It is very true that with more hits you will create more threat.
Let's take your 9% miss rate and look at it this way.
1 out of every 10 attacks is missing, on average. Could happen 4 in a row or 1 at a time. But at the same time unless you are in a rage starved encounter from being either overgeared for the instance or undergeared for crit, then you have several avenues to take when you miss
Say you miss on a Mangle, ok, well i'm going to make sure I have FFF (which I usually pull with) and Demoralizing howl up. Small threat I know, but some is better than none. I'm also going to
1) swipe if it won't break CC, which most times the way I face the mobs away from the CC I don't have a problem doing, or
2) I'm going to Maul. Now maybe Maul will take up the rest of my rage, but then I could always power shift if I had to, to get rage back up, but for me, 9 times out of 10, that maul + FFF + demoralizing howl is going to be enough threat for my DPS to at least get started and I can wait for rage to come back.
EDIT: I don't recommend power shifting with 3+ mobs on you, just saying it's a last ditch effort if everything is going to ****
(also I have noticed that swipe crits A LOT so when I'm low on rage I sometimes spam it 2-3 times to get extra rage)
(NOTE: I don't have Lacerate yet, but that would also be another avenue to take for keeping that aggro on you)
Now say both my mangle and my maul miss... well my swipe took in the other mobs because very rarely are all of them going to miss at the same time. So now I just have to worry about the one mob that it missed twice on.(presumably the Skull/First kill)
Since I tank with my back to the CC so that the mobs have to actually turn around to run to my party mates, I will know when one loses aggro(plus omen :-) ) and I will Taunt.
So basically unless EVERYTHING goes wrong then I shouldn't have any problem keeping aggro, even with my 9% miss rate. If you are not generating enough threat to hold 3 mobs at all times for a group 2-3 levels higher than you, then it gets into threat rotations and such.
It's a skill in the making and I have been tanking pretty much every instance from 19-63 with the exception of healing from time to time to show off feral "hybridness".
I know you said that you had planned on going Resto, but decided to try to fill the Offtank role for your guild. Does that mean that you had experience tanking runs previously on your way to 70? Or did you stay DPS/kitty form for the leveling and not really tank? I have found it's making a huge difference when I get to the more complex pulls of the OL that I had a lot of practice in DM, SM, ZF, Sunken Temple etc.. on my way to the OL.
Oh and let that dipsh*t mage die. He should know to watch his Omen if he's such a leet damage dealer and know that if the Threat doesn't spike for you, that you missed or had your attack dodged/parried. Taunt if you like the guy, if not, let him freeze it, which he will, and run away before you go and taunt it off him.
I had a group who watched me get my mangle dodged twice and my maul miss once before I got a clean hit on skull and just stood there and watched and waited. Course it was a guildy run heheh.
In the end, that 9% is not such a huge deal and mostly you only notice that you miss at all when you get that rare 2-4 misses/dodges/parries in a row. Most groups are going to understand if that happens and they pull aggro, especially when they see you running around like an idiot trying to get aggro back off everyone.
(Barkskin + tranquility = Instant super aggro)
Edited, Apr 19th 2008 2:17pm by Galenmoon