Taunt + threat confusion

[draticus]

I've been encountering a lot of misinformation about taunts effect on threat. Granted, this is inspired by a pug where I happened to run into an entire raid full of the uninformed but I have encountered backwards thinking in good raid groups as well. Hopefully at least a few of the uninformed troll these forums.... hopefully.

The threat added by taunt is permanent! Taunt in itself does not add a set amount of threat so if you are #1 and you taunt you gain nothing but if you are the OT and are not #1 in threat you can taunt and it most certainly DOES add permanent threat when it makes you equal to the #1.

Archavon is the best example of this (and where I argued with an entire pug full of morons). If the MT is #1 on threat by a large margin the OT can taunt before the first time Arch picks one of them up and permanently gain an amount of threat equal to the difference between him and the MT. Then they are both way out in the lead and when Arch picks one of them up he immediately switches to the other tank rather than DPS. If you wait until he picks the MT up(erasing the MTS threat) then the OT has to quickly taunt Arch off DPS and is now only equal to the DPS, rather than way out in the lead. And he probably has little mana/rage because he hasn't been tanking/getting hit.

This works in all fights were the MT might get CC'd or just in case the MT dies. If there is an OT you want them to be #2 on threat before the MT dies, not trying to pick the boss up off the DPS after. OT taunts the boss, MT taunts him back. Boom, easy instant PERMANENT threat added to the OT.

[Kethlan]

I am guessing the question was whether taunt wears off? And yes, you are right it doesnt. But there are "taunts" that do. Things that force the baddie to attack you, but do not actually cause you to move to the top of the threat list. Challenging Shout, Mocking Blow, for example.

CS -> Forces all enemies within 10 yards to focus attacks on you for 6 sec.
MB -> A mocking attack that causes weapon damage, a moderate amount of threat and forces the target to focus attacks on you for 6 sec.

When those 6 seconds are up, they will go back to killing what they were killing before. But Taunt, Righteous Defense, Hand of Reckoning, things like that, actually make you the top of the list.

[Siri]

Challenging Shout, Mocking Blow, for example.

Adding Distracting Shot to that list

[ZachPruckowski]

Three quick thoughts:

1) Taunt has diminishing returns. A double taunt shouldn't be killer in this regard, but it's worth remembering. So long as it's 15-20 seconds between double taunts, you're fine, but it something to keep in mind.

2) Your MT and your OT ought to be on the same planet in terms of threat, and if your DPSers are above your OT, they either need to be using their threat-reducing moves, or your OT needs to step up in terms of TPS.

3) Archavon is the exception, since Stomp clears aggro. He's also not subject to Taunt DRs, from what I understand.

[draticus]

Three quick thoughts:

1) Taunt has diminishing returns. A double taunt shouldn't be killer in this regard, but it's worth remembering. So long as it's 15-20 seconds between double taunts, you're fine, but it something to keep in mind.

2) Your MT and your OT ought to be on the same planet in terms of threat, and if your DPSers are above your OT, they either need to be using their threat-reducing moves, or your OT needs to step up in terms of TPS.

3) Archavon is the exception, since Stomp clears aggro. He's also not subject to Taunt DRs, from what I understand.

MT and OT will not be on the same planet in terms of threat on a single target. A paladin OT for example has a really hard time producing threat when hes not being attacked. No damage = no mana = no threat. I believe warrior and bear rage mechanics are equally as restricting. It is perfectly normal for an OT to not be able to hold the #2 spot on the boss. Taunt easily takes care of this.

DR's are not a factor here at all. The OT/MT still gets the threat bump, the time the boss is forced to attack them is just reduced. This doesn't matter at all. It doesn't fail to work until the 4th taunt in ~20 seconds if I understand correctly.

[sanguineraven]

MT and OT will not be on the same planet in terms of threat on a single target. A paladin OT for example has a really hard time producing threat when hes not being attacked. No damage = no mana = no threat. I believe warrior and bear rage mechanics are equally as restricting. It is perfectly normal for an OT to not be able to hold the #2 spot on the boss. Taunt easily takes care of this.

Not really that true for Paladins these days. You might not be able to maintain your full 969 but you can get damn close now we regen mana through Divine Plea. AoE damage is additional help through SA.

Speccing only 1/2 in SA I can still push enough threat to keep behind other tanks quite easily (primarily due to the high threat Paladin's generate these days) and sometimes have to toggle RF during the fight just in case.

Rage is currently as you stated much more restrictive

[Nyanmaru]

The threat added by taunt is permanent! Taunt in itself does not add a set amount of threat so if you are #1 and you taunt you gain nothing but if you are the OT and are not #1 in threat you can taunt and it most certainly DOES add permanent threat when it makes you equal to the #1.

Wrong!
The threat is not permanent! If you taunt the mob and don't add any additional threat afterwards, you will lose the gained aggro after the taunt debuff wears off. So always remember to hit it with anything after taunting. (Paladin single taunt was no exeption even though it did damage, dunno if it yet has been fixed to damage after taunting, think I read something in some patchnotes)

[Leonhart]

Wrong!
The threat is not permanent! If you taunt the mob and don't add any additional threat afterwards, you will lose the gained aggro after the taunt debuff wears off. So always remember to hit it with anything after taunting. (Paladin single taunt was no exeption even though it did damage, dunno if it yet has been fixed to damage after taunting, think I read something in some patchnotes)

Interesting... lol... any link to support the claim?

[Chimpzilla]

That would be easy enough to test Leonhart. Just go have a friend attack a mob taunt it and don't attack it and have your friend stop attacking and see who the mobs ends up on.

[Nilinor]

Wrong!
The threat is not permanent! If you taunt the mob and don't add any additional threat afterwards, you will lose the gained aggro after the taunt debuff wears off. So always remember to hit it with anything after taunting. (Paladin single taunt was no exeption even though it did damage, dunno if it yet has been fixed to damage after taunting, think I read something in some patchnotes)

Wtf world are you playing?

I taunt to gain secondary aggro, then the other tank taunts back.

Guess what, I stay second on aggro. Always.

That way if the MT gets owned, it immediately turns to me. It has 100% of the time, every time. I dont know where you learned tanking classes but go back and learn it again. The ONLY taunts that dont keep aggro are mocking blow type affects that force the target to attack you, but give no threat increase, and those are taunts, they are forced to attack effects.

Taunt will ALWAYS equal the threat of the person who has aggro, always, and it will never go away.

[draticus]

lol you are horribly mistaken, pallys are the BEST at offtanking because of the amount of threat we put out. our mana pool starts out full and with divine plea talented as long as you keep meleeing you will have constant mana regen.

warriors and druids would be worst in this situation because a good portion of rage is from them getting attacked. which is why blizz is working on the possibility of making rage more biased off damage you do

This is really getting off topic and nit picky but I'll indulge you... A paladin who is not taking any incoming damage cannot keep up with one who is. You lose threat in the following ways...

SoW instead of SoV
Not enough mana for Conc
No threat from holy shield

Can you still produce threat? Sure.
Will you get a lot more threat by taunting off the MT? Yes.
Are there OTs (even pallies) out there who can't stay #2 and would benefit from learning to taunt? HELL YES, in fact if the gear difference is enough it can be impossible for a poorly geared pally OT to keep up with a dps pulling 6k.

Now back to the point of this thread: Taunting WILL add threat permanently. I think sweetcheeks is confusing "threat" with "aggro." If the #1 has 50k more threat than you, and you taunt, you gain aggro and 50k threat. That threat will not go away (unless your threat gets wiped somehow of course). You can obviously lose aggro again if someone overtakes your threat by 10%.

Sweetcheeks: You have been enlightened.

[dirtydan121]

Ok pretty much, You taunt a boss for the initial 3 seconds of agro it gives you, to the best of my knowwledge it does not give any actualy threat, However it gives you 3 seconds of 100% threat on the mob, giving you time to start gaining threat and/or rage. If you tuant a boss, while you are 100% threat it will do nothing to your threat, However it will mean nobody can bypass your threat for 3 seconds.
On the otherhand, If you are say? offtanking the boss, and you need to taunt the boss, Your threat will then increase to whatever the current maintanks threat is, and give you a 3 seconds immunity, to start gaining more agro than the previous tank.
Example.
MT= 1.2 million threat
OT= 600k threat
Offtank Taunts the boss, which will now increase his threat to Equal to the current main tanks, meaning the offtank now mt will have 1.2 Million threat also, plus giving him the 3 second immunity. The 3 second immunity is put there, so when u taunt as the offtank, And the current MT uses say? runestrike and get 15-20k threat in 1 hit, you would then lose agro again, this immunity is there so that u have time to start gaining ur own threat, making you #1 on threat 100%.

On your archavon question, The main tank gets hit with an ability that grabs him, taking him into the air, wiping his current agro. This been done, the person second on agro will gain agro on archavon, This is why you want an offtank, so when the maintank gets gripped, the offtank can taunt and pick up the boss, while the old Maintank is gripped.


Hopy this answers your question.

[Xianth]

Wrong!
The threat is not permanent! If you taunt the mob and don't add any additional threat afterwards, you will lose the gained aggro after the taunt debuff wears off. So always remember to hit it with anything after taunting. (Paladin single taunt was no exeption even though it did damage, dunno if it yet has been fixed to damage after taunting, think I read something in some patchnotes)

Wrong. go and taunt a mob off someone and then don't do anything. the mob will stay on you. You will only lose threat if you don't do anything and a ranged goes over 130% of your threat after the taunt debuff wears off or if a melee goes over 110%.

We used this exact mechanic in BWL on the drakes when taunt was't so well understand, the offtank would maintain threat and stay ahead of the dps, and the mt would taunt back after a buffet to set his threat back up to the same level of the OT and take the drake back. For example, if threat wasn't permanent the mobs would go back on the OT after because the buffet will have reduced the MTs threat by 50% making it impossible for him to regain the aggro later on in the fight - this never happened.

Another example (more modern) is on hodir; I always hope a ranged pulls aggro at some point early in the fight (usually when the fire stacks are maxed) so i can taunt him back and gain an easy 30% threat for free.

The OP is right and has a good reason to make this post, i see a lot of posts where the taunt mechanic is misunderstood.

[Nyanmaru]

Wrong. go and taunt a mob off someone and then don't do anything. the mob will stay on you. You will only lose threat if you don't do anything and a ranged goes over 130% of your threat after the taunt debuff wears off or if a melee goes over 110%.

I just did it yesterday on my pally (using righteous defense) as I taunted the tree at freya that does the nasty "broken bones" debuff and knocks the tank back, I had no heals ticking or shield procing durin that time, only "aggro" I did was by passive mana reg, I was at 100% threat and the tree came rushing over once the taunt buff wore off I was back at 17% and the tree turned back to the tank without him taunting or doing anything funny.

Same thing if I do it with my DKs on 25s, I taunt the boss and usually do 2 DCs while running from it, thursday night had it that I missed both DCs and just kept on running just to see the tree turn around to bash on the former tank that was (according to omen) 5k threat below.

Then I am there with my DK, having some fun in Karazhan my priest sitting at max range because I'm too lazy to DS in frost spec, just healed me with a nice big GH crit due to Inner Focus as as the priest got aggro by a patroling mob, so I taunt it. By your logic since the priest is not generating any kind of aggro (no mana reg, no heals, no nothing since I don't push any buttons) the mob should run straight over to me and start pounding into my face. But I'll tell you what happened: Runes on CD, bashing the next mob in front of me, I watch the mob slowly crawling over to me and as it's nearly in melee range it just turns around and gets back to beating on the priest.

Care to explain why this repeatedly happens?

[Xianth]

[quote=Sweetcheeks ]
I just did it yesterday on my pally (using righteous defense) as I taunted the tree at freya that does the nasty "broken bones" debuff and knocks the tank back, I had no heals ticking or shield procing durin that time, only "aggro" I did was by passive mana reg, I was at 100% threat and the tree came rushing over once the taunt buff wore off I was back at 17% and the tree turned back to the tank without him taunting or doing anything funny.
[quote]

Is righteous defense the paladin clone of taunt or is it multi target? Are you positive the main tank didnt taunt him back? because every week i do it with a warrior OT, I have to taunt it back before it pounds the OT into the ground as he has taken the same aggro as me and i would need 130% to take it back (as i;m at range by the point he taunt debuff has worn off, obviously). I'm also a warrior. Perhaps you can do a quick fraps to show what happens, because it shoudln't.

Same thing if I do it with my DKs on 25s, I taunt the boss and usually do 2 DCs while running from it, thursday night had it that I missed both DCs and just kept on running just to see the tree turn around to bash on the former tank that was (according to omen) 5k threat below.

Then I am there with my DK, having some fun in Karazhan my priest sitting at max range because I'm too lazy to DS in frost spec, just healed me with a nice big GH crit due to Inner Focus as as the priest got aggro by a patroling mob, so I taunt it. By your logic since the priest is not generating any kind of aggro (no mana reg, no heals, no nothing since I don't push any buttons) the mob should run straight over to me and start pounding into my face. But I'll tell you what happened: Runes on CD, bashing the next mob in front of me, I watch the mob slowly crawling over to me and as it's nearly in melee range it just turns around and gets back to beating on the priest.

Care to explain why this repeatedly happens?

In the second example, if the heal had landed before the mob was aggroed and the priest got proxy aggro, the priest would have had 0 threat so you taunt, you would get 0 threat. After that as soon as the priest has any mana or power gains to generate even the tiniest bit of threat then the priest will outthreat you. The same situation but when the mob aggrod before the heal, if the heal landing was all overheal then 0 threat was generated and therefore you wouldnt be getting any threat from the taunt and again any threat gain for the priest (or poh proc, renew tick) would result in aggro pulling. there's a lot of variables in the second situation which can result in the aggro loss as you;re at a 0 threat situation, the 1st situation just shouldnt happen in the way you explain it and i;ve never seen it happen that way.

[draticus]

Righteous defense is a multitarget and it does not work as a warrior taunt... that is it doesn't place a forced attack debuff on them so if they exceed 110% of your threat they get it back regardless of how long ago you taunted.

I just tested righteous defense and hand of reckoning with a friend. If a mage casts a spell on a mob that causes 2.5k threat and then I use righteous defense my threat becomes exactly 2.5 and stays that way forever as the mob beats on me for 10 + seconds. I create no additional theat and do no additinal damage yet my threat from righteous defense never changes. Ret aura was not on. I do not have a shield spike. My threat did not change. It stayed 2.5k Now keep in mind I only have 2.5k threat since thats all the mage had so all he has to do is melee the mob once, which he eventually did and he gets aggro back because hes above 110% of threat. 110% of the tank is easy to come by when you're 5 seconds into a fight and all the tank has done is taunt it.

As I said before, righteous defense is not a true taunt so if the mage casts one spell then I righteous defense to get aggro the mage can hit it less than a second later and get aggro back because its not being forced to attack me, I'm just #1 on his list.

Hand of reckoning however is a taunt that forces the target to attack you and it too kept the threat gained from the taunt even when I did not attack the mob after taunting.

Threat is permanent! Aggro is not. You simply can't keep track of all the variables in the middle of a raid so while it may seem like your threat is going away the person who gains aggro actually just created threat that you didn't realize they created.

[Chenz]

The threat added by taunt is permanent! Taunt in itself does not add a set amount of threat so if you are #1 and you taunt you gain nothing but if you are the OT and are not #1 in threat you can taunt and it most certainly DOES add permanent threat when it makes you equal to the #1.

No. It doesn't give you as much threat as the one with the most threat on the mob, it gives you as much threat as the one tanking the mob. As a tank, you most certainly should know the difference.

[Brabun]

WTF guys, the OP just clearly explained on how and why taunt mechanics works. In details. Just read it and learn to use it effectively. Stop trying to mock them with silly stuff. And to the previous poster, Chenz, if in your raids person tankin the mob and the person with the highest threat is not the same person, then go find better tanks.

[Everstride]

When you taunt a mob, you are immediately placed on the top of his threat list. If you do not follow up your taunt with something that generates threat, any dps/healer aggro will put you above this. If you wait for your taunt to expire without ever touching the mob, it will refocus the second highest threat. Spells like CS and MB and DS do the first part, without the second part. You will top the threat until the spell expires, but no amount of outgoing TPS from you will make you remain at the top.

[Tedium]

It's pretty surprising how many people don't understand how the various Taunt abilities work.