I have leveled to 70 mostly without tanking many instances. A guild mate is saying I am not generating enough threat in comparison to other tanks he runs with. I can hold a single mob or boss without any problems but 2 or more seems to be the issue. I can TAB between them hitting them and using swipe but do not seem to generate the threat to hold them.
I have reached the 419 defense mark and have 21k Armor and 13k Health when self-buffed w/ MotW. I also have farmed and purchased mats needed for:
Gloves - Superior Agility +15 Agility
Boots - Dexterity +12 Agility
Cloak - Greater Agility +12 Agility
Bracer - Fortitude +12 Stamina
I know experience (or lack of) is most likely the issue but is there a better method of holding multiple mobs and is there anything in my gear I can do to help with threat?
Any feedback and suggestions are appreciated
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Exodar&n=Beefboy
- Forums
- World of Warcraft
- Class Discussion
- Threat Generation Issues
Threat Generation IssuesFollow
Just some of the basics to get us started on a good question for any druid taking up tanking
Thorns - always have thorns up as it damages them a small amount & generates threat when they hit you :)
Roar - I like to Demo.Roar when i have my 3 to be tanked (be careful not to roar near some CCd mobs as that can break them) and keep Challenging Roar for emergencies to enhance threat from all.
Faerie Fire - does have a small amount of threat to it i believe? and if spec'd for it in Feral Talents costs nothing really :)
Swipe - as you mentioned - nice to keep using this to keep everyone mad at you
Mangle - keep up mangle as much as you can
Any runaways or moving to another of your party - growl at them and if that fails, feral charge them?
Hmm... that should do it i would of thought - make sure your group are all dps'ing on the 'first kill' mob etc and give you a few moments to start gathering threat before they attack (Enrage can help here to get some rage)
Thorns - always have thorns up as it damages them a small amount & generates threat when they hit you :)
Roar - I like to Demo.Roar when i have my 3 to be tanked (be careful not to roar near some CCd mobs as that can break them) and keep Challenging Roar for emergencies to enhance threat from all.
Faerie Fire - does have a small amount of threat to it i believe? and if spec'd for it in Feral Talents costs nothing really :)
Swipe - as you mentioned - nice to keep using this to keep everyone mad at you
Mangle - keep up mangle as much as you can
Any runaways or moving to another of your party - growl at them and if that fails, feral charge them?
Hmm... that should do it i would of thought - make sure your group are all dps'ing on the 'first kill' mob etc and give you a few moments to start gathering threat before they attack (Enrage can help here to get some rage)
I thought Thorns were threatless.
Good advice, though. I suggest using Lacerate once in a while on each target. Eventually you'll have stacked it five times and not only will it generate a lot of threat, you'll also do some damage through the DoT.
Good advice, though. I suggest using Lacerate once in a while on each target. Eventually you'll have stacked it five times and not only will it generate a lot of threat, you'll also do some damage through the DoT.
Please "talk up" if your comprehension white-shifts. I will use simple-happy language-words to help you understand.
As others have suggested thorns is important, your roar should be on your primary target to keep the threat there only use it to pull a mob back to you if it goes after the healer. tabbing through the mobs on you and lacerating them helps to keep them on you as it generates a good amount of aggro and doesn't have a cooldown and uses not so much rage. It just takes time and practice keeping multi's on you as it isn't as easy as with other tanking classes but we are like superglue when it comes to one mob like boss fights.
Good luck and keep working it.
Good luck and keep working it.
mswancott wrote:
I can hold a single mob or boss without any problems but 2 or more seems to be the issue. I can TAB between them hitting them and using swipe but do not seem to generate the threat to hold them.
Beyond holding one mob, where we excel, you shouldn't have too much trouble holding another 2 or even 3 mobs...IF your party is unloading damage on mobs in the designated/marked sequence. Since nobody should be hitting any other mobs you should only be required to out-threat healing aggro on those 2-3 mobs beyond your primary, which a little bit of periodic damage should take care of. When you get into a mess with 5+ mobs, yeah, that's just hard because any errant damage or the AoE threat of healing will attract a mob. Make sure you have your Challenging Roar off cooldown when you anticipate such a mess.
Mazra wrote:
I thought Thorns were threatless.
13 posts
The key to multi-mob tanking for a druid (or any class really) is to make sure that your dps stays on the main target. If you have dps aoeing everywhere, you're going to lose aggro, and there's very little that you can do about it. If your dps only focuses on one target all you need to worry about is beating healing aggro, which should be easy to do.
My usual multi-mob tanking pattern goes something like: faire-fire the first mob, followed by a mangle and maul on the first mob also. Then I lacerate the second mob 1 or 2 times depending on how much damage I am taking and therefore how much healing the healer is doing. After that I keep a mangle-lacerate rotation going on both mobs. Usually by the time the first mob goes down the second mob will have a stack of 3-4 lacerates.
Remember to always keep thorns up at all times. Demo Roar is also good to keep up because it will slightly limit the damage you take and the healer must heal. I only use swipe if I'm sure that I won't break any CC.
If a mob does happen to break away I usualy feral chage followed by a growl and mangle, then return to the main target.
My usual multi-mob tanking pattern goes something like: faire-fire the first mob, followed by a mangle and maul on the first mob also. Then I lacerate the second mob 1 or 2 times depending on how much damage I am taking and therefore how much healing the healer is doing. After that I keep a mangle-lacerate rotation going on both mobs. Usually by the time the first mob goes down the second mob will have a stack of 3-4 lacerates.
Remember to always keep thorns up at all times. Demo Roar is also good to keep up because it will slightly limit the damage you take and the healer must heal. I only use swipe if I'm sure that I won't break any CC.
If a mob does happen to break away I usualy feral chage followed by a growl and mangle, then return to the main target.
7 posts
Thanks for the info. I am wondering now if in fact he DPS'ers are hitting other mobs before i can get enough threat on them. Thanks for the info!
If it's an PUG, then your problem lies with the DPS not waiting. If not, maybe tab-Lacerate mobs and always swipe and keep mangle on the main mob.
Raid mark your targets and turn on party targets in your unit frames. Watch your DPS' target indicators, it's easy to tell when they're not coordinating correctly thanks to the raid markers. If I catch my DPS doing that, they get one warning; after that I won't fight them for it if they can't watch their own aggro, because Swipe can and should hold aggro over the healer on any mobs not being directly DPSed.
If it is the DPS pulling agro on the designated target, then it is mainly their fault, although you increasing threat generation will help.
If it is the DPS pulling agro on mobs other than the designated target then they are idiots and it is 100% their fault.
If it is the healer pulling agro (and they are only healing you) then you need to do some more work, either to generate more threat on the secondary targets or to improve your gear so you need less healing so they are generating less threat.
Depending on just how much you need healing and how much AP you have, in many cases you can hold agro by spamming swipe and throwing in mangles on the main target. If this is not enough, you can try pulling with a starfire on one secondary mob, moonfire another then switch to the main target & mangle, swipe spam. Otherwise, get the DPS to hold off until they see the mangle debuff on the main DPS target. Then mangle each of the other mobs first before mangling the main target and starting the swipe spam.
If it is the DPS pulling agro on mobs other than the designated target then they are idiots and it is 100% their fault.
If it is the healer pulling agro (and they are only healing you) then you need to do some more work, either to generate more threat on the secondary targets or to improve your gear so you need less healing so they are generating less threat.
Depending on just how much you need healing and how much AP you have, in many cases you can hold agro by spamming swipe and throwing in mangles on the main target. If this is not enough, you can try pulling with a starfire on one secondary mob, moonfire another then switch to the main target & mangle, swipe spam. Otherwise, get the DPS to hold off until they see the mangle debuff on the main DPS target. Then mangle each of the other mobs first before mangling the main target and starting the swipe spam.
generally, your mangle should always be on cooldown or about to be on cooldown. you shouldnt use maul unless you have an excess of rage and mangle is already on cooldown while your spamming lacerate. otherwise, you use lacerate whenever you can between mangles, but make sure you have enough rage to use mangle each time its up.
mangle is your biggest single threat move. lacerate is second. maul generates more hate per hit than lacerate does, but it has a much higher cost (15 rage + whatever rage you would have gained on the maul'ed hit).
obviously for multiple mobs you use swipe, and swipe can be tossed in every now and then instead of lacerate if you have 2-3 targets youre trying to keep ahold of. tabbing and lacerating and/or tabbing and mangling on the secondary targets can help a great deal in maintaining aggro above and beyond just swipe spam (which generally isnt enough in the case of higher end stuff like heroics).
on a single target, if youre using mangle every time its up, lacerate most of the rest of the time (interspersed with a roar every 30s or so) with the odd maul thrown in, plus feral faerie fire every chance you can get (its rage-free threat basically, albeit lower threat than a lacerate), and the dps is still pulling aggro, then its not your fault. the dps just needs to learn how to play dps correctly.
the general sequence of moves you should use for single target tanking is:
faerie fire to pull (if applicable)
mangle when target gets to you
demo roar immediately after
lacerate when you have the rage
mangle if you have the rage (otherwise FF if you dont, then mangle when you do)
lacerate again
repeat mangle/lacerate/faerie fire combination while watching rage bar. if rage intake begins to exceed rage output, then add a maul (or couple of mauls) in until you get low on rage again.
for multi-target, its pretty much the same thing, only you start with demo roar first (to gather the mobs) wait for CC (if there is any) then pull the mobs back away from the CC or face things so the CC is behind you, thus letting you swipe without breaking CC. add swipe in place of a few lacerates as needed, and be ready to switch to a side target and mangle or lacerate it should you need the extra threat on that target.
mangle is your biggest single threat move. lacerate is second. maul generates more hate per hit than lacerate does, but it has a much higher cost (15 rage + whatever rage you would have gained on the maul'ed hit).
obviously for multiple mobs you use swipe, and swipe can be tossed in every now and then instead of lacerate if you have 2-3 targets youre trying to keep ahold of. tabbing and lacerating and/or tabbing and mangling on the secondary targets can help a great deal in maintaining aggro above and beyond just swipe spam (which generally isnt enough in the case of higher end stuff like heroics).
on a single target, if youre using mangle every time its up, lacerate most of the rest of the time (interspersed with a roar every 30s or so) with the odd maul thrown in, plus feral faerie fire every chance you can get (its rage-free threat basically, albeit lower threat than a lacerate), and the dps is still pulling aggro, then its not your fault. the dps just needs to learn how to play dps correctly.
the general sequence of moves you should use for single target tanking is:
faerie fire to pull (if applicable)
mangle when target gets to you
demo roar immediately after
lacerate when you have the rage
mangle if you have the rage (otherwise FF if you dont, then mangle when you do)
lacerate again
repeat mangle/lacerate/faerie fire combination while watching rage bar. if rage intake begins to exceed rage output, then add a maul (or couple of mauls) in until you get low on rage again.
for multi-target, its pretty much the same thing, only you start with demo roar first (to gather the mobs) wait for CC (if there is any) then pull the mobs back away from the CC or face things so the CC is behind you, thus letting you swipe without breaking CC. add swipe in place of a few lacerates as needed, and be ready to switch to a side target and mangle or lacerate it should you need the extra threat on that target.
Assuming you're doing your job right (and it sounds like you are), one problem I run into is people being used to tankadins. A Tankadin's Avenger's Shield generates good initial threat on up to 3 mobs, where FFF generates only a very small amount of threat on 1 mob. Especially on longer pulls, over-eager DPS can start damaging a mob before you can even hit it w/ Mangle.
Also, just like with Warriors, Bears need rage to generate threat. With Furor and 3/3 Intensity, you can start almost every pull with 40 rage. If you don't have these, or if Enrage is on CD, DPS will have to wait a few seconds at least so you can get some rage and generate some threat.
When you start going on raids (if you do decide to raid), there are some mobs that are immune to taunts. Your DPS really needs to watch their threat then, because if the mob comes after them, there's nothing you can do to save them.
Edit:
Also, if you don't have it, I highly reccomend getting Omen. It's a threat meter, basicly it tells you how much threat everyone in the party has on a target. For it to work, the other people in the party will need to have Omen, KTM, or another add-on that has a threat library.
Edited, Dec 27th 2007 9:13am by AstarintheDruid
Also, just like with Warriors, Bears need rage to generate threat. With Furor and 3/3 Intensity, you can start almost every pull with 40 rage. If you don't have these, or if Enrage is on CD, DPS will have to wait a few seconds at least so you can get some rage and generate some threat.
When you start going on raids (if you do decide to raid), there are some mobs that are immune to taunts. Your DPS really needs to watch their threat then, because if the mob comes after them, there's nothing you can do to save them.
Edit:
Also, if you don't have it, I highly reccomend getting Omen. It's a threat meter, basicly it tells you how much threat everyone in the party has on a target. For it to work, the other people in the party will need to have Omen, KTM, or another add-on that has a threat library.
Edited, Dec 27th 2007 9:13am by AstarintheDruid
Recent Visitors: 112
All times are in CST
Anonymous Guests (112)
- Forums
- World of Warcraft
- Class Discussion
- Threat Generation Issues
© 2024 Fanbyte LLC