My threat seems a smidge low

[Oakenclaw]

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...d&cn=Oakenclaw

A lil insight here. My main is a prot warrior. I love my main. My main makes me happy. My main generates a massive amount of threat. Then again, that could just be because he's a warrior.

But every once in a while-I like to hop on my drood for some claw and paw action. But it seems to me my I'm having a hell of a time generating threat.

My threat seems to ramp up. Piss poor off the initial get go, but decent enough given a few seconds. I'm missing that snap aggro I've grown used to. Is that simply how bears work? Is my threat always gonna slowly ramp up?

Single Target: Enrage, Barkskin, Charge (FFF mid charge) Growl, Mangle, Lacerate, Lacerate, Lacerate, Growl, FFF, Mangle, Lacerate x2, Swipe (Refreshing Mangle when possible, and lacerate only when about to fall off)

Aoe: FFF, Swipe, Mangle, Growl (Different Target) Swipe to Freedom.

Now, when I get my bleeds up Threat isn't much of an issue. The goal being to hold enough aggro to allow DPS to do their thing. Not so much "When my threat grows larger, my epeen does too amirite?" But during those first few moments of any given fight, with DPS now-a-days playing Lucky F*cking Charms, and opening up before I hit my first swipe, I just don't feel like I've got that snap aggro I've grown accustomed to.
And if I can't get it back quickly-poor Mr. Arcane Mage will be telling me how good the tile feels.

H'anyway: As this is an alt-Bear in mind (heh...Bear...sorry) that my gear may not be up to your standards. Try not to spit on me too much (it's not like I'm asking you for coins when you come into Dalaran)

Cheers

[Melonberry]

Growl is the same as taunt. It shouldn't be in your rotation.

I'd say that's your problem, unless you're using it off the gcd already, in which case it shouldn't matter.

Getting at least 23 expertise would help a bit as well.

I know you didn't mention maul, but I hope you're using it. It's your main threat ability.

[Oakenclaw]

aww balls didn't remeber that at all (at work trying to get shit done here and write this down)

I have maul macro'd to..well..everything. That thing is queued up all the time with the quickness.

[cawf]

gear isnt bad u hav plenty of hit but id move 2 points from furor to primal precision
save ur taunt for when u actually need it, dont use it as an opener jst fff, mangle, lacerate x5 asap
for aoe jst go swipe crazy, macro maul to mangle lacerate and swipe unless u hav rage problems

[Oakenclaw]

Y'know, I looked at that the other day thinking "Why do i not have points in PP? I'll fix that" then immediately I saw something shiny and that notion vanished fast.

I love AoE pulls. The swipe like mad makes me feel like John Madden

[Dhurn]

Pretty much just don't use a gcd on growl unless you lose aggro. The extra expertise will help a lot too, as for tanks expertise is a useful stat up until the hardcap (nHattiehat you'd stack it but less parries isn't a bad thing). Also just clue your dps in to the fact that Druids DO have some threat ramp up time and they should take it easy until you have 3-4 lacerate stacks applied.

[Dargoth]

I also wouldn't bother with charging on the pull. Not a huge benefit and you lose a chunk of rage that would be far more useful as an additional maul before the mobs start whacking you. Personally I only use charge as an opener if I have a ton of rage and am chain pulling or on some of the big packs in ICC where I want to be on the caster in the back as soon as possible.

Ditto to the primal precision comments, 10 more expertise will help threat a lot.

Based on your spec you are losing a lot of threat from your rotation by not using mangle and fff as soon as they are off cd. rotaion should be something like: fff, mangle, lacerate, lacerate, mangle, fff, lacerate, mangle, lacerate, lacerate, mangle, fff, swipe... using swipe whenever mangle and fff are on cd and lacerate isn't about to drop off. Alternately go a MSS build and lose imp mangle for a much simpler rotation. fff, mangle, lacerate, lacerate, fff, mangle, lacerate, lacerate, fff, Mangle, lacerate, swipe, fff, mangle... repeat ad nauseum. Drop in demo roar as needed to both rotations and have maul macroed to everything.

[Sunshine]

On single target in heroics, you may be better served not keeping a 5-stack of lacerate (although always put one for Maul damage boost, unless someone else in the group has bleeds). The ramp-up time is very long, and the initial application of lacerate is fairly weak in comparison to swipe. If the boss is going to die in 20 seconds, just substitute swipe instead. If the boss is going to take a bit longer and you feel like lacerate's going to be beneficial, try using mangle / FF as much as possible while building up your lacerate stack; they're both good snap threat abilities.

Glyph-wise, for heroics, I'd replace glyph of growl with glyph of mangle; you'll really feel the 10% extra damage, especially when using berserk.

If you still feel like your threat is low, you could move 2 points from shredding attacks to KotJ (for extra threat on the beginning of a pull during enrage) or move those two plus the points in imp mangle to MSS, which will help all of your attacks and not just mangle.

Oh, one last note -- if you're tabbing through AoE pulls a lot, Maul gets de-queued each time you tab, so make sure it's actually getting a chance to go off before you tab and getting re-queued after.

Edit: fixed first line.

[Cheezee]

On single target in heroics, you may be better served not putting up lacerate at all. The ramp-up time is very long, and the initial application of lacerate is fairly weak in comparison to swipe. If the boss is going to die in 20 seconds, just substitute swipe instead. If the boss is going to take a bit longer and you feel like lacerate's going to be beneficial, try using mangle / FF as much as possible while building up your lacerate stack; they're both good snap threat abilities.

I have to disagree with you on not using lacerate. Granted I hardly ever use it for trash even with the Crying Moon idol I still find 1 application of lacerate on a heroic boss to be worth the rage/gcd if only to provide a 20% increase to the damage done by maul.

OP, try subbing in some dps gear to your mix. You don't need to stack stamina to do heroics. I usually have less hp in bear than you do in caster when I do my dailies provided I don't get the Halls of Reflection or something. ArP is quite effective for snap agro (and being top dps as a tank). Also, try opening with FFF + Mangle/maul and then worry about your lacerate. Feral snap agro is about hitting a mob as hard as you can right off the bat.

[Sunshine]

I have to disagree with you on not using lacerate. Granted I hardly ever use it for trash even with the Crying Moon idol I still find 1 application of lacerate on a heroic boss to be worth the rage/gcd if only to provide a 20% increase to the damage done by maul.

Sorry, I stand corrected; that's true. It's always worth putting up at least one for maul if you don't have someone else with bleeds in the group. It may not be worth putting up the rest of the stack, depending on the group.

[exochaft]

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...d&cn=Oakenclaw
My threat seems to ramp up. Piss poor off the initial get go, but decent enough given a few seconds. I'm missing that snap aggro I've grown used to. Is that simply how bears work? Is my threat always gonna slowly ramp up?

You've stumbled upon the difference between tanking classes. Prot warriors have very good snap threat tools on fairly short cooldowns (Shield Slam, Thunderclap, Shockwave) while bears have Mangle and... Beserk so you can AoE Mangle-spam more every 3 minutes. Sure, we have Swipe, but there's a huge threat difference between TC and Swipe (hence the larger CD on TC). Beyond snap threat, we're reliant on having a bleed on the target to maximize our threat potential, and having a 5-stack of Lacerate is the only way you're going to perform at your max single-target threat. However, beyond raid bosses, you may or may not be able to get that 5-stack up... but at least get one up so Maul will hit harder.

I tend to pull with FFF, have Maul queued for when i get into melee range, Mangle, and then Lacerate until Mangle comes off cooldown if it's a single-target fight (this will net you about a 3-stack, which for heriocs, should be more than enough). At this point I start adding swipe into the rotation and adding another stack of Lacerate when I have to refresh the stack anyways. Regardless, as long as you get at least one Lacerate up on the target, your stack will grow whenever you refresh it anyways.