Hey,
I’ve been tanking on my druid more lately and have been having a few issues with threat, I’m wondering if the community has any suggestions.
As I run mythics (+15 range), I usually try to rotate convoke into incarnation, then back into convoke between large packs. When I have to pull a pack with these down, I find I often lose threat. This is especially difficult this week with explosive, as I can either use threat abilities, or I can moonfire the explosives that, quite often, my group can’t handle. Even outside of explosive weeks though, with my CDs down, thrash/swipe doesn’t seem to be enough AoE threat to hold aggro, and taunt only gets me so far.
Does anybody have any suggestions here?
I realize one option is that my group should be more aware of their threat, and believe me, I’ve tried telling them that. The hard part is that they usually run with a prot pally tank who seems to not have this issue, and also that we’re on a timer so DPS feels compelled to go hard at the start. To a degree, this is fair… but what they do is less in my control so I want to focus on what I can do 
My RIO Page: https://raider.io/characters/us/terenas/Tathais
(My main specs are resto/balance)
Thanks for any help!
Sometimes I struggle with threat too. But if the group allows me to at least thrash once it seems to be fine, if they attack first with a burst aoe it will take a while to get it back. (since you have to surpass their threat by a percentage, was it 30%?)
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Druid threat isn’t GREAT but it’s not as bad as many make it out to be.
Drop some moonfires as you run up, pop out thrash, and be ready to taunt.
Unfortunately some players think the first second of a pull is the best time to use wings, etc etc… and this works exactly how one would think.
I found that after the first few seconds threat becomes a lot less of an issue.
If they really think they absolutely have to go all out on something in those first 1 or 2 seconds of a pull (or even before you pull!) then let them take a couple autoattacks for you. They worked hard to earn them after all.
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Yes, this is pretty much exactly the problem. I start my pull pretty much exactly as you describe, but quickly lose threat in AoE situations if my group unloads. I’m wondering if there’s anything more I can do.
If there is a hunter or rogue have them misdirect or trick you so you get threat.
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Could also try to ask the DPS to target your target. Even in AoE it can help a bit, since naturally you’ll have an easier time maintaining threat on whatever enemy your AA’s and mangles are hitting.
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Guardian is the only tank spec I’ve ran with in keys where I have to be extremely careful about pulling threat. Definitely seems to be on the low end in terms of threat generation.
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Taunt if it’s one mob, warstomp if it’s multiple mobs and you need another thrash out to secure threat.
Other than that not really much. I mean you could blow incarn to spam thrash or mangle but that’s kind of a waste.
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Biggest piece of advice I can give is to get to the pack a few seconds before you DPS. Give yourself that headstart.
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I’ve been talking with a friend about my rotation and we’ve uncovered that the suggested AoE rotation on icy-veins and wowhead is different from the one I use.
Their suggested rotation for AoE is…
Thrash -> Mangle -> Maul -> [Repeat]
I used to do this, but I found I was more easily losing threat. Now, I typically do the following.
Thrash -> Swipe -> Swipe -> [Repeat]
I still lose threat, but seemingly less frequently.
When I did that, I noticed it was generally easier to hold threat in large groups (like 4+ mobs). However, I’ve been looking at it more since he called attention to the guide rotations.
I don’t really understand why you would prioritize maul, or even mangle, over swipe. I could maybe see mangle due to the bonus damage from bleeding targets, but maul is roughly 2.5x the damage of swipe, so in a 4 target situation, after 4 GCDs worth of each, swipe will win out in damage applied.
To my knowledge, neither comes with additional threat.
Can anybody provide additional insight as to why those guides would suggest prioritizing mangle and maul over swipe in an AoE situation?
Not sure what you’re looking at, but the guides don’t say that. For instance, the rotation on Wowhead says the following:
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Keep Moonfire ticking at all times for extra damage
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Keep Thrash on cooldown
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Keep Mangle on cooldown
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Fill empty GCDs with Swipe
Make sure you’ve toggled multi-target. You can also select covenants to add those in.
Here’s the link for IV showing Swipe as lower priority than Maul.
(Don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking IV as the source of truth, just trying to get to the bottom of things :D)
No worries. I see the issue. It says you use maul if and only if you don’t need it for Ironfur or Frenzied Regen, which you should be using when initiating a pull. Those guides also assume you aren’t having threat issues. In short, you should basically remove maul from your bars unless you’re doing outdated or overgeared content and threat isn’t an issue.
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This was my understanding as well, but the way the IV guide reads it suggests that you’ll never use swipe in AoE unless you don’t have enough rage to maul.
I think my friend was mistaken in his interpretation of the wowhead guide, which only suggests you use maul as a rage dump. For me, in most aoe situations, I can’t see ever voluntarily hitting maul since, with all those mobs beating on me, iron fur stacks (also off the GCD) seem more bang for your buck.
From what you’ve said, it sounds like the wording on the IV guide needs to be updated. Only maul if you have to dump rage and don’t need it for iron fur, otherwise carry on to swipe?
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Yes. As I said, you can literally remove maul from your bar as you wouldn’t use it over ironfur in current content unless you’re really overgearing it.
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Ok, so lets look at Mangle. In a scenario where there’s, say, 5 targets, is it worth using Mangle over Swipe in the opening moments of a pull?
Yes. As I’m running in, I target the (1) most dangerous mob or (2) the one most likely to get missed by thrash, and mangle it. Mangle is generating rage for ironfur and frenzied regen use, it’s hard hitting and therefore good damage, and getting it on cool down will also allow more of the above thru resets.
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The reason to use Mangle even in multi-target scenarios is for the Rage generation. If it were a pure DPS/threat calculation, you’d drop Mangle as the target count increased. The guide you linked actually says to drop it after 4 targets.
Maul is so niche that it almost never sees use in practice, and I definitely wouldn’t be prioritizing it early in a pull when I’m still establishing aggro on everything. That said, if you lose aggro on a single mob, and Mangle/Taunt are down, Maul might be a decent option assuming it doesn’t cause you to lose Ironfur.
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Thank you for providing clarification!
I think we were both reading that line for Mangle as maintaining the debuff on up to four targets. It didn’t occur to either of us that it meant drop it from the rotation after four targets
Good to know about it’s role for rage generation, not threat generation as well.
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This confuses me a little. To my knowledge, Mangle hasn’t had a debuff associated with it since way back in Wrath. Mangle itself deals 20% additional damage to bleeding targets.