Damage and threat metersFollow

Other things factor in too, like talent points some classes(arcane mages, shadow priests{I think}) have talents that lower threat generation. I don't know how many clases exactly, but that may account for some of it. I also have a sneaking suspicion that different moves do more or less threat on different mobs, not soley based on damage but on elements. Like a generic made up example of my idea. A fire elemental, a mage scorthes for 1000hp, and another mage frostbolts for 1000 damage, but the frost bolt generated a little more rage because it was like the antithesis of that enemies element. But that could just be the conspiracy theory of my paranoia kicking in.

I haven't seen an official Blizzard Aggro/Threat/Damage meter yet. So, seems to me everything else is just a 'guessometer'. Sometimes that's enough, yet people go to war over their guessometer's dps/heal/whatever ratings. I find that amusing.

I hang with a guild where the mantra is:

"Are all the bad guys dead?"
"Is everyone in the group alive?"
"Good Job- next challenge!"

We don't care about that stuff, I think ONE of us has meters installed and we all take it with a grain of salt. In the end, it's just a game, death is an inconvenience and you can't actually score with the members of your chosen preference of sex... :)

(I hate being PC...screws up a good line!)

rogue's also have a (i think) 25ish % reduced threat as well as a threat wipe (vanish) on a 5-min cooldown and another active threat reducer.
(shadow)priests have a threat reducer on a 20 second cooldown too, mages have passive threat reduction, shamans have it, just dont know about locks......

Arcane mages have an even bigger threat reduction than fire and frost mages do.

OP: Pretty much ignore anyone's DamageMeter. Look at what someone using another one such as Recount has to say.

Warriors in Battle and Zerker stances have threat reductions, as do druids in cat and talented for it in Moonkin and Tree.

Paladins...well paladins are SOL on threat reduction aside from the fact that they can apply Salvation to others/themselves(which a healing paladin can do just as well).

Edit: Unless you mean abilities that reduce threat like Feign Death, Invisibility, or Feint. Then yeah, Warriors and Paladins don't have those either. Cat druids have cower, though.

Edited, Oct 2nd 2007 3:21am by Poldaran

Sorry, have to laugh. As a paladin, I never WANTED to reduce threat. I've always wanted MORE! If it weren't for consecration, most targets would just laugh at paladin's... I want amusing taunts as a Paladin threat generator. "I turned your dad into a suitcase!" or "Hey Troll, just say 'NO' man!"... use them like jokes.

"Look, Paladin meat!" -says the Black Dragon
"I'd rather chew on a Log" -says the Red Dragon

Then he sucked. A good Feral DPS Druid can do quite high DPS.

Were you looking at your own damage meter, or reading what someone reported in the chat? That could make a big difference, because I've seen some meters not even take my pet into consideration, and when we compared numbers, it made enough of a difference to take me from 3rd to 2nd in the ranks.

from my understanding being 44 warr main haveing 36 warr main ondiff server and reading the fourms all the time. battle stance is no threat reduction i actually use it to tank to keep the dps along with other people useing it. as for zerker i've only seen one post of like 8% reduction in threat but i'm not even 100% sure on that. our F.A.Q. is being updated so i'll reread it here soon.

To clear up the last 2 posts in much better english and with the proper mechanics...

1. A warrior in battle or in berserker stance has an 80% threat modifier. Meaning it deals 4 threat for every 5 damage applied. In battle stance you will generate 61.5% of the threat-per-damage as you would in defensive stance, and since you deal 11.1% more damage, you will deal 68.3% of the threat as you could in defensive stance. That's assuming no talents, as defiance increases the threat of defensive stance from 130% to 145%.
I only tank in battle stance when me and my friend are 2-manning things, because it makes it go faster.

2. There is no range threat-per-damage modifier. The difference is how much threat you need to pull aggro. Just because someone has the most threat doesn't mean he holds aggro, and vice versa. For melee classes, you need to exceed the current target's threat by 10% to get aggro. This is why kitty druids and DPS warriors have an 80% threat modifier, and rogues have a 71% threat modifier. (Enhancement shamans have a threat reduction talent, and paladins can sacrifice some DPS out of might or wisdom to get 30% threat reduction). Then you look at ranged classes. If you are outside of melee range, you need 30% more threat to gain aggro. This is why ranged classes which have an initial 100% threat-to-damage modifier can pull 25% more damage than the tank is dealing threat (which again, is most likely 45% higher than his damage if you're just counting auto-attack).

3. Hunters have no threat-reduction talent. However, we do have FD, and we have a pet. Us having a pet means we can bring some extra damage to the table without pulling aggro. If you are MM specced, for example, your overall damage (you and your pet) is going to be 33% higher than the threat you deal. And if you're a BM hunter, it will be 67% higher (since your total DPS is 75/25 in MM and 60/40 in BM). So, if the tank is doing 1000 TPS (high number, but it's easy to use), a rogue could only pull 1549 DPS before pulling aggro, a mage (without the talent) could do 1300 DPS, an MM hunter could end up doing 1729 or a BM hunter could do 2171. This is because our overall damage is divided between two threat generators - us and our pet.

It depends how many people are using the meter, and also if they have your pet included in damage. For example, if my rogue is the only one running a meter, you could be out of range and i would not report accurately.

Thats why its a good idea to have as many people get the same damage meter as possible. THe more info the more accurate. Your omen is accurate, if you are riding the tanks threat the whole time while FDing you are looking at maximum DPS. Cant do much better than that.

So i'd chalk it up to a damage meter discrepancy.

Two of the posts hit the nail on the head. It probably isnt your dps but one way to tell (for sure) is to get your own meter and ensure that pet damage is merged with yourself.

So, ask what the other raid members are using and use that so that it will synch up, and enable the option that merges the dps.

If you arent in the top 4, then have a look at your spec.

Damage meters also can tell you who's falling behind or who's not doing their job. Just taking a 5-man, you should have the healer sitting at 0%, the tank sitting at maybe 16% (assuming warrior tank), and the DPS should average maybe 28% each. Of course, unless you have a static group, it will usually vary as you may have a level 60 mage in azerothian greens and a level 64 rogue in outland greens and blues, the rogue will obviously out-dps the mage, but for the most part I assume it should be something along the lines mentioned above.

Anyway, if you end up with the tank pulling 22%, 2 of the DPS pulling 31%, and the third DPS pulling only like 16%, you can figure out why he's down so low and help him get better. And if you're running around trapping everything, while off-tanking with your pet and even bandaging players when the healer goes OOM and STILL pull the most DPS of anyone, it can be rather refreshing to know you werent sacrificing speed for the sake of surviving.