Part 1: Maximizing your Boss Threat
I’ve touched on the topic of threat rotations before, but it’s never done justice to how to tank a boss. That’s where we are headed this time.
The Global Cooldown Abilities
- Battle/Commanding Shout (Shout)
- Demoralizing Shout (Demo)
- Thunderclap (TC)
- Shield Slam (SS)
- Revenge (Rev)
- Devastate (Dev)
What is the Global Cooldown?
Whenever you use most abilities a 1.5 second timer is triggered and you’ll be unable to use another ability until that time has past. (The standard Blizzard interface shows this as a spinning wheel effect as will most non-standard ones as well) This also prevents you from using any of the above moves simultaneously.
The Threat Rotation
- a. SS -> Rev -> Dev -> Dev
- b. SS -> Rev -> Dev
Rotation A should only be used if you have low latency. If you have the misfortune of having a slow connection then you’ll generate greater threat with Rotation B.
Shield Slam should be used before Revenge if you have high rage. This is done because you want to prevent Rage Waste. Rage Waste occurs when an action would have resulted in you having more than 100 rage, but instead that rage is wasted because you cannot have more than 100 rage at any given time. For the most part though, the order in which you use Shield Slam and Revenge largely does not matter.
Mitigating Factors
Thunderclap, Demoralizing Shout and your choice of Battle or Commanding Shout should always be active when tanking a boss. In your threat rotation, the use of these abilities should always replace Devastate with one exception. If it looks like your Sunders are about to fall off the boss, you need to use Devastate to renew the timer. (The standard Blizzard interface fades out the Sunder debuff in a wheel like fashion) The reasoning is that you’ll lose substantial threat by having to put up 5 new sunders all over again. Should this situation present itself, you’ll want to replace the SS/Rev position of your threat rotation with TC/Demo/Shout on a hard hitting boss or simply wait for the next opportunity to use TC/Demo/Shout in place of Devastate on a weak to moderate hitting boss. You’ll want to renew your choice of Battle or Commanding shout based
Shout Choices
On a hard hitting boss, you’ll want to have as much health as possible so Commanding Shout should always be used. On weak to moderate hitting bosses or bosses where high threat is essential, you’ll want to use Battle Shout.
In a raid environment, you’ll often have a 2nd warrior in your group allowing you to have both Battle and Commanding Shout up. As to which one of you should use which shout, this should largely be determined by the nature of the encounter. Whichever one of you is able to consistently keep up the important shout of the 2 based on the criteria listed above should take that particular shout.
Your off-tank is often going to be the one who should be in charge of the important shout, but if he or she is inconsistent by nature at renewing shouts then you’ll have to use the important one yourself.
That’s Part 1, check back for the next installment where we’ll look at the abilities that aren’t on the Global Cooldown.
February 17th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
“The reasoning is that you
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February 17th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
The sunders on the mob help your other threatgenerators.
With 5 applied Sunders the other skills cause more damage thus more threat
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February 17th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
@Talisman: I wasn’t as clear there as I should have been. What I meant by 5 new sunders is using Devastate 5 more times. (that in turn applies the Sunder effect)
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February 17th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
But you also loose the threat because you don’t have 2500 armour pen, and all your melee DPS looses that as well.
Potions aren’t on the GCD, but I find it helpful to keep them close to the shout timer. (Specifically Ironshields on hard hitting fights) Keeping both 2 minute timers together is one less thing to keep track of.
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February 17th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Hmm, I may be wrong, as I don’t have the figures to hand, but I was under the impression that Devastate, when raid buffed, now does more threat per global cooldown than Revenge does (since the buff to it when it started adding sunders, as that patch also added a slight boost to the 5-sunder devastate threat value).
Shield Slam does the most threat per cooldown but the least rage efficient, which would lead to TWO boss rotations to choose between depending on the amount of rage you have coming in:
Shield slam -> Dev -> Dev -> Dev when in ridiculously high rage situations, for highest threat per GCD
Revenge -> Dev -> Dev -> Dev when in low rage situations, for highest threat-per-rage
Of course, the somewhat varied nature of spikey rage and such often means that revenge is usually worth throwing into the mix anyway simply due to its efficiency, but when rage isnt an issue, I was under the impression that a devastate will now throw out a tiny bit more threat than a revenge.
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February 17th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I thought you first stack sunder, then go into rotation. Am I wrong?
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February 18th, 2008 at 2:24 am
I also want to ask if there is high rage situation, If 5 sunders already applied to mob, should one still spam devastate or heroic strike while all other skill are on CD?
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February 18th, 2008 at 4:27 am
@ Scarleoni: as a rule of thumb i always open with a Shield Slam, then 5 x Devastate. due to the innate threat added by SA to the first 5 Devastates you land this is the fastest way to generate threat. obviously only applies to the first 5 and also gets messed up by any other armor mitigating attacks. once these are down then into the standard rotation laid out in the OP.
@ Delidumrul: in a ‘high rage’ situation still stick to the same rotation as in the OP but weave in HS’s to dump rage. don’t drop below 40ish though as you don’t want to waste a SS / Rev / Dev due to using a HS.
in an ‘endless rage’ scenario, and assuming low latency, a standard rotation would be: SS -> HS -> Rev -> HS -> Dev -> HS -> Dev -> HS
chances are you don’t have a weapon which is
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February 18th, 2008 at 8:42 am
… not sure why my last post cut off but i went on to briefly talk about weapon speed and not actually being able to get a HS in between each GCD, but if you have the rage then HS is the ability to spam (primarily due to the additional damage / threat but also because of the greater hit chance for yellow damage over white).
- DW
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February 18th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Actually i find it strange that you dont mention HS beeing spammed all the time..If we take SSC bosses as an example almost all of them provide the rage to constantly keep HS up due to the fact that it shares no global cooldown!Moro for example keeps your rage full no matter what you do so HS should always be up…Now for the other skills rotation i m not so sure if after SS 5 sunders sould be applied with dev before starting to use rev or you should go like SS>Rev>Dev>Dev>SS and so on…Gonna check it though..Thanks for your comments this might have been one of the most importand subjects tbh!
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February 18th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Psst: Aldarius
“That
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February 18th, 2008 at 11:21 am
@ Aldarius: I think he covered that with the line:
That
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February 18th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
nice issue man. in fact earlier i was talking about this same issue with my raid partners. i just cant keep my TPS higher then 500. during boss fights, or trash. since im not that well geared yet ( just starting to raid kara, with no sun eater, nor king
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February 18th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Re: Shouts
I find that on many encounters, I want to apply the bonus health from commanding to my group when a certain event is triggered (a few seconds after malacrass starts his aoe attack, for instance), so I often toggle between battle and commanding throughout the fight so that I have that small “heal” available when it is needed.
Re: Global Colldown
One thing you really need to watch out for is developing the habit of watching that spinning bar on the icons. While it helps you generate maximum threat, it distracts you from watching what is going on. I tend to just run a metronome (http://www.metronomeonline.com/ set to 40) in the background so that I have an audible clicktrack to synch my attacks to. I believe that this should also combat latency issues- I think the tracking is done server side, so if you send the command to do a shield slam, the server, not the client, determines if it is time. I could be wrong though- I am lucky enough to have a great connection.
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February 18th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
@gigeer
Lack of gear actually increases your threat as you take more damage and have more rage to spend. If you are undergeared for the content, you should be using HS a lot (because your rage bar will frequently be above 50). The tricky spot for threat is where your gear is effective in reducing damage, but not so effective that you can start equipping threat gear. I would recommend picking up Latro’s Shifting Sword from regular BM in the meantime, expertise + 1.4 delay will be a lot of threat. 500 TPS (assuming you are using Omen to measure threat) is rather low.
@Sapph
I would think using Revenge in an endless rage scenario would still be better than Dev as it is more threat per GCD (which is all that is limiting your threat). Efficiency ALWAYS matters because the less rage you spend on your rotation, the more rage you have to use HS.
Re: Shield Slam
What is the point where Shield Slam becomes less threat than Dev + HS? With a fast enough weapon, talents in Imp HS, and low block value I would think there should be a point where you should be skipping SS.
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February 18th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Oooooooooohh, I like that idea of the metronome, I’ll have to try that.
The biggest issue I’d like to sort with my tank is the fact that I seem to spend a huge amount of time watching my GCD and other cooldowns on my action bar, and my rage bar to keep an eye on whether I should be HSing etc. Has anyone had any success using one of the HUD mods that places your health and rage bars in the centre of your screen?
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February 19th, 2008 at 7:22 am
Lets talk for a minute about spec.
Ive been rolling with the standard 8/5/48 build for a long time now ( funny enough I actually picked out the spec myself without realizing it was cookie cutter) but as my gear has gotten alot better ( were into SSC/TK now) Ive noticed a need to generate alot more threat.
Ive read about the 12/5/44 build- what do you think about this? What talents would you say are best to drop in prot in order to accomplish it?
(its a tossup between imp shieldwall, imp defense stance, and not putting 5 pts into Anticipation)
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February 19th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Spec all depends on the content you are doing. If you are spending most of your time doing farm content then putting up huge threat numbers and getting through it quickly is what counts and an aggressive 12/5/44 spec will be excellent. If you are spending a lot of time doing progression/learning content then a 8/5/48 will give you better survivability.
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February 19th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I might be playing this a bit conservative, but i usually put up a taunt if it is up. If not, i usually do what vene states. If revenge is up, i revenge. If not, i dev like crazy. but in order, SS->rev(if it is up)->dev X times till something else is done with CD or is up. My guild is not to the point where i can use 12/5/44 yet. I’m using the standard 8/5/48 and ppl will like it. *evil*
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February 19th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
@kream@gigeer
Yes you are correct that more rage may be available due to being undergeared but this also means that shield block value, expertise, hit rating, attack power and other threat generating stats are likely lacking lacking and the additional rage will not be converted into nearly as much threat.
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February 21st, 2008 at 7:41 am
I’m the cameraman for our guild in Karazhan, and I use Fraps to capture video of all our boss fights. I’ve found that watching these videos is EXTREMELY helpful in optimizing my rotation, since during a fight (especially the first time you meet an encounter) there’s so much stuff going on it can be difficult to keep track of everything. I was mortified when I watched video of our first Attumen fight; shield block was down for an extended time, the boss wasn’t properly debuffed, I was rage-starved from hitting HS too much. Even though I knew all this stuff about rotations and efficiency, it went out the window during the excitement of the encounter, and I didn’t even realize how inefficient I was being. By the time we got to Curator a week later, I was much happier with my rotation; after all, people were actually going to SEE these videos, so I was kind of forced to improve.
@ Kenney: I have that exact problem. My solution was a custom UI, where unit frames, castbar, and action bar are all arranged near the center of the screen, so even though my eyes rest primarily on my cooldowns they can still catch important stuff going on. That might not be a solution for everyone though, I certainly like the metronome idea.
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February 21st, 2008 at 7:52 am
I generally roll with a 10/7/44 build or something along those lines. I’ll normally put at least 2/3 points in imp sunder and imp HS, but going for 3/3 never hurts if you can spare elsewhere. The 3 points in imp def stance is not very effective, leave a few boss encounters. Picking up the badge reward neck and bracers is an excellent choice. I’m farming SSC as a prot and i’m not replacing them yet. Once you start getting all that avoidance to stack with your Effective health set, expertise becomes mandatory. I find myself rage starved on a regular basis. Picking up threat pieces like expertise will GREATLY assist your TPS when your full on rage or rage starved since it just gives more bang for your buck no matter what gear your wearing.
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February 21st, 2008 at 7:54 am
Plz post hud mods you guys use, i’d like to take a look.
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February 21st, 2008 at 12:44 pm
For a metronome type affect you can use Quartz (http://www.wowace.com/wiki/Quartz). It was a Global Cooldown Bar which is a tiny little line you can move around on your screen…I set it just above my HUD. It’s black and every time you use an ability that triggers the cooldown it fires a small “spark” that travels from the left side to right, right in time to the GCD. It really helps me maintain the proper pace, and if I slip for a few seconds to lag or something no matter - since it works off of abilities triggering the GCD it is resynced as soon as I use another ability.
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February 21st, 2008 at 9:12 pm
@gigeer: I was having a similar issue with not being able to generate more than 400TPS consistently. My problem is that I’m a masher. I’ll mash buttons even when the GCD is active, so I would often be late getting a revenge or shield slam off or end up choosing devastate instead of one of the other two. I have reasonable latency, so I’m using SS/Rev>Rev/SS>Dev>Dev and paying more attention to my cooldown timers. Using the same gear, I picked up almost 150TPS just by working out my rotation and not spamming. Not sure if that’ll help you, but it worked for me.
BTW, King’s Defender and Sun Eater don’t exist. They are myths, legends lost in the lore of Warcraft. Save yourself the frustration of endless Mech runs (which seems to only drop those silly priest boots) and make Blazeguard.
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February 24th, 2008 at 2:26 am
Guys, for those of you who wonder if HS is gonna give you the TPS you lack, I ca only say it depends on many things.
As smartly said before gear lack provides threat via tones of rage BUT, is this amount of threat bigger than the one you lose due to low Block value(small SS dmg) low hit rating/expertize and generally lower AP?
Most importand thing for now m8 is to use latros sword as the previous m8 suggested.Fast hiting weapons are better for tanking and thats the fastest one.Personally i m around 950 tps which is enough to cover my dpsers ass but still its not the best in our guild.Watching over rotation needs alot of practice and probably an interface made to help you out.
HS as i mentioned in my original post is ment to be used only when your rage bar is red.In that way you dump rage which will be wasted if you dont use it.500 TPS is actually low for any kind of gear i think.Try going for gladiator shield or the badge rewards one and try geting a fast hiting weap for start.Then work on your rotation along with the HS.
A macro that could you keep uo with the HS AND shield block is this one
/cast heroic strike
/cast shield block
A smart macro that combines both skills.I personally stopped using it when i discovered it doesnt refresh shield block buff fast enough.In morogrim for example who constantly crashing blows you need shield block up the minute its avaliable so this macri aint working for me :).
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March 4th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Well some of what you put up is good but when it comes to fighting a boss if the group you are with are any goof it should be able to handle everyone else but the boss why you tank the boss only thats where taunt comes in really handy. keep the boss on you and take him out quick.my armor points are high and my damages is really high to i dont have any issues with being able to tank that way with just about any group i tank for. To me taunt is the best talent for a tank before any other talents. To me it should be the primary Talent used. The only way a good tank cant keep aggro is if a lame player is using a shaman and wants to try and impress everyone. When i tank i make sure im leader if someone starts playing stupidly i can kick them out cause if they play stupidly they are not worht keepin cause they will cause more problems then you would have by kickin them out.
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