Minor inconvience while tanking...Follow

Recently I have been losing aggro more often in parties. I am currently running around with almost the best pre-kara gear available. Got my +Def where it should be. My dodge is a bit low, but pop my Badge of Tenacity and/or Adamantite Figurine and no worries.

I don't have alot of +hit yet, and will be working on that, but do you guys have any other ideas?? With decent healing (in a good pug), I could usually hold aggro on at least 3 mobs at a time. Now it seems like any more than 2 is asking for trouble.

It keeps me on my toes, but the better gear is supposed to help you relax a bit instead of running around all over the place chasing the mage,hunter,lock, etc.

Then again maybe I noticed it more today cause I was PUG-ing with a bunch of idiots.

What attacks are you using? Check out Jasica's tanking guide for the best threat generation tactics.

Ask the group to give you a few seconds to agro before they join in, but you'll have to keep asking. Even guildmates seem to forget about that.

Edited, Nov 20th 2007 11:26am by Zalophus

If your tanking skills aren't the culprit (someone's already linked a guide to check out), downgrade your mitigation gear. Switch it out a few items for dps gear. The threat from your higher damage and the extra rage you get from taking more damage should help. High end tanking armor can simply be too good at mitigating damage. I do this semi-regularly with pickup groups.

Important edit: The tanking guide linked above is crap. Unless you have an excess of rage, do not use Maul for aggro. Maul takes the place of a rage-generating white attack. Mauling when you're rage starved is like drinking brine when you're thirsty. Use your abilities that aren't tied to white damage. Lacerate is great, smash Mangle whenever you can, Swipe is can be especially cheap with crits against multple targets, and Faerie Fire is a small but completely rage-free source of threat on a modest cooldown. Bottom line: Maul is for rage dumping and to lock aggro after growling. That's it.

Edited, Dec 4th 2007 3:41am by Dagis

If I have Growl up, I have no reason to FC a runaway. (See my comment for Growl + Maul.) If Growl is down, I question why that is.

I think Maul is ok. I love Maul crits; they give me a warm fuzzy feeling that says, "go ahead and take a 30 second nap; he's not going anywhere for a while." Still, since TBC we've been given two very nice instants so that druids no longer rely on a rage sucking ability like Maul. It's about opportunity cost. Maul costs 12 rage + whatever your white damage would have generated (and because Maul only adds static damage, it does not scale as well as it could), it's damage is - whatever your white hit would have been for(scaling, again), and its aggro generation has to beat white hit +Lacerate/Mangle (and the white hit would have helped pay for Lacerate/Mangle). It's an EXPENSIVE and INEFFICIENT ability that should only be used when you can afford to use it, or when you can't afford not to.


Edited, Dec 4th 2007 4:11am by Dagis

"By "up" do you mean 'not on cooldown and available for use'?"

Yep, exactly so.

The Feral Charge thing... when I tank, I'm **** to say the least. The seconds wasted waiting to charge and then repositioning again annoy me. I'm personally a lot happier if I can catch the mob in range with Growl rather than run about with a mob on the loose.

Sorry to sound like a jerk.

I agree with the "repositioning is a PITA" part, but I'm not that hellbent on not using FC. The only thing I dislike about it is the usage of Rage I could put to better use. (Which also makes me wonder why some Druids start tanking by shifting and FC the first mob. It doesn't even do more threat or damage, but consumes what little free rage Furor gives ya.)

Anyhow, the way I see it:
Growl: 1-5 yards.
Feral Charge: 8-25 yards.

Growl if you can, Feral Charge if it's gotten out of range. ;)