Did people really dislike threat management for DPS?

[Irian]

Threat management isn't fun and in fact it's extremely frustrating to deal with. It made doing things like carrying your friend's tank alt through random dungeons as an end-game raider (and before LFD most runs in guilds were carries, in my experiences) virtually impossible to pull off without deaths.
It also created a massive disparity in what tanks were largely loved in LFD groups and which ones were loathed simply due to how reliable their threat generation was. I know I'd silently groan to myself every time I saw a bear tank anywhere; not because they were bad tanks, but because their threat generation was absolutely awful compared to, say, a prot paladin.

In general, it was an outdated and frustrating mechanic and I'm glad to see it go as someone who enjoys both tanking and dpsing. I'm all for the important, less popular roles being made easier to pick up and I think most players should be, too. An increase in tanks makes the game more enjoyable for everyone due to faster queue times and more availability for guilds.

[Bigbazz]

I was fine with it, but my main was a fury warrior. So threat management was hell on me for a long time. Raiding in BC, I was constantly begging the Paladins in my guild for a short-duration Salv buff and was very lucky if I even got that. I had to watch Omen like a hawk, and if I got too high, my only threat drop was to step back and /dance at the boss for a few seconds. It sucked when you had no threat reduction or aggro drop abilities.

edit: I think we briefly had some talent for a while in Wrath that made us put out less threat while in berserker stance, but I can't remember the details on it now.

I remember my guild putting a soulstone on me in Tempest Keep for Voidreaver, so that once I'd eventually pulled agro and died I could res and continue to dps, I know a couple of guilds that did that! At the time I also had a reduced threat enchant on my cloak and was looking to spend my DKP on the reduced threat trinket from Vashj (never did get it).

It's crazy to think it was that bad, but it really was!

[Bosen]

It was annoying.

[LeperHerring]

Except it wasn't just about inexperience or low skill, there are also mathematical limitations based on gear.

Sure, it's an RPG, gear progression and gear is supposed to matter.

I didn't hate threat management but I certainly didn't find it engaging the way it was implemented. It didn't really result in additional challenge, so much as frustration if the tank/dps gear disparity was huge, or boredom if dps was reduced to auto-attacking to give the tank a threat lead. At best, if the tank was skilled and the gear difference wasn't big, it was a nonissue just like it is today.

Going with an undergeared or hugely disparately geared tank is supposed to be frustrating, nothing wrong with that. And it's blatantly not true that "if the tank was skilled and the gear difference wasn't big, it was a nonissue just like it is today", that's just a completely ridiculous statement. If I nuked the wrong target in TBC heroics and pulled threat, I died 90% of the time from one hit, and if I died the group didn't have enough damage to kill the mobs before the healer was out of mana. The only time threat was non-issue was when you completely outgeared the content.

I'm all for adding challenge and depth to gameplay, and maybe that could be done with threat... but that wasn't how it was.

This kind of argumentation is pointless because one man's "challenge" is another's "tedium" and one man's "depth" is another man's "pointless timesink". Threat had the effect tying the group member's performance together. That added something to the game and removing it removed something from the game. Whether it was "challenge" or "frustration" is a subjective opinion. Personally I feel removing threat removed both challenge and depth from group play.

[Ciddy]

I remember my guild putting a soulstone on me in Tempest Keep for Voidreaver, so that once I'd eventually pulled agro and died I could res and continue to dps, I know a couple of guilds that did that! At the time I also had a reduced threat enchant on my cloak and was looking to spend my DKP on the reduced threat trinket from Vashj (never did get it).

It's crazy to think it was that bad, but it really was!

Yeah, my guild did the Soulstone thing with me a few times too. I was the only DPS warrior in guild for a long time, so we had a lot of running jokes about my threat output. I never got the threat reduction trinket either (DST and Shard of Contempt for the win!), but I was rolling with that Subtlety enchant on my cloak for a long time. There was also a cloak enchant in Wrath that gave you something like +10 spirit and 2% threat reduction.

[clevin]

4 bad tanks in 4 guilds, that sucks

in *MOP*??? How the hell can a tank lose threat with MoP mechanics??

[LeperHerring]

I remember my guild putting a soulstone on me in Tempest Keep for Voidreaver, so that once I'd eventually pulled agro and died I could res and continue to dps, I know a couple of guilds that did that!

It's crazy to think it was that bad, but it really was!

We did that too. It's not "bad", it's a tradeoff you make. DPS warrior has plate and can take a hit or two, while a rogue, for example, has leather and will die without threat drop. Those kinds of things made the game more interesting to me, your choices had some impact and made sense (high armor but no threat drop vs. low armor and threat drop).

[Sliske]

Essentially the worse your tank was, the less your hands were on your keyboard, the less dps etc you did.

Threat management is one of those boring old mechanics of games that were hard when people were fairly new to stuff like that. An example of something like threat management in the current game is the evocation talent for mages or tiger power for monks. Its just a boring, tedious thing that is entirely necessary to do anything else. Just stupid as fuck and interrupts your whole flow to stop to do something boring as fuck.

Its almost as ridiculous as if required you to tab out of the game every 30 seconds and if you didn't you'd get aggro or do significantly less dps or something. Just completely random and boring.

[LookingGlass]

Threat management was always bad because the entire group hinged even more so on the tank. If you couldn't beat the enrage timer because your tank can generate enough threat? Yea that's a bad situation.

What I miss more than threat management is LOS'ing and bandaging. Now THAT made DPS fun to me.

Instead of just blacking out and doing your rotation, DPS used to have to take care of themselves a little bit. Today DPS just sits on the boss and expects heals and gets mad if they die. Well, they aren't looking at their health bar at all usually and when they do they literally sit there and watch it go all the way to zero because they expect heals.

But alas, I believe the days of personal responsibility are over. Everything will forever be the healer's fault. Le sigh.

[DakonBlackblade]

If threat management is a thing them DPS players have to generate more threat tham the tanks over a period of time otherwise threat management wont be a thing. That is a design decision that anoys everyone I think, first youll have the tank feeling like he sucks cause DPS are getting agro from him, them youd have the DPS angry at the tank caus ehe isnt holding agro and feeling anoyed cause they have to sacrifice DPS to drop threat, and you would even have heallers having hearth attacks to heal the spike damage on the poor DPS agroing.

Threat beeing a non issue makes ppl a lot happier imo.

[Lethey Alexandros]

Threat management is still here. Everytime I go into pug content I fear for my life when Salvation is on cooldown.

I know that feeling, the front end burst of ret is crazy on threat if your have subpar tanks that are not used to it.

[LeperHerring]

Threat management was always bad because the entire group hinged even more so on the tank. If you couldn't beat the enrage timer because your tank can generate enough threat? Yea that's a bad situation.

WHAT?! You could actually fail in the game?! How am I supposed to get my free loot if the group can fail?!!? UNACCEPTABLE.

[Blackmist]

The issue wasn't the DPS. It was the tanks.

Unless they were geared, it was nigh on impossible to run content with them. Even then it was no guarantee. Bear tanks used to only gain rage when they were hit, meaning at higher gear levels in lower content you could forget it. I remember our guild's bear tank would dress for DPS in TBC heroics.

Wrath fixed it somewhat by making it so dodging/etc would let you gain rage, but that didn't fix things for the low geared heroic people.

Only vengeance and a stupidly large threat multiplier means I can run a heroic doing 300k DPS with a tank doing barely 50k.

[Azrile]

Back then(tbc), there wasnt much else to do then watch threat levels. Most of the classes/specs had no 2nd rescoure system or procs that we have now. DPS rotation were super simpel for the mostpart and managing threat gave us someting to do besides spamming two or three buttons.

This is the biggest part of it. People think they just removed ´threat´ in a vacuum. But the fact is that much more interesting things were added to the game to replace the ´gameplay´ part of threat. Back in Vanilla and BC, when threat mattered, most specs had nothing else to do. Go watch videos from vanilla raids (shot from a dps point of view). They literally stand in one spot and push 1-3 buttons. As far as tanks... again.. no gameplay at all. You position the boss correctly, and then you do nothing except manage threat.

You could not just add threat back as a mechanism without it causing lots of other problems with classes and rotations. They would have to simplify mechanisms for encounters, especially for tanks.

[Tziva]

Sure, it's an RPG, gear progression and gear is supposed to matter.

Sure, but it doesn't mean it has to matter in that way.

I find the game is a lot more enjoyable if I can jump on my tank alt when my raid buddies need a tank for something. I might be squishier, and I might contribute less damage to the group, but I can at least do the job I am there for: holding aggro off of the rest of the party. I did not find it particularly fun in Burning Crusade when my presence in a dungeon was effectively a wasted spot because there was no way my Tier4 geared tank could hold aggro from the warlock in Sunwell gear. I don't think the warlock found it especially fun either when his options were "stand there for 15 seconds before you can fight" or "die horribly."

Going with an undergeared or hugely disparately geared tank is supposed to be frustrating, nothing wrong with that. And it's blatantly not true that "if the tank was skilled and the gear difference wasn't big, it was a nonissue just like it is today", that's just a completely ridiculous statement. If I nuked the wrong target in TBC heroics and pulled threat, I died 90% of the time from one hit, and if I died the group didn't have enough damage to kill the mobs before the healer was out of mana. The only time threat was non-issue was when you completely outgeared the content.

Either you misunderstood me, or I am misundstanding you because I don't understand what that has to do with my statement.

Yes, if you pull threat, you might die. But my statement was about pulling threat not being a risk if your tank was skilled and similarly geared to the DPS in the party. This is true regardless of whether you outgeared the content, or what the healer mana is at, or how squishy the DPS is.

Threat was certainly a lot more of an issue then than it was not, but we didn't spend every second obsessing over the threat meter. In the best scenarios, you didn't have to worry about threat (especially if you had the right tanking class for the circumstances). It was really only an issue in suboptimal scenarios with finicky pulls or huge gear and/or skill disparities between the tank and DPS. And, in my opinion, suboptimal scenarios are annoying enough without needing threat in the mix.

This kind of argumentation is pointless because one man's "challenge" is another's "tedium" and one man's "depth" is another man's "pointless timesink". Threat had the effect tying the group member's performance together. That added something to the game and removing it removed something from the game. Whether it was "challenge" or "frustration" is a subjective opinion. Personally I feel removing threat removed both challenge and depth from group play.

I wasn't making an argument, I was posting my opinion on the topic. I'm not attempting to change your mind. I'm providing perspective into why many people feel differently.

Sometimes discussion is just discussion and not a debate.

[Bigbazz]

We did that too. It's not "bad", it's a tradeoff you make. DPS warrior has plate and can take a hit or two, while a rogue, for example, has leather and will die without threat drop. Those kinds of things made the game more interesting to me, your choices had some impact and made sense (high armor but no threat drop vs. low armor and threat drop).

That wasn't really the case though, if a boss hit a dps warrior it would 1shot him all the same as a rogue. Rogues had better survival than Warriors in PVE by a long way. Let's not forget that rogues had a high ammount of dodge (with certain gearsets enough that they could tank bosses in Black Temple) and let's not forget the massively powerful cloak of shadows ability.

There was no advantage to being a Fury Warrior as apposed to being a Rogue for survival. A Warrior could put on a shield and go defensive stance and survive a hit or two perhaps, a couple of seconds with shield wall (30min shared cooldown), but no difference from a rogue with evasion. A Fury Warrior with a shield could offtank trash for sure (and I did it in Mt Hyjal and SSC occasionally), but not with any level of real efficiency.


Really, rogues had equal damage, much better survival tools and a threat dump.

[clevin]

I liked the complexity in TBC that came with being more than a damage bot, since being good DPS then was about knowing CC, using other, secondary skills, etc. But threat management was a pain if tanks weren't geared. I was lucky since a friend in the guild had a pally tank who was geared and he was good at playing it, but in general threat management was a pain. However, I'd like to think there's a middle ground where DPS doing silly crap do put themselves in danger but where gear disparities aren't the huge factor that they were in TBC.

[Srg56]

Imagine how frustrating it was if you had a really good tank but he still couldn't hold threat because you did 10k dps and he did 1k.

This is just another "casualization" move by the devs. So we now have people that don't like leveling, don't like reading quests, don't like looking at stats on gear because they find it too "hard" and it "confuses" them, they basically don't like anything that made the game reach 11 million subs at the end of TBC. It seems that the old guard is gone, and the newer green people look at the new playerbase and realize "holy shit, these people don't have opposable thumbs" and they make the game easier, with each expac, because if they don't, the new players are going to go back to facebook cowclickers.

Now now, i know there are those of you playing this game only 2 hours per week, and in spite of that, rival in skill players in Method, Paragon and other top end guilds, because some people are just that special, you are the "casual but good player" type of unicorn that tends to get upset when someone brings up the casual argument, but let's not sugarcoat this.

It was a very important part of the gameplay, and it's existence made sense from a fantasy RPG standpoint. You have a dragon archetype and the classic group of adventurers. The dragon goes for the healer because otherwise it would be impossible to defeat them. While he's going for the healer, the tank taunts him, attacks his ego and starts damaging the beast, which is infuriated by the brash display of arrogance and is enraged then attacks the tank.(remember that dragons and other powerful creatures are old and strong and guard the treasure, which the adventurers want ) While all of that is happening, the dragon is still aware that there are more than two enemies present, that there are also guys/girls with big swords/bows and powerful spells and the like attacking him, and if they hit it too hard, he is going to prioritize THEM instead of the cocky guy clad in steel armor and wielding a shield because he's not that effective in hurting him when compared to them. That was an essential and core part of the game, but HEY, fuck it right? People don't care about that shit anyway these days right? "I don't like reading quests, i don't like leveling, i don't like traveling, make it faster give me 500% speed, i don't like this, i don't like that, i don't like the threat mechanic, stopping dps is Booooooorrrriiiinnnggggg oh em gee!"

[Ielenia]

Then he wouldn't be a very good tank? seems like pretty clear cut logic

You don't measure the quality of a tank by his DPS. You measure it by his ability to survive lots of incoming damage. Otherwise it'd be akin to measuring the DPS by their healing output.

[LeperHerring]

I find the game is a lot more enjoyable if I can jump on my tank alt when my raid buddies need a tank for something. I might be squishier, and I might contribute less damage to the group, but I can at least do the job I am there for: holding aggro off of the rest of the party. I did not find it particularly fun in Burning Crusade when my presence in a dungeon was effectively a wasted spot because there was no way my Tier4 geared tank could hold aggro from the warlock in Sunwell gear. I don't think the warlock found it especially fun either when his options were "stand there for 15 seconds before you can fight" or "die horribly."

I just don't think that's in any way valid reason to remove threat. Blizzard didn't design the dungeons for groups with Sunwell geared DPS and T4 tanks, it's not going to be the experience they designed no matter if there's threat or no threat, so it doesn't make sense to use it as an argument here. You might have liked that, but many people would like to one-shot heroic bosses, but that doesn't mean it would be a sensible mechanic to let them.

Yes, if you pull threat, you might die. But my statement was about pulling threat not being a risk if your tank was skilled and similarly geared to the DPS in the party.

That's again simply incorrect. If you had dps nuking different targets, there's no tank that could hold threat (except paladin in T5+ gear). DPS could burst over tank threat in many cases, and tanks would have to take time off the main target to do aoe threat.

Threat was certainly a lot more of an issue then than it was not, but we didn't spend every second obsessing over the threat meter.

It's not about obsessing over threat meters, it's about more depth in group play. It's things like knowing what the tank is main targeting, knowing when there's enough threat on the secondary targets to pop your cleave or aoe, knowing that a mob might make a run for a healer and the tank will need help to stop it, knowing which part of the fight you should save your threat drop for and knowing if there's a situation where it become optimal to add a threat reduction ability in your rotation etc. etc. Today none of that matters, DPS can nuke whatever they want, AOE whenever they want, nothing will ever go for healers, etc. etc. Group experience is just dull.