Vengeance (tanking mastery)

[knaughty]

Did a quick check of Theck’s thread – our theorycraft TPS is 9-10k.

ICC DPS can push 12-13k, and some specs have minimal threat reduction in their standard build (Hiya, Shadow + locks!).

Ta-da – our TPS is too low.

[inthedrops]

solo-tank TPS doesn’t exceed unmodified DPS TPS.

I see your point (quoted).

I hope this change with Vengeance reduces the NEED for Tricks and MD, but that it changes nothing else. I like that DPS have to worry about threat. But I don't like relying on others to maintain the required minimum.

I remember the good old "Wait for 5 sunders" days on MC. We're in a better place and Vengeance looks like it'll get us further.

[Meloree]

No one's "threat capped", other than at Deathwhisper. I’m still annoyed at my low TPS.

I'm pissed at the fact that people can hit 100% if I'm doing my job properly. I'm specced right, I execute the optimal TPS rotation pretty well. IMO, that should be enough that, barring gimmicks, no one can hit 90% of my TPS. Vengeance might fix this, but tying the scaling to stamina makes me think it probably won’t. DPS are going to have their output double across the tiers – I doubt my unbuffed stamina is going to increase by the same amount. Removing the easy +hit caps, and giving bosses resilience (or other crit suppression) is going to help – DPS are not going to scale as hard in Cataclysm.

Personally, I don't believe that use of Shatter/Invis/Salvation should be a standard part of normal play required for DPS to avoid peeling off the tank. IMO: The warlock should be able to stand there in a tank-n-spank fight, execute his maximal DPS rotation, and the tank should be able to peg him at ~90% threat assuming same gear and skill levels. If the lock has to shatter, tank-scaling is not tuned right. If a shitty tank can hold threat with a shitty rotation and worse gear, tank-scaling is not tuned right.

Wrath wasn’t tuned right. Threat was too easy in Naxx – Consecrate, auto-attack, AFK – and too hard in ICC - solo-tank TPS doesn’t exceed unmodified DPS TPS.

That, indeed, is a difference of definition.

You're right that they've totally blown tank-scaling - tanks basically didn't scale. On the other hand, Vengeance should address that, somewhat. But I suspect that tanks are going to start out at ~70% dps, catch nerfs down to 50% in T11, and then find themselves at 30% in T14 before Blizzard realizes that they blew it.

[jere]

Did a quick check of Theck’s thread – our theorycraft TPS is 9-10k.

ICC DPS can push 12-13k, and some specs have minimal threat reduction in their standard build (Hiya, Shadow + locks!).

Ta-da – our TPS is too low.

How are you measuring your threat in ICC? I haven't seen any parses one parsing websites with sustained 12-13k yet, just spikes. Not saying you are wrong, mind you. Theck might have to update things. Just curious

[theckhd]

My numbers are also calculated with ilvl 264 gear. It will obviously go up some if you upgrade all of it to 277, though I'd assume we still top out at around 11k sustained TPS (sans tricks/misdirect/avenging wrath).

[Meloree]

Did a quick check of Theck’s thread – our theorycraft TPS is 9-10k.

ICC DPS can push 12-13k, and some specs have minimal threat reduction in their standard build (Hiya, Shadow + locks!).

Ta-da – our TPS is too low.

Be careful you're not pulling that number from one of the sheets that has hit/expertise artificially set to 0. If not - I have trouble with those numbers, that sounds very low for on-target TPS in practice.

Either way, for a 13k TPS warlock, 10k TPS is "enough" to not threatcap them.

[theckhd]

Did a quick check of Theck’s thread – our theorycraft TPS is 9-10k.

ICC DPS can push 12-13k, and some specs have minimal threat reduction in their standard build (Hiya, Shadow + locks!).

Ta-da – our TPS is too low.

Be careful you're not pulling that number from one of the sheets that has hit/expertise artificially set to 0. If not - I have trouble with those numbers, that sounds very low for on-target TPS in practice.

Either way, for a 13k TPS warlock, 10k TPS is "enough" to not threatcap them.

The weapon analysis is the only one with hit/exp set to 0, and that does show us topping out at around 9.5-10k TPS. That's probably where he got his numbers.

However, the Talent Spec Analysis should be a reasonably representative simulation, and that shows us in the 10.5-11k region for most "reasonable" specs. Only the specs that go all-out threat (Conviction+Crusade+Reckoning in particular) break 11k.

Again, that's in 264 gear - I'd expect the jump to 277 gear to give another 1k or so as a rough estimate.

[chinoquezada]

Again, that's in 264 gear - I'd expect the jump to 277 gear to give another 1k or so as a rough estimate.

I wouldn't be exactly sure of that.
One glaring thing I noticed of 277 gear is that threat stats weren't really getting much improvement over 264.

[theckhd]

Also, I guess I should add here that my main complaint is not the mechanism, but the magnitude. Will it matter in practice? Probably not; as you pointed out there will almost always be something for that off-tank to do during the encounter. Though with current design it would still be problematic on slower tank swaps without a decent duration (maybe 1 minute after a refresh would be long enough).

I just don't feel like it's a good design decision to attribute up to 50% of a player's (PvE!) DPS to a mechanic which they don't have direct control over. I realize it may be the only way to make this mechanic "work" without causing serious balance problems in PvP. That just make sit seem like a clunky mechanic though, at least in my mind. I would rather see tank DPS boosted to 40% of that of a pure DPS class and some other mechanic implemented to make sure that doesn't imbalance arena or PvP.

Example: Make resilience matter in PvP, such that a tank that wears PvE gear, and thus has decent DPS and lots of PvE survivability still gets smashed by a pure DPS class due to crits. Resilience PvP gear would be itemized with DPS or healing stats so that there wasn't a high-stam, high-resilience gear set that would imbalance things.

[Meloree]

Again, that's in 264 gear - I'd expect the jump to 277 gear to give another 1k or so as a rough estimate.

I wouldn't be exactly sure of that.
One glaring thing I noticed of 277 gear is that threat stats weren't really getting much improvement over 264.

I dunno, 12kish in max-mit 277 sounds a lot closer to my personal experience for on-target TPS.

[knaughty]

I dunno, 12kish in max-mit 277 sounds a lot closer to my personal experience for on-target TPS.

What latency are you playing with?

Remember I have 300 ms - you can compensate a little, but it is still an issue.

[knaughty]

Either way, for a 13k TPS warlock, 10k TPS is "enough" to not threatcap them.

Difference of opinion here, I think. If DPS can do 13k TPS, I want to be able to do 13k TPS, excluding Tricks or MD. There shouldn't have to be rogues and hunters in-raid for me to be able to do my job as a tank.

I consider range DPS being at ~100% to be effectively capped on any encounter where either tank or ranged have to move, and 110% to be "hard capped". I have a strong dislike of relying on the range increment to allow the warlock to go to 130% before peeling, because if for whatever reason the boss and the warlock end up within 10 yards of each other, Mr Warlock gets his face torn off.

Example of a “130% is the limit” wipe at BQL: I had a stuttering pull – EPGP triggered just as I was pulling, which lags me out for 1-2 GCDs as it updates 30 people’s officer notes with current DKP standings. Anyway, I recovered, but my starting TPS was poor. Rather unusually for us, first bite went to ranged, not melee. Also another raid with only 1 MD and no tricks.

1. A couple of ranged DPS have got past 110%.
2. BQL runs ~40 yards to nuker up back of room with a ton of range talents.
3. BQL thinks “Fuck running back to the tank, I’m gonna eat this magelock!”
4. Knaughty mashes taunt. Shame about that 30 yard range issue...
5. BQL eats the magelock. NOM NOM NOM! And blood mirror probably killed another one.
6. Knaughty mashes RD. Go go 40 yard range.
7. BQL starts running back.
8. Ranged DPS do the usual thing they do when something has gone wrong, which is panic and think: NUKE HARDER! Maybe we can burn down the last 90% in the next 5 GCDs!
9. Ranged DPS peel... again... before she even gets back to melee range.
10. Knaughty runs to middle of room, wait for taunt to come off CD.
11. Think: “Fuck this shit! as she eats another couple of magelocks.
12. DI the Holy Paladin.
13. Point out that Dead DPS Do Dick-all Damage

[Meloree]

Either way, for a 13k TPS warlock, 10k TPS is "enough" to not threatcap them.

Difference of opinion here, I think. If DPS can do 13k TPS, I want to be able to do 13k TPS, excluding Tricks or MD. There shouldn't have to be rogues and hunters in-raid for me to be able to do my job as a tank.

Example of a “130% is the limit” wipe at BQL: I had a stuttering pull – EPGP triggered just as I was pulling, which lags me out for 1-2 GCDs

That's not a tank-threat problem. That's a "your addon wiped you" problem. Frankly, I'm not sure you SHOULD be able to stay ahead on threat if you have no tricks/mds for snap threat, and blow your first few globals. That's part of the gearing meta-game. Risk RNG with low hit/expertise, or risk death with threat stats.

For reference, I typically run ~20-40ms of latency, which probably colours my outlook.

[knaughty]

EPGP wiping the raid is not the fault of the tank threat scaling, completely agree.

I was just using that wipe as an example of why I feel that 100-110% of the tank's threat is "capped" not 130%.

I could have summarised it as:

1. My threat was bad (who cares why). Ranged were over 110%
2. BQL ran to the back of the room to bite someone.
3. Target switch ensues. Raid wipes

If I fuck up the pull, and don't have MD/tricks to compensate, then I'm completely OK with DPS either having to sit on their hands or me losing aggro.

What does concern me is that in ICC, tricks/MD is basically mandatory, even if you don't fuck up.

I don't want to be reliant on external sources of threat to be able to stay 1st on Omen. For the following scenario, I think tank tuning should be such that no-one can get ahead of my total threat:

1. 290ms ping, which is still "green" according to the game (and about what I'm stuck with in Australia - this is actually "good").
2. No external threat from MD/tricks.
3. Pre-pot Indestructible, because I'm going to use Wings on the pull.
4. Taunt + Shield at 30 yards, both hit for damage.
5. Run in, Judge @ 10 yards.
6. 969, HS last, big moves first, build SoV stack fast.
7. Wings early, SoV 5-stack at the latest, probably more like 2-3 stack.
8. Correctly execute 969.

If I do all that, I should be able to exceed the TPS of all classes/specs. I'll give you an exception for hunters, maybe.

I don't believe this is the case in ICC - you must have tricks/MD to stay in 1st spot for a lot of boss fights.

[Boyfriend]

For me the issue simply is that in many situations we rely on tricks/MD for threat.

The tank should have to chose between gearing/speccing for threat or survivability and it should be a choice.

Right now it is... you can basically ignore threat and have tricks/MD patch up your problems for you. Ofcourse without tricks/MD we need options to improve our tps aswell but ultimately I think for tank threat generation only the tank should be responsible and noone else.