Tank: opening threat in Heroics

[Krovven]

thorenSSE, what im saying is that is ONLY IF the target was on someone else when you taunted. If you taunt when you already have threat, it doesn't do that. I may very well be wrong, but I've never heard of this and havent seen any evidence of proof to support that.

If it was as you suggested, DK's could just use Dark Command every cooldown and never have to worry about losing threat, which would be against the mechanics...as I understand them anyways.

[harlequins ghost]

-snip-The only tank that should pull with a taunt AT ALL is a Paladin as it does damage -snip-

Nope. Hand of Reckoning does no damage. It's just a normal taunt now.

[deneweth]

While you'll get a free BB, you also used up a U rune and therefore lost a DS.

...just sayin

you have blood tap and ERW for a reason. just sayin'.

in the era of runic empowerment fixed rotations are a thing of the past. also you traded a U for B. HS is pretty good threat per rune and you don't really need the self heal or small shield at the start of the fight. if agro is the main issue you might actually want to avoid an early shield to stack some vengeance early.

[Thunder Blue]

your DPS hungry mage could pull agro

Just quoting this to note that if a Mage pulls aggro on a trash pull I simply let them have the mob and focus on the rest of the pack. There is no reason why a mage can't kite the mob until it is dead, especially if they are Frost spec. If they're such a bad player that they can't be bothered to hit one of their many buttons that slows/freezes the mob then they deserve to die.

Also, if the dps are so hotshot that they pull aggro they should be able to kill that single target before it kills any of the party members.

Thats how we did it in TBC heroics - the dps kite and kill the skull marked target while the tank focuses on the other mobs. Its not hard, and it saves healer mana by having one less mob beating on the tank.

[Zeroe]

Dark Command does nothing if you are already top threat, which you should be if pulling with Outbreak. So hitting Dark Command is a wasted cooldown in that situation.

With that said...in Heroics if it's a pack of mobs, some of which being CC'd, targets marked, I let them CC pull, Throw down DnD, usually grip one, select a target that isnt being CC'd and Taunt that (as they are usually running for the player that did the CC. Sometimes I'll wait till I have the mobs on me then drop DnD, incase there might be trouble on the CC pull and they need to re-CC, etc.

Put Outbreak on one, Pestilence, Blood Boil...and get into priority rotation.

Single target...Outbreak and get into rotation.

I dont know bout other taunts but dark command also holds your position as top agro for a good 2-3 seconds. so on a pull with some trigger happy dps it can help make sure you keep agro till your in melee range

[Zao]

Please link evidence, as it's the first I've heard this. The tooltip clearly states it has no effect if the target is already on you.

From the stickied tanking guide on these forums...

"Special encounter mechanics aside, taunts put you on top of the threat list during their duration and if you continue to generate more threat than the other people, you'll stay on top afterwards.
Only use taunts in situation where a boss is actually running towards a DPS, it does not have an effect otherwise."

So if you pull with Dark Command, yes you have a couple seconds there. If you pull with Outbreak have threat, and then taunt...it does nothing.

I should probably reword that, since I also pull with Outbreak/Taunt. Those two seconds of me having threat are enough to get in a DS and a HS, with a RS right after. After that threat is pretty much faceroll.
And if something goes wrong AFTER the taunt has run out, I'll just use DG.

[Barael]

I open with IT (same range as Outbreak because of frost subspec), then BB to get snap aggro if there are multiple mobs (and they are already in range), then PS (and pestilence if there are multiple mobs). I find blowing Outbreak on pull to be a waste since it only gets you a Blood Plague in addition to IT and saves you U rune which doesn't get you anything except 2 consecutive DSs which you shouldn't use consecutively anyway. I much prefer to use Outbreak during combat when diseases are about to fall off for a completely rune/rotation penalty free renew.
To the people pre-emptively using Dark Command during pulls, I just have to say that you're doing no-one any favors by keeping trigger-happy dps alive rather than making them pay the price for their stupidity and maybe even forcing them to learn to be less trigger happy.

[nwardoh]

That's what you have your death grip for, problem solved.

You should have used that to snag one of the casters that seem to be in every darn pull...

[Assist]

I for one do not use crimson scourge in my spec, Never have any problems on single target threat so i basically will just say what i do on multi mob tanking.

DaD IT pestilence Bloodboil , then DS + BB untill dead.

Depending on the ammount of mobs im tanking i can very well do DaD IT pestilence and use my death runes for HS if i do not want to spend it on more blood shields. All depends. But the old fashion DaD howling blast Frost tank snap aggro is far gone.

Depending how good your dps are to focus fire i target swap some with rune strike to keep the aggro up on a mob i am not initially hitting.