Considering they have been building encounters around the fact that people have these; no, it is not cheating. It's a tool, and if it were cheating, Blizzard would have put something in to ban them.

lulz...cheating

Don't post here if this is the type of garbage that comes out of your mind. It's embarrassing...

You're gonna get flamed for that comment but I agree frankly - I've used them on characters where I really couldn't control my aggro well but it just felt so lame. When I was first learning how to group it was part of the game to learn not to nuke too fast and use common sense, and back then nobody had threat meters, because we all learned how to play without them. Kinda sucks that they're almost mandatory now.

Not that I use them myself but then I don't raid beyond the odd Kara run (and that on a healer who won't have threat issues anyway) - I can see why they're needed in raiding, as at the very least it's a matter of courtesy to the other 9/24 people to not cause wipes due to pulling aggro but it gets annoying when people insist on them even for 5-mans; I'm not a noob who can't control my aggro without a crutch, and unless the tank really sucks I have no trouble.

@5

You rag on threat meters and don't raid beyond Kara? *roll eyes*

I have yet to see a real raider ever complain about threat meters, because in everything beyond intro raids they have mechanics that expect you to have threat meters. Tank swapping combined with enrage timers is something you aren't likely to get around without threat meters (unless you massively out gear the encounter). With modern raids you don't have the lee way to not be pushing out close to maximum DPS for most of the fight.

In five man heroics they make things a lot easier because you don't have to obsessively monitor your party members to tell if they suck. And plenty of sucky players try and tag along on heroics (and I prefer to judge people on their skill, not their gear).