I agree with the general thrust of your argument (Guardian threat is good enough, if only barely), but most of these aren’t good solutions. Vortex might help save a ranged DPS, but to help a melee DPS, they’d have to move and they’re not going to. Same with roots. Roots and Incapacitating Roar are going to break instantaneously under the kind of DPS that’s ripping threat off of you. You might buy the offending DPS a fraction of a second that way. Mighty Bash is actually helpful if you’re talented into it, but it’s only 4s of every minute on a single mob.
For a truly good tank, a fraction of a second is all they need to regain control of the situation. Because they’re good.
And we have a majority of ranged in most keys, so there’s normally not much melee to worry about. But the tools are enough just the same.
I do agree that it’s tightly tuned though. Anyone of average tanking ability looks like a fool this xpac.
i play with pumpers that regularly do 20k+ dps on basic trash pulls (let alone 3-4 group pulls) and I rarely have threat issues. Once every so often if their not focusing my target they’ll pull but it’s genuinely a non issue. Might be different in keys higher than 18 (i cap at 15 for the gear but the difference between 15-17 isnt that extreme) but if you’re doing keys that high, then its your own fault for not communicating correctly.
As for what you’re doing wrong - hard to say without logs. You could not be designating a kill target, you could be lacking on the tab targets or you may not be using mangle/gore procs correctly. Or you could be focusing too much on defense and lacking dps. You’re doing something wrong if you’re below <2k dps ST :P. And you very well could have 3 dps focusing 3 different mobs - if that’s the case than act your role and wrangle them in ;p
If threat was an issue with bears, we wouldn’t be seeing guardians being competitive in m+s. Sure we’re swamped out in the higher tiers by VDH but that’s more of them having the right kit for the current meta. No different than warriors in BFA being machines.
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I’ll tell him what he’s doing wrong.
He’s not playing as well as his dps. His rotation won’t be smooth, well thought out, and pumping threat into relevant targets that his dps are bursting.
He will be mashing keys and basically tarding it up. Like all bad tanks that can’t hold threat on AOE.
The problem with bad tanks is they have basically a compounding issue too. They’re poor players, which most of the time also makes them very slow at going from pull to pull. So not only is their threat going to be bad because their rotation is poor. But also because their dps will be sitting there waiting, losing procs, losing ramp-up, screaming silently in their minds while they watch some idiot literally jog slowly along towards a pack. Guess when they’re going to open up when this is driving them insane? Either before the tank, or the exact same time as the tank.
And you better believe that they’re going to take their frustration with their bad tank out on those mobs they’ve been waiting at for 5-10 seconds.
Time for a Margin Call quote:
- “There are three ways to make a living in this business. Be first, be smarter, or cheat. It sure is a hell of a lot easier just being first.”
You should be making a beeline at mobs like your life depends on it. Mount. Travel form. Travel form leap in, and change to bear in midair. Dash. Soulshape, racial movement speed if you have it. Anything to get there first.
Just get there faster than them (you’re a freaking druid after all) and PUMP some threat. On most weeks you should be charging off to the next pack before stuff is even dead.
It won’t fix other issues, such as rotation. But it’ll make them a better player and the other stuff will come.
If dps are ever waiting for the tank, it’s a very bad tank. The best tanks are literally hard to keep up with. Never underestimate how much difference it makes to your threat if you get there even 2 seconds before dps are in range, let alone longer.
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Ok so I’m only 216 ilvl recently started tanking and I do get Ur point… But with ursoc and convoke used together or by them self, is enough. If one get away because of a mongoloid dps pumping… I will not cry about that… I’ll just taunt and attack that one and so on and so forth… Double pulls… Convoke into Lego ursoc spam away with 7 stack iron fur… Kinda deal. I think it’s a skill situation… To be completely honest. Also I have an insane life saver trinket that heals me for an insane amount… I mean learn to truly tank… Barkskin, taunt use cd always don’t need save em… Hope this helps lol.
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Sorry dude… if you are having threat issues, its on you and your M+ team. I tank M+ with minimal issues as guardian druid and the crew I run with has nothing but good things to say about them. If your DPS can’t wait 2 GCDs for you to get threat on everything, then you deserve to fail keys. The 30ish secs you may lose overall doesn’t amount to making or breaking ANY key ever. I can’t believe I have to tell you : Play to your strengths and minimize your weakness… You not getting enough DPS there? Then convoke/frenzy pull with incarn and get to DPSing. It clearly states each tanks strength and weaknesses on Wowhead… Play to them and save us all the eye rolling at this “I wanna… I wanna” wow rant you have going on. Quit hoping to have every class play like your precious FOTM VDH.
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Literally have no issues…
sometimes if a warrior pops avatar/bladestorm right as a pull starts they can rip threat but thats about it.
I sympathize to a degree and dislike, very much, what tanking has become. Too many mechanics now can one-shot even well geared tanks. Threat as a mini-game, I think, was a far better mini-game than kiting and damage mitigation uptime. I liked when the survivability of a tank was built-in, when the game of survival was getting your health and dodge and parry and block stats as high as they can go.
I can tell you’re likely a bad tank because you don’t even understand the problem here. Most people that have replied don’t understand the problem for that matter. Most of the responses here seem to be use Incarn and spam thrash for large pulls. That is obvious and even mentioned in my post. The problem is the next large aoe pull without incarn. Guardian, with some team coordination, has the ability to do it defensively, but they almost don’t have the ability to do it and reliably hold agro. They don’t generate enough threat on many mobs without thrash spam. It’s this simple. There are few places in SL dungeons where back to back triple pulls (or even more) can help a lot and on the second pull guardian has no reliable way to build agro. If you don’t get this, then you likely haven’t even tried to push the class to it’s limits and are offering advice when you stick to pulling 3 or 4 mobs anyway.
For the people that do understand this problem, and apparently think classes should be balanced around garbage threat, then frankly we just disagree. You are allowed an opinion although I think it makes for terrible gameplay. Skill capping via threat, essentially limiting you to one big pull every three minutes, kills enjoyability.
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ok ok… so if and when the knobs get turned a bit and it becomes brain dead which is what you seem to need instead of calculating your pull … Put a marker aka skull on the mob u are attacking first or want dead at the beginning of the pull … hopefully your team to focus on it and GG. this — >will<— regulate everything… Thread done, closed 
Learn to tank a bit. I have almost no issues. I do not do +20 or anything like that but I do +13, +14 and no real issues. If a small casual like me can do it. So can you. 
It’s not just you, there are bad tanks with every class that can be tanks. Life is life 
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Back in TBC, there was an ability called Lacerate. This ability was a single target (no cooldown) ability that would do a bit of damage and apply a bleed effect on the target, stacking up to 3 times. This bleed effect had a threat modifier to it, so the practice was to tab target spam Lacerate to build/hold aggro.
Fast forward a few expansions later (don’t recall exactly when), but Lacerate was removed and Thrash was introduced, which largely did the same thing (some upfront damage + stacking bleed effect, but AE). Only, the threat modifier was removed.
This was OK, though, because at the time there was a universal threat modifier that all tanks had (Vengeance?). Fast forward to now, the same mechanics of Thrash remain, but we don’t have the universal threat modifier that all tanks had, and instead rely now on pure DPS output. Only problem is that Thrash/Lacerate’s original design was inclusive of a bonus threat modifier to supplement it (probably because the bulk of the DPS is inclusive of the DoT effect, which relies on time to build the appropriate amount of threat).
We should consider adding the threat modifier on the bleed effect back in if our DPS is to remain where it is.
Bro, you’re doing +12’s and stuff. Is that pushing Guardian to its limit? Lol.
Holy crap I have alts where tanking is an offspec at higher levels that that.
Point out one post i’ve ever made where I suggested or stated the solution to guardian threat was incarn and thrash spam. I have never said that. Know why? Because it’d be a dumb AF thing to say, using a 3min CD to solve threat issues.
You’re an embarassment of a tank if you’re having any kind of threat issues in the content you are doing, with crappy dps doing like 4-5k. Plain and simple.
You can time the keys you’re doing with all the dps pulling 2-3k each. Wait until you ever play with actual pumpers doing 7k, 8k, 9k dps. Then you’ll be here crying actual rivers of tears.
Go and watch streams or uploads of any of the top guardians. See if they have threat issues (they don’t), and see if their dps give them time on the pull to get a bunch of threat (they also don’t). Because they know how to optimize their rotation to maximize threat. They aren’t just spamming swipe and ironfur like a mongoloid.
Druids are fine.
My biggest concern, by far, is that were just propped up by borrowed power, and when the SL dumpster fire is put out and we get poured out into the next dumpster, were going to need brand new borrowed power. It’s like Samus losing all her powers and needing to relearn ice beam and screw attack every time a new game releases.
We should do a bit more damage, but that’s the only real meta complaint I have at the moment.
Missing QOL like feral charge baseline, doing SOMETHING with maul that isn’t trash, and putting our slow on Thrash instead of mangle/maul should have been implemented ages ago but clearly the dev’s disagree.
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There is most certainly a universal threat modifier to tanks, and unlike Vengeance, it’s not tied to how much damage intake you’ve had recently.
Otherwise, tanks doing 3k dps would not ever be able to hold off of dps doing 6k dps.
Whereas in reality, someone doing 3k dps as a tank can hold agro off 6k dps until the cows come home.
Tanks have an enormous threat modifier built in, it’s just not quite as enormous as it was in say… Legion.
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You can try and attack me all you want. I’m not here spouting a list of accomplishments. I’m here pointing out a problem with the class. A couple of points. Don’t just spout out assumptions about me like you know how I play. Also, while I’ve been enjoying all the specs of my druid alt, it would take you 2 seconds to find out that I’ve timed 14s in guardian on this alt which was actually what led me here after comparing some of the tank specs in the game.
I also know 14s aren’t impressive, but give me a good reason why I should listen to you at all when the highest key you’ve timed in guardian is a 10, and only one? Also, you’re druid has almost 10 ilvls on mine. Where is all this sage shadowlands guardian aoe threat advice coming from?
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A guild member of mine suggested a macro for casting swipe and ironfur. I’m using that right now.
I’m new to tanking and bear, but swipe feels like it’s cleaving and I can use that with thrash right? Or is that not optimal for keys?
Damn dude he posted asking for help and immediately went attack mode on you.
This guy sounds really fun at parties…
No you definitely want to use both - swipe doesn’t have a cool down meaning you can use it back to back to back. But it only hits 5 mobs and doesn’t generate rage
Thrash has a cool down, generates rage, and hits all mobs in the area.
You want to use Swipe for those moments when you’re waiting for Thrash and Mangle to come off of cooldown
Macroing Ironfur into other abilities is probably OK if you’re just picking up tanking. I’m not sure Swipe is the (only) ability I’d put it on since it’s a very low priority button, but it probably gets hit enough that once it goes up, it should stay up. Eventually you’ll want to learn to manage it yourself.
I’m just going to make up a number here, so other bears can chime in, but I’d say that just having maximum stacks of Ironfur is the right thing do maybe 70% of the time. Exceptions are when you’re pooling rage to get extra stacks for a certain ability or phase, or saving it for the next pull. Occasionally you might even want to spend some rage on Maul; though, honestly, that’s pretty uncommon.