Warriors vs Other Tanks on Threat

[leviticusx82]

Is it just because i'm a terrible warrior or do warriors pull less threat than the other tank classes? I ask because in our raids our pally tank is able to pull off me w/o trying and if he's focused on the same mob as me I can only get it back with a taunt, but then still lose it immediately afterward. Even on his druid alt, who's gear is significantly lower than mine, he can pull mobs off me with ease. Our DK who switches to tank on 3 tank fights and when the MT isn't around even pulls off me. Basically I either just suck at establishing threat (which I go on about in the following thread and could use some feedback on as well http://www.tankspot.com/showthread.p...-threat-issues), they're just a lot better at it than I am, or warriors have a harder time pulling threat than the other tanks.

So has anyone else noticed this or is it just me, and if it's true then what are the factors involved and what can we, as warrior tanks, do to hold our ground against the other tank classes so we don't look like scrubs?

[Tengenstein]

Warriors have some intitial aggro problems, and generally will produce less threat while not being beaten on than other tanks, BUT not siginifcantly less. WHile actively tanking something we campare nicely, given that for the most part most tanking classes have few abilites with a large amount of baked in threat, DPS=TPS, so using something like stateofdps.com, you can see that warriors are not really very far behind, if we're behind. Usually the only thing that lets us down is if what were tanking is hitting as softly as a butterfly, or as slow as continental drift, in which case Rage starvation happens. On average only bears out threat us and only marginally, and i'm abusing average.

http://stateofdps.com/index.php?data...=200&spec=tank

[Rystrave]

I have been there. Even just running heroics, if I don't get a few seconds to build some sort of threat it's immediately pulled off me. On bosses is where I have the most problem; I usually have to HT, HL, taunt, and make sure I have enough rage to begin my normal rotation. But even then if a hunter sudden throws down 20k dps right off the bat after I've done that, the bosses is ripped off me. I usually say "Don't believe in MD?" and they retort saying, "If you were a better tank I wouldn't be pulling threat off you." /sigh

[klausi]

I just posted something about this topic elsewhere regards gaining aggro:

[...]
On raids it's even worse on bosses, we miss a huge offensive cooldown that really helps us with the initial aggro. +50% crititical strike rating and +20% damage taken (more rage) for 12s, +100% damage on shieldslam (HR) for 10s and the capability to spam heroic strike every global (inner rage) for 15s seems huge but in reality it's rather weak compared to ..

Druid: 20 (25 on ptr) seconds of berserk (= equivalent to spamming shield slam back to back into the boss with zero rage costs.. 13
on live and 16 on ptr.. all rage gained can be dumped into maul - a heroic strike esque ability)
Paladin: +20% damage for 20s (wings) + exo hardcast prepull + shield + judgement from range
DK: using rune strike between your other styles, an attack which can't be avoided by any means and that's very important during the first 30s.

Smaller raids lack at least one threat bumper (tricks, misdirect, thorns) regulary.. sometimes all of them. Lately i've to rely on tauntig off those crazy arcane mages with invis or images for enough aggro on heroic modes..

Add that we would have to trade 10% of our total possible avoidance (3-4%) to increase our expertise for the softcap which offers us nothing but a threat gain but helping both druids and deathknights because of how their damage reduction abilities works. Our threat generation with vengeance is great as it is for other tanks but they should reconsider the threat value of heroic strike and munch it into our other abilities because on low rage fights (= heroic strike won't deal 30%ish of our total damage) a rage based class can't keep abreast to a class with other resource management even with clever usage of vigilance and doing everything we can.

While actively tanking something we campare nicely, given that for the most part most tanking classes have few abilites with a large amount of baked in threat, DPS=TPS, so using something like stateofdps.com, you can see that warriors are not really very far behind, if we're behind.

Warrior pull way more dps on every fight then any other tanking class because of rend/thunderclap/shockwave/inner rage'd cleavespam on group fights (those abilities aren't aoe capped, thanks to them i'm ranked on almost every addfight) and on hard hitters as well thanks excessive rage into to heroic strike spam but it takes ages (roughly one minute) until we reach that point of no return and start pulling ahead even with a zero hit/expertise set. Before that time it's rather easily for all other tanks thanks to their offensive cooldowns described above to pull aggro from us.

Stateofdps and WoL got some problems ranking bears correctly, almost all top ranked are dps'ing kitty who switched to bear form at one time during the fight or don't have to tank for the entire duration (see: Chimaeron, Halfus sub 50%, etc).

[Tengenstein]

I think the main problem is that Shield Block at present does too many things at once, and that our ragew generation when not under attack is still pitiful.

[Reev]

Warriors' threat is fine.

[truculent]

At the moment, threat cielings are pretty close to even with the tanking classes. (exception of dks that are of course, op.) The problem is reaching that cieling for a warrior vs other classes is a bit more complicated, and can be effected by the proformance of your raid members and your role in the raid as a tank more so then the other classes.

Furthermore, it is almost considered taboo for a prot warrior to run with hit/expertise, where as other classes are required to run with more out of need because it effects their survival.

Naturally, assuming all things are perfect, if you have 2% hit, and a other tank has 7% hit, and you both have the same cieling, the other tank is going to pull off you.

so... if your question is " do warriors produce less threat then other tank classes on average" - answer is yes, thats the norm unfortunitly.

if your question is " are prot warriors broken" - the answer is no.

will pugs prefer an avg paladin or dk over an avg warrior? yes becase most people are expected to fail.

will a good guild take a good prot warrior over another tank class? yes, because there is a lot more to work with in terms of building a fight strat around your tank.

[Unger]

Warrior threat can be a little bit behind, but there are things you can do, as a warrior tank, to mitigate these problems.

One of the more recent changes that has helped is the changing of some epic craftable items from Unique to Unique Equip. For example, I am an alchemist and I have three Alchemist Stones. Each one is gemmed, enchanted and reforged differently, depending on what I need for a fight. These types of epics are REALLY inexpensive to obtain multiple copies of now.

Additionally, epic reputation gear is usually less than 100 gold to obtain more than one. So as a warrior tank, I own 3 sets of the Dragonmaw tanking boots (Boots of Sullen Rock), gemmed and reforged individually based on what I need. For me, I maintain the following sets;

- Survivability (Mastery)
- Effective Health (Stamina, in the event of a heavy magic fight)
- Threat/Hit (hit to 8% and then expertise)
- Used to keep resistance sets, but no longer

As a JC, I can also throw the big gems in these items to min/max even more. You can also score a couple of the tanking cloak (Wrap of the Turtle) and the Sandguard bracers. Since I have an offset, I have the the License to Slay trinket and if you can stand it, grinding two Mirror of Broken Images is sexy because items that have that big stat on it (in this case, 321 mastery) reforges into a LOT of whatever else you want.

I also picked up a few tanking pieces along the way and between the gemming, enchanting and reforging, flasks and food, I can still be in my 4 piece T11 and have 8% hit and about 45 expertise.

I ran a set similar to this on heroic Atrametes. We prepot, BL on the start and dont have a hunter or a rogue for md's or tricks and as long as I hit Atra first, nobody else had a shot.

I realize I have written a wall of text. IMO, warrior tanks have had some shortcomings in the past (and even now a little bit), but all of them can be overcome through preparation and knowing your class. That is what makes warrior tanking great. Our toolbox of abilities gives us the most versatility in the game.

Take the time to get to know your class, use your professions, reputation, and even off spec gear to make sure you are using the right "tools" for each encounter. That will solve most of the problem you are having.

[vanden]

@Unger (or anyone else who can help)

I understand the three sets that you mention above, but what I need help on (sorry if this belongs in the 'help' section, or if this is off topic of this thread) is how do you decide which boss deserves which set?

I believe I read that all boss damage is 60% melee/40% magic? (Please correct if this is not right). If that is the case, what do you look for that makes you switch sets on a particular boss?

[Tengenstein]

Bosses magic/physical damage varies greatly often from fight to fight and encounter to encounter. ODS for example is 90% physical on the tank if you don't get picked by the laser and don't stand in shit. whereas Add tanking Magmaws parasites 80% is fire damage and only 20 is physical. the way to decide is to look at whats killing you and what you can do to prevent it, if you're mostly dying becuase you're taking a spikes of magic damage over a small time frame then you might need more stam to buy your healers time to land the heals. if your being worn down through coninual melee hits then you want more mastery/avoidance.

[The Hoof]

Warriors' threat is fine.

This basically.

I don't really have many problems with anyone pulling off me. The only times it happens are if a really strong DPS gets over excited and/or gets a lucky string of crits right at the start of a fight.

Also, sometimes on tank swap fights, if you're the one taking the first swap, the other tank can pull back off you if he isn't careful because he's got a full stack of vengeance built up and you don't yet.

[truculent]

its not broken. But it is infact lower then the other tanks in most practical situations.

[Tengenstein]

I'm just not noticing that. Granted i generally tank with either a DK or Druid at my side, but really all i see is whomever stacks their vengenace first gets aggro.

[Ghladum]

Leviticus (the OP), it sounds like you're having a problem with sustained threat during fights, which is a lot different than snap aggro that a few other's are talking about. While I'd love for a Prot talent to bake in full Expertise/Hit/Crit and an AP bonus for our initial pulls so that they're smoother (maybe a 2-min cooldown Shout with 20 second effect, heh, year right!) your long-term threat should be fine. In other words, outside of the first 30 seconds or so, Warrior threat is definitely able to hold onto boss' attentions so long as you're doing things correctly. Aside from astronomical crit streaks from DPS, avoidance streaks by the boss, in >99% of the cases, you should not have an offtank or DPS be able to pull off of you.

I would submit that it might be the fact that you're not using Heroic Strike to it's fullest ability to burn off extra rage if you're having problems more than 30 seconds into any fight.

The exception can be tank swaps (like Argolath, Halfus, etc) where the other tank will have high (sometimes very high) residual Vengeance while you start off with nothing. Eventually due to the 110% threat rule, over time in a fight even then it becomes almost impossible for any tank to pull off of you even if you do nothing, just because it takes a long time to do even 10% of the aging and growing threat table. At any rate, immediately prior to tank swaps, it can be helpful to use Battle Shout + Berserker Rage + 1.5 sec Heroic Strikes (hilariously, I cannot remember the name of the ability at the moment) so that you can build a nice little bulge in your threat pants. After a few seconds the other tank will have lost most of the Vengeance while you will hopefully have plenty to allow for sustained boss attention.

[leviticusx82]

Thanks a ton guys! I really appreciate the advice. Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. I've tried implementing some of your ideas and threat no longer seems to be a real issue for me, even in my mitigation set...unless the fury warrior blows all his cds at the very beginning of the fight of course. I figure if I let him die enough times from that he'll learn :P

[Bung]

I'm not saying it makes all the difference in the world, but how you spec matters slightly with threat. Do you spec into deep wounds, incite, heavy repercussions? What I find strange with warrior tanking is that in order to be on par with other classes you have to spec towards the encounter. Warriors have single target threat talents and aeo talents and you can't really maximize both in one spec.

[Unger]

There is really never any excuse to wear threat gear on a progression fight UNLESS you are COMPLETELY sure that a tank death is highly unlikely. For heroic Atramedes, before the nerf, my guild decided that we needed to just blow the boss up to get him down before we screwed something up so I actually changed my strategy for that particular encounter. I would say, however, that this situation is an exception and that tanks should primarily be concerned with mitigating or avoiding as much damage as possible.

The exercise I suggested above was not intended for you to outfit tanks with threat gear. It was designed for you to develop an understanding of which tanks in your guild are capable of strong threat generation. If you can see that a tank is solid in his threat under optimal conditions, then you can be reasonably comfortable that when there are threat issues on progression, its likely the choice you have made to gear him to mitigate damage. In that scenario, you tell the dps to back off.

However, if you perform the exercise and you see that someone is lacking, it may be something that they simply didnt know how to do. It could be a learning experience, even for you to take this on. And finally, it may also reveal where a guildie might not be suited for being a tank. In my opinion, tanking is the most demanding role in a raid and it comes with a certain amount of pressure.

Give it a try and see what happens.

[Loganisis]

There is really never any excuse to wear threat gear on a progression fight UNLESS you are COMPLETELY sure that a tank death is highly unlikely. For heroic Atramedes, before the nerf, my guild decided that we needed to just blow the boss up to get him down before we screwed something up so I actually changed my strategy for that particular encounter. I would say, however, that this situation is an exception and that tanks should primarily be concerned with mitigating or avoiding as much damage as possible.

This in a nutshell. Threat stats are only needed at inital progression - and then only in certain circumstances. Very good illustration of when threat might be desired.

[zentok]

Like Unger said, there is really no need for threatstats in progession fights. There might be some issues, if your guild decides a early heroism, but heroism also effects your healers as well, where you should be able to use for example Recklessness. 20% more dmg-income in this time won´t have a onehit-effect on a tank. You should never forget to set your Vigilance on the 2nd Tank.
You can also play with your tree, if you know what your problem is in generating threat. If you get ragepoblems then you should go for more points in Shield Specialization, if you don´t have enough crits Incite/Cruelty and at least maybe Deep Wounds (DW should always be skilled with Incite [in my opinion] to have an accurate uptime).

[Tengenstein]

Deep wounds uptime? that doesn't really matter until you start crittihg so thick and fast that you start munching them.