Apologies if this is answered elsewhere, but I didnt find it in my ~10 min of searching, and figured this would be quicker.


Ive noticed that my warlock seems to draw a lot more aggro than my friend's mage, even when we are close on dps. Is this a problem with the warlock class in general, or is it just me? I was just wondering about a few things...


1) Demonic Armor - Does the extra hp5 give aggro? ( I know its not much, but Im curious )

2) VW/FH Demonic Sac - Same deal here...does this give extra aggro? ( Id assume yes, since I always draw it a lot quicker saccing one of them)

3) Lifetap/Darkpact - The Combat Mechanics thing says that all health/mana gaining causes extra aggro...does this hold true for these two as well?

4) CoE/CoS - This one is the real killer for me. I know they all cause a static amount of aggro when cast, but does anyone know approx how much? Also, I remember reading, quite some time ago, that it causes X amount of threat up front, but then the extra 10% damage it causes is also attributed to the 'lock. Is this true at all, or am I just crazy?

5) Other debuffs (CoR, Imp SB, etc) - Same thing...are these just a straight static amount when applied?

6) Drain Life/Mana - Since it deals damage and heals you, does that mean each point of dmg gives you 2 threat?



Just curious about these things, if anyone happens to know. Any help is appreciated.

1) No, it's part of natural regen like mp5 so no aggro gen.
2) Yes
3) No, lt and dp are specifically tagged to not generate threat, this has been confirmed by a CM some weeks ago.
4) Probably like all debuff, a low static amount (don't know how much but it's very low). And no, bonus dmg by curse is obviously attributed to mages.
5) Yes, like all buff/debuffs.
6) Probably, don't see why it should not.

Try searching kenco's code on KTM... all of that will be in there.

Dawme answered most of your direct questions, but the main reason why a warlock does more threat than a mage is likely that the mage in question has Burning Soul (if fire-specced) or Frost Channeling (if frost-specced). Both are 30% less aggro caused by that school of magic. The most you can get as a warlock is 20% if you spec MD, but most locks (me included ;-)) feel that going that deep in Demonology gimps your dps too much for it to be worth it.

And IIRC, CoE/CoS are about equal to 150 damage worth of threat.

And last, don't be discouraged by the fact that you do more threat. If you have good tanks, there aren't really all that many fights where it matters too much. The only fights we are doing atm (we're up to Huhuran), where I find I have to limit myself compared to mages, is phase 2 Razorgore and Broodlord.

Thankfully you are just crazy. If I would have taken 10% of all aggro created by elemental damage from all mages in the raid to a major mob after casting CoE ... well, I would require healing and I would be one heck of a aggroholder :)

Can't seem to find any values for CoS/CoE/CoR in the KTM code but it does indeed generate a small amount of aggro (just be triggerhappy when the MT misses his first strike on a (untauntable) mob and see for yourself).

DP creates threat. It's easy enough to test by having your pet proximity-agro a mob: you can pull agro off of it with just dark pact.

Lifetap doesn't create any threat.

The utility curses create a negligible amount of threat (pull a mob with them and watch a tank take it back with just one auto-attack swing).

The lifestealing spells are pretty threat-heavy for the damage you do because yes, you get both damage and healing threat. You only get threat for effective healing though.

CoS/CoE threat value is around the number Kruthal mentioned 150-200, however, KTM registers it as 0 (zero). Re-applying same curse over existing one = no threat. I'm quite certain Drain Life only generates aggro on damage done (not the healing part), so no double threat there, but I could be wrong. Fel Stamina buff generates healing aggro (0.5 per point healed). Using HS also generates healing aggro to the player who used the HS. DP is supposed to not generate any threat, but I too have noticed it doesn't work as intended and that it does give u some threat.
Mages generally have lower threat generation than warlocks. Horde warlocks without MD or full Nemesis set, have 0 threat reduction 99.99% of the raids. Shamans TA totem is rarely used in favor of WF. We still can't shatter our souls, so lrn2notaggro until TBC ^^

*EERRRRPPP* WRONG

You can go test it out in the field. Get a voidwalker out and have it aggro 2 mobs by having it run near them. Have it constantly taunt one of them, but cause no threat on the other (i.e. its only been body pulled and never touched again). Lifetap down and start draining the life of the one that's being taunted.

The second one that wasn't touched will still continue to attack the voidwalker, regardless of how much you heal yourself with drain life.

If you don't believe that you're not in combat with that second creature then pop a bandage when you're at less than full health. That'll get its attention ;)