I was asked to MT Slave Pens last nite. Now, I am admittedly the WORST tank ever. I advised the group of this, but they were desperate (clearly).

I asked a fellow druid and an awesome tank to give me some quick tips before running the instance. I have a heck of a time getting aggro back if the mob moves away from me. He told me to use taunt.

Cool. I looked for Taunt. I don't have it.....anywhere. I have trained for absolutely everything and have gone back to my trainer to make certain of it. But Taunt is nowhere to be found in my spellbook or abilities.

Am I looking for something that doesn't exist? Is he really referring to "Growl" and he just calls it Taunt? Or do I have a serious glitch that would explaing my tanking issues???

Yep that is Growl. The same ability is called Taunt with Warriors.

Yeap what Abes said.

Only time I use Growl is when a healer or a dps pulls aggro I click on the target, if in range hit growl if out of range Feral Charge, growl. This will match you to the top of the aggro list for that mob, tap it a few times to go over so it stays on you then return to the main target.

Now if you do have to tank and find that mobs run behind you a lot a great trick is when you pull multi targets is to turn so you are facing the group. This way it is easier to see those runners.

Group.........Mobs......You <----facing that way

If you do this just make sure you are ina safe area, meaning backnig up don't draw aggro, knock backs etc and you are not in the path of a wondering mob.

Last note... usually use this as the Oh chit button when to many draw aggro..meaning more then one mob is pulled away from you..Challenging Roar is an AoE Taunt, just make sure to switch off main target and build up aggro/threat on them, have found by popping my trinkets during this and swiping like mad works like a charm.

I agree with that swiping part, i don't know why but when i keep hitting swipe as much as i can until my finger is gonna break the aggro is always on me :D i can even pull stuff off of warriors sometimes. :D (Not by only using swipe though :biggrin:)

(I'm on holiday at the moment and i can't access WoW on my laptop!!! :Eyecrazy: )

(Edit: Sorry, I don't realise how often i use that smiley green face :D)

A "taunt" is a low damage (often zero damage) ability used by tanking classes to keep mobs attacking them instead of the dps/heals.

They are rarely called "taunt." Droods as you have discovered call their single-target taunt Growl. Pallys call their taunt Righteous Defense.

I just want to make sure this is clear- Growl doesn't do damage or generate threat on its own. It raises your threat level to the top of the target's aggro table. So if you are already on top, hitting Growl will do you no good whatsoever, and will put the ability on cooldown so you may not be able to use it if you do need it.

Also, I try really hard to spam some kind of damage dealing ability (Lacerate, Swipe, preferably Mangle) right after I hit Growl to raise my threat above the toon I just took aggro from. If you don't and that toon has a DoT or a HoT ticking, or does any further damage to the target, they will just take aggro right back from you and your Growl has been wasted.

There's nothing I hate more than trying to take aggro off my healer when I'm rage-starved and Growl is on cooldown.

I just want to make sure this is clear- Growl doesn't do damage or generate threat on its own. It raises your threat level to the top of the target's aggro table. So if you are already on top, hitting Growl will do you no good whatsoever, and will put the ability on cooldown so you may not be able to use it if you do need it.

Also, I try really hard to spam some kind of damage dealing ability (Lacerate, Swipe, preferably Mangle) right after I hit Growl to raise my threat above the toon I just took aggro from. If you don't and that toon has a DoT or a HoT ticking, or does any further damage to the target, they will just take aggro right back from you and your Growl has been wasted.

There's nothing I hate more than trying to take aggro off my healer when I'm rage-starved and Growl is on cooldown. This is very true.

Tanking is an art form and it's kinda sad OP hasn't done any till levelcap. It's an exciting and important part of a group.

The job of the tank is keeping aggro. You do this not just by causing damage, because the DPS classes can and will out-DPS you, but by causing threat.

Bears and prot wars/pallies have a list of relatively low-damage/high-threat spells. Wars stack sunders, for instance. And since mobs hate to be debuffed, Demoralizing Roar can take aggro off your teammates just as good as any taunt! Thunder clap also debuffs, and damages, and these cause magnified threat too.

Taunts like Growl and Righteous Defense do not work this way. They artificially put the Bear/Paladin at the very top of the mobs' hate list, and only for a few seconds. If the mage that grabbed aggro does not stop casting, it's entirely possible - even likely - after the effect of Growl wears off (it only lasts a few seconds), the mob will go right back to attacking the mage.

Taunts are snap-aggro grabbing abilities. Emergency situations. It's okay to use them now and again, but their use very often is indicative of an inexperienced tank and/or disfunctional group.

Taunts are snap-aggro grabbing abilities. Emergency situations. It's okay to use them now and again, but their use very often is indicative of an inexperienced tank and/or disfunctional group.

Oh, but Taunt has other uses as well.

In a raid group, two tanks can play "aggro ping-pong". First tank builds threat for, say, 15 seconds. Second tank does nothing in that time but build up rage. After the 15 seconds he taunts and uses his full rage bar. Now the first tank only builds up rage and taunts the mob back again when his rage is full. And so on.

This method generates threat faster than any one tank can ever do. Of course it requires a tauntable mob, but there are several boss encounters where this method works.

Oh, but Taunt has other uses as well.

In a raid group, two tanks can play "aggro ping-pong". First tank builds threat for, say, 15 seconds. Second tank does nothing in that time but build up rage. After the 15 seconds he taunts and uses his full rage bar. Now the first tank only builds up rage and taunts the mob back again when his rage is full. And so on.

This method generates threat faster than any one tank can ever do. Of course it requires a tauntable mob, but there are several boss encounters where this method works. I haven't main tanked in raids. XD ty for the info. :)

In a raid group, two tanks can play "aggro ping-pong". First tank builds threat for, say, 15 seconds. Second tank does nothing in that time but build up rage.

Not sure about really doing nothing ...
When I OT Gruul I do my hardest to fight for threat against our Pally MT. SO right from the start I do the usual routine on trying to gain aggro ... By doing this it ensures that I am always below the MT and above the rest of the raid.

That is a completely different situation. Especially because Gruul is immune to Taunt :)
Above method is used for DPS-encounters where the damage of your raid is limited by your tanks' threat.

And since mobs hate to be debuffed, Demoralizing Roar can take aggro off your teammates just as good as any taunt! Thunder clap also debuffs, and damages, and these cause magnified threat too.

This is a little misleading. AOE shouts like demoralising roar and demoralising shout and thunderclap all apply a fixed (and relatively small) amount of aggro from each affected mob. The mechanic in terms of aggro from these is completely different to that of taunts (see below).


Taunts like Growl and Righteous Defense do not work this way. They artificially put the Bear/Paladin at the very top of the mobs' hate list, and only for a few seconds. If the mage that grabbed aggro does not stop casting, it's entirely possible - even likely - after the effect of Growl wears off (it only lasts a few seconds), the mob will go right back to attacking the mage.

This is also a bit misleading. Although it's true taunt effects do force a mob to attack the tank for a few seconds, the aggro points that you "gain" from taunting a mob don't magically disappear when the taunt debuff wears off.

Lets take an example here to show, in detail, how taunt effects and aggro are related to each other.

1.Suppose me and a friend are fighting a mob, but we have stopped attacking for the benefit of this experiment.
The friend has 20k aggro on the mob, I have 10k. Neither of us are doing damage to it, it's currently attacking my friend as his aggro is higher than mine.

Me: 10k aggro
Friend: 20k aggro
Mob: Attacking Friend



2. I walk over, and use Growl on the mob. Growl is a taunt ability, using the taunt mechanic. This sets my aggro to 20k - because that is the aggro my friend has. The mob also turns to attack me.

Me: 20k aggro
Friend: 20k aggro
Mob: Attacking Me



3. So seconds pass and we're now both at 20k. The mob continues to attack me. If my friend starts attacking again, he'll go over 20k and after a (i think 10%?) threshold, at 22k aggro, the mob will turn around and start attacking him again.

Me: 20k aggro
Friend: 25k aggro
Mob: Attacking Friend



4. Suppose my friend now has a total of 25k aggro, and I'm still sitting on his old value of 20k.
If I go over and taunt the mob again, my aggro will go up to 25k. Now I hit the mob, and go above 25k, and my friend can then continue to dps the mob down without pulling aggro, provided he stays at equal or lower threat-per-second than me. If I'd just started spamming mangle and maul and lacerate before using taunt, my aggro would go up from 20k, to 21k, 22k, 23k, etc... whereas by using taunt first I'm immedietely level with the top person - at 25k. Then mangle, maul is 26k, 27k, 28k... etc.

Me: 28k+ aggro
Friend: 27k+ aggro
Mob: Attacking Me



I hope this all makes sense. The lesson we learn from this is that if a mob has significantly more aggro on say, an overenthusiastic mage, it's better to taunt first, and then use your other abilities (maul, lacerate, etc).


-Annikk

Very nice written.

The threshold value used by the game is 110% when in melee range and 130% otherwise. Using above example:

Me: 20k
Friend: 20k
Mob: Attacking Me

Now I do nothing and my friend starts doing damage.
If he is outside melee range, the mob will keep attacking me until my friend is at 26k threat.

A good way to check out all that is to to grab a buddy of yours and go to the Blasted Lands. There are a few mobs that you can hit for hours on end without them dying (but they take damage). Use Omen or KTM and start playing around. See what happens when you taunt, at which threshold the mob changes its target, etc

As Abies says, one of the very best ways of gaining an understanding of threat mechanics is to get a threatmeter addon like KTM or Omen. Then it's displayed in a nice little color-coded table on your UI, and you can watch exactly what happens when you use certain abilities.

For example, when I first got a threatmeter, I noticed that sometimes I was cowering too early, and wasting some of the deaggro. It was also what helped me to finally "click" on what taunt (or growl) actually does.


-Annikk

As Abies says, one of the very best ways of gaining an understanding of threat mechanics is to get a threatmeter addon like KTM or Omen. I thought that everyone in the party/raid had to have the same threatmeter installed and running for those numbers to be in any way accurate.

Nope, KTM and Omen are interoperable. Other threatmeters probably are too. A "standard", of sorts, seems to be emerging...


-Annikk

This sort of **** should be standard with the game. We shouldn't need add-ons for game functionality. Look and style, sure.

The problem is that there are thousands of different "functional" addons out there, when we use them regularly we start to view them as essential. But including all that functionality in the default UI means greater CPU/memory load and slower gaming for people with mere mortal PCs. It's simply too complex to integrate everything.

Prior to TBC we cleared MC, AQ, BWL, Nax, etc, without any kind of threatmeter :> Didn't stop us from pwning...


Anyway, bliz do sometimes pick the really good addons and integrate them into the default UI. Look at CTRA, for example; many features available in CTRA are now available in the ingame UI, such as raid windows, ready checks, MT windows and MA windows, etc. Also consider scrolling combat text - once only an addon, now built into the UI itself. And then there's teamspeak....


The list goes on. :>

I agree with you though, it would be nice to have an inbuilt threatmeter. Perhaps Bliz will fix that up next...



-Annikk

I can't find where I read it, but I know I've read somewhere that Blizz is looking to open up the internal Threat mechanics in WotLK so mods can access the actual values, rather than trying to track it from combat logs.

I'd love to see an accurate built-in threat/aggro indicator - especially since I'm usually tank or healer for my 4man group of friends, and none of them have any threat meter. <sigh>

It would help quite a bit with pug groups. And casual guilds.

I don't really see a reason for keeping it hidden in the first place, to be honest...


-Annikk

Keeping it hidden just makes it so people have to be more aware of the amount of damage they do in any period of time.

Keeping it hidden just makes it so people have to be more aware of the amount of damage they do in any period of time. By damage you mean threat. And no-one on this planet can crunch those numbers in their head fast enough for live calculations. So you end up guessing, which is vastly inferior to seeing a live bar graph comparison.

Noobs have enough problems grasping the fundamental concepts of threat, let alone being expected to calculate their damage and threat modifiers and compare them to those of the tank. It would make running instances alot easier if you could tell noobs to look at their threatmeter and make sure they're below the tank, rather than "when the boss stops hitting me, and starts running at you, stop spamming nukes."