getting aggro on groups of trash mobs?

[mcgee]

hello and first off thank you for such a wonderful site, it has helped me in my tanking career in so many ways. Now on to my question.

I have been tanking for about a month now and am staring to get fairly confident in my abilities, there is one area I am having issues with though, getting and keeping aggro on multiple mob groups that have casters in them. I was wondering if I could get some tactics on what I should be doing to get spread out groups that have casters (who love to run away from my consecrate) to stay on me and not my dps or healer. I am specifically having trouble in The forge of souls instance.. any help would be awesome and greatly appreciated.

Also, any pally tanking addon recomendations would be great as well, I am currently using pallypower and DBM.

[UFTimmy]

In FoS there are two pulls where you can't get them all to melee by yourself. But you can keep them aggroed.

Mark the front left caster. As you get to it, Captain America the front right caster. It will walk to you.

Leave the caster in the back, and taunt it if someone gets aggro on it (use Threat Plates). Since it's in the back, and you have them marked, no one should be hitting it so it should stay yours more or less.

A good hunter will misdirect and silence shot that caster, though, so it also walks up to you.

[mcgee]

I see what your saying UFT, as all tanks know controlling the flow of battle is a tough job, and knowing what to ask your fellow party members (if they can cooperate....) is just as much part of tanking as the ole 969 rotation. you mentioned threat plates, what are those?

[Arjuna]

In the FoS where you get those annoying caster packs I usually go for grouping up most of them and leaving one on the outside. The dps knows (mostly) to nuke the stuff inside the consecration and a judgement now and then on the lonesome caster is usually enough to keep him focused. MD if you got a hunter or TotT if you got a rogue, or tell a DK if you got one to death grip any far away casters into melee range. Just remember to taunt it off him so he doesn't take too much damage.

Another thing to use is the Hammer of the Righteous bounces to gain snap aggro, in heroics I often pull with AS or HoR and then when the group gets close I hammer them, and judge the fourth mob that didn't get hit by the hammer if its unglyphed. Hammer wont hit targets behind you so keep the mobs in front of you at all times.

[bldavis]

i use the HoR glyph, along with AS as i pull on the first caster

between HoR, HS, and Cons, very few will get away.

and those that do, like mcgee said, if you ahve a hunter, rogue, or DK use your party to their full potential.

I will have my DK DG the caster to me, and if i have one running and AS is off CD (pack is almost dead anyway) i throw it
normally brings them right back

and wat are threatplates? is it an add-on?

i use omen but want to find good replacement

[Grehn|Skipjack]

Threatplates are a plug-in to Tidyplates, a nameplate addon. They change size depending on your aggro.

[bldavis]

Threatplates are a plug-in to Tidyplates, a nameplate addon. They change size depending on your aggro.

thank you, i will check this out when i get home!

and that also answers if there is a nameplate add-on anyone recomends

[Arjuna]

Threatplates are a plug-in to Tidyplates, a nameplate addon. They change size depending on your aggro.

well, thats useful, Ive been looking for some new nameplates since blizzard messed up the regular ones...

[UFTimmy]

They change color, too. Green means you have aggro, yellow means you're about to lose it, and red means it's not yours.

In addition I recommend Seal of Command, the snap aggro it generates makes picking up a pack very easy.

[Makaijin]

Another thing you might want to learn/practice is exactly how HotR chooses it's bounce targets and it's bounce range. Since HotR will never bounce to targets behind your 180 frontal arc, and chooses the next bounce target from the previous target. With Avenging Shield it chooses the 2 targets closes to the primary target, whereas HotR is more of a chain effect.

Go to the training dummies behind Ogrimmar, and experiment a bit on the level 60-70 dummies by rotating your char's faing direction and such. With a bit of understanding, you CAN manipulate the HotR bounce with good repositioning and primary target selection so that the last bounce can shoot off to that lone caster about 8 yards away, while keeping everything else within your consecration.

[Snake-Aes]

I see what your saying UFT, as all tanks know controlling the flow of battle is a tough job, and knowing what to ask your fellow party members (if they can cooperate....) is just as much part of tanking as the ole 969 rotation. you mentioned threat plates, what are those?

An addon, but the default UI has the infromation you need: Mobs where you are losing aggro pop the "Lost aggro" message on their heads.

[Khere]

Here is what I have begun doing to help manage aggro on trash mobs. I have Healbot running with the Aggro bars set very big. If someone besides myself pulls aggro then red bars appear on the healbot display and I with a quick click I can quickly do a Righteous Defense to switch the mob(s) back to me.

I also have it configured for other Pally functions like Hand of Protection, Cleanse, Lay on Hands and off course healing (mostly when Ret spec).