Tanking question - problem with magesFollow

I'm a fairly new to tanking and I was asked to tank H UK last night. My DK is 550 defense and has some ok tanking gear. I asked that dps give me a couple secs to grab aggro. I start off with DnD, diseases up, then pestillence. (in frost presence)

Problem number one, dps only waits till i hit first mob with icy touch, then they open up. Mage pulls aggro right off the bat, I watch mobs run by me for him, then dead mage. I seemed to spend most of my time trying to get mobs to hit me. Used taunt to get them, hit them, death grip them...gah...i wanted to scream.

This went on for the entire run. We wiped on trash constantly, boss fights were fine. This isn't the first time I've had mages pull mobs off me.

My question to you is: as DK tanks, what do you do to get the initial aggro before the mage does? ie how do I get 3-5 mobs to hate me instead of the mage. Especially if the dps doesn't wait at all.

If any of you play mages, what do you suggest?

Thanks in advance.

Edit: my toon is MKNZY on Aegwynn. I think i'm logged out in my tanking gear.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Aegwynn&n=Mknzy

Edited, May 21st 2009 1:27pm by Xenexia

Edited, May 21st 2009 1:31pm by Xenexia

Your gear is the biggest reason they're pulling hate when they're not used to. You're wearing 3 greens and a bunch of sub-level 80 quest rewards or crafted blues. You need to do some regular level 80 dungeons and pick up some level 80 blues or epics or just buy better gear off the AH. Your gear really isn't ready for heroics yet in that even though you may be able to survive the fights, other people are going to outgear you, making your job of tanking all the harder and their job of killing more boring since they have to tone it down so much.

But having said that your group needs to work as a team. If your a fresh level 80 or just new to tanking you should let them know. Lots of people are used to breezing through heroics with fully purpled out tanks. If you've communicated to the group where your at with your gear and people are still dying it's probably because the mages are inexperienced. They can ***** all they want about dying but there's no reason for a caster dps to die while the tank is alive. Use a threat meter.

Despite your gear not being superb, I'd say it was ok for entry level heroics, such as UK.

If you ask the DPS to give you a couple seconds for aggro and they fail to do so, the problem lies with them, not you. They may well have been better geared than you, or used to going with better geared tanks, but that's no excuse. A tank sets the pace for the whole group, anyone who doesnt fall in line with it is in the wrong.

Personally, I'd have let the mage die, warned the group that if they pull a mob off me, I'll assume it's because they want to tank it. You tried asking them nicely, which is the way to do it, but some people won't listen to instructions until it starts to affect their repair costs, it's a learning experience.

That being said, you said it was trash specifically, which makes me think that maybe it's AoE threat you're having issues with. Use Blood Boil in place of BS on multi-target pulls and make sure you try and keep UB up. If you're still having problems, don't forget you don't have to focus on the main DPS target all the time, rotate and spread the aggro.

I don't think you're crazy, as a raid healer I don't heal stupid dps who pull off the tank constantly. I also play multiple dps toons and I've never died to pulling aggro, unless the tank is already dead.

Note: I have blood boil macro'd into pestillence so when that goes off BB goes next. The main target I hit stays with me, it was the other mobs who I didn't really get a change to touch who killed the mage. DnD is nice but mages just seem to put out stupidly insane damage. I also tab target through stuff, a holdover from bear tanking back in TBC days.

A. Let the Mage die--just be sure your threat is second. They need to learn how to delay their start to adjust to the tank.

B. Your gear is fine. You could use some AP, and to lose some Defense for Strength (will lower your Dodge, but increase your AP and Parry).

C. Your talent spec could use some work. 5 points into Bladed Armor would net you 500 AP, which you need right now. Black Ice is, also, a huge boost for Unholy. You should really try to take at least one of these. 2-handed weapon Spec. Wouldn't hurt if you can grab it either. You could lose the point in Virulence--it isn't worth it, imo.

D. As for building snap aggro-- As Unholy, you will want to get your diseases around ASAP and have UB up. Rotate SSs. Hopefully, one target you hit will have his diseases refreshed and you can pest off of him, saving the PS>IT cycle in favor of another SS. If you are having issues, there is DnD.

But, nothing will help you out against a DpS that goes all out. Just let them die, and learn. It sounds bad, but it is as much for their benefit as yours. If they don't figure out to wait for the DpS, they won't be progressing much further--or it'll be harder for them to learn later.

Question Therion:

Why are you taking Garg, but not EP? Although, the rest seems fine to me. I'd lose Garg and 2 points in BA for EP.

Also, on top of the JC ring comment, the JC neck (similar name) is really great too. Both can run you a pretty penny, though, if you don't have mining to get TS Bars on your own. I bought both for about 1.5K G two days ago. I got tired of waiting for my JC to get up there. XD

its not you, its mostly mages. my personal experience has mages being one of the worst, if not *the* worst, class to pug with. worse than rogues and hunters by a large margin; at least the stupid rogues and hunters have a few escape abilities they can use to save their lives. most mages i meet are too slow to use ice block right and too stupid to know that invis drops aggro.

my opinion of mages has been especially low as of late.

Hadronox does NOT like dropping the trinket, trust me, I still haven't seen it after 20+ runs. Expect to spend some time there.

I think all this comes down to is this:



Can't fix stupid.

I have to say that some mages do seem to have threat generation issues. We have a mage in our guild who has specced an unbelieveable amount of spell power onto his gear. He is awesom in the amount of dps he can do. But because of the amount of spell power he has two problems. 1) he out aggroes me on long fights and will eventually pull the boss who will kill him in one shot. 2) he has no survivability so he dies to aoe really fast. I as the tank really worried about how often he died when I MT'd. But now I've come to realise he likes dying. He must do he doesn't change his setup despite the advise of others in the guild. The problem is because he doesn't listen to the tank or the rest of the guild he's turned himself from an exceptionally powerful mage into an mediocre mage because he's always dead.

My point is that if the mage is dealing more threat than you consistently then it's their fault, he's the type that thinks his job is to deal as much damage as possible before he dies. I'm not saying you can't do things differently though.

With my spec I find it's always better to pull mobs through a death and decay. Using Death Grip to yank the first mob to me where I can start building my diseases. By the time the rest of a group of mobs gets to me I'm spreading pestilence which pulls any mobs that took a liking to the squishies instead of me. Then just to make sure, I slam out a blood boil. At this point I've built up enough runic power to bring out the Unholy Blight. If there are any mobs at this stage that aren't focused 100% on me then time to use Death Grip again. So far this routine has never failed for me, and apart from that one mage I never get out aggroed.

Of course I am an unholy tank, and AOE is my bread an butter. And as with all tanks it always pays for the DPS to let us get a couple of spells out first... well it makes things easier for the tanks at least.

yeah that boss can be a pain if people arent with the program. Im not sure if hes immune to the taunting effect of death grip, but he (like most bosses) is immune to the pull effect. And you will still get an immune message.

I cant decide if he or the void boss is harder though.

^ what?!?!?! and take the chance of losing out on the laughs???? Yea I have both a hunter and lock. I must confess, I always forget to turn off intercept on my FG. Pet always has growl off though.