How do you manage agro with 1000+spell dmg?Follow

Im at 800 right now, and in normal instance PUGs I can pull agro off the tank pretty easily. Pretty much my main goal in instances is to attempt to stay below the tank's threat (using Omen).

So my question is how do you keep agro under control with more damage? I have no problem topping the damage charts unless I group with a good mage or hunter, even then it depends on the instance.

Does more damage just help with saving mana since you cant spam SB as much?

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Aerie+Peak&n=Carnus

Find better tanks. It gets easier when you progress past kara, since the crafted FSW won't overgear the rest of your raid. Then your guild will start gearing a "main tank" who will always be better geared then you, since they get top priority on tanking sets, and you're up against 2-6 other casters who want the same drops.

Unbuffed @ 1100 shadow dmg/950 spell damage/202 spell hit, I never have problems with aggro, my tanks are good and I go all out.

basically you watch omen, maybe wait a few more seconds before dpsing with the tanks that generate crappy threat, and be ready to soulshatter. also if you don't have a paladin then you're a bit screwed from the outset :P

p.s. loki it's actually a good idea. alot of guilds that're aiming for fast progression will generally have all tank and healer loot go initially to a MT and MH. with a well geared enough MT and healer(s) it generally won't matter if your dps suffers. remember, it doesn't matter how good your damage is, if your tank can't take/avoid the damage or your healers can't keep up with the damage then you're screwed from the outset.



Edited, Nov 22nd 2007 6:07am by Jenovaomega

a common miss-conception is that destruction generates more threat than afliction, or to be more general. that nuking specs generate more than dot/sustained dps specs. this is completely wrong. if both specs does 100,000 damage. presuming no threat reduction talents/buffs. they'll both have 100,000 threat, even if 1 was destruction and crited every hit while the other was afliction and purely used dots.
in the end they both generate the same threat (presuming they both push out the same dps, though yes. 0/21/40 is the best damage spec for a warlock), it's just simply that afliction locks have more predictable threat while destruction warlocks threat jumps around the board alot, which is only an issue if you start nuking to early on mobs or if you hit 110-120% the tanks threat and you've yet to soulshatter.

they probably don't know a good spell rotation for afliction. demo has been proved countless times to be the worst of the 3 main specs at dps, partly due to the inbuilt issue with pets and bosses + how pets hit/crit/haste currently doesn't scale with our gear either.

and yes, presuming that all specs do the same dps is wrong. but i was simply doing it so as to put my point across about common misconceptions about threat generation.

also the 10% increase in CoA damage isn't actually 10%. it's 10% before +damage is applied, so it works out as like 60-100 damage increase per CoA.... effectively completely useless.

im gonna vote the "find better tank" option here.fully raid buffed and juiced up on pots n food i currently run 1384 shadow damage;and 14% +hit counting suppresion talent.and i find it extremely difficult to pull aggro off my teams Kara/Za main tank(bear tank btw).it can be done no doubt but it take me going full tilt on dps very early in the fight(before tank actually even starts to tank early) and the tank falling asleep at the wheel so to speak.
if the tank is on the ball;and i give em 5-10 secs to build threat/aggro;its nigh impossible to pull off em;even if i pop trinkets and crit SB all the time.

of course i do find it easier to pull aggro off a prot warrior so perhaps its something in the classes that tank that causes this.

-JD

Edited, Nov 24th 2007 8:02am by DirteJoe

I find it very hard to pull aggro from my friends warrior and he is not so good geared as my lock.

If you have to PuG then you have to learn to manage your aggro more carefully than with guildies you can trust.
Pulling aggro is not hard, any trigger happy fire mage can do it even easier than you.
Managing aggro is completely different thing.

If you are saying you will wait few sec before you start shooting, that tells me you dont know much about warriors and tanking. Maybe you could try chatting with a good one and understand the way they function?
I never ever cast even Immo least spam SBs before I see at least 2 sunders on target, even with best tanks.
Understanding other classes helps you play better your own in my opinion.

When it comes to humanoids, demons and elementals (and partially everything else if you can juggle fear) warlocks are extremely good CCers.
What doesnt exclude dealing damage.

I respecced to destro lately, for fun. I am not even geared for it neither I am expert in playing it.
Last time we did SH I was on seduce duty ofc (what I personally hate but meh if I do something I try to do it the best I can), and I topped damage meter both on trash and bosses.

When I play my hunter I top damage meter all the time. And I am usually the main, sometimes the only CC.

Mages have even easier time with sheeping, they can resheep any time they want and dont rely on fragile pet with measle mana pool for it.

So what exactly is the kind of CC you are mentioning that prevents those people you play with to do damage as well?

It seems to me that the problem might not be only the tank or your spell damage bonus.


Edited, Nov 25th 2007 4:25am by Sethy

/clearfocus [modifier:alt]
/focus [target=focus,noexists]; [target=focus,dead]
/clearfocus [target=focus,help]
/petstay
/petfollow
/cast [pet:succubus,target=focus,exists,harm] Seduction; Seduction

She is on passive ofc, I use Dotimer and NECB and I have it hotkeyed on Y.
Soon the timer hits 0 I press Y no matter what am I casting at the main target at that moment.

I pull with CoS and its good enough to keep aggro on me for 1 reseducing. If I have to reseduce more than once aggro usually switch to healer so I guess I should hotkey my Searing Pain again... havent been actually playing that lock for a while apart from farming/fishing plus I respecced so I am in sort of l2p phase again.

'tis quite a complicated macro, try this one imo

/focus [pet:Succubus, harm, modifier:ctrl]
/clearfocus [target=focus, dead]
/petpassive
/cast [pet:Succubus, target=focus, harm]Seduction

the bonus of this one is that if you want to start recasting seduce early, you can just simply by pressing it

I *think* I got mine from WoWWiki like ages ago. Might be worth to try another one though I am fine with the one I have.
Focus and some kind of timer is essential for me really all the rest I can do without.

the difference is 2 fold inop.
firstly it's a shorter macro, so allowing for you to integrate more macros into 1 button using modifier keys for each
and 2ndly, (and correct me if i'm wrong) but last i knew, the /petfollow /petstay commands don't cause your pet to stop what they're currently doing, while /petpassive does. so allowing for my macro to allow you to recast seduce before it breaks. which is useful vs hard hitting mobs where you can cast shadow fury and hit the recharm macro before Sfury hits or you could fear the mob, and then hit the the reseduce macro.
granted, if /petstay and /petfollow do force it to stop it's current actions then tbh, either macro is fine.