baphomet]

I apologize if this thread is in the wrong place, it wasn't intentional, however it encompasses several different aspects.

Upon talking with several DPS in my guild we are seeing a common problem in 5 man instances. Especially when queuing for random instances. As our DPS is gearing up higher and higher we are seeing our Tanks losing threat more often. Our Hunter for instance, who pulls 6-7k dps in 5 mans is forever pulling threat off of tanks after misdirecting and using feign death.
It has become so frustrating for him that he no longer wants to run 5 man Dailies. Mainly, because of all of the deaths and repair bills. I'm also noticing the same thing on my Ret Pally. I had originally offered him some advice for running with certain tanks e.g. Have Warriors give you Vigilance, along with other threat reducing abilities from other classes. It's quite surprising how many people think we're retarded for asking for them.

As we got to talking about it, it came to mind that the issue is perhaps that Tanks are gearing for Avoidance as opposed to gearing for Threat. Im not completely sure if this is what is causing the issue, but I suppose it could be possible. I truly believe it's not the tanks fault for gearing Avoidance, as they should be for Raiding. Yet, it leaves me wondering, is there something that we are missing? Are we doing something wrong? What can we do? I could also be way off, and there is no real problem and it's just us.

It seems that waiting longer until we attack helps some but not as much as we would like, also it pisses off our groups for standing around doing nothing because they don't quite grasp that we will end up pulling threat. Also, our tanks are becoming disgruntled with us because they feel we are pulling threat on purpose.

Any feedback on this would be more than welcome, thank you and sorry for the wall of text.

[Jáne]

I don't know about shield wearers but as a DK tank its very very rare for DPS to pull anything off me in 5 mans idk if your tanks are just not paying attention cause there 5 mans and easymode...idk would have to see what there gear/spec/rotation to see if there just not doing there job.

[sud]

Depending on DPS, tanks may indeed have a rough time. On some guild runs I rarely have the option of tanking anything for more than 3 seconds, after which my main role shrinks to stunning and taunting stuff. On the upside, nothing lives long enough to reach the DPS folks.
When people consistantly output over 6k DPS there will simply be not enough time to build ample threat. At the end of the day, 1 point of damage still builds 1 point of threat, so beyond a certain point, there's not much any tank can do imo.

This is all for 5mans of course, raids a totally different matter.

[orcstar]

As a warrior I find myself having rage issues in heroics.

Solution: if you overgear it, pull more. With a decent healer you can easily tank 3 packs.

[Maèl]

As a warrior I find myself having rage issues in heroics.

Solution: if you overgear it, pull more. With a decent healer you can easily tank 3 packs.

This. When only pulling one pack then I have to go really easy on cleave.
But if I try to pull 3 packs I have to watch my AoE threat cooldowns. Overeager DPS WILL pull the whole lot of me after I have only aggroed the second group, proceeding to the third.

You know you outgear the instance. You know you can pull aggro off the tank. Well, don't!
I can't count the times when I switched between mobs in a pull just to read different names in Omen. I can't AoE tank against 3 different DPS puling 7k who each have picked their private mob. I tried to assign main assists in 5man dungeons but explaining the concept to pugs is an exercise in futility.
IF there is a nuke target assigned then you are not free to start with AoE. Tanks often do that to build up nice AoE threat before the group unloads hideous doom of death on all that has a healthbar.

5 man heroics are not a DPS race!

TL;DR
It's the DPS fault. Watch your threat.

[swelt]

It's the DPS fault. Watch your threat.

How do you know that? The tank could be effin awful.

@OP:
If your tanks have recognised that they have a problem with threat, then point them to this website and forum. If they want direct advice, they can post in the HALP! I need advice - TankSpot section, but it might be as well to just read through some of the guides.

It's possible that threat could result from gear choices, glyphs or gemming. It's just as likely to be technique or a basic skills issue. Without seeing armory links or having a bit more information, all you'll get is speculation.

[Fledern]

For warrior & bear tanks, the issue is rage. Even when getting hit, my armor levels are so high that i get barely enough rage to spam my instants and without heroic strike or cleave, i WILL lose aggro. Blizzard has tried to address this issue but the bandaid fix is just nowhere enough. Right now i'm rocking 28K armor. When i deck myself out in ICC gear, i will be approaching 40K armor. That's practically saying i can pull half an instance and i can still survive it without a healer. Fine, but threat will still suck.

My solutions:

1) If it's not the new 3 instances (well maybe Totc too, but that one is a maybe), i go in as full fury. 4 dps = stuff dies fast enough that nobody cares about aggro.

2) If i need to go in tank gear, i swap in dps gear. I replace my highest armor pieces with crit gear. Even then i'll have way too much hp/armor but at least i'll be critting more = more rage & more threat from deep wounds.

Personally i find pulling more packs more of a problem than a solution. Warrior aoe moves arent the hottest.

[Maèl]

How do you know that? The tank could be effin awful.

The tank could also be a beginner in iLvl200 gear which is entirely appropriate for heoics.
Seriously. 5mans are no DPS race. You can take your sweet time. Omen has become very exact since Blizz opened up on the threat calculations. If the tank is only 2k threat in the lead then it IS a terrible idea to unload all you have.
The sky is not falling if your run takes 10 minutes longer. Wipes will cost you more.
Just adapt!

[Shaun]

My solution to this specific problem is to wear as much DPS gear as I can without getting below 535 def. In this gear set I generate so much threat, I hardly have problems with dps pulling aggro. I also get hit more and harder, which also generates loads of rage, with in turn generates more threat.

In theory you would need better healer, but even the DPS gear has quite some stamina, and I still have a *lot* more hitpoints then when I started tanking heroics. Usually the healers do not even notice the difference.

[Tengor]

Personally I know the problem very well. Tanking the heroic instances in high end raiding gear (be it EH oder avoid gear) is a really bad idea. In the days before warriors got rage for avoidance tanking heroics with Ulduar level gear was a hard thing to do, but since then I kept my special 5-man set to wear in heroics (and trash in Naxxramas at the time).

At this point the old Naxx pieces are very handy. For my warrior this consists of mainly block value gear (about 3200 Block value, thanks for the incomming "not noticeable in pve" nerf by the way Blizzard) mixed with the damage boosting set bonuses (until lately T7-2p and T8-2p, after that I changed to T9-4p and at the moment I´m using T10-2p and T9-2p) plus having a hit rate of 5% and expertise of 26, which is more than enough for heroics.

This helps a lot in holding aggro, and since the rage for avoidance change the rage issue has become a lot less of a problem. Sometimes I get strange comments because my HPs are so low and I´m wearing a lot of low itemlevel epics, but the survivability through the high blockvalue and the high damage shield damage makes up for it. And these shield slams are really a nice thing to have once in a while.

I also change my glyphs for heroics to the cleave and the heroic strike one, so that on single targets there is a better rage efficency and it´s easier to tank groups.

Also using Warbringer to pull at a very fast pace is a good idea. Usually I have charged, thunderclapped and shockwaved the next group, before DPS and healer arrive, so you have a good starting threat on the various mobs. Also pulling 2 packs instead of one can help generating rage.

Last but not least I try not to use vigilance at all, since I still hate the talent and overall like the added challenge. Unfortunately this is impossible when playing with decently geared players, since their AOE threat ripps everything appart. But on the other hand, with such geared players almost no mob survives long enough that it matters anyway.

I can see that the average tank does not want to micromanage his gear and glyphs to this extend, because the normal way of thinking is: "Itemlevel > all" or just "better gear should make me better at doing my job".

Which in itself works for the most classes, but it never has for warriors when tanking non raid content. Not in classic (the taking your pants off days), not in BC (the adding DPS equipment days) and also absolutely not in wotlk.

[Maèl]

Tengor, I was seriously also contemplating an extreme block set and I share your sentiments on Vigilance.

Perhaps I should stop marking nuke targets. I usually charged them, threw in a Shield Slam and then started my t-clap/shockwave routine. Somehow the first GC coming off felt like ages.

...but regemming/respeccing for 5mans is so not on. I do not have easy access to glyphs.
I tried going extreme strength since I found this substantially upped my DPS(and my TPS).

I will try to achieve extreme block rating and values. Perhaps shield spikes might be a good idea? Time to experiment.

[orcstar]

(For warriors)
Ofcrouse but some people forget: always use vigilance.

Other things that may help: don't worry about mobs < 25% hp, they can be killed fast enough by dps. Just let them walk.

Conccussion blow mobs when your taunt is on cd. You don't really need aggro if the mob is stunned: it won't hurt anyone.

Smart use of shockwave. A stunned mob won't hit anyone.

Use taunt liberally.

Challenging shout.

When pulling a pack: use heroic throw on 1 mobs and charge another.

In heroics: spellreflect. The damage which you reflect back is also threat.

.....once in a while some dps dies.......so what?\


Also: plan your moves. If you have enough threat on a mob that no dps-er is gona pull it of you before it dies, then you have to ignore it.

[protonly]

@ Baphomet - it can be an issue. DPS needs to be taught that as tanks gear up their ability to tank lower level content decreases while DPS's ability to dps lower lvl content increases. In other words, they might just not be able to pull that 9k dps in heroic utegard keep.

Also there are situations when the tank has to do things other than generate threat like int a spell or turn the boss, break a fear, etc. In these situations DPS needs to recognize that the tank's priorities have changed and throttle down DPS accordingly. For example on the gnome killer boss in TOC, every four seconds I'm stopping ALL threat abilities in order to queue up enough rage to use shield bash every six seconds to int his fel fire or whatever it is.

The only thing tanks can do is downgrade your gear and communicate. For heroics I swap out a few items to boost my hit for threat but thats about it. I'm sure a lot of tanks are in my boat: all of my gear is *strictly* for raid boss tanking (i.e. i do not concern myself about threat AT ALL) and my spec is *strictly* for raid boss tanking (i.e. i do not concern myself about threat AT ALL).

All you can do in some situations is tell the ppl that "this is all the threat you are going to get. spec/gear accordingly or go somewhere else." My own experience is that ppl will never honestly watch their threat unless they've wiped the raid by pulling or have a raid leader on their ass yelling at them constantly when their threat reduction abilities are coming up like a dick clark new year's countdown.

[Djtk]

Maybe it's me, but I've always been of the mind set of "you pull it, you tank it" theory. Sure DPS can go all out, but if they're not managing their aggro and they pull the mob, then it's their own fault. That's not to say that the tank shouldn't be trying all that they can. If the Tank is pulling 5k - 8k tps and the DPS still pull the mob off? Then clearly, the DPS shouldn't be going "all out" like they are and should have aggro management.

Sadly, Wrath has not been about aggro management and its been a lost art.

[Proletaria]

Sadly, Wrath has not been about aggro management and its been a lost art.

That has more to do with prot paladin popularity than anything else.

[Djtk]

As well as too many bosses being "tauntable".

[Muffin Man]

And all the slew of threat transfer abilities.

[Bladesong]

Our Hunter for instance, who pulls 6-7k dps in 5 mans is forever pulling threat off of tanks after misdirecting and using feign death.

This much damage is completely overkill in a heroic. Both my pally and warrior tanks have run pugs where all the dps was doing less than 2k damage and done it with no wipes. Yes, it took a while , but the point is that if you brought your dps down to 3-4k dps you'd still be doing overkill damage for that level of play, but would be much less likely to pull aggro.

You don't mention if the tanks your guys are pulling threat from are simply less geared than your dps or if they seem to have the same level gear and still lose threat. Also not mentioned is if the tanks are pulling groups of 3-5 or if they are grabbing 10+. Are your guys doing single target or AoE? How many mobs are getting lose from the tank? I would expect a 6k dps Hunter to be able to burn down any one stray mob long before it could reach them. Maybe there's no one situation and it's sort of all of the above?

When tanking heroics I use a mix of my block set and my older tank gear that I have gemmed for straight STR and enchanted for AP and I use the Greatness: STR trinket. I like this better than dps plate because it doesn't put as much strain on healers. If I'm tanking for a group with high dps, I'll pull more mobs, but if I was losing control of mobs, I'd go back to smaller pulls where I could be sure all my AoE abilities would be in play.

If I'm on my Shaman and I pull aggro, I use Lightning Bolt instead of Chain Lighting, I stop dropping my Magma totem and I focus more on using Wind Shear on casters to bring them in to the tank. I'd rather ratchet back my dps and take an extra 10-15 minutes to run the instance than wipe and pay repair bills - I'm there for the badges, not to impress any one