Generally when I'm tanking in groups or instances I try to do my best to handle large pulls by taunting mobs off of mages and other people who shouldn't have aggro. The problem I have is that on large pulls, there are so many mobs I can't tell what is hitting who. I typically freeze up trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do. I know I need to get mobs off of people, but just tabbing around I can never tell which one is on the mages so that I can Taunt it off. Is there a macro that I can use that basically resolves to "target the closest enemy whose target is not me"? Or is there another way to quickly achieve the same effect, if a macro will not work?
Next thing, is that sometimes Taunt is down. Is it worth it to switch to Berserker Stance so I can intercept? In general I'm probably going to lose quite a bit of rage this way, and furthermore the awkwardness of pressing Ctrl+F3 etc makes it so that I cannot do it very quickly.
Are there any mods that might incorporate some kind of UI element to more easily let me know when another player is being hit by something?
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How to best utilize Taunt / Intercept?Follow
The one thing I do that makes it easier to quickly see what's going on in a battle, is scroll out to max camera distance. In some spots it can't really be done, but for the most part it will allow you to see the full battle. Another thing I've done is use Tinytip and set up the tooltip to be on the cursor and to show target, then by just mousing over each mob I can see who they're targeting.
As for the macro, I'm almost positive there is, but I forget what it is. I switched to a new UI yesterday and forgot to save my macros, so I'll be tracking it down in just a bit and post it if no one beats me to it.
*edit: As for taunt being on cooldown, don't forget Mocking Blow (Battle Stance) will force the mob to target you for 6 seconds. Also, if you're 70, don't forget Intervene, it's your best friend for aggro-happy dps.
**edit: Here's a macro that states it will sunder the target that you're currently moused over without replacing your current target, just replace Sunder Armor with Taunt. It's from TankSpot, so I'm pretty sure it works, but I can't confirm it.
#show Sunder Armor
/cast [target=mouseover, harm, nodead] [] Sunder Armor
Edited, Oct 8th 2007 1:13pm by Wulelendamuwi
Edited, Oct 8th 2007 1:15pm by Wulelendamuwi
As for the macro, I'm almost positive there is, but I forget what it is. I switched to a new UI yesterday and forgot to save my macros, so I'll be tracking it down in just a bit and post it if no one beats me to it.
*edit: As for taunt being on cooldown, don't forget Mocking Blow (Battle Stance) will force the mob to target you for 6 seconds. Also, if you're 70, don't forget Intervene, it's your best friend for aggro-happy dps.
**edit: Here's a macro that states it will sunder the target that you're currently moused over without replacing your current target, just replace Sunder Armor with Taunt. It's from TankSpot, so I'm pretty sure it works, but I can't confirm it.
#show Sunder Armor
/cast [target=mouseover, harm, nodead] [] Sunder Armor
Edited, Oct 8th 2007 1:13pm by Wulelendamuwi
Edited, Oct 8th 2007 1:15pm by Wulelendamuwi
Go into the User Interface menu of the game, click the advanced options button. In the middle there is an option that is labled "Show target of target". Click it, then in the scroll box select always.
This now shows a little icon under their picture of the person they are targeting. So as the warrior as you tab through the enemies all the pictures should be of you, if one isn't that is the one you need to taunt to get back to you.
This now shows a little icon under their picture of the person they are targeting. So as the warrior as you tab through the enemies all the pictures should be of you, if one isn't that is the one you need to taunt to get back to you.
Btw, intercept is fine against trash mobs sometimes, but you should really just use intervene. Simply because it doesn't require stance dancing, and it will prevent that hard-hitting trash mob from two shotting an unfortunate healer who pulled aggro because you're soaking up all that damage.
Forget add-ons. Turn on target-of-target, like Synn said. I also tend to turn on name plates. I think its the "v" key. Might be cntrl+v. Or simply "v". Anyways, it puts a big obnoxious name plate+health bar over all mobs and players, so you can very easily see which mob is running away, who is getting hit, and what is hitting them, and click on the enormous annoying health bar to intervene or taunt them.
Tabbing through targets strikes me as tedious and inefficient. To each his own I suppose though.
Edit: remember to use intervene on the person getting hit, not the mob. ;)
Edited, Oct 9th 2007 1:29am by greenroom
Forget add-ons. Turn on target-of-target, like Synn said. I also tend to turn on name plates. I think its the "v" key. Might be cntrl+v. Or simply "v". Anyways, it puts a big obnoxious name plate+health bar over all mobs and players, so you can very easily see which mob is running away, who is getting hit, and what is hitting them, and click on the enormous annoying health bar to intervene or taunt them.
Tabbing through targets strikes me as tedious and inefficient. To each his own I suppose though.
Edit: remember to use intervene on the person getting hit, not the mob. ;)
Edited, Oct 9th 2007 1:29am by greenroom
Don't forget to max out Imp Thunder Clap and open up on that in multi-mob situations. Also, mark the mobs and the kill order. Another thing you can do if the marking fails is to let the person who aggro'd that certain mob die. I know this is cliche but we learn from our mistakes, and for some 10% durability more than once still doesn't work. If you're the tank, take charge and make sure your party knows the kill order. Again, TC, and Demo Shout in the beginning of multi-mob situations works quite nicely. At least for me it does.
duvar wrote:
The problem I have is that on large pulls, there are so many mobs I can't tell what is hitting who. I typically freeze up trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do.
this should never be the case. what instances and how large are the pulls you're talking about? in a 5man instance, you can tank up to 4 targets with tclap, and with the right cc you should be able to take on 7 mob pulls... rogue saps one target, mage sheeps one target, and hunter traps one target, then you kill skull/x/sap/third mark/fourth mark or trap (depending on hunter's skill) then sheep last (always leave sheep for last! sheep is the most reliable cc and if the mage can't keep it on then they're not doing their job right).
after targets are cc'd, use your ranged wep to pull skull over, then make sure there is NO dps until you hit your tclap, and even then dps should start ONLY on the main kill target. mobs will run right by your dps as long as they don't do anything (you're the only one on the threat table after all), but they WILL aggro to your healer if your healer starts healing you before you tclap (this is where more stam, defense and avoidance in general come in handy to give the healer a buffer to start the fight with). dps classes laying off of the dps til you tclap takes some patience on their part, but if your dps can't even do that i suggest you find someone else to fill their slot.
of course, this requires high, focused dps... if your group's dps can't kill the second target before sap comes off (assuming you pulled right after sap was applied), then you're in for a bit more trouble.
your dps classes also need to watch their threat, and they need to know that when they pull a target off of you, all that means is that they are not pacing their dps correctly (not that they're uber dps). case in point: i ran regular SL yesterday with a newly respec'd resto druid, a mage, a hunter and a feral dps druid. everyone was using KTM threat meter except for the mage (she claimed that she had a threat meter, but either omen or ktm would've worked and she was on neither), and she would regularly pull mobs off of me. she accused me of not tanking well enough. well, guess what the dps meter looked like? she came in a distant 3rd to the hunter and the dps druid.
one more thing: learn how to change marks on the fly, if say the hunter trapped a different target than was marked, sheep keeps breaking because you don't have enough space from the trap and another group of mobs to tclap etc.
Edited, Oct 9th 2007 8:49am by fromanthebarbarian
Be stingy with your taunt. You shouldn't have to use one at the beginning of a fight. As has been said, a thunderclap on the group should grab temp aggro, then you just need to solidify aggro on the FF target, while tossing out an occasional Dem shout and another thunderclap.
Save your taunt for when your healer rips aggro, and remember taunt doesn't cause threat, it just changes the mob's attack focus. You'll still need to establish threat, the taunt just buys you 6 seconds to do it in.
Save your taunt for when your healer rips aggro, and remember taunt doesn't cause threat, it just changes the mob's attack focus. You'll still need to establish threat, the taunt just buys you 6 seconds to do it in.
Grollog wrote:
and remember taunt doesn't cause threat, it just changes the mob's attack focus. You'll still need to establish threat, the taunt just buys you 6 seconds to do it in.
Is this right? The guide I read on tankspot.com says that Taunt brings your current aggro level equal to the maximum aggro level of anyone in the group.
To the above poster that asked what instances I'm doing and mentioned various ways of crowd control, the situation arose most recently in Gnomeregan where we had some 8 or 9 mob pulls. We also didn't have a mage, so no sheeping, and Sap I've found to be unreliable at best, since mobs always seem to see you through Stealth, especially in a large group like that where you're bound to be in front of at least 1 mob. Maybe Stealth/Sap gets better later on.
To the other above poster that mentioned Intervene, I still have 35 levels to go :(
Edited, Oct 9th 2007 12:00pm by duvar
Yeah, Taunt puts at an equal amount to the mob's target and gives you 3 seconds where the mobs focuses on you. So, if you don't out-threat the other person in those 3 seconds, the mob will go back to your party member.
My understanding of Taunt is that it does two things. First, it puts you at an equal level of hate with the person at the top of the MOB's hate list. Second, it puts a three second debuff on the MOB which makes it concentrate on you only for that time.
After a Taunt, in order for someone to "pull" the MOB off you, they need to generate an equal amount of hate plus 10% for melee or plus 30% for ranged. The MOB does not automatically go back to the original party member unless that person went ahead and generated enough hate to outdistance you again - by the 10 or 30% respectively. And in no event will it go back until after the three second debuff expires.
I should also mention that there seems to be at least one person writing on WoWWiki that taunt sets your hate to 110% of the person at the top of the MOB's hate list, which would seem to be an inference drawn from the 10% rule mentioned above for melee. i.e., putting you at an equal amount seems to violate the 10% rule since you would normally need 110% to pull a MOB off another (without using Taunt). I have not read that anywhere else.
After a Taunt, in order for someone to "pull" the MOB off you, they need to generate an equal amount of hate plus 10% for melee or plus 30% for ranged. The MOB does not automatically go back to the original party member unless that person went ahead and generated enough hate to outdistance you again - by the 10 or 30% respectively. And in no event will it go back until after the three second debuff expires.
I should also mention that there seems to be at least one person writing on WoWWiki that taunt sets your hate to 110% of the person at the top of the MOB's hate list, which would seem to be an inference drawn from the 10% rule mentioned above for melee. i.e., putting you at an equal amount seems to violate the 10% rule since you would normally need 110% to pull a MOB off another (without using Taunt). I have not read that anywhere else.
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Hermann Goering, April 1946.
Hermann Goering, April 1946.
duvar wrote:
To the above poster that asked what instances I'm doing and mentioned various ways of crowd control, the situation arose most recently in Gnomeregan where we had some 8 or 9 mob pulls. We also didn't have a mage, so no sheeping, and Sap I've found to be unreliable at best, since mobs always seem to see you through Stealth, especially in a large group like that where you're bound to be in front of at least 1 mob. Maybe Stealth/Sap gets better later on.
To the other above poster that mentioned Intervene, I still have 35 levels to go :(
Edited, Oct 9th 2007 12:00pm by duvar
To the other above poster that mentioned Intervene, I still have 35 levels to go :(
Edited, Oct 9th 2007 12:00pm by duvar
there's your first problem, you're running gnomer, everyone i know avoided it like the plague ^^
in all seriousness, my advice holds true for the most part. it really sounds like it was not your fault, but rather lack of controlled dps, lack of skill at cc and lack of cc (you can't go without sheep unless you have high dps to burn down saps or hunters who can chain trap). stealth does get better later on, with being less detectable, being able to move more quickly and distract (solid snake-ish ability where the rogue throws a diversion to make all the mobs look in one direction before he saps a mob). stealth is also reliant on the rogue's level compared to the mobs.... higher level mobs will be able to see through stealth more easily. it is also my understanding that some mobs in gnomer can see through stealth and you need to burn those down first.
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