Is our threat too defensive?

[Shalon]

Hi Tankadins,

I tanked everythings in kara and my guild just down Gruul and VoldReaver recently.
And i found that my threat gen is very low compare with warriors and druids in 25mans, especially when the mobs are not hitting me.
I think we are so reliant on holy shield, but seems not much people address this.
Is this only my problem? I need some help.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/chara ... e&n=Shalon
This is my armory and sorry for my poor English.

[Lore]

We do have a fair disadvantage compared to Warriors and Druids when building threat on something that's not targetting us. However, to my knowledge, this only really comes into play in 3 encounters - Gruul, Void Reaver, and Gurtogg Bloodboil. Tipping your gear a little bit more in favor of spell damage is usually enough to at least keep up with the other tanks, and once the mob is on you (speaking of Void Reaver specifically) you generally build tons of hate really fast.

The biggest issue is in keeping our mana pool alive. I usually have to chain-chug mana pots to keep the flow going, with the exception of Gurtogg who is on me long enough and does enough damage that my mana bar gets topped off every time.

[Shalon]

Thanks for the quick reply
I am currently working for the arena mace to boost my spell damage.

Other than Gruul and VoldReaver, i found that i have problem with some trash mobs too. Somethings like Lair Brute in Gruul Lair. And my long cooldown taunt always get resisted or bugged.

Is that other than increasing my spell damage, nothing more i can do?
Many thanks.

[Zonzede]

If you're alliance, there's a handy trick with Seal of Vengeance.
Judge Crusader, pop Avenging Wrath, and if you have on equipped, a spell damage trinket too. Anything to boost your immediate damage. Then begin stacking Vengeance. Once applied, Vengeance always ticks at the initial amount, even after the buffs ear off. You can even judge another seal (wisdom?).
It helps also if you have a slow weapon to swap to in order to keep the stack more reliably. You can theoretically maintain a massively buffed dot indefinitely, over 500/tick with the right gear.

[Shalon]

If you're alliance, there's a handy trick with Seal of Vengeance.
Judge Crusader, pop Avenging Wrath, and if you have on equipped, a spell damage trinket too. Anything to boost your immediate damage. Then begin stacking Vengeance. Once applied, Vengeance always ticks at the initial amount, even after the buffs ear off. You can even judge another seal (wisdom?).
It helps also if you have a slow weapon to swap to in order to keep the stack more reliably. You can theoretically maintain a massively buffed dot indefinitely, over 500/tick with the right gear.

Yeah i heard this trick.
I need to get a slow weapon if i go for SoV, but i had bad experience that SoV get resisted alot, 5stacks went off really scared me.

And my main problem right now is that, I cannot get aggro while the mobs not hitting me.
After i get 5stacks SoV, either the sqishy dead or other tank grabbed aggro.

[Lore]

What situation are you trying to build threat in while not taking damage that it's such an issue?

[Shalon]

What situation are you trying to build threat in while not taking damage that it's such an issue?

Other than Gruul, basically are trash mobs.
Like Lair Brute in Gruul Lair, Lurker's adds in SSC etc.
Sometimes those naughty dps pulled aggro, i have hard time to get it back.

And another situation is that, after killed all the tanked mobs, and we are going to kill the cc mob, warriors and druids generate threat alot faster than me.

[Lore]

Sounds like you just need more spell damage then, I thought you were saying you were unable to build aggro on something someone else was tanking, which is largely unnecessary.

[Shalon]

Sounds like you just need more spell damage then, I thought you were saying you were unable to build aggro on something someone else was tanking, which is largely unnecessary.

OK. I will keep forward to increase my spell dmg.
And pray for 2.3 patch really help us tankadins, itemization and threatwise.
Because I think that the defensive threat really a disadvantage for us.

Thanks.

[Vanifae]

Needs more Spell damage.

My warriors can rarely keep up with me at times.

[enbee]

Needs more Spell damage.

My warriors can rarely keep up with me at times.

When you're offtanking?

[Girard]

I found on VR, you can generally get him the last 20-15% of the way if you keep just SoV ticking away with JotC. You don't have an aggro dump and until you get aggro, you won't get yours reduced with his knockback. So with ~300 or +dmg you can build up a fairly steady threat lead over the course of the fight.

Just make sure you don't let yourself get TOO low on mana while doing it. Otherwise when he turns onto you, you can't pop HS and splat.

.. I speak from experience =)

[Afraithe]

There are a few tricks you can use, get a shadow priest and a shaman in your group, unlimited mana and +100 spelldamage. Can be hard to convince your raid leader to setup the groups like that tho

[Phaex]

No, we do not have any disadvantage while offtanking.
Bears and Warriors cannot nearly keep up with the insane tps we can do, because spelldamage effects are so huge. Gruul & VR offtanking is nothing but doing tps, and about zero about avoidance, so you can almost equip whatever you want. Hell i tanked VR with shaman mail from heroics the first time i went there....

Judge crusader, throw shield whenever ready, use SoV when low on spelldam, otherwise go with SoR. Judge whenever ready. Throw manapotions on timer. Equip as many T-Set items you have, 2 piece T4 bonus is a must, don't bother about uncrushability too much.

Maybe ask your raidleader to support you with a shadowpriest for the first few times. Once you get used to it, and your gear improves, you won't need a shadow anymore.

[enbee]

Yes we are at a disadvantage while tanking what are you talking about? A huge chunk of our threat output comes from Holy Shield, you're not hitting the mob with holy shield if it's not hitting you hence your threat output sinks.

AND

on top of that we have the mana starvation problem, the same problem warriors/druids have with rage starvation when offtanking.

1+1 = 2

2>1

thank you, good day.