Not if the dps pulling aggro is targeting something nobody else is. Also a shadow priest can easily out threat a tank at equal gear if they don’t use Fade.
great point… im very new and i learned this on my first dungeon run the hard way lol
Maybe this is a realm/faction issue, because I don’t have these problems.
Granted, I don’t PUG much, either, but the PUGs I’ve been in have mostly been filled with people exactly opposite of what you describe. They’re wanting to CC and the like, and I have to inform them that it isn’t necessary.
I purposely break polymorphs and such if the pack is too small, just because I want more rage. I’ve seen people try to CC 2 out of 3 mobs in a pack, and it just boggles my mind that anyone thinks that is needed.
I don’t mark targets. Even in guild groups, we’re using voice comms, so I can just tell them what to attack first if it’s necessary.
I’d suspect PUGs are generally not very good at DPS, anyway, so the likelihood they’ll pull aggro is pretty slim to begin with.
In my experience, I lose aggro in my guild runs more than in my PUGs, because my guild runs are filled with DPS that know how to play. And when I lose aggro, I don’t yell at them, I berate myself for losing aggro. Generally any time I lose aggro, it’s because I was making a mistake one way or another.
I’m a tank, as well, so…
Why would the tank not have threat being generated on every mob?
On a single mob, sure, and then I just taunt, and their threat becomes my threat.
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I healed a Wailing Caverns run earlier. The tank was a Warrior. He’d mark with skull and charge in… and the Hunter would immediately spam multishot, tunnel things that weren’t marked, and would run away the moment they pulled aggro. The Warlock would dot everything as the tank was charging, and also ran away when they had aggro. This continued even after they were asked to not do that.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this same behavior in dungeons, and I strongly doubt it’ll be the last. I’m inclined to believe that wasn’t the tank’s fault. At all.
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this “GO GO GO” mentality is everything wrong with retail and has no place in classic.
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Multi-shot is part of the single-target DPS rotation for Hunters. If the tank can’t hold aggro on a single Multi-shot, that’s definitely the tank’s fault.
Granted, at low levels, they have fewer tools to deal with it, but it isn’t hard to just tab target and Sunder Armor. They should have that by the time they’re tanking Wailing Caverns.
As for tunneling things that weren’t marked, was the Warrior marking the correct targets? I’ve ignored marks before as a DPS if they were wrong, knowing the real priority kill target was something else.
Run away, or kite the mobs away? If the Hunter has aggro, they can effectively just kite it indefinitely.
If they were actually running away, they’re obviously not very bright, and I will grant you that one.
Warlocks should DoT everything. They don’t deal damage immediately.
Would definitely run the mobs in as a Warlock, though, unless they were using Fear after pulling it away.
If it’s the wrong call to stop, I wouldn’t stop, either. I wasn’t there so I won’t say definitively one way or the other.
Were they using a shield, or a two-hander?
If you think clearing dungeons quickly and efficiently is everything wrong with retail, you definitely have not played retail in a long time.
In any case, it absolutely has a place in Classic. It works just fine in Classic. In fact, it works quite well.
Tanking rule number 1.
Your job is active mob control. Control of the mobs as to who they are attacking - a dps can have a mob hitting them for a short term, use common sense about what mob to taunt (the one now heading for your healer, because you blew taunt to save a dps who did one of the following)
Reasons tanks loose aggro and/or control of the mob.
Rogue stuns mob - no rage generated, no chance to block/dodge/parry to proc a revenge. Dont be a bad rogue
Frost nova - mobs becoming rooted in place. Threat/aggro mechanics are also heavily impacted by range from the mob. You rooted mobs in place, they look for players in melee to attack. Dont be a bad mage
Power word shield - No rage gained from damage taken, because no damage was taken. You cant heal without mana, we cant tank without rage. Dont be a bad priest
Stormstrike/earth shock combo, with added wf procs - Nothing harder than competing with threat from instant attacks, with bonus damage and extra threat modifiers. Save earth shock as an interupt at the beginning of a fight, instead of opening with the equivilent of 5 x sunder + revenge + shield slam, in 2 gcd. Dont be a bad shaman
Warlock hellfire spam - need i say more. Dot the mobs, all of them, and let your damage ramp up. We only invited you because of a soulstone/healthstone combo, and the ability to summon that last lazy guy in the world (usually the warlock because they were busy farming soulshards). Dont be a bad warlock
Pet taunted - i will let your pet die, and tell the healer not to heal it. The only reason you need to pull aggro is to have a mob run into your perfectly placed trap but dont forget to plan in advance to line of sight that mob. Dont be a bad hunter
Arms warriors + sweeping strikes + whirlwind + windfury totem + hand of justice + sword spec - having one mob attack you is a good thing, to proc enrage and feed you extra rage, just give me a sec to gain some inital aggro on the others before you charge. Dont be a bad warrior
Druids - im still yet to lose aggro to a druid, in any form/spec. Thank you for the Motw. You cant really be a bad druid, its not possible.
Paladins - will you just bubblehearth already.
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No kidding, pugs in Classic are like speed runs from Vanilla. Sure they wait a couple seconds into a pull, but DPS are constantly AoEing and pulling agro from me.
I get compliments on how well I can keep the agro with constant target switching and spamming high threat abilities, but I just got tired of the constant 110% effort. Everyone else is putting in a mindless 50%, so I’ve switched to DPS to join them.
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Hey man i’m just doing damage if your not good enough to hold aggro that’s on you.
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Hunter damage? LOL
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Lol. New to vanilla? Threat management is a key part of a DPS’ers responsibility. So maybe take your own advice.
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And another retailer with no idea what they are doing. Learn to manage your agro. Or learn to solo.
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Threat management is a responsibility of DPS’ers as well as the tank. If as a DPS’er you see your threat about to overtake the tank, then you should throttle back. Or accept you’re about to get spanked. If its one or two targets and the tank has 1-2 sec at start, they should usually keep threat. But if you crit big, or they tanking three or four and dps’ers using aoe, then it can become an issue.
That said, if your tank can’t hold agro even on simple pulls, then you probably need a new tank. But even then, maybe throtttle back a little anyway before you pull agro, unless you enjoy wiping. Just seems like common sense to me.
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If it’s on a boss that can’t be taunted, sure. Otherwise, there’s no reason to throttle your DPS.
Off the top of my head, there’s no such dungeon boss, so the DPS should go all out.
Nah, the dungeon trash, and even the bosses, really, don’t do that much damage. The DPS don’t get one shotted like they do in retail.
If the tank is honestly having that much trouble holding aggro, it might be better to just let the DPS do the tanking instead and the “tank” can just DPS.
Actually, if they put on their DPS gear, they’d probably hold aggro better, anyway. Most of the healers in these threads will say something along the lines of “if the DPS pulls, I don’t heal them,” but frankly that’s just dumb.
It’s better to just let the DPS go all out and risk pulling aggro than to take twice as long to do the dungeon because the tank needs several seconds to get threat for each pull.
There are a number of dungeon bosses that do agro resets. Since taunt has a cooldown, tanks will need the taunt at the agro reset. So if you steal agro between agro resets and force the tank to taunt, it turns into a S***show at the agro reset.
Most of the rest of your post seems to be a whole lot of ‘we don’t need no stinkin tanks’ talk. Not sure most would agree, but I suppose if that works for you, w/e.
This is what most of us don’t like about the retail mentality. Too often that gogogogo pace leads to wipes, and the math just doesn’t add up. What are there, maybe between 20 and 40 pulls per dungeon, depending which one? Times 2 sec per pull for tank to get agro means it adds maybe 80 seconds to the run. Literally just over a minute per dungeon to let the tank get agro. How long for the healer to rez dead DPS’ers? How long gets added when it’s a party wipe?
Smooth runs are fast runs more often than not. Pushing too fast leads to longer dungeon runs and high repair bills.
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Then there’s absolutely no reason for the DPS to hold back. The aggro reset means you’re going to lose aggro regardless. Hell, they might have their aggro reset by the mechanic if they time it well enough.
And the aggro reset means you literally have to press one ability to get the aggro back. I’m sure it works differently for each boss, e.g. one boss might reset everyone’s aggro, another might only reset the current target’s aggro, but for the most part, a tank shouldn’t have much issue getting a mob back.
Even if they do…
I am a tank, buddy. Haha.
I’m not saying we don’t need tanks. They obviously make the runs much faster by allowing the healer to use slower, more efficient heals on a single person instead of rapid healing on several people. They also help group the mobs so they can be AoE’d cleanly.
What we don’t need are bad tanks who don’t actually do their job and can’t hold aggro. If the tank can’t hold aggro, there is no point in them being there. Either they just swap to being DPS, they get kicked for a better tank, or you severely slow down your run to accommodate their shortcomings.
The 2nd option isn’t wise considering the scarcity of tanks. The third isn’t ideal, as it wastes more of everyone’s time. As such, the best option is for them to just DPS.
There’s obviously limits, but the gogogo mentality doesn’t lead to wipes; it leads to faster dungeons.
If only it were that simple, though. Reality is that any tank that needs 2 seconds on every pull to get aggro is probably going to lose aggro anyway because they’re not a good tank, and then, if you were going to wipe due to the DPS pulling aggro, it’s going to happen anyway.
That said…
Why would the DPS be dying? The dungeon mobs are so weak, and you have a healer.
You might have a case if you argued the healer has to drink more, and I totally agree. That’s why you get a good tank instead of one that can’t hold aggro.
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BAD dps…BAD! I think a rolled-up newspaper sometimes works.
I learned back in Vanilla in 2005 (I mostly dps’ed) that in dungeon groups the dps players had to carefully cut back their damage while waiting for the tank to get aggro. Cut back how much? That depended on the tank’s level, the number of mobs, and the situation. It was different every fight…that is called “skill” or “playing your class correctly”.
Rule #1 was that a dps will ALWAYS pull aggro off the tank if they just max out their dps.
Rule #2 was “don’t do that!” That’s when you use the rolled-up newspaper.
A typical newbie remark. Back in 2005 we would laugh ourselves silly…then drop you and get a DPS who knows how to play the game.
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As a general rule? Probably not a good thing.
Circumstantial? Sometimes it makes sense. I’ve done it a few times and have been thanked, when I, as a Druid or Warrior have switched into a defensive configuration midfight to take a bunch of adds or a hard hitting boss off of the group’s tank when the healer clearly could not keep up at the current pace and needed some of the pressure taken off for a little bit until they could get back on top of the healing and/or some of the mobs go down.
I assume the latter isn’t what you’re talking about, but I just thought I’d point out that sometimes it’s a good thing.
I think the most part it is tanks throwing a fit because they don’t have the agro.
A DPS can off-tank a mob. This is fine. Especially for leveling dungeons and DPS has survival skills to deal with it.
Just go by the rule, if you pull agro from the tank, you tank the mob. Simple.
If you want to be that hyperbolic about it, I can just as easily say tanks really are slow moving, don’t even do any major threat generating abilities, and die in seconds to trash if they even do have threat. Because this does sometimes happen in PUGs, which, as the forums work, equates to “that’s how it goes 214% of the time!1!!!1”
It’s asinine to paint this as though DPS (or tanks) always sucks and that they are always the problem.
I’ve been leveling two tanks in Classic and, for the most part, I enjoy PUGing on them. If I have a problem with the group, I typically talk about it with them to see if we can resolve it before we start kicking/leaving. Why is that so difficult for so many of the tanks that come to QQ on the forums instead?