Tank threat in Wrath of the Lich King

[Lestuniem]

I personally started playing WoW nine months after Burning Crusade had came out. Around year later I created my druid, which became my so called main. I out-DPSed 99% of times rest of the raid with my mage, and still had problems on controlling aggro while our MT was tanking boss, but when I tanked with my druid, and equivalently geared person didn't have a single aggro problem. Same build, same class. I'm not here showoffing anything what I already know is truth, but what I wonder, is that why WotLK tanking has become so less "stressful" for tank.

Tanks don't really need to work hard for their threat anymore, which on it's own may makes me nuts. In TBC you really got credit if you knew how to make threat, keep 12 mobs at once (Accidental pulls ftw) as a druid or warrior (this is no insult agains Paladins), but now, it's everyday-long. There are plenty of tanks around there, who can do their job. And now, even those who don't know actually that well how to do it, can do it. How does it make you improve in something you don't have to improve?

So primary question is that Why, oh why, did the tanking threat change so radically, that you don't really need to know your class anymore as well as you did to?

Shared thoughts with my Heroic groups are that Blizzard doesn't want many people to suffer anymore just because tank doesn't know how to create threat. It is just my opinion.

- Lestuniem of Moonglade (EU/RP)

[Kody]

I think as gear progresses, threat management will become more challenging. You're simply seeing the innate threat bonuses overshadowing the damage players can currently do. However, once rogues have Ulduar weapons, casters have spell damage at Ulduar levels, etc. it may become a bit harder to manage threat just through innate bonuses.

[Lestuniem]

Yea but at same time tanks of course gets their own upgrades, and the threat, percentually, stays same. I just feel dissapointed about how it is. Tanks doesn't seem to get the same credit as they've used to in past of the game. They do, of course, but not the same way. In TBC warlocks, hunters whatsoever almost every class was thankful if they could AoE a lot to keep their DPS high. And the tank got applauded by being able to keep the threat and staying alive, but now AoE is, so to say, truism. Every single person should get the credit if they do their job good, no matter what their role in the raid, heroic or whatsoever is.

Now even warlocks can get credit since they don't have to spam one button
Sorry about that.

This makes me maybe in the eyes of others like I wanted to say that "Tanks are heroes, adore them!"

I would say yes.

[Eulo]

Pre-wrath I did nothing but heal. With WotLK I decided to level my paladin and spec protection, and I completely agree that it's disappointing.

The thing is, dps should scale better than threat. Abilities that say "causes increased threat" will not scale as well as abilities that get 100% of their threat from damage (and your class' percentage-based threat mods). Paladins didn't have any of these abilities in BC, but now everyone does. The ones off the top of my head:
Lacerate/Maul
Heroic Strike/Shield Slam/Devastate (sunder effect)
Shield of Righteousness
Death and Decay

The "high threat" abilities are just one small factor. I guess we'll need to wait and see. I have my fingers crossed that I won't be able to afk tank!

[Lestuniem]

Originally Posted by Eulo

I have my fingers crossed that I won't be able to afk tank!

In fact a friend of mine DC'd during Nexus' Ormorok boss fight around 70%.. he came back online at 3%..

"Sorry I DC'd"
"What?"
"Emh. Boss' dead?
"You seriously DC'd?"
"Wicked.."

<3

[burter16]

Towards the end of TBC, DPS was so high and bursty with things like windfury and bloodlust that no almost no tank could hold aggro without constant misdirects and so forth. This meant that either the DPS had to hold back a bit, or you had to stack the tank's group with dpsers in order to keep him highest on threat. This was a design flaw and made a lot of people feel like they weren't doing thier best because the tanks just couldn't keep up.

Raid-wide buffs have partially contributed to the differences you are seeing with threat. While the DPS has a lot of the same buffs they did before, the tank now does as well, meaning you generate a lot more threat then you might have previously. Additionally, the devs removed most of the bonus threat multipliers on abilities and made damage almost the sole factor of threat generation. As mentioned previously, it's extremely difficult to gauge how this will scale with new tiers of gear. If it's anything like TBC, tank damage will scale poorly while melee and ranged DPS will skyrocket. I would predict that your time to shine will come. For now, just enjoy the fact that your DPS can let loose and you can coast through content, because it probably won't last.

[Ross]

I would agree it is to early to tell.

[dawn]

Prot warriors can pull off 2k dps with abilities that have threat multipliers.
But I don't think they will get so much more AP/crit in Ulduar and Icecrown like
the mages crit/spd and the rogues etc etc.
Due to more avoidance you will probably have less rage and that would lead
to less threat while the damage dealers do way more and so on.

Oh and, when your dps really does a buttload of damage then you
actually have to concentrate on generating threat trust me

I'm not even mentioning malygos because it's just one fight out of the line.

[Banginis]

in TBC it was pretty hard to keep aggro in later raids - anyone, who tryied to keep aggro as prot warr in non-stacked group.. they understand. In wotlk tanks got a lot more dps and got more scalling with gear. But it is only early raids, where there is no aggro problems. If u see carefully: dps with 100% dps buff does 100% more dps (thadius), but tank with 100% dps buff does only ~170-180% threat... And, as mentioned, malygos makes tanks sweat, if crazy dps gets good stacks of sparks

and, to first poster - to hold aoe packs is much easier as prot warr than it was in TBC, but by far it isn't very easy

[Marweinicus]

Been tanking for 4 years and I can safely say that it's easy nowadays.

Always had my own mini-game of who can do the most TPS. Now I'm trying to compete with other tanks or see how close I can get to DPS classes on the dmg list.

Pugging to 25 man Archavon or something and beating 6 DPS is fun.

[Lestuniem]

Seems I made topic with loads of interest.

Prot warriors can pull off 2k dps with abilities that have threat multipliers.

Yea, I've been doing 2k constant DPS in Heroics all the time. Think about it when I get all possible buffs. In Heroics Maul goes up to 7k, Mangle 6,4k. In PTR at level 70 I was testing my threat on level 73 boss dummy. 10k TPS. Tell me a DPS who can top that.

and, to first poster - to hold aoe packs is much easier as prot warr than it was in TBC, but by far it isn't very easy

Yea I know, it isn't easy, but really it isn't hard. Still, just my opinion.

Been tanking for 4 years and I can safely say that it's easy nowadays.

Always had my own mini-game of who can do the most TPS. Now I'm trying to compete with other tanks or see how close I can get to DPS classes on the dmg list.

Pugging to 25 man Archavon or something and beating 6 DPS is fun.

No, pugging 25-man Archavon and being 1st on damage done is fun <3

Towards the end of TBC, DPS was so high and bursty with things like windfury and bloodlust that no almost no tank could hold aggro without constant misdirects and so forth. This meant that either the DPS had to hold back a bit, or you had to stack the tank's group with dpsers in order to keep him highest on threat. This was a design flaw and made a lot of people feel like they weren't doing thier best because the tanks just couldn't keep up.

Okay I understand if tank had problems like Warlock/Mage/Boomkin/Eleshammy/Shadow Priest who really.. well.. you can imagine the damage output. But usually we stacked, as you mentioned, tanks partially to melee groups. Ferals atleast, to buff melee. If both groups are "equivalent", tank shouldn't have any excuse to not be able to do that amount of threat which is needed.

[Degenerateuk]

I can only speak for paladins really, and a few observations of other tanks I see.

Tank threat is high atm, and if you know what you are doing, it outstrips dps by 200% at least. Have never seen any problems really with Malygos, dps normally cap out at around 6k tps with 2-3 sparks, and that should be obtainable as a tank without much issue. Plus you get a nice headstart with no sparks on your dps for the first part to get a nice lead.

DK's seem to struggle a little atm, druids and warriors seem competitive. I would say I have noticed my threat increase maybe 130-150% with gear since start of naxx, so yes, it does scale pretty well imo, at least for paladins.


TL/DR?
I don't see it being any time soon where dps are holding back due to threat.

[Banginis]

Originally Posted by Degenerateuk

Have never seen any problems really with Malygos, dps normally cap out at around 6k tps with 2-3 sparks, and that should be obtainable as a tank without much issue. Plus you get a nice headstart with no sparks on your dps for the first part to get a nice lead.

only 6k tps? furry warr, going >5k dps, thats >4k tps, double that... And it isn't biggest threat generator among our dps

[Cooker]

i have to agree that at this point, tanking is far too easy. although, being a warrior is alot more fun now, actually having AE threat abilities is pretty pro. however, it "may" have been taken just "bit" too far... first time through naxx, i spent most of my time during trash pulls and boss fights looking through atlasloot checkin out what drops come from where

[Senka]

I don't see a problem with this at all. For all those years before WotLK tanking took way too much effort while damage dealers barely had to put out any. And DON'T tell me damage is hard as any class. It's true that I played a Rogue for those TBC years, and I still do, which is the easiest damage dealing class. However any class is very easy to DPS with. I'd guess that the "hardest" damage dealing class is an Affliction Warlock for keeping up DoTs, but really.. the DEFAULT UI has pretty debuff timers. It's not an issue.

My point is that tanking has just been dumbed down to the difficulty of damage dealing. It seems just fine and completely proper for this game. Also, I agree that things will likely change a bit once Ulduar gear gets spread around.

Anyway if Naxxramas encounters and the Malygos encounter are any indication, I really think that encounters will be far less about, "TANK BOSS, HEAL TANK, KILL BOSS." Of course some encounters or parts of encounters (Patchwerk, phase 1 of Malygos) will still be all about that, but as they move away from that, threat generation should not be a key issue. Knowing what to do in the fight should be.
For the record, Patchwerk is the stupidest fight I've ever seen. I never did Patchwerk in the original 40-man, and I'm glad I didn't.