PDA

View Full Version : Threat Management 101


Achebe
12-05-2007, 06:57 PM
a few friendly reminders on how *you* can make the lives better for the tanks and healers, and in turn, the life span of the entire raid/group:

1) Give the tank(s) a little time to build up aggro. how? crazy as it may seem, don't attack for the first 5-10 seconds of the fight. before you lay in, give the tank some time to drop a few of their threat-heavy attacks on the target(s), be it sunders, shouts, consecrates, lacerates, swipes, etc... this applies to single pulls and (less so to) aoe pack type pulls. many aggro pulling problems can be avoided simply by waiting a few seconds before you dish out your much appreciated dps skills.

2) don't open with your heavy dps abilities. so no aimed shot, shadow bolt, pyroblast, charge, etc... best to start off small, and build up your dps as the tanks build up their threat. keep your biggest damage attacks intermittent, or save till the target is almost dead. slow and steady dps wins the game. it can save your life, the healer's mana pool, and subsequently the group's life.

3) Turn off your pet's taunts. self explanatory.

4) avoid all aoe attacks, as to not accidentally break CCs. (unless it's an aoe pull, obviously)

5) watch your threat meter (you have Omen installed, right?) and hold off dps if you get near 90% of the MT's threat. you are too close if Omen tells you that you've broken 90%, so use your aggro dump skill if you have, or hold off on dps for a bit.

6) use aggro dropping abilities on a regular basis, such as soul-shatter, feign death, cower, fade, etc. while useful for those 'oh crap' moments, they can be even more useful in preventing them. so use em. often.

7) that other idea you have that i overlooked.

this didn't seem like a *major* problem last night (we did great considering), i just noticed a few peels from various people in the raid here and there that could have been prevented.

note: also see aflin's thread from the ally forums for a nice discussion: http://www.iron-phoenix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18906

Animitation
12-05-2007, 08:02 PM
My name is Tivolt, and I endorse this thread.

citidel
12-05-2007, 10:26 PM
Cant you guys start your own threads :P without stealing from the alliance? :P

Achebe
12-06-2007, 12:28 AM
borrow and improve, isn't that how knowledge and technology progresses?

i did change *one* word in the title, and the bullet point structure of my post was clearly different than the situational episodic narrative posted on the ally forums, hehe.

:)

Bradven
12-06-2007, 08:10 AM
I would like to note, agro is everyone's responsibility - not only the person pulling agro, but also the person who is suppose to be holding agro.

Not in guild runs, but I've pick-up grouped and done nothing but spam agro reducing abilities (severly gimping my dps) and yet still get blamed for pulling agro.

Agro is EVERYONE'S responsibility. I will always be a fan of hitting your respective class boards to read on effective fight rotations and agro management (Either to reduce or to increase if you're a tank).

Animitation
12-06-2007, 11:08 AM
Cant you guys start your own threads :P without stealing from the alliance? :P

This is where being one step behind Knights has it's advantage, by the time we need to address something. One of you guys have already made a post about it :) Call it flattery.

Posidian
12-06-2007, 01:05 PM
Until that 1 piece of info that comes along, we steal it, and SLING SHOT ahead making Horde yet again the better side...like it should be :p

KermieD
12-07-2007, 07:50 AM
Being a hunter, where the majority of my damage is white damage, I find that the 90% warning is more than adequate. Omen tends to undervalue tank taunts and threat generators while overvaluing white damage. Through experimentation, I've found that I have to get almost 25-30% above the MT on the Omen meter before I do actually peel the mob from the tank. As a result, if I pop FD (with at least 2 pcs of T4 gear, it's rarely resisted these days) at that 90% warning, the only time I do pull aggro is when the mob is one that resets his threat table from time to time.

kaegan
12-07-2007, 03:01 PM
Being a hunter, where the majority of my damage is white damage, I find that the 90% warning is more than adequate. Omen tends to undervalue tank taunts and threat generators while overvaluing white damage. Through experimentation, I've found that I have to get almost 25-30% above the MT on the Omen meter before I do actually peel the mob from the tank. As a result, if I pop FD (with at least 2 pcs of T4 gear, it's rarely resisted these days) at that 90% warning, the only time I do pull aggro is when the mob is one that resets his threat table from time to time.

I think that this is about right -- a mob will change targets if you pass 100% in melee or about 130% from a range.

citidel
12-07-2007, 03:21 PM
110% for melee (atleast on bosses)

Achebe
12-09-2007, 10:31 AM
thanks for the good input on this - i've modified the point about aggro and Omen. i still think it's better to stay below 90%, for those big crits from heavy caster dps spells.