Issues with Offtanking

[Liisa]

Good morning, Tankspot! I've been lurking these forums pretty much since I swapped from full-time Ret to tanking, and have benefited greatly from the advice I've found here.

However, I do find myself with a few issues, and I have not had much luck in determining a good answer.
I am still a relatively new WoW player; Liisa is my first toon to 80, and so a lot of end-game content I am experiencing for the first time (which, admittedly, sucks this close to an expansion, when everyone else is feeling end-of-expansion apathy.) That being said, I am slowly starting to test the waters in terms of raiding, and I was fortunate enough last night to get into a fresh ICC10 group. I had studied the fights a bit via Youtube, and according to Wow-Heroes, I was within range gear-wise. At this point, I am not only Def-capped well above 540, but was also Hit capped, and reaching the expertise soft cap with Seal of Vengeance up. Normally, this does wonderfully in heroics, I rarely, if ever, have threat issues. And even during this first ICC trip I did not have any trouble quickly snagging adds and sharing duties with the MT.

Enter Saurfang. This is where it started to unravel. I ran into a lot of difficulty while trying to pull off the MT. I used just about every combination of moves I could think of - pulling with Hand of Reckoning, using Righteous Defense on the MT, HotR, ShotR... but to no avail. I had my eyes half-glued to Omen, and while I was having no trouble scaling my threat back a few percentage points when it was the MT's turn, while it was my turn, we were neck-and-neck at 100% and when I did successfully take the aggro, it would be like, me 101% and him 100%. The group I was with didn't get too overly upset; we did beat him and were able to move on - we just chalked it up at the time to me being slightly lower geared... I was running about 4700ish GS and the other tank (also a pally) at ~5200. But I don't necessarily think that was the entire problem, and I just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing some vitally important trick to offtanking. Because this same problem came back when we got to Precious, only with more disastrous results.

Here is the link to my Armory page, if that helps at all: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...Dream&cn=Liisa

I realize I have a long way to go still in terms of gear. As I am still new to a lot of this end-game stuff, I only have a handful of frosts, which is why I haven't picked up any of that gear just yet. (though, the belt is looking to be first on my list.)

Thank you in advance for any suggestions you guys might offer. It is much appreciated!

[Tengenstein]

This might be patronising, but are you using taunts to take aggro on saurfang, or are you just trying to out threat him with a straight rotaion?

You should be using Hand of reckoning, or Righteous Defence for encounters that need taunt swaps, not trying to out aggro him, becuase for most Tanking Classes have some sort of Reactive damage that's only threating when they are being attacked (Rune Strike, Revenge, Holy Shield, etc) so unless you severly out-gear/play your co tank, or they throttle back on their TPS should not be able to take aggro on something they are actively building threat on.

Taunts (such as HoR, RD) are key to fights like DBW, they do 3 things; firstst they make you the primary aggro target, secondly they match your aggro to the person whose highest on threat, and thirdly they force the target to attack you for a certain amount of time.

So when the encounter requires you to tanke aggro off another tank, use a taunt, don't compete against each other for threat.

Presently, i find i run with some really bad tanks who tend to taunt on CD, and have no clue if they lost aggro to another tank or a dps, and tend to taunt on CD. This has biased me against taunting for the large part; i consider taunting off a non-tanksomeone a persoanl failure; it means i failed to build the required aggro, but its always preferable to a dead healer. taunting off a tank is something i strive not to do unless required by the encounter, but even then i've had pug co-tanks with rune of blood immediatly taunt back after a taunt off them on saurfang, and ones who usd them on CD tomaintin aggro. If you where attempting to taunt swap with taunts, but your cotank was just spamming his taunts you would also have aggro problems like you mentioned. WhoTaunted is my current favourite addon for tracking raid wide taunts it prints a message to the chan channel of your choice listing who taunted what with which ability, and the effect (misses. immunes, etc), it's real good for seeing if your co tanks are taunting irresponsibly.

[Krays]

Use taunt glyph for these fights to ensure a resisted taunt isnt the problem. You only need to taunt once, use hand of reckoning, and since its of the gcd, you can macro it to a high threat ability as your goto spell for taunting fights. Then you must use another high threat ability asap,before settling into the 969 rotation. My guess is you spamming taunts too much making the boss immune and then at same time having gimped tps due to all the worry about taunting, while the other tanks uses his high threat rotations, a recipe for disaster.

The other tank does have a responsibility also to slightly back of threat while you taunt, communication is key to off tanking. consider using wings for when you taunt too.

Also dw about hit caps and expertise caps, they not nearly as important as you think. Weapon dps, shield , and rotations skills is what counts.

[gd_void]

The other tank does have a responsibility also to slightly back of threat while you taunt, communication is key to off tanking.

From what you said i would assume this is the problem, your Maintank out gears you, he needs to know to stop TPS when it's time for you to taunt. Due to the nature of the Fight, there is really no need for him to maintain threat behind you, he can just taunt when it's time for him to take the boss. If your Ahead of the DPS on TPS and the Other tank was pulling agro back off of you call him on it.

and yea dont worry about gemming for Hit/expertise let it come with gear, Stam stam stam.

[Liisa]

I recognize the need for such questions, and no, I didn't consider it to be patronizing.

As far as the glyph is concerned, I'm not opposed to using it, but I am unsure which one I would drop in favor of adding Glyph of Righteous Defense, as I've been told up to this point that the three I use (Divine Plea, Hammer of the Righteous, Seal of Vengeance) are "must haves."

Looking back on it now, I think overtaunting may have been a problem. I don't know necessarily whether or not the MT was continuing to use taunts while I was trying to taunt off him. But I do know that I was sort of going into panic mode over the fact that I was taunting and still not gaining aggro. Otherwise, the MT seemed to be a solid tank who appeared to know what he was doing. I certainly won't claim to be an expert so I have difficultly just saying that the other guy was a "bad tank." It's possible, but hard for me to determine.

[gd_void]

I wasn't nessisarly meaning the other tank was bad, For example, When i tank on my DK, on saurfang(normal, I pay more attention on HM) nearly every other rune of blood Ill pull agro back because im not paying attention and end up out threating the other tank(thank you Icy touch). And i Personally believe when I'm doing this I should be called on it. the content has been out for awhile so most people really arn't giving 110% anymore sadly. the Best advice i can give is simply ask him to stop hitting the boss when you tank due to the gear difference.

[Krays]

I recognize the need for such questions, and no, I didn't consider it to be patronizing.

As far as the glyph is concerned, I'm not opposed to using it, but I am unsure which one I would drop in favor of adding Glyph of Righteous Defense, as I've been told up to this point that the three I use (Divine Plea, Hammer of the Righteous, Seal of Vengeance) are "must haves."

Looking back on it now, I think overtaunting may have been a problem. I don't know necessarily whether or not the MT was continuing to use taunts while I was trying to taunt off him. But I do know that I was sort of going into panic mode over the fact that I was taunting and still not gaining aggro. Otherwise, the MT seemed to be a solid tank who appeared to know what he was doing. I certainly won't claim to be an expert so I have difficultly just saying that the other guy was a "bad tank." It's possible, but hard for me to determine.

Swap it for hammer of righteous glyph for taunt fights, swap back later on for trash. Theres a reason why incsriptors make alot of gold :P Most tanks will have like 15 of the same glyphs in there back packs, so just buy loads of taunts ones and loads of hammer ones, and swap around as needed. Or just make two prot specs.

[Tengenstein]

I'm not a fan of the taunt glyphs for pallies, with two true taunts and in the worst case you can HoP the other tank.

/castsequence reset=8 Hand of Reckoning, Righteous Defence, Hand of protection

is one of my favourite macros, whith a keen eye and fast reflexes on misses, it can be quite powerful, though , just switching Glyphs does make more sense. Course HoP is only an option if you're next on threat.

[Zxian]

I've had problems with other tanks not pausing for a second or two when it's time for a tank switch. My guess is that they were still pressing their usual rotation without really caring to notice if they were creeping back up.

Next time, if you see a similar problem, just mention it to the other tank. Tell them that they likely outgear you (you know... pad their epeen a bit), and you need a bit of help from them (i.e. them not pressing their buttons) to make sure that tank switches go smoothly. If they don't listen, bring it up with the raid leader and explain the situation.

[Liisa]

Thanks for the replies. So it seems I was right in thinking that for the most part it was a combination of my gear being on the lower end for ICC and the MT just needing to give me a little space. Next time, I won't be shy about asking for a little help in that regard. When I was lower geared I ran into that in heroics and generally got told a few nasty things about my mother, so I guess it sorta scared me off of asking people to make adjustments on my behalf. Now I know that in order to help them help me, I need to be a little more assertive.

[uglybbtoo]

Yes seen this issue alot when helping guild alts with 10 man runs on my geared pally's. Your gear is low and his is alot higher especially his weapon the old http://www.wowhead.com/item=47500 of yours is just not going to cut it. His white hits just on auto attack will almost out agro you and rather than give GS raw dps figures are alot more helpful try not to use GS for tanks its meaningless. His DPS will be something like 4-5K on saur and yours will be 2-3K just to put in perspective.

Your taunts are hitting so ignore putting in the 8% taunt redux glyph thats not the issue.

Okay small things you can do as you as surviving it if you need to boost your threat.

1.) Change your libram to your ret one the libram of sacred shield isnt going to be stopping much damage anyhow.
2.) Change the glyph of hammer of righteous (useful for trash/heroic glyph) for the judgement glyph with 10% more damage of each judge = more threat.
3.) Try and wingle some points into conviction .. think do you really need seal of command for trash when you are struggling on bosses? Do you really need that extra point in improved judgements you know the arguement about how it upsets rotation.

The real solution however you know hit H-POS each day until you get rimefangs and use those badges to improve your gear.

[Fledern]

DPS of your weapon is a major determinant of your threat as uglybbtoo has aptly pointed out. The output after changing to a 251 weapon will be really felt. Are you or him using consecrate in your rotations? it's the sort of thing that makes enough difference when the non-tanking tank pops it out. It's a mana drain so i'm sure he wouldnt mind missing out on it.

Popping wings just before you taunt is also a good trick but not one you can use all the time.

Make sure your cotank isnt getting MD/Tricks. I've run into many situations where hunters/rogues just focus one tank and use their misdirects on cooldown whether that tank is tanking or not. It makes the job of the other tank a lot harder.

[Liisa]

Getting that Rimefang's to drop is going to become priority. I've been running H-PoS everyday trying to help a fellow guildie looking for drops, but Tyrannus just won't give up that sword.

Swapping for a Ret libram sounds simple enough, and exchanging for the judgement glyph seems much the same. However, I am reluctant to change my spec around too much at this point since I still spend the majority of my day in heroics, not raiding. I mean, sure, obviously mobs still die even without SoComm, just that I've found it to be useful. Nonetheless, the point is made about Improved Judgements, and that would be points I can stand to move. GS is still king on my server, sadly, and I get turned down a lot. Gotta love the Catch 22.