Overaggro: Tank or dpser fault?

[Panoramixe]

Internet. Where people talk about things they have no knowledge of.

Just being a grammar Nazi for once, since people also talk in languages they have limited knowledge of.

TL;DR Version

You fail by not doing your job. It's a reasonable assumption that the tank should pick up loose mobs and generate enough threat on a target that the DPS should not pull the target. If you don't, you're failing. It's also a reasonable assumption that the DPS should recognize the limits of the tank and adjust. If you don't, you're failing. If the DPS still has threat dumps up and they pull a boss, they're retarded at best. In the exceptional case that the tank is doing such terrible TPS that the DPS is severely limited, then the tank's failure is the culprit. Tank threat was buffed a huge amount in Wrath, so there are few excuses for not being able to keep up with the DPS.

So I agree with this.
Unless the dps makes a huge mistake like blowing all cooldowns the first 10 seconds of a fight, in normal circumstances a tank should never lose aggro. Yes there are dps'ers who pull extra mobs or AOE before all mobs are even near the tank, but that's not the point here.

[Fishbeans]

I live by the golden rule.

Healer dies, tank's fault. Tank dies, healer's fault. DPS dies, their fault.

DPS has the tools to drop aggro, and have threat modifiers to stay below the tanks. If they are attacking something that isn't the kill target and they get themselves killed, I really can't see how that is any fault of my own. I'm so concentrated on tabbing, cleaving, and other things that I just don't notice if one of the mobs in the pack turns around and whacks the rogue or retardin a couple times.

Get grid, watch the aggro indicators and make a mouseover taunt macro. Finding and taunting those loose mobs is a LOT easier that way.

To clarify what I wrote earlier, it's possible that low threat is a tank problem, but a DPS failing and pulling the boss is still the DPS failing. The root cause may be the tank, but fucking up because somebody else fucked up is still you fucking up.

As a side note, this conversation doesn't really make much sense outside the context of a raid or the new 5 mans. With current gear levels, pretty much anyone can tank most heroic dungeons (well, probably not a Mage).

[Zonas]

Depends on what happens, usually in 5 mans ill wait a few seconds between big pulls to dps (aff lock) and try not to do too much just enough to pwn meters

If i get high agro then ya its tanks fault.

But yes if the tank cant keep agro on mobs then they need to L2play because as long as dps arent dpsing RIGHT when a pull goes off, like a warrior charging in a group and stormin, then the tank should be able to keep agro.

This is also comin from a tank alt.

[Aswed]

Depends, if the tank's gear / TPS sucks, its his fault, why do DPS have to suffer dmg for him? But if DPS go full nuke (like i somethimes do :P ) its their fault.

[Sharaki]

The only way DPS can pull agro is if they surpass the tank in threat. Even if you don't have Omen or a threat watching addon its even built into the default blizzard UI. Regardless of how shitty your tank is, or how terrible his TPS is ... if you pull agro its your fault.

Tanks jobs should be to

1. Keep the shit off the healer
2. Mitigate as much damage as possible to help the healer
3. If you have time generate as much TPS as you can so DPS has more margin to operate in

Is throwing up Demo Shout part of an optimized TPS rotation? Absolutely not, but 2 comes before 3, so put your pants back on and slow down DPS.

QFT

[TheSineLaw]

You don't blame the tank for losing aggro, but not having enough threat beforehand to dps, if dps pulls aggro its there fault.

[avengingbt]

Mostly the tank. There's absolutely no excuse for a tank to be putting out bad threat in WoTLK. Yeah there are occasions where it's the dps fault, but usually it's just the tank.

Last night against saurfang I began dpsing literally 2 seconds into the fight, blew my cooldowns and was doing 10k+ dps for a while and was nowhere near getting aggro. That's what it's like if you have a decent tank, and that's what I'm used to doing.. I finished with 8.7k dps and the tank was MILES ahead on threat. He coulda gone afk for a couple minutes and I still wouldn't have caught up.

So, you know what my tanks threat is like, yet last week I overtook him on rotface and died. He turned off RF during festergut and forgot to turn it back on, so 10-20 seconds into rotface all the dps overtook him and got splattered. Was that the dps fault? Yeah I could have been watching omen, but I shouldn't have to on a non-gimic fight. I'm used to having him tank and being able to go crazy, but he makes a mistake and most of you guys still say it's the dps fault? Sounds to me like a bunch of bad tanks trying to act as if their threat isnt bad.

[Sharaki]

Depends, if the tank's gear / TPS sucks, its his fault, why do DPS have to suffer dmg for him? But if DPS go full nuke (like i somethimes do :P ) its their fault.

How exactly dps suffers from him when boss still dies? Dead dps does no dps, thats been first rule in threat control since adam. Tank has bad TPS, why:
1) Gimmick fight, reduced threat
2) Not as geared as dps, shouldnt be in raid if that gear aint sufficient for said boss
3) No missdirections or TotTs
4) Bad player
See, if TPS sucks mostly it's not tanks fault in first place. Then if tanks TPS sucks do you really "revenge" tank by overagroing and dying. I really don't know how your repair bill revenges my bad threat. Thats just being pure idiot.

for a note, I'm not losing threat to dps in any given fight unless i forgot RF or leave blood pres on, I ask for md/tricks if fight which requires some and I do tell paladins to throw HoS on dps that are near to overagro for some reason or tell them to do something to it. It's not that hard, but it's not automatic you actually need to do something for it.

[Deleted]

i personally have never ever in the whole time since 3.0 seen anyone grab agro from me, under "normal circumstances"

ive seen my friend pull agro (he's a mage) MANY times when he does pug hcs or raids. nub tanks.

he cant steal agro from me though..

ïts all about smashing the buttons fast.. its extremely easy tbh.

however i guess well geared dps who burns all cooldowns and such can grab agro, if its done in the start of the pull.. but who knows..

[Nayt]

Mostly the tank. There's absolutely no excuse for a tank to be putting out bad threat in WoTLK. Yeah there are occasions where it's the dps fault, but usually it's just the tank.

Last night against saurfang I began dpsing literally 2 seconds into the fight, blew my cooldowns and was doing 10k+ dps for a while and was nowhere near getting aggro. That's what it's like if you have a decent tank, and that's what I'm used to doing..

Essentially, you are a tunnel vision player who has gotten used to "Your Way" of doing things, and cannot be bothered with a change in scenery? I tank quite often on both my Warrior & my Paly. I am NOT your raid tank. If you get into a heroic with me and put out 6-7k DPS, you will pull off of me. I am NOT your raid tank, I am the tank taking you through the random heroic. Because I am NOT your raid tank, you can bitch and moan about my threat building skills, or you can tone it down a bit.

If your doing a raid, with your usual tank that you are accustomed to and something goes backwards, hey it probably was the tanks fault. Expecting the rest of the tanks to keep up with your T10 & ICC geared buddy is not quite realistic. I'm in full badge gear, the best badges can buy. If you out-threat me while I'm doing everything as good as my character can, your fault, not mine. I am NOT your raid tank.

[Sharaki]

whole threat can be cut into 2.
TANKS FAULT: player started in wotkl
DPS FAULT: player started earlier
If someone raided seriously in vanilla or TBC they know to respect threat, even if tank is bad. If tank is bad it leads to bad dps and usually enrage timers, but still overagroing is either bad playing or intentional, both cases dps fault. Oh jeez don't remind me of the heroics with bad tank and no Salvation, still having nightmares of those. It's not really enjoyable to dps when tank can't put out enough threat. Or fights like Bloodboil in BT where ya had to idle half of the fight without threatdump. It's still always dps fault if they overagro, if lower dps caused by bad tps aint enough to efficiently kill the boss thats tanks fault.

[avengingbt]

Essentially, you are a tunnel vision player who has gotten used to "Your Way" of doing things, and cannot be bothered with a change in scenery? I tank quite often on both my Warrior & my Paly. I am NOT your raid tank. If you get into a heroic with me and put out 6-7k DPS, you will pull off of me. I am NOT your raid tank, I am the tank taking you through the random heroic. Because I am NOT your raid tank, you can bitch and moan about my threat building skills, or you can tone it down a bit.

If your doing a raid, with your usual tank that you are accustomed to and something goes backwards, hey it probably was the tanks fault. Expecting the rest of the tanks to keep up with your T10 & ICC geared buddy is not quite realistic. I'm in full badge gear, the best badges can buy. If you out-threat me while I'm doing everything as good as my character can, your fault, not mine. I am NOT your raid tank.

Yeah that's fine, I don't expect a perfectly geared tank in a random heroic, so if you're in basic heroic gear or potentially blues I'll cut you some slack. I do however a expect a t9-10 geared tank to be able to hold aggro against t9-10 geared dps.

[Sarevokcz]

How exactly dps suffers from him when boss still dies?

other than being bored as hell?

seriously, if tank is a slacker, isnt it best to try and push his limits little bit higher by providing him a challenge in threat?

atleast i found it pretty challenging and fun, when i just leveled my DK to 80, got some epics to be crit imunne and was tanking for HM Uld geared guildies, who were going all in after few secs. Challenging, keeping me on my toes and i wasnt afraid to admit, when i screwed up rotation, missed CD, misused rune or whatever and DPS briefly pulled something from me. at least i got a lesson from every screw up.

People who suck wont learn anything at all, if noone calls them on it and provides no challenge, they will simply suck and suck and every single decent group will be annoyed by them

[Sharaki]

seriously, if tank is a slacker, isnt it best to try and push his limits little bit higher by providing him a challenge in threat?

atleast i found it pretty challenging and fun, when i just leveled my DK to 80, got some epics to be crit imunne and was tanking for HM Uld geared guildies, who were going all in after few secs. Challenging, keeping me on my toes and i wasnt afraid to admit, when i screwed up rotation, missed CD, misused rune or whatever and DPS briefly pulled something from me. at least i got a lesson from every screw up.

I have done the same on most of my characters - one being dk tank - challenging the role they are ment to do right after dinging 80. It's fun, it teaches more of the class than normal dungeon running could. Provocatio in guild runs or even 5mans might have its place but not in raids, being serious guild raids or pugs.

[serish]

I voted both simply because both could be situational. Sometimes you group with a tank that isn't quite geared for the content and due to this his threat will be lower then it should be. In other incidents the DPS is in the wrong because they blow their load too early or simply do not watch their agro.

I have always had issues with tanks holding agro when I was on my mage but I knew when to back off, sometimes I pushed over that limit to test the tanks. This can really piss tanks off but most are cool with it because they want to improve themselves, very few tanks could hold agro off me on Hodir before blizzard changed invis fade time because I pushed my tanks so hard.

If someone is in the wrong when it comes to overagroing it is normally pretty visible whose fault it is.

[SilverLynx]

I've seen it go both ways.

I remember grouping with a tank back in Vanilla who REFUSED to put more than once sunder up at a time. When I told her they stacked to 5 and she needed to hit it at least often enough to make the number go up her response was first "it's got a cooldown" then to put on HER TWO HANDER because she felt she'd tank better if she were doing more damage.

Note: I was doing white damage and spamming feint, then hitting escape and popping cooldowns to stay alive whenever the mob turned. Eventually, after getting killed *again* I told her that if I didn't see sunder stacked to 5 on the next mob I wouldn't help because it was pointless to try she left. Her guildies yelled at me because "she's a single mom with two kids" and I'm like "I'm probably the same age as her and also female - and I know her class better than SHE does."

And yes, there's plenty of circumstances where I've seen bad tanks who just keyboard turn, ignore mobs that fall of them due to healing aggro, pull half the instance while the healer is drinking and so on and so forth.

And my job, in my opinion, when I've got a bad tank is to take up as much of that tanking role as possible - he's got his one mob, I'll play goalie for the poor healer with the other one. I've tanked many things as a rogue, with minimal difficulty during evasion, and with a good healer, not too much issue when evasion is on CD.


HOWEVER - even more often, there are the DPS who doesn't even give the tank half a chance. They just pull everything, get mad when they die (I believe it's my job to die, thanks. Let me if I need to - I'm not that fired important!) rush the group, and then try and kick the poor tank (or shame him into leaving) because said tank is not doing his job, clearly.

Tanking RFC on my baby druid, I had a hunter tanking half the instance out from under me, while the new players (and really, other than the hunter and myself, they were all very new) were just going crazy trying to keep up to him. And the poor healer had zero stat gear, and her heals were draining her dry in three casts. And when I told him to cut it out and slow down he was like "Just leave. I'll finish if you don't want to." We managed to keep from wiping, and he definitely taught me the meaning of my taunt cooldown, but it was really...very irritating.

So aggro issues are the fault of the incompetent boob not doing their job. In the case of the DPS - not being humble enough to let the tank do his job, and in the case of the tank not having enough intelligence to figure out how your class begins to work beyond right clicking and snoozing...

However, it's rare as hell that its the healer's fault. So...there you are.

[ComputerNerd]

It can go both ways, it is not always easy for a tank to put out instant threat, but it can be because they do not aggro put theat on everything they are expected to.
DPS can often through lack of attention either pull something off the tank, or pull something which obviously is not on the tank.
Personally I am much improving my judgement as to when to start dps, but against a low threat output tank, or just if I get lucky on the procs then I still have a habit of pulling, soulshatter ftw - just still not a short enough cd.

[Powerogue]

the dpsers should be careful, rogues have a million and one "oh dear i might take damage from this angry mob, lol nvm" abilities for a reason, and if they don't use them, they suck at their role.

but if the tank is tanking the mob with the skull on it, and the dps pulls aggro, there's plenty of fault to the tank.

if a dps dies, it's their fault

if a dps pulls aggro and dies from it, both are at fault