Are druids the new lowest threat tank?

[Dargoth]

DK's seriously needed the buff, before the buff I literally had to stop white swings to avoid pulling off our DK offtank in some fights. Only tank I've ever had to fight for AOE threat was our pally and no bear should expect to have better AOE than a pally. (plus he is geared and very, very good)

Single target threat I have never had a problem with another tank pulling off me after a swap the problem has always been the other way if I zone out and start a full rotation up rather than just keeping my debuffs active, which I admit can happen a bit on farm bosses.

I agree with the several posters who suggest looking at talent build and hit/expertise. I've noticed a lot of tanks ignoring one or both of these stats then wondering why they have issues holding threat.

A point to note is that tank swaps are a two man deal, the new tank has to taunt and generate aggro, the previous tank should be paying attention to omen and not pulling ag. It's not that hard to control, going full burn on a transition is poor tanking.

[Cheezee]

DK's seriously needed the buff, before the buff I literally had to stop white swings to avoid pulling off our DK offtank in some fights. Only tank I've ever had to fight for AOE threat was our pally and no bear should expect to have better AOE than a pally. (plus he is geared and very, very good)

Yes, the IT buff was needed since a DK's only real means of generating threat was hoping he got a runestrike proc after taunting or engaging a boss which could be a pain on a caster type boss.

Tell your bear to AOE tank in dps gear and nobody should pull threat with anything short of a taunt.

[Dargoth]

Meh it's trash anyway, who cares really, he can tank it if he wants.
As I said I'm fine on all single target fights and well ahead of the DPS on multi tanked mobs on Valithria but then I'm a Bear who thinks bear threat gen is fine where it is. TBH I sometimes wish DPS were chasing me a bit closer, at least that would make things interesting. In 10 man Putricide the other night I DCed while tanking putri at around 50-60% and came back in a second before phase 3 well ahead on threat. White swings plus misdirects should not be enough to hold a boss for that long.

[idanian]

2/3 imp mangle makes leaves a .5s dead spot, you should do 3/3 imp mangle and 2/3 KotJ

With Mangle now lasting 1 minute in both Bear and Cat, this is not true anymore.


As concern to the original poster, while DK's got buffed heavily in the IT threat buff it by no means invalidates druid threat or any other classes' threat. Hit, Exp, spec, and gear levels play a significant role in threat; more so than a threat increase to 1 ability.

While great amounts of threat production is a sign of a good tank, the inability to throttle back when called to is a sign of a bad tank.


Just a note, if you are having issues on boss threat you might want to check the logs to see what your fellow tank is doing.

We had to PuG a tank for a 10 man ICC. We kept having problems on Saurfang as our main Guild tank kept reporting him to be taunt immune when he would go to swap off. After 2 wipes, we checked the log and saw that the other tank's main threat gen (which had been high, mind you) was spamming his taunts making the target immune when time came to swap. When we told him to stop, he complained that it was part of his rotation.

So just because you taunt off like you are supposed to, doesn't mean the guy next to you won't taunt back quickly or kill the taunt all together.

[AnotherPaladin]

Dk's needed the buff badly, but bears should still be able to put out a decent amount of threat.

[xebtria]

give me the balls of taking the concentration to push that 4 buttons correctly without any error, I get close to a 70% lead at fights like marrowgar and even more on fights like rotface (not 100% dps time of anyone).

If bears have any foreign words in there vocabulary, it should be "threat problems"

[reyu]

With Mangle now lasting 1 minute in both Bear and Cat, this is not true anymore.

could you just please explain what you mean? the 1 minute duration of mangle in bear form just changes nothing about the 0,5 sec dead spot with 2/3 imp mangle.

[Shiggity]

What happened to DPS that understood how tanks get parried / dodged / rage starved at times and needed to stop DPSing for 2 seconds and press a de-aggro button...

Oh right because Epeen meters matter for trash, forgot.

You're doing fine OP, DPS just get spoiled from raiding with such high TPS tanks and forget how to actually play their class correctly and then blame you for it. Or DPS get attached to overpowered TPS like Icy Touch and come to expect it and refuse to adjust later.

/2 cents

<----(Healer PoV | DPS PoV)

[sithorion]

You're saying druid bear tank is now the lowest threat holder, so blizz should buff it.

let's do a dialogue here:

druid: "blizzard, we druids have the lowest threat, buff us!"

blizz: "uh okay sure, here +10%threat on maul.

druid: "yay topping threat meters"

dk/pally/warrior: "I'm lowest threatholder, buff it!"

blizz: "wait what?"

[Dargoth]

With Mangle now lasting 1 minute in both Bear and Cat, this is not true anymore.

How did this change the 0.5s dead spot? Duration has always been irrelevant to bears use of mangle, we use it to generate threat on the application, the debuff is just gravy. That being said I have seen quite a few 2/3 imp mangle, 3/3 kotj builds and cannot understand the reasoning behind it. 5% damage on enrage is nice and all with the third point but I thought 3/3 imp mangle would work out better all round. (ok I can think of one reason, if you are shifting to kitty a lot in fights the extra point in kotj might be worthwhile) Anyone who can explain this I would be very appreciative.

As an example of a bad tank, I was doing VOA the other day and the pally I was tanking with kept taunting straight back off me on the frost boss whenever I did a swap. After a couple of times of taunting the boss back he stopped but then let me hit 10 stacks before finally taunting back off me. Now that was a bad tank.

[rabbimojo]

My friend has just admitted to me he IT spammed with rune tap up just to piss me off, but even still, it seems ridiculous.
...

Realistically, this is just shy of taunting on the "list of bad things tanks do to other tanks". It's basically the same thing, as he knows it's a dumb ability to spam.

Concerning DK's icy touch, I have to agree with the OP. I was doing Gormok the other day as OT, and I had to be careful when I hit IT, as I would steal aggro from the MT if I did it too early, or right after he taunted. It's a good thing they buffed it, but I think it was a bit too much. My DK is by no means very well geared (about 37k UB with 2 stam trinkets) and IT deals between 12 and 20k of threat. I hope they nerf it soon to something more reasonnable.

This is the same thing warriors already deal with. A shield slam crit is pretty heavy threat. If you've also got shield block up already, the other tank better be good.

[Battousai]

I don't know if Druids are the lowest threat, it really doesn't matter...someone has to be highest and lowest in each category...it will happen unless they are the exact same class with the exact same skills.

The more important question is are Druids able to hold aggro effectively (played well) in a single target fight, Multi-target, snap aggro situation. Threat is hardly an issue anymore regardless of the tank if rogues and hunters are doing their jobs as well.

If I as a warrior had to pick an aspect of tanking to be the lowest at in the category...it would be threat over mitigation or EH. But, even then...the question still stands..."Are you effective enough as a class when played well to tank said content." Currently in every category, every tank qualifies.

[Deleted]

As I tanked daily heroic on my druid (with ~4,5kish GS) I peaked up to 8k tps on Loken (without berserk - it was on cd) and was at a constant +6k ..

Dont get it how ppl can be at 5k with atleast 1k more GS (shit system but you know what I mean ..) in ICC.

[scorch109]

Last i remember from bear theorycrafting wasn't imp mangle all or nothing?

[Rogres]

Keep in mind that DK threat is going to be insane outside icc, since rune strike is still an extremely significant portion of our tps, and we have a buffed icy touch to boot. Even before the IT buff, I rarely had problems holding aggro on anything outside icc, but with the avoidance debuff inside icc, and the correspondingly less frequent rune strikes, icy touch now allows me to keep up with other tanks inside icc. Also, when playing my hunter with our DK main tank, I am now able to sustain my high dps without worrying about suddenly making the boss want to give me a hug when I blow my CDs during bloodlust.

Bottom line as far as I'm concerned is that DKs now have the flexibility to generate enough threat that they can then concentrate on staying alive, picking up adds, holding deathwhisper longer, etc. without having to rely on tricks/misdirects which may or may not be available depending on raid comp and positioning. Also, without spamming icy touch like an idiot, I have rarely pulled off any other tanking class. Icy touch is no more overpowered than a ret pally running up to undead adds with righteous fury on, concecrating, and using divine storm. Or the pally off tank bubbling the main tank so he can get aggro. Of course you'll pull aggro when you aren't supposed to have it if you don't use your abilities correctly. I'm sorry that your druid doesn't have a button to rip aggro off people at will, but when played correctly, neither does any other class.

[Sunshine]

Last i remember from bear theorycrafting wasn't imp mangle all or nothing?

Yes. All or nothing, and it has nothing to do with the duration of the debuff and everything to do with the GCD. With 2/3 imp mangle, you're shifting your abilities by 0.5 sec every 6 seconds waiting for mangle to come up, and it's just bad. Or, you're hitting something else instead of waiting for the 0.5 sec, and then it's exactly the same as having 0/3 imp mangle.

It's either 3/3 imp mangle and 2 points where you choose (e.g., 2/3 kotj or 2/2 imp bash) or MSS. There are also a few specialized builds that pick up both MSS and 3/3 imp mangle but leave out other talents that may be more helpful.

[Sidonis]

Maul has had a high threat modifier to it for a long long time, just like Heroic Strike. Don't blame the DK's for getting something that you've always had available to you. Cannot stress enough the importance of what's been mentioned in this thread a couple times, is your own hit% and expertise amount.

EXPERTISE IS FREE HIT CHANCE ON THE COMBAT TABLE

Let's take the barebones soft cap for expertise that all tanks shoot for as a minimum, 26. That's 6.5% chance not to be dodged, and 6.5% chance not to be parried. Now, do you know where that combined 13% moves to on the combat table once you take it away from chance for the target to dodge/parry? It gets moved into the section of the table labeled Normal Hit.

Now do not confuse this with me saying this is free hit and you don't need hit rating. Hit rating is actually a misnomer, as it reduces your chance for the combat roll to land in the Miss section, it's actually Miss Reduction Rating, to be technically honest. Hit's just shorter and easier to say frequently.

Combat Roll Table Without 26 Expertise and 0 Hit% for a lvl cap Bear against a ?? Boss:

Miss: 8%
Dodge: 6.5%
Parry: 13%
Block: 6.5%
Glancing Blow: 24%
Critical Hit: 35.5% (pulling a number out of the air here, given bear's high ass agility and LotP)
Normal Hit: 6.5%

Now after adding 26 Expertise and 6% hit (which caps Growl when Glyphed and Moonkin/Spriest present in raid):

Miss: 2%
Dodge: 0%
Parry: 6.5%
Block: 6.5%
Glancing Blow: 24%
Critical Hit: 35.5%
Normal Hit: 25.5%

Just soft capping Expertise and adding enough hit that a glyphed Growl is hit capped, increases your chance for the attack roll to land in the Normal Hit section of the table by 19%. Hopefully that shows how much an improvement in your threat just softcapping Expertise and Hit is for a tank.

[littlepiggy]

So i just switched to a build whith 3/3 KotJ and 2/3 imp mangle
Went to ICC 25 for a tester, marrowgar, resetted before boss, after combat, i did an amazing(IMO) 4k dps and aboutt 10k TPS, got 4p T10 3/4 sanc, and for the ones want to know 5874 gearscore

So again , no we are certainly not lowest

incase you read this again and you're aware.. MSS > KotJ AND Imp Mangle also as many have said, go big or go home.. unless you like a screwed up rotation its 0/3 or 3/3

kotj is for burst threat, but so is berserk so it's not necessary. it's also personal preference, as mss is barely more threat then both combined, but if you don't have both (which most people won't) then it's a big difference

i think more then enough people have posted towards the main topic, you could probably stop saying the same thing over and over ;D 8)

[bavarcarus]

I don't know if I'm a typically geared icc25 normal tank but I've got 205 hit, 42 expertise and I sit over 60% crit in raids.

Maul has had a high threat modifier to it for a long long time, just like Heroic Strike. Don't blame the DK's for getting something that you've always had available to you. Cannot stress enough the importance of what's been mentioned in this thread a couple times, is your own hit% and expertise amount.

EXPERTISE IS FREE HIT CHANCE ON THE COMBAT TABLE

Let's take the barebones soft cap for expertise that all tanks shoot for as a minimum, 26. That's 6.5% chance not to be dodged, and 6.5% chance not to be parried. Now, do you know where that combined 13% moves to on the combat table once you take it away from chance for the target to dodge/parry? It gets moved into the section of the table labeled Normal Hit.

Now do not confuse this with me saying this is free hit and you don't need hit rating. Hit rating is actually a misnomer, as it reduces your chance for the combat roll to land in the Miss section, it's actually Miss Reduction Rating, to be technically honest. Hit's just shorter and easier to say frequently.

Combat Roll Table Without 26 Expertise and 0 Hit% for a lvl cap Bear against a ?? Boss:

Miss: 8%
Dodge: 6.5%
Parry: 13%
Block: 6.5%
Glancing Blow: 24%
Critical Hit: 35.5% (pulling a number out of the air here, given bear's high ass agility and LotP)
Normal Hit: 6.5%

Now after adding 26 Expertise and 6% hit (which caps Growl when Glyphed and Moonkin/Spriest present in raid):

Miss: 2%
Dodge: 0%
Parry: 6.5%
Block: 6.5%
Glancing Blow: 24%
Critical Hit: 35.5%
Normal Hit: 25.5%

Just soft capping Expertise and adding enough hit that a glyphed Growl is hit capped, increases your chance for the attack roll to land in the Normal Hit section of the table by 19%. Hopefully that shows how much an improvement in your threat just softcapping Expertise and Hit is for a tank.

[Skrototem]

You're saying druid bear tank is now the lowest threat holder, so blizz should buff it.

let's do a dialogue here:

druid: "blizzard, we druids have the lowest threat, buff us!"

blizz: "uh okay sure, here +10%threat on maul.

druid: "yay topping threat meters"

dk/pally/warrior: "I'm lowest threatholder, buff it!"

blizz: "wait what?"

Who mentioned anything about buffing bears? I'm calling for IT nerfs, not maul buffs.