Prot war initial aggro

[Nooburn]

Having issues on H Atramedes recently, and other single targets more generally. When heroism is popped early and I don't have any particular advantage in initial threat... yeah issues with fury warriors and arcane mages (though they invis after burst). My opening rotation is usually Shout > HT > Charge > Shield Block/Zerker Rage/Inner Rage (macro) > SS > Devastate > Revenge then rend+TC and start stacking sunders. Obviously priority is still SS > Revenge > Devastate after that if debuffs are fine, but I'm more having issues with the initial 10-15 seconds before Vengeance stacks up.

Apart from having 12 MDs, is there something to improve on here? I know rend is only worth it once it ticks, what 4 times? Would I be better off holding off rend and getting in an extra Devastate?

Part of the issue with Atramedes was that I'd have to wait for him to get to me in the middle of the room, not that the DPS were starting too early, but they were obviously pre-potting and wanting to get some benefit out of that. I'd rather not play it super safe and call for them to wait and waste a few seconds of pre-pot, if I can avoid it.

Not gearing any silly way, avoiding hit/expertise, 2/13 and geared appropriately from that.

[Sebadoh]

I can't tell you if you're doing anything particularly wrong (my warrior is a lowbie D: ) but if worse comes to worse and you need some more hit/expertise, I wouldn't feel too guilty about it. Atramedes doesn't deal a ton of dangerous physical damage (even on Heroic), and your healers have plenty of time to regen mana during air phases - I'd say toss on some hit/exp gear and see what happens.

Also, I don't know if popping BL 10-15 seconds into the fight is wise, at least for a raid group that doesn't have a lot of misdirects. It's a survival fight, not a DPS race.

[Loganisis]

A few suggestions:

1. Pre-pot.
2. Work CB into your open.
3. Avoid TC at first, you'll take little more damage but it's pretty low. Wasn't sure if you did this or not the way you you listed it.
4. If there are any bad offenders, see if they can get a salv early on. Obviously it won't be maximum effectiveness, but it'll help a little.
5. Realize that it's not a DPS race, but survivability. DPS needs to eat pre-potting if it's an issue.
6. Do you have a stronger 1-hander but DPS spec? For example, before I got the 372 mace, I would open with my landslide enchanted 372 Lava Spine (from my SMF set) for more threat on the pull. Not so much for the Landslide, but for the bigger base damage on it. And then I had a true tank weapon set on my toolbar I could click to switch weapons once I was comfortable with my threat.
7. What tricks/MDs do you have?

8. Hero right after the end of the 1st air phase might be better... melee proc CDs should be ready to pop again and you should have enough threat then to allow DPS to go all out. You're not going to get 2 Heroes, so maybe the timing is an improvement.

****

Holding off Rend may not be a bad idea - if you're following the SS > Dev/Rev > Dev/Rev > (optional) > SS rotation, in the (optional) you can use CB instead of Rend which will hit harder.

[Tengenstein]

Assuming you've taken a near cookie cutter spec(have you?) your rotation is wrong. Revenge is less threat than devastate on single targets rendering it for AoE or rage staved situations, as is Rend if no one is providing the +30% bleed damage buff

your rotation should be

1. SS
2. Dev
3. Dev
4. CB>SW>HT

restarting at SS everytime you get an SnB proc

Make use of Retaliation pre charge, it's not alot of damage but it is more. so its more a case of Retaliation>Defstance>Golem Blood Pot> Shout > HT > Charge > Shield Block/Zerker Rage/Inner Rage (macro) > SS

Why are you popping Hero/Lust early? you can generally afford to wait till he comes Down from the first airphase, pop the second round of pots with Hero and you don't lose anything, as long as peeps don't die two minutes int the fight, which is a much bigger rpoblem than peeps ripping aggro.

[klausi]

[...]and arcane mages (though they invis after burst)

Have them use their invis really early and just taunt when they reach 130% - it's the best aggro push you can get nowadays.

I wouldn't bother with rend, demoshout or thunderclap until shield block, inner rage and your golemblood potion (the only downside of being a warrior, for heroic 10m progress with tight enrage timers and/or hungry dps you'll have to use those all the time) are all worn off. And against Tengenstein's advice i'd go with Recklessness over Retaliation. During the first seconds you'll have a LOT of rage thanks to berserker rage/shield block and want to pump as much heroic strike (incited!) into him as possible. Retaliation hits for sub 3k-ish per application, compare that to only one shieldblock that turns into crit.

But honestly if you want a dps race (eg for that achievement on Atramedes) you might want to use some pieces with expertise + mastery like Halfus shoulders, Chimaeron boots and/or trinket over items with a defensive stat + mastery.

as is Rend if no one is providing the +30% bleed damage buff

I really like keeping rend up later on during the fight -> thunderclapping ~ five times a minute instead of two times. I see a lot off misses and without any dk i can keep my debuff up more easily this way while substain an okayish amount of damage/threat (no debuff: it's on par with revenge on low vengeance and on par with with both devastate and revenge on high vengenace situations).

[Tengenstein]

My rend is 25% behind Dev at low vengeance and 10% behind bothe Rev and dev at full vengeance.

I like the idea, and it does make sense, a safe clipped BnT refreshed rend is only behind concussion blow in terms of threat. however if you don't safe clip the red that BnT just lost around 25% of its threat, which is enough to push it back behind shockwave and heroic throw. lining up the 3 second window with the 4th GCD is pretty random, if you manage it it is pretty damn nice. of course the fact that CB still beats it means that you have to ensure CB was on CD or you suffering a further threat loss. If you end up stacking Thunderstruck then thats another place where this loses threat Thunderstruck 2stacks beats BnT safe clip for threat so finding a 4th GCD to refresh a rend with less than 3 second duration left while CB and shockwave with 2 stacks of thunderstruck is not something i see myself reaching much

Course if damage is the priority and not threat then yeah keeping that rend rolling over using CB is preferable, how ever thunderstruck 2 stack still win for Damage.

[leethaxor]

In my group we have hand of salv given to our fury warrior on the pull, or a GCD after.

[Unger]

Im not a big fan of rend or inner rage right away. You are likely going to rage starve yourself in the first few seconds, even getting hammered. Prepotting will help as well. I'm a big fan of what Loganisis was saying.

Make sure you dont waste any SnB procs and youd be surprised how much pre-potting can help.

[Nooburn]

Im not a big fan of rend or inner rage right away. You are likely going to rage starve yourself in the first few seconds, even getting hammered.

Never had this problem. I do use Zerker Rage at the same time, but seriously, have never had a problem with rage starvation early because of Inner Rage.

Was just trying Reck on the pull, obviously it's a tiny bit more dangerous than Retal but was working very nicely. Kicking arse.

Thanks for the tips about Rend and TC, and yep I'll try working CB into the rotation early.

[Achilliesx]

when would you recommend to use rend then? after the first opening rotation or when vengeance is done stacking? and then refresh it after the 6th tick(having SS on CD) e.g.

SS(HR) > dev > (6th tick of rend) thunderclap > dev > SS(HR)

would it make sense to give it priority 2nd to SS(HR) when rend had it's 6th tick or should TC be hit whenever possible to stack up thunderstruck stacks for SW? following that would it be worth it to wait for 3 stacks of thunderclap and then hit sw in a rotation like:

SS(HR) > SW(with 3 stacks of thunderstruck) > dev > SS(HR)

I'm just not clear the utilization of SW & Rend/TC in regards to thunderstruck & BnT.

on a different topic, is revenge just viable for multi mob tanking when fully talented and/or low rage scenario?

[Tengenstein]

Going over my maths i believe i was quite wrong about Rend, or rather quite wrong about it when refreshed via TC. its gonna take me a while to sort this out but what i can be certain of is;

i would recomend using Rend as early as possible on AoE phases. i would recommed using rend on a single Target if all the below conditions are met;

• The target has a the +30% bleed damage debuff
• the target doesn't already have your rend on it
• Shield slam has less than than 2seconds left on its Cooldown
• Concussion Blow is Cooldown
• Heroic throw is on Cooldown
• shockwave is on cooldown.
• the target is not going to die in the next 15 seconds.

However if you can refesh it optimallyRend will be insane Threat per execute time, so the value of rend is dependant on the length you can keep it going. so i can't be certain when some of the above conditions aren't met that it also wouldn't be godd idea to rend.

I would recomend refreshing with BT if both Rend and Shield slam have less than 3 seconds left on their duration or CD respectively. i can't imagine it being a threat loss ever if you refreshed rend with TC when it had less than a 3 seconds duration left, CB & SW are on CD and SS has less than 2second on it CD.

Though the maths has a lot of complicated factors Vengenance, the point in the 4GCD cycle you're at, wether the bleed debuff is up, and how many ticks of rend are left.

as to the stacking thunderstruck, don't treat it any differently It merely moves Shockwave above priority of Heroic throw for the 4thGCD ability, and ahead of a Bnt Safe clip refesh of rend if you don't have the +30% debuff and have about >~12k AP

[Achilliesx]

thnx that clears up some of the questions i've had , I've had threat issues since i rejoined and started raiding, with people right behind my tail even during the fight when vengeance is fully stacked, even though my build is threat orientated, so just ironing out the kinks of where my faults are.

[pulled]

Real men use recklessness ftw! with shield block on it makes u unhitable and reduces magic damage. gg.

[CruizeDB]

You can use the threat gains of arcane mages to your advantage. If coordinated well, let them burst and as soon as they pull agro taunt and they invis.

Another thing I have been playing with, have a holy paladin taunt before the MD or ToT buff drops, I immediately taunt back and get to keep all the bonus agro. This is also well coordinated.

[Loganisis]

You can use the threat gains of arcane mages to your advantage. If coordinated well, let them burst and as soon as they pull agro taunt and they invis.

Another thing I have been playing with, have a holy paladin taunt before the MD or ToT buff drops, I immediately taunt back and get to keep all the bonus agro. This is also well coordinated.

You'll want to be careful with throwing too many taunts around - while there aren't a lot of fights that it matters - iirc 6 in 60 is the magic number. If you taunt a boss 6 times in 60 seconds they'll become taunt immune.

[kopcap]

Log, your over exaggerating. Taunt pull, followed by an image taunt and CS on top of falling MD's is a norm on difficult pulls. That said I never seen a taunt fail in this expansion yet.

[klausi]

If you taunt a boss 6 times in 60 seconds they'll become taunt immune.

IIRC 4 times in 20 seconds, same as for eg stun DR.

[Loganisis]

@Klausi - 4 in 20? Hmm... Okay, I thought it was in a minute, but I was going off memory.

@Kop - In basically every fight this tier it's a non issue, even in the only taunt-swap fight, BH - or Halifus with Manevalot strikes, or Chog'al with furys, the taunts are so rare, it isn't an issue. That being said - there was a big slew of 'taunt not working' posts early in the expac as new tanks had taunts in their rotation. I never said they would make the boss immune, just to be careful with how many times you do taunt - you have to be doing something wrong to hit taunt-immune usually - but I know I've got myself in trouble with other mechanics (not taunt specfically) by trying to over think the problem. Just be cautious was the entire message.

[klausi]

Something to counter those nasty PvP stunlocks vs Turtlecleave or Rogue/Feral Combos:

Hammer 6s (100%)
Conc Blow 2.5s (50%)
Shockwave 1s (25%)
Intercept 0s (0%)

Taunting nonstop won't help generating threat so why bother hitting that button frequently? In the end someone else might draw aggro right after the fixate wears off, your backup taunt is on CD and they drop dead to the ground during those 5s of waiting. Or you charge in a trash pack with taunt on your marked skull, a howling blast/arcane blast/whatever crits another mob, it avoids your shockwave entirely and that poor dps has to deal with that mob for 8s. Especially the last situation looks like "not your fault" but everyone makes some errors while playing like tabbing to the wrong mob while distracted and i still feel like every taunt saves the day.. at least a little bit.

[Tengenstein]

Patch 3.3.0 (2009-12-08): Taunt Diminishing Returns: We've revised the system for diminishing returns on Taunt so that creatures do not become immune to Taunt until after 5 Taunts have landed. The duration of the Taunt effect will be reduced by 35% instead of 50% for each taunt landed. In addition, most creatures in the world will not be affected by Taunt diminishing returns at all. Creatures will only have Taunt diminishing returns if they have been specifically flagged for that behavior based on the design of a given encounter.

i beleive otherwise it behaves the same as other DR effects of debuffs, that if the mob is clear of a debuff type for a full 15secs its's "DR stack is reset" so with most taunts, taunting once every 18 seconds or so will make it taunt immune after 60 second if the monb os so flagged.