Pally Tank Raid boss threat issues.

[Dem]

If the raid leader wants better threat in the first few seconds then provide it for them.

Change a few bits of gear around / reforge some avoidance / use elixirs and food to achieve a decent amount of hit rating. Carrying 8% hit rating makes a massive difference to threat generation.

This will put more pressure on your healers.
If you live (consistently), have fun - you're doing excellent threat and more damage.
If you die, explain that it's a result of gearing for threat to compensate for dps not being able to keep it in their pants for a few seconds. The healers may well support you in this now

[Digren]

We tried our first raid last night (Magmaw). How well it went is a topic for another forum. But... with regard to threat, the highest DPS did about 13k and stayed around 55-60% of my threat. And I was using holy power on WoG the whole time (half on myself, half on the mages who were getting torn to pieces in the field and on the parasites). And I gear as my guides recommend - no nod given to threat at all apart from Seal choice.

So for me at least, the "standard" recommendations seem to work fine. If DPS gear scales faster than my gear, then we'll see if I have a problem.

[inthedrops]

We tried our first raid last night (Magmaw). How well it went is a topic for another forum. But... with regard to threat, the highest DPS did about 13k and stayed around 55-60% of my threat. And I was using holy power on WoG the whole time (half on myself, half on the mages who were getting torn to pieces in the field and on the parasites). And I gear as my guides recommend - no nod given to threat at all apart from Seal choice.

So for me at least, the "standard" recommendations seem to work fine. If DPS gear scales faster than my gear, then we'll see if I have a problem.

Yeah it'll change. They'll start doing 20k+ single target, hitting spikes of 30k+ when prepotted and with lucky streaks (heroics)

[Dem]

We tried our first raid last night (Magmaw). How well it went is a topic for another forum. But... with regard to threat, the highest DPS did about 13k and stayed around 55-60% of my threat. And I was using holy power on WoG the whole time (half on myself, half on the mages who were getting torn to pieces in the field and on the parasites). And I gear as my guides recommend - no nod given to threat at all apart from Seal choice.

So for me at least, the "standard" recommendations seem to work fine. If DPS gear scales faster than my gear, then we'll see if I have a problem.

I'm not going to go back over the long discussion we had about the 'over gearing content and therefore gearing for threat' stage

However, there are some key issues here.

1. Threat when you have it is fine. This is more about the first 30 seconds of a fight.

2. We have to gear to our raid setup which means sometimes compensating for inadequacies and sometimes in allowing excellence (in healing or dps).

3. The raid leader has to be in charge. Like any team, you advance your argument then accept the decision. If the decision here is to let dps go all out right at the start then all you can do is gear for it. Alternatively you can simply let the dps tank it, die and wipe again which is probably a less effective response. Replacing the raid leader may not be an option.

A related but not directly relevant point is regarding hit rating - sometimes we need to gear for this anyway. For example, if you run in 10 man, you may need to provide reliable interrupts with Nefarian being the best example. With 3 interrupts required for phase 2, and failure usually resulting in a wipe you need enough hit to avoid missing a level 85 mob if you don't have the required raid setup.

If you can successfully kill Nef with 5% or more hit rating, then you need to ask yourself whether or not you want to go back to 0-2% hit for general tanking duties.

General guidelines are great, but we need to make sure it doesn't stop us making intelligent decisions about how they relate to our particular, diverse situations.

[Digren]

1. Threat when you have it is fine. This is more about the first 30 seconds of a fight.

General guidelines are great, but we need to make sure it doesn't stop us making intelligent decisions about how they relate to our particular, diverse situations.

Sure. And yet some raid leaders make the wrong decisions. And sometimes it's not worth accepting them.

Note that I was even using the first batch of Holy Power for WoG. At least for us right now it just didn't matter. Though do note that I lead with a Tazik as well as everything else standard that the rest of you do.

[Dantriges]

Bad decision is bad decision and the raid leader is not omniscient and knows everything about every role.

OK in a raid you probably should just accept the decision. If everyone is doing what he wants during raid time or wants to argue, chaos follows. Argue later and he should listen. As a raid lead you either have to know something or you should listen to the experts, aka the player in question. If it turns out, he is a moron, get rid of him. Otherwise you just turn into an idiot lieutenant. Just because you have a rank doesn´t turn yo into a god. People accept and respect raid leaders that are willing to listen and admit a mistake or misjudgement. The ability to say "I was wrong" makes you into a leader people respect and talk to, just spewing BS because you are the boss turns you into a moron, no one listens to.

And I don´t understand why everything has to obey DPS wishes. Neither tanks or healers are babysitters for DPS.

[Dem]

Agree with all that and it's probably a discussion for another thread but you only have so many options.

Don't raid.
Convince the raid leader of the real issue - doesn't always work.
Work with/on the dps to get them to modify their behaviour - depends on how much time and effort you need to put in.
Replace the raid leader - depends on their standing in the guild and how much time and effort you need to put in to build the alliances necessary to make it happen.
Change guild - depends on your needs and whether you have friends in the guild etc.
Gear/Act to compensate for poor decision making - just one of the options but a valid one.

[Anakhimel]

I actually had this issue last night. It wasn't just me either. Two bears and myself tanking H-Chimaeron were getting our aggro ripped from under us by two rogues, a hunter, a warrior, a warlock and three mages (over the span of 2-3 attempts). After yelling at the dps to invis, soulshatter, vanish etc, I felt the need to ask if they even had Omen or a threat meter or if they just felt the fight was too boring and they wanted a little excitement.

Low and behold, I had to tell the rogues to stop circle jerking it with their ToT to each other at the beginning of the fight. If the boss really has to face them before they realize they need to vanish, I think they are watching recount too much.

[heuvarius]

Threat has really started to become a problem since our guild stepped into Heroic raids. It's hard to tell whether the problem is low tank threat or ret pallies having too much front load burst though. I suspect it's a bit of both as I rarely find any problems myself if I end up tanking. (we don't have another ret)

I actually had this issue last night. It wasn't just me either. Two bears and myself tanking H-Chimaeron were getting our aggro ripped from under us by two rogues, a hunter, a warrior, a warlock and three mages (over the span of 2-3 attempts).

Interestingly, Chimaeron is actually one of those fights where I had the least threat problem. It may have something to do with the static nature of the fight, but I regularly hit 42k+ 10 seconds into a pull and never had to stop for the fear of threat or pulling aggro. I don't even have to use my own salv every time either.