I've recently read that paladins not having a taunt was an oversight

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Not in Vanilla.

  • Vanilla WoW: on release, Taunt did not create extra aggro for the warrior, it only forced the mob to attack the warrior for 3 seconds.

https://wowwiki.fandom.com/wiki/Taunt_(warrior_ability)#Patch_changes

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Nah it forces the target to attack you for a few seconds AND puts you on top of the list.

But if you lose your spot before the effect ends the target attacks someone else after taunt wears off

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I guess it’s easy to tell that I was only a part time tank. :rofl:

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Taunt in Vanilla always made you equal to the current target in threat. Early on you still had to generate the 10% additional threat to actually cause a target swap or the target would just switch back after the taunt debuff wore off.

Though that was changed, so by 1.12 taunt both put you at the top of the threat list and kept the target focused on you unless you lost threat normally.

I looked into the last time this topic came up. A lot of sources say that prior to the 10% rule being removed Taunt didn’t generate threat but they’re wrong.

Patch 1.1 says " * Taunt: Now gives the target just enough threat to attack you. Cooldown added."

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https://wowwiki.fandom.com/wiki/Taunt_(warrior_ability)?oldid=252330

Looking at a version from September 2006 of that page:

Taunt is one of the most useful tools a Main Tank Warrior can use, and makes group combat a much more controlled environment. Taunt will set the Warrior’s threat level to equal the highest person on the target’s hate list, as well as forcing the target to attack the Warrior for 3 seconds. However, it is important to note that to pull aggro from someone, it takes 110% of that person’s threat level, so unless the Warrior causes some additional threat in the 3 seconds provided (using skills such as Sunder Armor, Revenge, Heroic Strike the taunted enemy will resume attacking it’s original target when the time is up.

Despite the very short cooldown, the temptation to spam Taunt should be resisted - it has no effect on enemies already fightng the Warrior, and does not generate Rage. It does not generate threat either if the Warrior is already the highest person on the target’s hate list.

It is useless while soloing, and has no effect at all on enemy players in PVP.

Also on Mocking Blow:

Patch 1.6.0 (12-Jul-2005): Tooltip updated to indicate the additional threat caused by this ability. There have been no changes to the amount of threat caused.

Mocking Blow was the one that generated additional threat.

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That was a change that happened very late ie mid TBC to wrath. I’d frequently pull threat in dungeons, have the mob taunted and have to pop evasion/vanish or die.

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I don’t remember that, though my Warrior was doing dungeons only, and my Bear’s Taunt may have not been fixed.

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Not that late. In 1.12 it functioned as I described.

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It was in vanilla technically. The BC prepatch (aka still during vanilla) specifically. It did a lot of great balancing for classes. I was kinda hoping it was going to be the starting point for classic instead of 1.12 even though I suppose in a way it would make things overall easier.

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Patch notes include Growl for 1.1 and say the same thing.

Basically taunt effects always put you at the top of the threat list from release, but originally that alone wasn’t enough to actually cause the mob to switch to attack you.

To cause a mob to switch to you as their target you need to generate 10% in melee or 30% in ranged more threat than the current target has.

The change a lot of people remember as “taunt now generating threat” was them removing that 10% rule so that taunt also included a forced target switch.

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Fair enough. I was primarily a healer until TBC. I spent a lot of time being the “third tank” in TBC for things like Mount Hyjal and Black Temple but threat was far easier to watch then. I just know that taunt wasn’t the “given” it was in TBC.

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I’ve been asking myself if I’d prefer the pre bc talents and I’m really mixed about it

It would allow us to have a version of the game that hasn’t been theorycrafted to death, especially if they used 1.12 everything else and the prebc patch talents

It would be a really interesting meta because having 51 points for talent but bc talent arrangement only existed for a few months, and it would make certain specs viable but not overpowered. It would allow for a lot of experimentation

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I thought it was just 30% over in total. Learn something new everyday on these forums.

Not bad for a “toxic” community. :slight_smile:

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Technically the BC pre-patch is BC.

So, no.

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2.0 is still a TBC patch even though it came out at the very end of vanilla (like a month before TBC actually launched). Honestly, it’d be a pretty bad patch to base vanilla off of. It completely revamped things like old honor system. If they based Classic on 2.0 then everyone would have full rank 14 gear within a couple of weeks. It also gave access to the 41 point talent tree so that would completely alter the game. There’s quite a few other things that were changed then as well.

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Nope, 30% for ranged, 10% for melee.

To be precise its:

In order to pull threat, you have to have 10% more threat than the current target if you are in melee range, and 30% over the current target if you are at range.

So a tank in melee is actually technically worse off taunting in melee, than they are running 10+ yds away and taunting, because running out will give you 20% more threat lead, but usually positional requirements make that more of a burden than simply taking the 10% and running with it.

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From Kenco’s threat guide, which was the authority back in day…

…

(3) Aggro Transfer, Threat Decay

To prevent mobs rapidly swapping targets when many players have similar threat, a mob will stay on its current target unless another player has significantly higher threat. Suppose a mob has aggro on a certain player X. Then to pull aggro while in melee range, another player needs 110% of Xs threat. If the other player is outside melee range, they need 130% of Xs threat to pull aggro. This means than in general, once you have aggro it is easy to keep it, and once you lose aggro it is hard to regain it. It also stops two players attacking a mob from range and constantly swapping aggro between them, because as their threat increases, the 30% margin will be harder and harder to overcome.

Note that the 10% effect is determined only by your range, not the ability used. If you are generating threat from healing or a range ability such as Frostbolt, you will still pull aggro at 110% if you are within melee range of the mob.

In the normal course of events, threat does not decay. Once you are on a mobs threat list, youre there until its dead or you are, and your threat does not decay over time. There are of course mobs with specific abilities that reduce threat, and player abilities also, which do decrease your threat.

…

Recently (1.11.x), the behaviour of Taunt has been buffed slightly. It now does three things:

  1. Taunt debuff. The mob is forced to attack you for 3 seconds. Later taunts by other players override this.
  2. You are given threat equal to the mob’s previous aggro target, permanently. Importantly, you won’t necessarily get as much threat as the highest person on the mob’s list, only as much as whoever is currently tanking it.
  3. You gain complete aggro on the mob at the instant you taunt. Usually you would need 10% more threat to gain aggro (see section 3), but a taunt now gives you instant aggro on the mob. Of course if other people are generating significant threat on the mob, they could exceed your threat by more than 10% before the taunt debuff wears off, and will gain aggro as soon as it does. There is no limit to the amount of threat you can gain from Taunt.

While Challenging Shout and Mocking Blow have a similar forced attack debuff to Taunt, they do not give the caster threat in the same way as Taunt, just fixed amounts.

forum.nostalrius. org/viewtopic. php?f=24&t=16499#p104807

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There’s nothing wrong with the Alliance having one more raid than the Horde. At the time, it was feared that fewer tank options = fewer tank players; but data collected over 15 years has disproven that theory.

It doesn’t matter how many tank options or how many healer options there are in the game, as Blizzard has learned by adding more. Tank players will play tanks, healer players will play healers, people who don’t want to play either will avoid both, regardless of how many choices they have for these roles.

(edit: Note, of course, that my position is not “paladins should be made better tanks in Classic”. No changes. My position, rather, is that in a hypothetical future or other MMO, it is not necessary to maintain total class and role equivalency across factions. As long as each faction has at least one tank and at least one healer, they will see similar amounts of tanks and healers, all other things being equal.)

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@ Aryxymaraki

I think what you’re saying is probably true in regards to roles, but leading you to an incorrect conclusion regarding faction population balance.

You’re right that tanks will play tanks. The problem comes when one faction has two different tanks to choose from, but the other faction only has one. Tanks will play tanks, but when offered a choice between which class to tank on, you’ll find that some players may prefer to play a paladin tank instead of a warrior tank. In that case, the player would then be forced to go alliance should they want to be a paladin tank. This would likely lead to a higher amount of tanks on alliance as there is a subset of tank players that would prefer the paladin tanking style over warrior.

In short, a tank player that is inclined to be horde, may instead choose to be alliance so they can tank as a paladin.

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An oversight? Nah. Gonna be like that in Classic too. As it should be.

I’ll take my Classic straight, no chaser.