Lastar wrote:
I know this might we a little off track for this post, but I seem to have problems with DPS not giving me the time I need to generate threat. Last night I tanked HoL (reg) twice so that a fury Warrior guildie could gear up for Heroics. There were times he would be on the mobs before me after using FFF to pull. I'm still new to tanking so, any suggestions?
That's why I have a reputation as "hardass but good". If people are stupid that way, I yell at them. If they do it again I let them die. People forget that aggro is not instant. It's fast, but not instant.
As for tanking mobs,
Threat Meters and You The game now has built in threat meters. When you turn health bars on, they will have an aura equivalent to your threat. In level of desirability:
Red -- you have aggro solidly, dps on this mob sees no aura
Orange -- someone is close to you on threat. Whoever it is sees a yellow aura.
Yellow -- You are close to the current target's threat. When tanking this means you should threat-bomb that target to snap it to you.
No aura -- the mob is attacking someone else. That party member will have a red aura around their party frame. Target the mob and taunt ASAP. Once you get used to reading the bars this is surprisingly easy to spot.
The auras are easy to read at a glance once you get used to them.
Tanking different numbers of enemies: 1 mob: as has been said, mangle while keeping lacerate up and Maul at all times you don't need rage (most of the time once the fight gets going). If you need a rage dump while Mangle is on cooldown spam more Lacerate.
2 mobs: As one mob if you have the Maul glyph (and this is pretty much a MUST GET glyph for bears). Replace ragedump lacerates with swipes. You should hold both fine assuming the dps is following your main target. Incidentals like blade flurry and AoE are no match.
3 mobs: Berserk (used as a bonus on 1 or 2) owns here. It's a short cooldown so don't be afraid to use it. Spam mangles and Maul, and I guarantee at least one mob will be dead when Berserk ends, and the other two will be stapled to you.
More: I don't have the same results as others with Swipe, it can't hold up to AoE spam in my groups. Here I'll use swipe, a challenging roar when the first mob turns away, Maul, Berserk, and anything I lose results in a yell at the dps to watch their damn threat meters. Those things are built in now, there's ZERO excuse.
Knockback attacks: I hate these. Sometimes they pull aggro easily (since you're at range now, reduced threat). Ranged attackers stay out there, and everything's scattered out of range of swipe, mangle or berserk. We like enemies clustered, and Shamans Mages and other Druids can foul that up. These spells have uses, Druids for example get a spell interrupt and instant-cast AoE. The problem is when someone uses them without thinking, or just because he can, especially the Shaman and Mage ones, which are caster-centered. Typhoon tends more towards punting everyone the same way.
Don't be afraid to speak up if someone's causing issues. My brother's a Boomkin a lot of the time, and while he understood my issues he still had a lot of trouble registering at the moment whether to use Typhoon or not. A stint of him as feral in a pug with another Druid did more good than weeks of discussion, and now I may not force him to get the glyph next patch (lowers cost but removes knockback, or as I call it, "win-win").
Edited, Jan 2nd 2009 12:04pm by selebrin