How not to aggro your tank with AoE
by Matthew Rossi 
Jan 22nd 2010 at 5:00PM
Part of the problem here is that certain classes/specs have no aggro dump or reduction ability and as a result their big DPS moves generate a lot of threat. Arms warriors, most DPS death knights (at least the blood and unholy specs I've used) and retribution paladins have limited aggro reduction at best (pallies at least have Hand of Salvation but that's a band aid at best) and while tanking threat (especially AoE tanking threat) requires ramp up time, it's very easy to hit the Divine Storm, Death and Decay, Pestilence, Whirlwind or Bladestorm buttons. (Enhancement shamans with Spirit Weapons seem to be okay, I rarely pull aggro even when I go nuts with Fire Nova.)
I won't pretend I'm not guilty of this myself when I go DPS. In general this seems to be an issue with the plate classes, as they're designed to be able to tank and thus have not traditionally been designed to shed aggro so much as to generate it. It also doesn't help that since they're in melee range it takes less to pull aggro. So, as a DPS'er, how can we be friendlier to the tank with our big AoE abilities? Here's a few quick and dirty suggestions.
- Wait for the tank to stop moving. This isn't always easy to do, but for big AoE pulls the tank often has to gather up mobs that are not close together and get them all close enough for his AoE threat move to work. Running up to a mob and hitting your big AoE while the tank is heading over to another mob not only wastes the ability's AoE damage, it almost certainly gets you aggro.
- Wait for the tank to use an AoE threat ability. If the druid hasn't Swiped, the DK hasn't hit Blood Boil or put down D&D, there's been no Consecraton from the paladin or the warrior hasn't used Thunder Clap, Shockwave or Cleave, it's not safe to use Bladestorm or a similar ability.
- Make sure you're in the same area as the tank's AoE threat. A good example is the trash pulls before Scourgelord Tyrannus in Pit of Saron. If the tank has four mobs in close proximity to him and one off in the distance hurling spells at him, don't Divine Storm on the one off in the distance casting spells. If there are two casters and five melee and the tank has not really bothered to try and hold the melee yet because he's Death Grip pulling the other caster to him, don't hit Bladestorm yet. Hold off on AoE until you see the tank has his AoE hitting the mobs you'll hit.
Filed under: Paladin, Shaman, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Death Knight
Reader Comments (Page 6 of 6)
Blue Jan 23rd 2010 6:28PM
My alt is Arms Warrior, and I'm finally getting at the point in my gear, that I will pull aggro, pretty easily, if I'm not careful. It's the last thing I want to do, as my main spec is tank, so I know it from that angle, too.
Today, I used bladestorm, on the first pack, going up the hill, in the Pit of Sauron, on Heroic. I died, but not from my use of the aoe. I got killed by the lady caster, that had sauntered off, at a distance, and got promptly ignored, by everyone. She has some nasty spells. I took it in stride, as I figure that I killed most of the others, and made it possible to finally focus, on the caster that got me.
So, not only do I not have a threat reduction move, I have no silence, or stun, other than my version of charge.
Let me just say that I have no interest in topping the meters, but almost all my real damage comes from talented crits, using a slow, slow, two-hander. If I think the fight is taking too long, I will use Bladestorm, but only at the point where I believe it will kill most, if not all of the mobs left standing.
Now, if I did this, for every pull, I would be in that insect idiot cycle-of-life!
I will try out the Shadowmeld, though...I almost never use that, and I don't think it's even on my bars! It doesn't seem like it would be much of an aggro dump, though. Not any more than simply stopping the attack, which I will often do, if I need to back off to charge again, for the rage...
Zuktaw Jan 25th 2010 5:35PM
Shadowmeld doesn't drop threat, it hides it while you're melded. Bear tanking I had to shadowmeld so a guildie could tame a dragon hawk in one of the BC dungeons. Omen had me on highest threat until the pet became friendly even though I was in shadowmeld.
Zuktaw Jan 25th 2010 5:32PM
Our guild recently had a number of folks get new toons to 80 or revive old toons. One of our groups was resto shammy, fire mage, rogue, arms warrior & prot warrior. Being used to vigilancing the fire mage because the arms warrior was a new addition (recent faction/server transfer) I was told early on...you might want to vig the warrior. It's harder to tell when the melee pull threat. Later the chant became, "Remember the one tank rule!" Followed by, "You switch to tank, I don't pull as much threat in fury." It was all good, a weekend of chain heroics got me the 245 helm & shoulders for my prot set!
Bigmu Jan 28th 2010 10:26AM
As a player with both a geared ret/holy Paladin and a leveling prot Paladin, I see both sides of the coin. I've seen Mages and Warriors who only seem to have Blizzard and Bladestorm on their action bar. I've had running races with Hunter pets to see who'll get to a group of mobs first (no Avenger's Shield just yet) and healers who seem adamant that they can run several yards ahead of the group and tank if need be. It's frustrating - but I also see that a lot of these players have no BoA gear on their characters and probably don't know better just yet.
Conversely, I've seen my fair share of awful, awful tanks. "Awful" is probably not the best word to use, so I'll say "awfully inexperienced" instead. Blizzard is doing their best to ensure that as much of the game is accessible to as many people as possible, so as not to have the same problem as in BC where 2% of the playing world got to see past the first two trash pulls of the Sunwell, and something like 10% even saw the inside of Black Temple. This and the fact that for only a couple of hundred badges, you can completely deck out your character in mid to high-end gear, has caused an influx of "awfully inexperienced" tanks. To add to the appeal, factor in the 10 minute plus waiting times for DPS - compared to the 1/10th second waiting times for tanks and healers. I'm also seeing a lot of "Tank Divas". Tanks who will end just about every sentence with, "...or you can just leave group and wait for half an hour for another group n00bz". I enjoy those types as healer as I'll whisper the DPS, vote-kick the tank and wait for two minutes for the replacement. Being a meat-shield is no excuse for being an ass. The saying goes that "An army marches on its stomach", well a 5-man runs on its healer's mana bar.
A guild I was in a year or so ago had a policy in that if you wanted to change your raiding main spec, you had to earn it by running ten heroics in that spec. If anyone in the party died, you went back to your former spec and had to earn it again. At the time I thought it was silly, but now I wish it was part of a quest chain for "earning" dual spec or changing one of those specs. If players had to run three, five or ten random heroics as a tank without any deaths before being "allowed" to lock that spec in, a great deal of frustration on the part of (good) DPS would be lifted. Possibly even a quest where the aspiring tank would have to keep aggro on a group of mobs while NPCs burned them down (with random taunts from the NPCs to keep the tank on their toes) could replace the 1000g price tag.
Also, a little communication goes a very long way in randoms. I had a group today who jumped the gun while we were running Maraudon. Normally this would not be a problem, but some of the trash has VERY effective stuns and the chaos that ensued was amazing to behold. My poor little tank ended up being the last man (or Draenei) standing on one of those pulls. After resurrecting the rest of the group (nobody left the group... gasp!) I told them to wait for consecrate before putting down any heals or DPS. Lo and behold - they listened!
Moral of the story: not all DPS are morons who don't look up from Recount as they mutter under their breath just how incredible their DPS is, not all tanks are amazing and not all healers are prepared to heal Life Tap.