It just seems impossible to hold agro on multiple targets. It seems as though if my group isn’t silly I can hold 3-4 targets, but even that is difficult if a mage start blizzarding right away or a warlock seed of corruptions.
What do you do for big aoe picks (6+ mobs). Do you just accept that you can’t hold threat and let the party get agro and AOE them down?
At the moment, I pretty much just thunderclap and then do my normal rotation while tab targeting. I also ensuring to spam cleave if rage allows.
Some hunter just said to me ‘l2cleave bro’ and I am now seeking validation. Maybe there’s a button missing I don’t know. It feels like the dps are spamming one button while I need to play with 4 hands.
Mark a skull and ignore it. Usually a caster mob. Dps focus that and they can stun / interrupt it while you build threat on the rest.
Second target is X. Hit it one time and keep cleaving and tabbing through the other 4 mobs. When the dps pull threat on X, taunt it. When they pull threat again, concussion blow it.
Use your taunt and stun to “tank a mob” without using any GCD on it. If that makes sense. The rest is just tab targeting to build threat. I look at the threat meter when tabbing through the group of mobs to see which mob needs more attention.
DPS shouldn’t be using AoE abilities with warriors and bear tanks until mob health is around 50%. Your AoE threat is mostly to keep the mobs off the healers, given the amount of damage you’re probably taking against a larger pack like that.
Hot key your target marking,
set an initial skull and X,
tell the DPS to wait a couple globals so you can prevent the healer getting gibbed
Focus fire the marks
If needed mark a new skull after X is dead
If everyone is focus firing, even if you lose aggro, it’s likely the skull will die before it reaches anyone. This will generally be true for ranged DPS that can often ping-pong the mob back and forth, especially if it’s slowed. If you lose aggro to something with half health or less, and you have good ranged DPS, hamstring it and let them deal with it. Save your taunts for healers.
I hardly ever use seed with warriors. I may use RoF late in a pull. DPS is still more than acceptable for a 5 man, and I like not having repair bills and making more work than necessary for the tank.
I used bombs. Engineer is pretty much required for warrior tanks. If you want blacksmith for something then you’ll have to get put mining on a different character. I suggest rogue because they can stealth into caves and open lockboxes.
Cleave btw isn’t good for holding threat. The damage is nice to clear faster but it is not a good use of rage to produce threat. It would be better to single target devastates or revenge procs. The other tools are good at reducing incoming damage. Reflect is really nice because not only do you avoid the damage, but sent it back to the mob, and got threat for it. It’s possible to keep aggro on casters without ever touching them just by spamming reflect. They’ll keep nuking themselves and you get threat for their own damage.
Swipe-Tanking is more obnoxious in #TheCurrentYear than I remember it being in 2007-08, but I manage.
I should mark mobs more than I do, but it should be such a simple concept for ranged DPS to focus on a ranged mob first. I know I do that when I’m playing a ranged DPS.
Oh its a lot of work actually… so I respecced to dps and let the billions of paladin tanks take care of aoe tanking/pulls in dungeon. Life is much easier!
Could be wrong, but I always felt like it was better TPS (threat per second) to tab target and do your rotation on each individual mob as apposed to using cleave. Once i had a good lead on everything then I would start cleaving.
Your DPS people suck if they are using AOE with Warrior & Druid tanks right off the bat and/or pulling threat with it. They are one-trick-pony idiots used to face-rolling stuff with Paladin tanks.
This is all good advice. Basically, you do the best you can, and as long as the healer doesn’t die, you probably did your job. Threat is a shared responsibility. If DPS is aoeing early and dying, then they probably need to duh hold off a bit longer before opening up on everything, focusing on skull first.
I played a warrior from vanilla → beginning of Cata. TBC warrior tanking sucked. It is an exercise in frustration and I don’t recommend it. If you are into frustration, do it, I guess.
On the upside, wrath tanking is mostly fine, aside from when you get benched because paladins are wildly op for most raid encounters. Go fury, get shadowmourne and the 2h mace from the vampire council, stack armor pen, and be #1 on dps meters.
Tell him learn to MD multi-shot next time. Don’t take crap from the fail dps, if they make you work too hard and want to pop off just leave the run and let them sit for a half hour looking for a replacement.
A good group, especially if you have a paladin for salv, should let you establish threat and start slow. Depending on mob count I may throw some DoTs out for the first bit. If we have a mage to nova/slow them I will absolutely ramp up eventually and just go to town. Pulling threat towards the end when they are all dying is fine, everyone has done their job.
