[4.0.1] TPS Concern

[knaughty]

Summary: I've done one serious level 80 raid since 4.0.1 and found threat to be much easier than 3.3.

Long version:
You can check my armoury for spec and gear, but the simple version is "WoG variant build, no GrC, BiS tanking gear, reforged -> mastery". The only 277+ tanking item I don't have is the shield from Heroic LDW - killed her 30 times heroic, she never dropped it.

My DPS are also in BiS gear, excluding HLK weapons. I have mine, so does the ele shaman, everyone else is making do with 277 weapons or the Valkr-proc-thingy that's awesome for many ranged casters (we got HLK once before 4.0.1, and are now in "recruit and train for Cata" mode - not even trying HLK again).

The raid was Heroic-25-Halion. In 3.3, wearing massive amounts of Expertise and pretty decent +hit, I had significant threat issues in P1. I could hold threat - but I needed Misdirect, and we'd have to blow 2-3 Salvation casts on DPS who got lucky.

In 4.0.1, I've switched to pure tanking gear since I've been lazy and only reforged one set. I was pulled in to H-Halion to cover the fact my replacement had locked his Authenticator in the car.

Threat is goddamn insane. One MD "to be safe" - blow Wings at 2 HoPo. First ShoR and I have an unassailable lead. If Vindication ever got decently high in the first minute, I would finish phase one with approx double the threat of highest DPS.

Vengeance is badly tuned right now - it's too big, too slow to stack, too unreliable and fucking annoying to pay attention to. I had a couple of attempts where it stacked fast to 100% and sat there, and I'd cruise happily at 20-30k TPS. I had another couple of attempts where it never got above 50% until just before the end of P1 when I'm tanking the dragon and a big-fire-dude-thingy. Those two attempts we did need to use salvation on a couple of people.

Hopefully the tuning is better at 85 - but at 80, in my gear, Vengeance is +150% AP....

[Meloree]

Summary: I've done one serious level 80 raid since 4.0.1 and found threat to be much easier than 3.3.

Concur, IFF you get hit a couple of times. Get an early dodge streak, and check out how much fun producing threat is then.

We've taken to just standing in fire at Marrowgar, and other similar stunts, to keep Vengeance high.

[Dantriges]

Wonder if our higher blockamount will contribute to a much slower vengeance buildup.

[Meloree]

Wonder if our higher blockamount will contribute to a much slower vengeance buildup.

Especially with 3HP from DP for ShoR+HS on pull, rather than waiting 9 seconds and praying for unblocked hits.

I hate Vengeance more with each passing week.

[knaughty]

Get an early dodge streak, and check out how much fun producing threat is then.

Been there, did that, wiped.

Halion enrage timer is moderately tight, DPS can't sit on their arse for 30 seconds while they wait for Vengeance to stack over 20%.

Vengeance isn't tuned right at 80. I'm praying that it's better at 85.

[Rhiannon]

Don't really see how it can be, our base AP doesn't increase that dramatically (my t11 premade's got around 6.4k AP). Say raid buffs bring that to 8k, raid buffed hp for said premade is about 180k, so max vengeance is +225% AP.

The only good thing is it'll be less RNG as to how quickly it stacks or falls off, with much lower avoidance values, at least initially.

Any mechanic that rewards you for standing in fire or showing the boss your ass for a couple of swings just screams for a more elegant solution.

[Dantriges]

They could base it on being hit. Lower percentage tanking trash, higher percentage fighting +3 mobs or are theyconcerned about imba DPS, when leveling...
Only problem could be that they don´t want us to have high vengeance in aoe fights but the current system ispretty silly.

[baleogthefierce]

On heroic Halion we resorted to tank swapping a couple times before the first Meteor to ensure that the DPS did not pull during the ramp-up stage.

[Treck]

On heroic Halion we resorted to tank swapping a couple times before the first Meteor to ensure that the DPS did not pull during the ramp-up stage.

How would that help?
Once one of the tanks start getting hit, they can for sure keep up their threat by themselves.
Swapping out a tank who just starting to gather vengeance, for a new one without any vengeance, would seem counter productive.
If your tanking inside, you can stand in fires/infront of the boss if you really wanna build up vengeance, but ive found that just try to have 3xHP when the portal spawns, and sacred duty up when you enter, and its not really a problem, just having 3xHP is actually enough.

Most annoying is some of the ICC fights with no other real dmg more than their own meele.
When you enter the fights, you get all those damn shields from healers, and with a few "unlucky" dodges/parrys, ive seen my vengeance bar sitting stuck at 0 for almost 30sec, thats when tricks start fading, and you really wanna be able to push your own threat.

Should have some ability like "increases your vengeance gain by 100%" CD to use when starting a fight or so.
I guess its going to be a bit more ok with divine plea opener.
Seeing as threat really isnt a problem on the beta atm.

[Meloree]

On heroic Halion we resorted to tank swapping a couple times before the first Meteor to ensure that the DPS did not pull during the ramp-up stage.

How would that help?

If you taunt-swap, the threat from Tricks/MD doesn't fade off the other tank. They inherit your threat total at the time they taunt, including temporary threat, and they keep it all.

[baleogthefierce]

On heroic Halion we resorted to tank swapping a couple times before the first Meteor to ensure that the DPS did not pull during the ramp-up stage.

How would that help?

If you taunt-swap, the threat from Tricks/MD doesn't fade off the other tank. They inherit your threat total at the time they taunt, including temporary threat, and they keep it all.

Yeah we did it to preserve the MD/Tricks threat (and get 3HP ShoR from two sources within the first few seconds).

[2Cute2BeStr8]

Content Moderated
Fridmarr

[Rhiannon]

Am I missing something? Can't see how that post follows on from this thread, and all your links are broken.

[inthedrops]

/Rant Warning

I strongly dislike Vengeance in it's current state at 80. Some fights are "better". For example, Halion was recently mentioned, Vengeance is easy on that fight (or seems to be for me).

H-LK in P1 though annoys the living daylights out of me. I can get through the entire P1 without ever breaking 60%. And typically that would be a SPIKE to 60%, not an average. Average probably closer to 40%.

He casts so much, too many melee shadow traps, and bam you're Vengeance is decaying real fast.

It's to the point now that I VERY specifically look at my Vengeance and whether I had a ShoR crit within the first 20 seconds or so and if it looks bad I call out in Vent that it looks bad. This way people know to be careful and watch themselves (for when MD's and Tricks wear off).

On occasion I manage to get in the 100% range earlish in P1, and threat is rediculous....so much so that I can probably auto attack for the rest of the fight.

So yeah, I hate it right now. As someone else said, slower decay would be nice, higher initial benefit would be nice, but reduce the maximum amount given.

Expansion soon so we'll see how things are at 85.

[cardnialsyn]

Well threat isn't what it used to be that's for sure. My Pally is currently Hit capped, Avoidance capped and has 54 expertise with Rhinolicious Worm Steak...yum! She's sporting the Havoc axe off LK25 regular with Berserking on it. Threat is not normally too much of an issue. If it is, it's almost always a DPS warrior, Mage or Warlock. I can hit them with Blessing of Protection or Salvation and have in the past, particularly Warriors. I believe Warlocks can use Soul Shatter to help with threat? Mages have invis and Iceblock.

I am however training my 25 man group for Cata changes and I keep telling them my taunt button is broke, heh. Basically if you pull threat, I let it eat you before taunting it back. It's working wonders.

I figure it this way... I busted my ass figuring out what gear, gems, reforging, enchants, food, etc. , etc, to use to be Hit capped, avoidance capped and almost hitting the expertise cap AND maximize my threat as much as possible. This includes re-learning how to play my class again with all the reading, playing on the PTR and miscellaneous research that goes along with that. YOU as a DPS can and WILL watch your effing threat or I will let the bad thing eat you until you learn to watch OMEN. Raiding is a team effort and my while it is part of my job to optimize my toon, I can only push a finite amount of threat...sadly that finite amount is RNG driven which makes me want to rip my hair out...nothing involving tanking should deal with RNG imo. Nothing!

Anyways my suggestion to the OP is to let a few of your DPS big boys get eaten and let them see how fast they drop from DPS Meters while laying on the floor. Failing that don't forget to pop Avenging Wrath straight off the pull and if worse comes to worse get a mouse over macro for both Salv and BoP.

4.0 will go down as the most annoying patch ever to me as a Prot Pally. Good Luck.

*I don't post here much so just a quick thank you to Theckhd and the other number crunchers here. Much love guys, your hard work has proven invaluable to me for such a long time now. /chest bump