Threat Metre, required or not?Follow

I have only recently started tanking, and thanks to Losie's excellent trhread I am on the way to uncrishable, so I haven't done a raid or heroic yet, but soon hopefully :)

I don't have a threat metre, no one in my usual band of instance runners does. There is a view (some hold it more than others) that all these add ons detract from the game. I do have sosmos, but most of the add ons turned off, I like the co-ords and a few other small things.

Reading a little about the upcoming changes such as hand of salvation, it looks almost like a threat metre is mandatory to being a paladin tank now. Are Bliz forcing us down this route? Should they not build in some of this functionality into the game?

I hope I make sense and I'm not just jabbering on...

thanks.

Absolutely. If a tank doesnt have a threat meter, he doesn't show up on my meter (as DPS) and as such I have no idea where the "aggro threshhold" is. Even if you yourself dont need to use it, your raid/party needs to know how much threat you're utting out.

And I agree it should be built into the game, a damage meter is optional, a threat meter is not.

Omen is the best IMO. It also excepts data from KTM. Those 2 are the most common. And yes, people who don't have it installed won't show up, but frankly anyone without it deserves a high repair bill anyway. I'm fairly addon-lite, but I wouldnt even consider raiding without it.

All threat meters require that other players have a compatible meter in order for you to see their threat. If they don't have it, only your threat will show up on the meter.

If you and your guild want to get into raiding and make any progress at all, you have to be willing to use certain mods. It saves time, frustration, and repair bills. You can slug through Kara at a rate of about one boss a night, or you and your dps can get a threat meter and not die on trash pulls. Mods like Omen and DBM are considered as essentially as using vent. And you will have to use vent.

The comment "addons detract from the game" never made sense to me. How can something added on possible result in a detraction? It's an addition. It makes **** easier.

i personaly liked diamond it shows people even if they dont have a threat meter. single target and aoe targets.

The difference is, buying gold is discouraged by Blizzard. They will go after and ban people for doing it. However addons are not only allowed, they are encouraged. It seems they design their encounters with the idea that no one could do this unless they had addons that can help them. If you had to use the default windows and everything for raids, it would be much much harder.

Correct, they've confirmed they balance encounters around players having addons, not the default UI. =p

this is an ideal that i dont share and i would bet not many do anymore. the role playing aspect of the game kinda went out the door from day 1 of WoW. i couldn't imagine a medievil warrior who can see his own *** while running or is able to communicate among 4 separate cities on 2 worlds. if you want to be alone and view the world from someone else's eyes, go play the original Wolfenstein.

with the immersion of an entire community of people and a game with an entire world, you need to take a shortcut or two to enjoy it all. we all look back to our 1st toon and remember the learning curve from level 1. i /cry at those who start the game and turn off the tutorial.

addons and the like are just more aspects of the game. in fact, over the patches Blizzard has taken most of the addons and embedded them into their game.