Greetings druids,

If you remember a month and a half or so ago I was posting saying how I was starting to tank heroics and failing miserably. Thanks to all the advice, I'm now apparently an 'awesome' tank and have to hide from all the tells asking me to tank now. =x I still think I need a lot of work though, but having done all the heroics insane amounts of times now I'm less nervous and more able to pin point problems.

Been working on gearing out too. Currently sitting at around 30k armor, 16.5k health, and 34% dodge self-buffed in bear form. It's been a rough haul but I'm really enjoying tanking now. Thanks again for everyone's advice.

Now then, my new problem. Threat generation. I keep reading about druids who are able to reach 1k TPS and I'm barely able to hit 600-700. Lately I've given up on pugging and been doing heroics with buddies I've made and they're fairly well geared but gods, it's crazy trying to keep up on threat especially when they start chasing each other on the DPS meters. My mage buddy can spike up to 1.5k TPS (granted she has no talented threat reducers) and if there's no salvation it's sometimes a bit of a nightmare. I actually swapped out earthwarden last night for a DPS staff to keep up.

So my normal way is to pull and then mangle/lacerate-until mangle CD is done/mangle. I toss in a maul or so whenever I have a lot of extra rage, but even on boss pulls I managed to lose a couple of bosses. I know druids are supposed to exceed on single threat aggro but I feel sort of failed at this now.

TL;DR: How to generate moar threat? D:

At first I thought my problem was a lack of hit, though seriously hit rating is hard to come by in druid tanking gear I've decided. I've swapped out a couple of gems for +hit but I'm still only sitting at about 40 hit/6 expertise. Any tips?

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Ursin&n=Sytaera There's my armory but um, ignore the trinkets I logged out in. I was playing around in Stratholme last night with a buddy. Normally I've got badge of tenacity + moroes pocket watch/commendation of Kael'thas.

I've actually found I prefer the pocket watch to the commendation if only for a quicker 'oh !#%!' button before 35% health. I was also told that I should respec pure PvP spec for predatory instincts. Thoughts?

any thanks!

A buddy of mine likes to toss a Starfire+Moonfire to pull bosses. They don't hit as hard as a boomkin's, but he's shifting to bear right after anyway. Also gives him 10 rage from Furor which isn't much but cuts down time to get enough rage for that first Mangle.

Glad to see things are working out for you.

I tweak your build to something like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZxGGsfboezioVxhz

It gives you 3 points to play with, either intensity or primal tenacity.

I'm not sure if you're in your pure tanking gear or not, since you only have 384 defense and need 415 to be crit immune.

What I have to do in heroics is swap out some tanking gear for dps gear. I don't do that in raids, b/c that would usually result in dead tank, but in heroics it's usually fine :)

Also, what's your general tanking rotation?

what sorta gear do you swap out in heroics Big ?

On trash especially I'll put on my DPS staff ( from Illhoof ), I'll swap out a tanking neck for DPS, as well as some trinkets.

Just stuff to get me hit a bit more/a bit harder and so I hit harder so I have more rage to unleash. :)

I tweak your build to something like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZxGGsfboezioVxhz

It gives you 3 points to play with, either intensity or primal tenacity.

I'm not sure if you're in your pure tanking gear or not, since you only have 384 defense and need 415 to be crit immune.

What I have to do in heroics is swap out some tanking gear for dps gear. I don't do that in raids, b/c that would usually result in dead tank, but in heroics it's usually fine :)

Also, what's your general tanking rotation?

mm, it's only 415 to be crit immune if you have 0 resilience. I've padded up the lack of defense with some resilience. Actually I'm over crit-capped and was thinking of shedding some defense stuff for more hit/ap.

FYI, the armory link is now going to be sorta crap as I've respecced resto for a couple of days to work on my healing set since my guild's short healers sometimes.

y tanking rotation sort of depends. If we're starting fresh at 0 rage, I usually wrath the last non-CC target, moonfire the others and swap to bear before mangling the skull and throwing a lacerate on. Occasionally I will use hurricane on large pulls. After that if I can, I'll swipe and if not, I lacerate the others to hold them before focusing on the primary target.

If I have rage then usually I pull with FFF/mangle/lacerate/play with other mobs/return.

Thanks for the tips on the build =) I'll probably give it a whirl when I respec back to feral.

Awww, I totally missed the resilience >_< Sorry about that, I fail sometimes XD

Lets say you're on a boss and have endless rage:
- Mangle should be on constant cooldown
- Keep lacerate up
- Keep FFF up
- Maul when rage is not an issue

That's my typical priority list.

As for trash...it's rough if you're not generating enough rage, which is why I'll put on a smattering of DPS gear.
- Mangle for snap aggro
- Swipe to get their attention
- tab + lacerate is your friend
- repeat

Give that a shot :)

I never really pulled with hurricane, they leave the area too quickly and I never found it to generate a significant amount of threat where it was OVERLY helpful.

Hi, long time reader, first time poster hehe.
On the ae pulls i usually moonfire a mob, barkskin, then hurricane myself and just eat the hits. Once barkskin hits 2seconds left i warstomp. Then i go into mass swipping and mad tabbing.

On single arget mobs i pull with either starfire then moonfire or a easy fairy fire (which happens 90% of the time). Once the mob is almost to camp pop enrage for the instant 10rage (from talents) and mangle. Then i SPAM maul and lacerate if rage permits. I never stop spamming maul and lacerate. I click both bottoms at once. I know maul is 2.5 cooldown but oh well heh. Only time i stop spamming maul and lacerate is when mangle is back up then its maul and mangle then right back to maul and lacerate spam, works great.

Keep your growl and bash for when you lose aggro or bash if somone is getting close on your threat.
Also if your group is decent don't CC if less than 4 mobs. Those extra mobs hitting on you will help a TON because of all the rage you will get. Single target pulls really screw up rage regeneration.

I find I have the same problem and the reason I have found by non stop reading is........Our gear does not scale like dps does meaning where there ap/spell damage raises insanely ours does not as fast. I am at 3 peice t5 and various badge gear and I still have trouble holding aggro sometimes. The best thing you develop is a insane reaction to growling mobs that fall off at least I have. Also you have to give a lil blame to the dpsers I have come acros a lot of dps that is either used to raids or are just too freaking cocky and zomg zerg a mob regardless if you have threat or not. Its his repair bill not yours. Boomkins are notorious for pulling threat second to warlocks. But if you keep up your rotation and keep growl ready when they pull their threat you are ready for it.

Also I have been told once you hit a certain dodge% whcih is around 40% if you have spare slots you can stack some crit.
y mangle crits alot and that bumps me from my 800-900 tps to 1200-1300 tps. Keep up demoralizing roar and FF. DR won't help much with threat but if it runs off it might not one shot the dps so you can growl it off again =)

DPS/threat scaling with gear is part of it, but there are alot of bad players in Wow, and most of them play dps classes. If DPS'ers would take their eyes off the damage meter and put them on the threat meter it would solve alot of problems.

That being said, maul is your friend. I use it shamelessly. I have one qued up before the pull and spend rage like Paris Hilton spends money on Rodeo Drive. If I get in a bind, I powershift. I keep Mangle, Lacerate x 5, Demo Roar and FFF up at all times and Maul Maul Maul. I just finished a ZA run where another feral was my OT. At the end his top three damage abilities were Melee, Mangle, and Lacerate. Mine were Melee, Maul, and Mangle. I had far better aggro control.

YMMV, and there is definitely a 'feel' that goes along with it, but that is what works for me.

Hi, long time reader, first time poster hehe.

Hello new druid! :D
Welcome to our druid's grove. :> Although I guess if you've been here a while... hehe..



Sytaera druid, it's great to hear that things are going better for you :>
It sounds like you are getting quite geared now - those are some pretty nice stats. And yes, aggro does start to become the main issue after a while, especially when you develop a reputation as being a good tank, because the dps are less likely to give you any aggro time.

There are 3 approaches to fixing this:

1. Swap in some dps gear. If you are in absolutely no danger of dying and your healer spends more time healing over-aggroing mages than they spend healing you, then you might as well. It also makes your job easier and more fun.


2. Eat some agility buff food, like Warp Burgers or Grilled Mudfish. Drink an agility elixir. Apply an Adamantite Weightstone to your weapon. These will boost your aggro a LOT.


3. Yell at the dps.
No seriously, there is a lot to be said for this. DPS classes have so many juicy-looking nuke buttons, and it's very fun for them to push them. Sometimes they need a good dressing down to remind them to stop being so premature.
When you first notice it, try act all good-natured and stuff, make a joke about it, etc. If they don't take the hint and slow down, change tack and become more assertive - ask them if they would please stop nuking before you've even had a chance to hit the mob.
If all else fails, wait for one to pull aggro from a mob, then shift out to caster form and watch them die. This effects a change in attitude 99% of the time - if they still don't get the message then just don't group with them again. DPS classes are ubiquitous on every server, and awesome tanks don't need to put up with n00bs. ;)


-Annikk

yeah i just let them tank a few mobs and die a few times and they get the hint that they are not controlling their aggro well enough.

even sometimes when specifically asking them to hold off for a few seconds due to a multi mob pull where the mobs are not cc'able i still see them do it.

dps without exception seem purely interested in owning the dps meter for that particular run.

It's exactly as you say, Kheldar; for dps classes, they seem perfectly willing to give their tank an unpleasant time and even jeapordise the success of the run simply to outdo everyone else on the damage meters. Wake up dps, no-one cares! What matters is completing the run swiftly, efficiently, amiably and without incident. There is no excuse for aggroing on every pull or nuking a mob you have so far only Moonfired.

Sometimes you will get their justification that it's fine because "nobody died". At this point you need to stop pulling and sit down and explain to them that deaths are not the only possible consequence of their poor playstyle; overaggroing makes life very stressful for the tank, as they have to constantly blow cooldowns and chase after mobs just to keep the group alive. Why is it fair that they make your game experience unpleasant just so that they can compete on their petty damage meter epeen size?

If you sit and explain this to them, and let them know if they continue their current behaviour you WILL just let them die, it might sound like you're being a bit of a hardass - you may even get comments to this effect - but most people will after a few moments just accept this reasoning, and start playing more sensibly.

Once you get a group that does not overaggro, and everyone is playing sensibly, the run will actually go faster - because you need to spend less time planning what order to moonfire mobs and so on, to get enough initial threat. Then any dps that initially thought you were just being mean, or overly critical, will change their minds and be head over heels in love with you again. :>


By the way, did I mention overaggroing dps classes piss me off? :P


-Annikk

By the way, did I mention overaggroing dps classes piss me off? :P
-Annikk
no you did not make it that clear :rolling:

I admit to saying in party chat, "You pull it, you tank it." after the first couple of pulls in more than one instance.

I've also considered macroing this particular pearl of wisdom (not mine, btw):

"If the tank dies, it's the healer's fault. If the healer dies, it's the tank's fault. If the dps dies, it's their own damn fault."

Welcome back Annik. =)

Yeah, I've had some luck with gear recently and I've done so many heroics that I've been able to get my hands on a good bit of badge gear.

As with the DPS aggro thing, pretty much I've started to give up (or try to get a pally for salv). Yeah, I think I'm probably going to start leaning for more DPS gear during these instances because I really am not in a danger of dying, but again, e-peen stroking DPSers make life difficult. On the other hand sometimes a lot of the people I run with are buddies so I don't like to yell at them but it does get somewhat annoying if they're constantly pulling aggro. Especially if two of them are pulling two different damned mobs. I don't get why a kill order is so hard to remember. Or why people insist on AoE spells.

Oiysters, very much love for that little quote. =D

yeah i've seen a similar think Oiy 'if the healer pulls the aggro its the tanks fault, if the dps pulls the aggro its the dps fault'.

i also just say to them 'if u pull it you tank it'.

what i find funny to is the number of times i out dps the dps !

some people really need to stay away from heroics until they have better gear !

i was out dpsing a rogue last nite in heroic ramps :o and was not a millon miles behind the other rogue either.

Oh gods, yeah. You know what's annoying? If an undergeared tank tries to tank heroics, people freak. If a DPSer in all greens goes in, apparently it's okay. Seriously, that's annoying.

I've had some of the worst scrubs think they can just wander into H MgT because they're 70 and it drives me nuts.

It does make things a little more complicated if it's a friend. I'd still say it's ok to do step 1 and be amiable and just tell them "awe cmon give me a break guys :P" etc. If they are still overaggroing and it's your friend who is the guilty person, whisper him and talk to him a bit, make some excuse like oh my rage regeneration is less these days due to extra mitigation. If you're friends with them then you should hopefully be able to talk to them without it creating a problem :>


-Annikk

i dont expect to have make excuses in order to have dps, whether friend or not play properly !

I whine at them sometimes and once in a while they listen. For the most part I've been trying to determine the best way to just give up and beat them at their own game and miraculously hold aggro which was the point of this thread.

I'll see how things go though. Thanks for all your advice druids. =)

It bugs the hell out of me when DPS start going to town on the wrong target (X intead of Skull). Tanks should talk a lot on runs. And feel free to be *******s if necessary. The thing that pisses me off most is when someone pulls aggro and runs away from the tank. If you get aggro, run straight at the tank (and hit your threat reduction talent if you have one).. ugh.

Really strong DPS does really make runs much easier and quicker and more fun. 1 hour no-wipe runs are almost always better than 1 hour 45 min no-wipe runs :) On my lock I actually strive to sit at roughly 100 - 115% of the tank's dps to maximize my damage output (ranged do not actually pull off of tanks till they hit 130% threat), and maintain about 1200 - 1300 dps in most heroics. I have gotten good at doing this, and rarely if ever pull aggro (and if I do, I either bust cooldowns etc to kill it asap if its at like 10%, or soulshatter to drop threat) It's much easier on the tank and healer when things go down really quick.

That being said, yell at / kick poor dps'ers... they are a dime a dozen. Dps'ers that know how and when to use threat reducing talents, know how to control a mob if necessary (i.e. evasion offtank a mob that heads towards a healer till tank can pick it up, or put down a frost trap on AoE situations, deathcoil / fear and curse of recklessness ping pong off squishies till tank gets it etc) make life easier on everyone.

Unfortunately Ursin you can't just out threat them on multiple targets unless you seriously outgear them. Game mechanics prevent it.

Lol Clar - how many times have i said that both in /p and just to myself whilst looking up at the ceiling...

'if u pull the god damn aggro DONT run away from me !'

and yeah i agree Clar - a good high dps grp meaning a faster no wipe run is much better than a slow one.

we did a quick Sethhek Halls run last nite - trying for another Anzu mount. much better dps - stuff was going down very fast. shammy has trouble sometimes not pulling aggro but got a lot of epics as very much pvp decked and has very good +damage.

yeah good dps does make a run so much easier, less stressful and quicker.

Oh gods, yeah. You know what's annoying? If an undergeared tank tries to tank heroics, people freak. If a DPSer in all greens goes in, apparently it's okay. Seriously, that's annoying.

Not meaning to derail the thread, but what are acceptable numbers for a bear to tank heroics? Health, armor, dodge? My guild doesn't really do regular runs, just heroics. I've been 70 for 3 weeks and am guessing tanking heroics is quite a bit more demanding than tanking Kara.

I suppose I should ask the same question about dps. What are decent numbers (AP, crit chance) for a kitty in a heroic?

I laughed at the "run to me, not run away!" comment. My first dungeon run ever was years ago in EQ. An ice giant was wailing on me and I ran around screaming, "Get it off, get it off!" while the tank frantically chased us around the room.

For easy heroics (hSP, hUB, etc.) you ought to be able to tank it in your lvl 70 starter set (a few items short of those on on the first list found here (http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/04/15/shifting-perspectives-gearing-your-bear-tank-from-70-to-karazha/)).

Which would put you near...

* 24,706 armor
* 13, 694 health
* 26% Dodge (37% with trinket activated)

Which would put you near...

* 24,706 armor
* 13, 694 health
* 26% Dodge (37% with trinket activated)

Heh, that's the guide I followed when gearing up for Kara. I've been negligent in my CE grinding and don't have Earthwarden yet but have (or have surpassed) most of the recommended gear. With Braxxis' staff I have 26k armor with MotW, or 25 with last night's prize, the Feral Staff of Lashing (Illhoof has not been kind to me). Dodge is around 27% but I'm missing some enchants on the new gear (Feral Staff, Band of the Swift Paw).

Should I stick with the easier heroics until 28k+ armor?

This tanking thread has been awesome. I realize I haven't been using Maul anywhere near as much as I should have been. Last night there was a lock aggroing (or pulling) stuff on our hBot run and then complaining he got attacked. The pally simply responded, "I didn't pull it."

Should I stick with the easier heroics until 28k+ armor?I tank Kara, Mag and Gruul with 28-29k, you should be fine in heroics.

so are there also recommended stats for running the harder ones ?

esp mgt ?

so are there also recommended stats for running the harder ones ?I have not seen them.esp mgt ?I haven't cleared reg MgT yet! Though, I don't think it has been my fault. As it is one instance where DPS matters, and for the most part my DPS'r suck.

HMGT isn't incredibly tough if you bring the appropriate classes for CC.

I ran it the other day with a warrior in blues, like 2 epics and then some tanking greens (ugh), and though we had to hold back a bit, cleared it with no wipes. I was on my lock and we brought a mage and rogue who had all run the instance quite a few times (and were all t5+ geared) and were on point with CC and smart about single targeting the skull, then x, then sap, then sheep. Made life easy for the tank. I was quite skeptical looking at his gear going in, but it ended up being an ok run (couldn't race through, but no biggie)

Though as a general rule of thumb for a pug group, I'd say that you'd want at least Kara level epics for a MGT run.

Having run it for the tanking trinket so many times I want to throw up whenever people mention it, I would say that MgT is probably one of the harder heroics. It is INSANELY easy with CC or if people listen but the problem is most people don't.

For a tank the gear requirement really is going to be totally dependent on your DPS. Personally my favorite composition is generally mage, lock, dps, healer + tank. =/ It's mostly a crap shoot.

Personally the part where DPS really does matter is Heroic MgT on Kael'thas. I was doing H MgT with some friends and we brought along an undergeared SPriest (she usually is an awesome healer) because she's our buddy and it just failed epicly because if you don't get Kael'thas to 50% in a minute he's going to one-shot pyro your tank. You could have a cheat-death rogue tank him but regardless, the first half of that fight is a DPS race. Up until then we didn't wipe once and basically slaughtered our way through with no problem. We did get him down but it was like 3-4 tries. My poor burnt fur.

Grimm, for tanking heroics stick to Slave Pens and Ramparts for now. If you have a decent healer, try Underbog or Blood Furnace. The only reason I leave those two to the last is because Bog Lords and those Demon things hit like a brick, so if your armor/mitigation is low it's pretty healing intensive. I'm pretty sure you sound like you'll be fine though. I'm fairly sure I was tanking UB and BF with around those stats.

i've still only been to MGT once - obviously on normal and it was a very slow 2 odd hour run with low dps and a lock who could cc anything.

we keep meaning to go back but we need to run it for our normal healer whose not cleared it yet on normal.

we like running mech/sp/ramps when they are the daily as we race through them normally very quickly for 5 badges :)

In my experience the best group setup for heroic mgt is tank, healer, frost mage, shadow priest, and sub rogue.

The mage and rogue make the 2nd boss easy as cake.
The shadow priest makes whole instance easy by Mc'ing the warlocks they do mad damage heh.
And all 3 dps classes can cc.
Try 3 mages tank, healer for fun thats easy also lol.

i think when we start doing it we'll aim to have tank, priest healer, 2 mages and a ench shammy.

simply because thats wot we got in the guild (which is somewhat small :p)

if we find we need more cc then it will be tough cos being a small guild we have limited options - and pugging mgt heroic is not high on my wish list of things to do b4 i die (a lot of times horribly in mgt heroic! lol)

also we have 4 people who are either married or together so not always easy to bring one and not the other !

overall dps should be fine with the grp above as all of us have good gear (imho!)

i'd read that a spriest makes the run easy......

Heroic mgt can be hard with only 2 cc if your just learning it. I suggest getting 3 cc's for your dps your first few times. But you can wing it with very little cc just makes it extremly hard.
And yes shadow priests make heroic mgt alot easier.

well we're just a very small gild of people who've got to know each other who dont have time to do proper raiding due to RL.

my raiding ended with the 40mans pre BC.

so we either dont go to heroic MGT with a guildie cos of no CC or we go and make the best of it.

It can be done with no CC. =x It's just insanely difficult. You guys can probably manage. I mean if you march in there with three fury warriors for DPS, a tank and a healer then I'd sort of question your survival chances but two mages and an enhancement shaman sound fine. You get two sheeps + make shaman drop Grace of Air totem for you instead of windfury. That's pretty win.

Just be sure people give you time to LoS properly and get aggro. A tip though, if you see the Ethereal Smuggler, make sure a mage sheeps it. Also the succubus looking monster should generally also be killed first as she'll seduce someone in your party.

Overall to be honest, once you learn MgT it's pretty much easy so long as you're with people who can take directions and whatnot.

yeah we all know each other now and we use skype for voice comms.