Hey guys, FINALLY got Lacerate....I get the hype!

Been practicing my tanking, and it's not all that bad...but with multiple mobs, and some going after my Priest, is there any quick way of targeting them without having to actually break away from my mob?

Kind of gets messy...right now, I give one good swipe at my target, hope he follows me so that I can get to my priest in time to draw his/her aggro off.

Tab lacerate, tab lacerate..repeat :(

What he said.

Every now and then (rage permitting) toss in a Swipe for a *bit* more damage on up to 3 targets.

Ah, Tab - Thank you.

It took me a while to get use to ...
I actually went to SM to practice ... lol

Ya, I practiced in Zul Furrak for some of my guildies. It's not as confusing as I thought it was.

Initially, I found the hardest part about tanking was which number keys to use (I'm not much of a "clicker"). I must have switched them around 5 times before I felt comfortable with my mix. I've been DPS and Healing for so long now, I found that, out of habit, I kept hitting the Number 3 while tanking (which is Mangle and Healing touch for my other forms) So I had to decide, as a bear, what should I assign to the Number 3?

If you type rather than click, Lacerate should be your main button.

It's our best aggro tool.

I use lacerate only on the mob thats beeing nuked, mangle him when th cd is down, ff every once and a while, and toss swipes all the times to keep all other mobs on me. It works just great

I agree with what ppl said here, all I would add is a target last target macro. That way, you can aggro the mob on your priest, then click the macro to go back to your main target. In 4-5 mob situation, that will prevent you from breaking crowd control on other mobs. Watch Swipe since it can also break crowd control, but it is very good for getting aggro on multiple mobs, too.

Putting 3 points into Feral Instinct (Tier2 Feral talent) is also quite helpful in your threat generation although it is definitely possible to tank w/o it.

I agree with what ppl said here, all I would add is a target last target macro. That way, you can aggro the mob on your priest, then click the macro to go back to your main target. In 4-5 mob situation, that will prevent you from breaking crowd control on other mobs. Watch Swipe since it can also break crowd control, but it is very good for getting aggro on multiple mobs, too.

Is there a way to do this with /clearfocus or /focus macros?

I am not the best macro writer in the worth, but there may be a way to do somehting similar with a focus macro right?

don't swipe if you're next to CC'd mobs though lol.. (I learned that the hard way ss)

Swipe is a good aggro-builder if you can use it though.. it makes hellalot aggro for the low ragecost. :)

If there are 4 mobs in front of you and one of them is CC'd, swipe is usually clever enough to hit all but the CC'd mob.

If you have problems getting good aggro in the initial few seconds after pulling ("snap" aggro), here's a really great trick. Save your Enrage ability for when the first mob starts hitting you. The lower armour you have means you get a whole lot more rage, and means you have the freedom to spam abilities right from the start of the fight. I know this sounds an unlikely solution but I assure you it works a treat.. :>


-Annikk

Swipe hits the 3 mobs nearest to you in a 5 yd range, it does not discern between mobs that are CC'ed and mobs that are not.

Yep. No difference to swipe if a mob is CC'ed or not.

Perhaps I've just been lucky with angles the dozens of times I have tried it then... but seriously, if there are 4 mobs in range, one of which is sapped, swipe will hit the un-CC'd mobs, but not the sapped one. I've been using this trick for a long time and I'm pretty certain this is how it works, it would certainly be a big surprise if someone was able to prove me wrong.


-Annikk

Swipe hits the 3 mobs nearest to you in a 5 yd range, it does not discern between mobs that are CC'ed and mobs that are not.

I attempted to tank Heroic Shat Halls and since swipe only hits 3 mobs; how would you guys recommended to keep the aggro especially when the pull is more than 5 mobs?

Do demoralising roar as you run in.
Change target every couple of swipes.

O O O O O <-- here are 5 mobs.

O X ^ X O <-- Target middle mob first, swipe hits the ones on either side.

^ X X O O <-- Target the left mob next, and swipe hits the 2 adjacent mobs.

O O X X ^ <-- Target the right mob next, swipe hits the 2 next to it.

If your group has assigned a target that is to be killed first, do your first swipes with that mob targeted. Also remember that you can use Maul even whilst spamming swipe.


Chances are you will lose aggro on one anyway, be ready to charge it. Charging will stop it in its tracks, and if you lose another mob you can use Bash to stun it. If you lose yet another mob, use Growl to taunt it back to you.

If you lose all the mobs, say if a mage decides AOE'ing elite mobs is a great idea, use challenging roar to pull them all back to you, and start swiping like you mean it.

If Challenging Roar is on cooldown, or for all other situations where you need to do something fast or your group will wipe, one of the best tricks is to shift out of bear form, activate barkskin, and blow Tranquility. Healing 5 people for 1500 every 2 sec is almost always enough to bring all the mobs back to you. Be ready to shift back to bear form as soon as you're satisfied you have good aggro again - leave it too long and the mobs will kill you since you're in squishy caster form.



Hope my crappy diagrams make sense.. :p


-Annikk

Using that strategy, I'm not really sure that you won't miss one of the ones that you don't target since swipe hits the closest three, not necessarily the three in a row. It's unlikely, but it could happen.

I'm a big fan of Tab, Lacerate, Swipe myself (with a Mangle for the primary target). Just make sure you don't stay off your primary target too long or the DSPers will pull it off you. But as long as it's not a boss, the DPSers are usually hitting so hard and fast by the time they pull aggro that that one target usually dies before it reaches them. It's just something to keep in mind- focus most of your threat on the primary target.

If you turn to face the mob you are targeting it hits the next 2 adjacent mobs that are closest to the imaginary line that extends directly in front of you.

To be honest in reality it's rarely as clean-cut as my diagram, the point is that if you keep switching targets, facing slightly differently, and spamming swipe, chances are you'll hit most if not all of them for enough damage to keep them on you.

There are 3 other tricks I forgot about as well.

1. If you have a large number of mobs on you, and you're worried about losing aggro on some of them, hit frenzied regeneration. Not only does it help to keep you alive, the healing generates extra aggro for you on all the mobs that you are in combat with.

2. Another really cool trick is if you have a warlock in your group. This requires a bit of coordination from your group and the warlock, and your healer in particular, but it's really nice way of getting early aggro.
Here's what you do. Right before the pull, get the warlock to lifetap until they have about 4k health missing. Moonfire an add, then whap some healing over time spells on the warlock. The moonfire puts you in combat with the mobs, and the first thing they see is you healing your buddy. Once you have some hots up, shift to bear form and the feral talent that increases aggro generated in bear form will apply itself to the healing over times on the warlock. The net result is that the warlock goes back to full health from your hots, while you generate a good 4k - 5k aggro on all the mobs before you've even hit them once :>
This trick gets screwed up if your healer isn't paying attention, and decides to heal the warlock on inc, drawing aggro from the mobs. Then you're screwed. Be careful with this trick, it can be awesome, but if done incorrectly it can cause wipes.

3. Suppose you have 3 mobs to pull. Moonfire each of them in turn. After your first moonfire hits, start walking backwards to increase the time it takes the mobs to reach you while you moonfire the other 2. Once all 3 have been moonfired, shift to bear. The dot from moonfire will have its aggro generation increased by the feral talent, same as above. This one can take a little practice to get right, but it looks really cool and is extremely effective.


-Annikk

Along the lines of the tactics mentioned above this is another one I'm fond of.

Have a mob targetted.

Cast Starfire.
While it's casting, select the 2nd mob and get Moonfire ready.
Since the GCD (global cooldown) is used up by the Starfire, your Moonfire can hit almost instantaneously on the 2nd mob, causing a nice chunk of threat on both mobs.

Shift to Bear and continue. Throw a Fairie Fire on each mob for an extra bit of aggro.

Which reminds me.

If you're ever waiting on rage (as you've just Frenzied Regenerated yourself/Swipe+Maul Spam wore you out/etc...) use Fairie Fire on the mob you're attacking. It does generate aggro, and when you have no rage....you need as much aggro as you can get.

A second without a special attack is a second wasted tanking.

FF is great for filling in any rage gaps you may experience.

That's another good trick :>

One thing to note about swipe spam. If you have the Primal Fury talent then getting a crit in bear form gives you 5 extra rage.
So if you swipe and all 3 crit, you get 15 rage back. That's a lot of rage..

If you have a reasonable amount of agility then you can actually spam swipe continously such that the crits you get regenerate rage faster than you can use it (you get rage from the white damage too, and from being hit). This means that you can spam swipe indefinitely.

This doesn't work as well if there are only 2 mobs, and not at all if there is only 1. With 3 or more, it's infinite rage.

When you're getting ready to start the swipe spam, wait till you have a pool of at least 50 rage before you start swiping. If you start with a lot less than that you will find yourself frequently too short of rage to do the next swipe.


-Annikk

I'm a big fan of Tab, Lacerate, Swipe myself (with a Mangle for the primary target).

Couldn't agree more.

I tend to use a strategy along the same lines as Annik. If mobs are CC'd on top of the ones I'm trying to hold aggro on I take a few steps back while tab-lacerate'ing the ones I'm holding till I pull back far enough to swipe again.
I tanked Shattered Halls yesterday and used this strategy for the large groups, we had 2 CC'd mobs and 3-4 loose. Using bash and charge for the casters or runners helped quite a bit. I was always a bit leary of charging away from the mobs I'm holding to grab another, afraid I would lose them, but it worked out well and I still held the aggro.
I've never tried to shapeshift out to cast tranquility for aggro. I'll keep that in mind for when the situation may arise.
I wasn't aware Fairie Fire generated Rage. How I missed this tidbit of info :confused:

Faerie Fire doesn't generate rage. It's just a good free ability to use when you're out of rage, waiting for your next white damage to get rage again.

Faerie fire generates some aggro, but it's a negligble amount, 50 or so when a decent maul generates more like 1000 (going by KTM Threatmeter).

If you use the tranquility trick remember to use barkskin first.. :>


-Annikk

I wasn't aware Fairie Fire generated Rage.
I typed rage, while thinking aggro.

I do that a lot too.. no worries :p


-Annikk

Good alternative pull I use is to Huricane the mobs.Place the hurricane so it bearly (I just had to :p ) hits the mobs and they will have to run through it.I also keep hots on me just before a pull to generate a small bit of extra aggro.After that its tab lacerate swipe.Just remember for those who have Tier 4 that the two set bonus also helps out with rage regeneration.

Hm... I rarely do heroics (except, I now need 107 badges in a week. /groan), but once upon a blue moon I ended up having to tank Heroic Shattered Halls without any CC at all.

While I didn't bother to use the Hurricane trick, I still managed it, largely doing:

Regrowth on self, Rejuvenation on self, Wrath the first mob, Lifebloom, Demo Roar, Swipe once, Mangle Primary, target each and lacerate, and then I just built up a rhythm of generating threat on each using Mangle, Lacerate, some Swipes, and Mauls (I was at 100 rage the whole time, of course). All it took was the DPS knowing they had to wait a good 7 seconds, and the healer being careful, and it was easy. /shrug

I wouldn't be able to describe which ones I hit with Lacerate and Mangle and Maul and Swipe and etc... I just keep their bars up over their heads with V and develop sixth sense for which of the mobs needs to be hit once or twice.

I just keep their bars up over their heads with V and develop sixth sense for which of the mobs needs to be hit once or twice.

This is the part of tanking that can only be learned by doing. It's funny though because I know exactly what you mean. I love getting into the zen that is intense druiding, being one with the battlefield =)


-Annikk