A few words on Vigilance from a paladin tankFollow

This could easily degrade into a rant because the urge to rant is what prompted me to make this post, so let me preface by saying I'm not leveling accusations at a class/spec in general.

Vigilance is an awesome tanking tool that was given to Protection warriors. It brings them on par with a paladin's Righteous Defense and in certain circumstances can be way better. An attentive warrior throwing Vigilance on a healer can avert a wipe. A savvy warrior putting Vigilance on a high dps party/raid member can not only boost the maximum dps potential of that player, but can benefit a bit in their own threat generation every time the dps damages a target.

In certain situations, putting Vigilance on another tank in a raid can be a brilliant strategy. Warrior tanking whelps/elementals in OS, slimes during the Grobbulus fight, or any other situation where a warrior might be required to pick up multiple mobs from a variety of places on the game field make Vigilance a neat ability to have access to. A pair of warrior tanks in a raid putting Vigilance on each other is an awesome way to ensure that no mob strays for more than a second or two at any time.

Here's the kicker, however: Vigilance on another tank is a debuff on that tank, so it stands to reason that it should be used selectively and in cooperation with that tank. Putting Vigilance on another tank in a raid without mentioning it to them is poor, poor etiquette. Putting Vigilance on another tank in a raid and then using it as part of an overall strategy to flex your e-peen and taunt a whole group of mobs onto you while the other tank stands there wondering wtf happened is weak. Very weak.

Apparently, there are a lot of warriors in raids these days that see it as their entitlement to put Vigilance on whomever they want whenever they want because hey, why not? The trouble is that Vigilance, while a benefit in some situations, is not more than a crutch in others. If you're a protection warrior and can't for the life of you figure out how you would manage without Vigilance on another tank at all times, I'd like to respectfully suggest you read a bit more about protection warriors, their roles in groups, and how to best go about filling those roles. Right now, Naxx is pretty cake-like in terms of potential tank threat vs. threat generated by your run of the mill dps class. We don't know what we're going to find in Ulduar, so it makes sense that nobody...regardless of class or spec...become too accustomed to abusing certain abilities as crutches.

/agree

As an aside, does anyone know if the damage reduction from Vigilance works in pvp. In BGs I always throw it onto a random party member, thinking that they might get a little damage reduction, but I don't actually know if it does. Can anyone confirm/deny this?

Yes, in most cases it SHOULD be on your highest DPS, or in cases of very close DPS, one that does not have a threat drop (read: fury warrior). However, there are situational uses where it is useful on other tanks. Patch is a good example of this. There is no possible way DPS is going to pull threat unless your tanks are fundamentally retarded. A vigilance on an OT really only comes out to 1% damage reduction when all is said and done, but it is STILL a reduction that you may as well have. A warrior tanking adds on Sarth 3D should be putting vigilance on the Sarth tank because threat is not a consideration and it provides them with endless taunts for adds. Though it isn't an issue now because the DPS is there to simply burn them before marks stack, even in 10 man, when I did Naxx10 for the first time my OT and I would Vigilance each other to ensure that a resisted taunt didn't cause problems, as it would be instantly refreshed. Just like every other ability, it has a time and place to be used.

This thread is still pointless however, and is akin to me going over to the Paladin boards and making a post about paladin tanks getting butt sore when I out TPS them on trash and use their multi-mob taunt on me. Bad players will continue to be bad, it's not news. It didn't require this rant, and I sincerely doubt any of us really care. This post has as much relevance as someone ******** about their bad PUG experience. If you don't want the Vigilance on you, click the damn thing off like I do when I have bad tanks in 10s I PUG put it on me at the wrong time. I will say once more, as I did originally..

Cool story, bro.

You're usually better putting it on a Mage or similar; high DPS caster without passive threat reduction, at least in terms of "what will boost my personal threat the most". Hunters work too.

And yes, it's actually a good idea to put it on other tanks in Patchwerk, especially if you don't have BoSanctuary handy.

Does the DR from Vigilance stack with the DR from BoSanc? I recall reading somewhere that it doesn't. If the pally you're putting Vigilance on is OK with it, by all means put it on.

We had a warrior in our guild who transferred off realm for a couple of months after WotLK to join a top 100 US guild to push the envelope with his skill set and see how things are done in a high performing guild. In his first raid, he put Vigilance on a pally tank...the pally's response was along the lines of, "wtf makes you think I need 10% less threat?" The warrior was almost booted from the raid/guild on his first night for debuffing a raid member without telling them.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to reduce the threat of a tank when you could be reducing the threat of a dps. If you don't reduce the threat of another tank, you're less likely to need infinite taunts.

It's situational. I agree that it's never a bad thing to have more threat as an OT...what I disagree with is the idea that there's no harm in taking that extra threat from another tank. Tanks want to build threat as quickly as possible. Dps do not. Vigilance on another tank (unless it's another warrior who can have Vigilance on you) does not serve that goal. Vigilance on the dps does.

I agree you shouldn't just drop Vigilance on another tank just so that you can endlessly taunt mobs off of them and prove what a "great tank" you are.

In practice, Vigilance is probably underutilized though, and there are a lot of situations it "could" be very useful for.

My Mage ADORES Vigilance. It is extremely rare for me to get out-DpSed in a Heroic (Did 9K DpS on a boss last night, overall, which was awesome--gotta love extremely lucky crits). But, while my single-target threat only produces 85% Threat (could be 70%), and I do have a threat drop and a threat-extender (for lack of a better word), both are often useless on Trash because A. I'll die before Invis even goes off usually or B. I'm completely wasting an awesome CD.

The unfortunate part is that all my AoE does 1x threat. And I can put out a looooot of it. Vigilance has, quite literally, saved my life quite a few times, either from the reduction or preventing me pulling threat in the first place.

I love putting it on a Ret Paladin.

When they pull aggro through their passive 30% threat modifier, their 20% Hand of Salvation and Vigilance's 10%, I can laugh them in the face as they eat dirt, without feeling the slightest bit guilty.

Out of curiosity, has Flotprot actually posted in any threads that he hasn't brought back from the dead?