Ah yeah, I forgot to mention that Taunt gets resisted a lot if mobs are above your level.
For sure, but I’ve found most healers/dps able to hold their own for 10s while I wait for it to come back. Can also default to mocking blow and challenging shout if desperate.
Yeah… I’ve actually been playing around with just white hits, watching Threat Plates, and cycling targets (of course, with Ravager proc’ing Bladestorm), and that alone seems to almost generate enough threat in a lot of situations (esp in a decent melee cleave, if people are FFing targets). I may have 1 sunder on the FF target, or pop into def stance to generate more threat, but it doesn’t really take much.
However, where I really notice threat being an issue is with ranged DPS doing AoE. Spamming Demo Shout, getting some Sunders in, and then Cleave and/or Sweeping Strikes (with Ravager) in Battle Stance works pretty well here, but I also focus more on initial grouping, then cleaving, than on holding threat, in these cases, since Mages will be freezing.
Im always leery of using cleave because of it’s high rage cost and only kind of predictable targetting.
When it comes to mage AOE that is definitely why i tclap/demshout then sunder main targets. Tclap/demshout is layered active mit, usually has enough to hold against AOE pretty well, and by the time a mob changes aggro I have plenty of rage to wrangle them back.
White hits are a big deal, there’s an instinct to constantly be using your toolkit, but what I figured out is you want just enough threat on a mob to keep it from going after the others, then afk. Builds rollover rage for next pull.
Since I started doing this I get a ramp up effect where after three pulls balancing rage gen for a net gain, I’ll be pinned at 100 rage.
Each pull after topping the bar, 80% goes into sunders, maybe a dem shout, but by the time everything is dead, im back up to 90-100 rage. Often with charge and bloodrage just waiting for me to need them for multiple pulls.
This only resets if I go faster than the healers mana regen when we have to stop to drink. Even then the decay (especially using bloodrage to stall while waiting) after a drink is still 50-75.
It’s been sooo smooth
^ this. Yeah, I definitely appreciate some rage pooling. You also want to keep in mind that if you’re stance dancing (changing stances), you’ll only be able to keep 25 rage, when doing so, provided you’re 5/5 Tactical Mastery.
I don’t pop into defensive stance that often when I’m using Ravager.
I have my Thunder Clap set to this macro:
#showtooltip Thunder Clap
/cast [stance:2/3]Battle Stance; Thunder Clap
I didn’t mention it in the guide, and frankly don’t use it that much, as it just doesn’t seem to generate a lot of threat, and dmg mitigation simply isn’t an issue (except for when it is, and then I use it), which tends to be in the exact situation you’re discribing, when you are pulling large groups, and taking less damage is helpful. So, in that case, I’ll typically charge in, demo shout (maybe tag with sunder), tclap, then swap to defensive stance and sword & board even:
Weapon swap macro:
/equip Heart of Agamaggan
/equip Sword of Omen
/equip Ravager;
Def Stance /Shield Block macro:
#showtooltip
/cast Shield Block
/cast Defensive Stance
Then it’s Demo Shout and Sunder Spam. I typically only use Cleave when I’m topping DPS with my two hander, and our pulls are smaller (3~6).
I can definitely see the downside to ever going derensive using a 2h, half of the abilities in def require a shield, and yeah you might gen a bit more threat, but you have to weigh the lost threat from lowered dps, lack of damaging abilities. As a 2h tank you’ll get most of your threat from just keeping up with dps and sprinkling in some higher threat abilities.
Using 2h would also boost cleave by a wide margin as you aren’t cleaving with a fast 1h that will spred 20dmg to all targets, you’re smacking a bunch of mobs for a high threat 200-250 damage easy. And if you’ve balanced agi into your gear there’s a good chance for crit which makes cleave practically a sunder by itself, two on crit.
Although at higher levels this will probably cause some MASSIVE healer stress.
Great information here. Thanks!!
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Not bad my friend. Only thing i would add is LOS pulling.
This skill is a MUST for tanks.
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That’s a good point; I hadn’t really thought of that, and it’s pretty helpful for some pulls; I can think of SM Cath as an example…
You don’t even need a great ranged weapon to do it, but as an aside, I got a green +5 agil bow from trash in Cath last night 
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I wondered how tanks did this. Now I know.
I wonder about using Challenging Shout (is that right ability?), the one that makes all nearby mobs focus on tank for 6 seconds?
And what about in a pinch using Intimidating Shout (is that the right name?), the one that puts fear on the selected mob and sends the rest running? If they run, do they lock onto healers on the way back??
Intimidating Shout is pretty dangerous to use, as you may (probably will) end up pulling a lot more mobs. I’ve seen people use it to avoid a wipe, then run out of the instance, but that’s generally something that you can avoid.
With regards to Challenging Shout, sure it’s awesome, but it’s also somewhat expensive while leveling/saving for a mount, and has long cooldown, so it’s not really something you can rely on regularly if you are spamming runs, and for the most part, isn’t strictly necessary.
Really good to know. TY
I learned the hard way, lol, about Intimidating Shout. Now I moved its location on my key bindings and basically use it only in bad situation in a solo cave, etc
Great info. Thanks for taking the time.
As a new tank coming back to classic after quitting the game around 2007ish, can you explain a little bit about how you would use the target keybindings vs the macro you outlined? I guess I’m asking, if you set up your target keybindings, in what situation would you need a macro? Meaning, when are you using a macro vs just using keybindings? Aren’t they doing the same thing?
Great question.
Since you can bind a key to a Target Icon, why would you ever want to use a macro?
There are 2 reasons I can think of:
-
You may wish to move it around without opening your interface settings (idk why, but maybe).
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(more likely) you want to add other things to that macro, like perhaps something like:
/script SetRaidTarget("target", 5);
/p this {moon} is your Polymorph target. I'm counting on you!
@Elite, if you are still tracking your thread. I need some more explicit advice for this scenario, if you have time:
I was in a pug overworld group that I did not know, as a lvl 41 tank. The group of dps seemed pretty good (better than me), with a shaman doing the healing and dps. We did the 3 Bloodsail Captains - everyone basically lvl 42 as I remember, maybe one lvl 43. I am still pretty new to dealing with NON-AOE dpsers vs AOE dpsers. This group had a hunter, rogue and shaman not throwing AOE, so was basically a NON-AOE group, which I thought was good.
I did not do a great job pulling mobs up from below in the ships, but we got through. Group then wanted to go onto the Ogre Cave quest which the elite boss and 2 elite adds at the very back of that cave. The whole was all elites I believe, with the 3 at the back linked. I had actually done this cave as a tag along (ie not the tank) with a group of lvl 46 shamans just day before - dicey but the group cleared the bosses after 2 tries (1 wipe and 1 time partial wipe).
STILL, I offered to the current group that I would drop out, and said I was not high lvl enough to tank this, esp at the back of cave. Everyone said go for it. Here it got very interesting for me (if not for the group, who definitely wanted a more skilled tank). Somehow, as a result, the rogue and I got to an agreement where he would lead, mark and sap first as we went through.
This was a new thing for me, and I was impressed how well it worked.
BUT at the back, an couple times before where we aggroed in 2 or 3 ogres, I realized I did NOT know exactly where I should be and where the others should be behind me, with the rogue in front of me.
I tried to stay back but that put me right next to the hunter and shaman. If 2 mobs came - I was in defensive stance, not stance dancing - I would try to hold aggro on the two, but am reminded of your postings that aggro is easy to lose and hard to get back, and even more difficult if range dps are within melee range of me (I forget the %'s needed to pull aggro). We wiped at least once before reaching the back.
At the back I crowded the rogue (not a happy camper with me), but the 2 adds were 44 elites and the boss I think was 46 elite or at least had more abilities.
We failed and everyone pretty much reported that I was the worst tank ever. Trust me, I am not actually upset about that - I was learning - so I am not looking for comments about tensions.
The question, instead, is, how should that last pull have gone, with the rogue sapping one of the two 44 elites and skulling the boss (ie if I had not apparently faced pulled the trio before he could sap)?
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WHAT should I as the lvl 41 and lowest lvl in the group have done, to give us the best chance of bringing this very interesting cave run to a successful end?
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HOW do I learn, if not by doing these risky ventures?
TY and any posters for any advice as to MECHANICS ( I can handle the anger directed at me, perhaps at least 70% deserved - maybe 90% except I offered to drop out at the entrance to the cave)
From Magey’s WIKI: https://github.com/magey/classic-warrior/wiki/Threat-Mechanics#aggro-thresholds (great resource, btw):
- To become the new aggro (“rip”) at MELEE range, you must be 10% above the current aggro.
- To become the new aggro (“rip”) at RANGED range, you must be 30% above the current aggro.
With regards to the rest, it’s really hard to say. When you are trying to tank elites above your level, you may miss, they may resist your taunts, etc.
In the group that you had, you mention that the healer was DPSing. I’d be curious as to what gear he was in, as perhaps having him swap to his healing gear, and focus on that could have made things go differently. Perhaps not though.
When it comes to threat, there’s really only so much you can do as the tank. If targets are marked, and you are generating initial aggro, and then DPS is going ham and pulling off of you, on the main kill target vs pulling non kill targets, then there may be different things going on.
In the first case, you get initial aggro, maybe you have a sunder on your main kill target, and the hunter, let’s say, pulls aggro. There are a couple of things to consider here: either the hunter should be doing a better job of managing her or his threat, or you should be doing a better job of generating threat.
If it’s the case of people going ham on non kill targets, and pulling threat everywhere, then you are just playing with a bunch of idiots. They may have snide comments for you, and they may have all sorts of remarks about other tanks, but they simply aren’t playing their roles well (note: these types of players seem to represent a large portion of the WoW population. Often, using CDs like Mocking Blow/Taunt, having mages to slow/freeze, other warriors/druids/shaman etc. who are paying attention, and will taunt/Mocking blow or otherwise pull threat, and run stragglers to tank, can help mitigate their damage to the efficacy of your group, and good healers help as well, though all of this is just _enabling their deficiencies to continue unchecked).
So, having said all of that, let’s go back to the one thing you have control over: doing a better job of generating threat. Can you think of anything you could change that might improve your threat generation?
In the case you described above, where it sounds like you and all your party members, and even the hunter’s pet were in close proximity, Commanding Shout (EDIT: Battle Shout) would be a great threat generator, as its threat is multiplied per party member it affects, including pets. So depending on how much rage you had, and assuming you weren’t stance dancing or using SS with a 2 hander, you might be applying sunders on the kill target, and then the next kill target, with CS in between to keep threat up on the other mobs, as one example.
Maybe I missed something. Do you mean Challenging Shout? 10 min CD or is there a talent or item at warrior training I missed? I admit I have been out grinding for gold since turning 40.
As to rotation, when I am in conservative mode, esp with pugs I do not know, I rarely but sometimes charge and hit, and then use your macro to shift to defensive. I do not have that talent yet that saves some of the rage, so usually in tight quarters, as in this cave, I just STAY in defensive from the git go (and say so to the group as to why I am doing that) and face pull.
Here the rogue was sapping and then pulling a second back to me. That is what surprised me that it worked so well. But sometimes a third was linked and that was tougher but doable. These were all elites after all.
Anyway I would almost always then tab hit, sunder, tab hit, sunder, then demo shout, and if not up, battle shout. I know both those have aggro ranges so I had to be sure I didn’t pull the sapped one, which I did not. Still I would lose aggro usually on at least one elite very quickly and just held onto the other one.
This worked for about 9 groups of 2 and twice for a threesome, all elites, all the way back to the back where the boss was. So I think we were doing fine, even if I didn’t hold agro as much at they wanted me too.
Still, I am not good enough, yet, to have confidence to say the group frankly was just venting because we could not after 2 wipes get the boss they wanted. They seemed pretty sure I was not standing still and holding mobs in place as they thought I should.
I appreciate your response. I am pretty sure I wasn’t great at taunting but I no longer will ever run after a mob, at least not where I cannot see well. So yes the shaman took a bunch of heat … died once too, maybe twice. I don’t know his gear or spec.
I have actually rolled a shaman on a pvp server to learn what they are doing. The mages I pretty well understand. But here no mage throwing AOE.
I do know for sure that at the end I crowded the rogue and ruined the 2nd try. My bad and I said so. Ah well. Die and learn, I say (here, not there, lol)
Ty, Elite, we new tanks really need details or we can’t solve our errors or detect errors in others with confidence. Funny, since the endgame really seems to need the warrior tanks. I would think pugs would want to help teach a bit more. No often, I have found.
Sorry, I meant Battle Shout https://github.com/magey/classic-warrior/wiki/Threat-Mechanics#battle-shout
- Like other buff mechanics, Battle Shout generates more threat the more targets it buffs.
- Buff targets must be in combat with the mobs you wish to generate threat against.
- Battle Shout threat is not capped at 5 party members and pets.
This suggests that I perhaps should not wait for current BS buff to expire to re-cast it, if I think more mobs have joined the combat, right? If so, I will cast it more often.