Druid Threat Generation

Dev0 · 05/04/07, 2:04 PM

Hi, all been a reader here for awhile now but I just now finaly decided to sign up basicly because I've finaly just had enough of the WoW forums.

Onto my topic I'm a Feral Druid and I main/OT for my guilds raids I consider myself fairly well geared and will be even better when then 2.1 comes out. However I am slowly getting more and more of a Threat issue as the rest of my raid team gears up. Which I've never had before alot of times my guild loves me tanking because as they say "I'm a Threat Beast".

I've pretty much concluded that this is a issue of +hit and the lack of it in my current/future tanking gear. When 2.1 comes out I will be switching to using all 3 pieces of the Clefthoof Set which is going to be monster. Currently I have all + stam gems in the sockets and now I'm thinking I will put afew +8 hit gems in to replace some stam or in my arena shoulders, I haven't decided yet.

My Question on this is what should I be aiming for in terms of +hit while not depleting my stamina too much.

http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/#c...n=Devlakeshire

my armory shows my current gear except the wrong neck for some reason I have the badge turn in neck after the patch I will be using the clefthoof legs and chest instead of the current setup.

◊ Anias · 05/04/07, 2:10 PM

Maximum useful +hit for a druid is ~8.76 last time I ran tests (in tbc beta, should still be valid) That's enough to hit any 73 with every swing minus dodge/parry/blocks.

Don't give up more than 4 or so stamina to get hit, because socket bonuses won't make it back for you beyond about 4 points. Generally you should consider hit gems only if they incidentally tag a socket bonus (as they could with the clefthoof stuff) or if you're making a single "+hit shoulder" or w/e so you can supplement a +hit piece with another 24 in gems or what have you.

Dev0 · 05/04/07, 2:35 PM

So are you recommending putting the + hit gems in all my yellow sockets? that still wouldn't give me your max hit number likely about half I guess and I assume a large improvement to threat. In the same aspect tho thats alot of stamina being lost 5 or 6 slots I would previously have for pure stam gems. Its hard to weight out the stam to hit benefit in this case, because if I went that route and and added all +hit to the yellow sockets I'd lose like 60+ stam.

mek · 05/04/07, 2:42 PM

From my experience, druid threat is still nuts, and yeah, hit is probably your problem... our druid tank had a few problems with Nightbane landing due to the occasional string of misses.

But as a threat-limited dpser I LOVE my bear tanks, it's actually a challenge to pull aggro off them... prot warriors still can't compete with bear threat.

Your gear is quite good though, about what's expected of a 70 feral, and hit is admittedly hard to come by. I'd recommend picking up dps leather in Kara and using that on trash where massive sta/armor isnt as big of a concern, but overall bears should hold aggro in their sleep.

Quasar · 05/04/07, 2:47 PM

Lack of hit on my tanking gear is the bane of my existence. Consider OTing on Gruul - already half-rage starved, without enough hit you won't stay ahead of DPS. Without enough defenses (sta, dodge, etc) you will die to later Growth hatefuls. It's a pain I can't really solve. I'm using Cobrascale Helm with the cenarian enchant simply because it has so much +hit and even then I'm only running about 3% in my bear gear.

Dev0 · 05/04/07, 2:50 PM

I find part of the problem is tho that my raid teams gear is steadly getting better and my threat is not. Generaly I still pump out the best threat of our tanks by far call this a preemptive strike I guess because I can see it slowly becomming an issue I'd like to stomp it out early if possible.

Dev0 · 05/04/07, 2:55 PM

excellent call on the helm enchant because I will be over the defence needed when I start using the clefthoof set and really that dodge rating isn't muich the +16 hit is much more worth it.

Mu · 05/04/07, 3:24 PM

It annoys me somewhat that malorne helm is losing its hit rating for some reason next patch. I have a hard enough freaking time getting enough hit in my DPS gear let alone my tanking set.

Consider OTing on Gruul - already half-rage starved, without enough hit you won't stay ahead of DPS. Without enough defenses (sta, dodge, etc) you will die to later Growth hatefuls. It's a pain I can't really solve. I'm using Cobrascale Helm with the cenarian enchant simply because it has so much +hit and even then I'm only running about 3% in my bear gear.

Everyone's guild is different but I've never, ever had a problem with aggro on gruul. Using KTM I usually sit at 90% for the entire fight easily, could even pull it off the MT going all out. And I dunno how many growths you're going to but when my gear was worse I used to wear a few DPS pieces and was never in danger of being 1 shotted by a hurtful.

I follow pretty much the same basic pattern...lacerate spam, mangle every time it's up and maul when I have rage. During shatters I feral charge him and keep hitting him, I can often catch up quite a bit during this time if I'm behind. Early on if I need rage I can stand in cave ins fairly safely for some extra rage, but once he's been through a few grows rage is rarely an issue unless I dodge like six times in a row or something. And there's always just plain old yelling at the melee dps on vent to lay off a bit if you start falling way behind.

Quasar · 05/04/07, 4:43 PM

Originally Posted by Mu

It annoys me somewhat that malorne helm is losing its hit rating for some reason next patch. I have a hard enough freaking time getting enough hit in my DPS gear let alone my tanking set.

Absolutely wholeheartedly concur. Not that I actually have a Malorne helm, but my desire for one dropped when I heard that.

Originally Posted by Mu

Everyone's guild is different but I've never, ever had a problem with aggro on gruul. Using KTM I usually sit at 90% for the entire fight easily, could even pull it off the MT going all out. And I dunno how many growths you're going to but when my gear was worse I used to wear a few DPS pieces and was never in danger of being 1 shotted by a hurtful.

I follow pretty much the same basic pattern...lacerate spam, mangle every time it's up and maul when I have rage. During shatters I feral charge him and keep hitting him, I can often catch up quite a bit during this time if I'm behind. Early on if I need rage I can stand in cave ins fairly safely for some extra rage, but once he's been through a few grows rage is rarely an issue unless I dodge like six times in a row or something. And there's always just plain old yelling at the melee dps on vent to lay off a bit if you start falling way behind.

It's pretty much the same with me, actually. My aggro tends to fluctuate throughout the fight. I have periods where I have a full rage bar and am within a few thousand points of pulling aggro, but occasionally I'll get a bad string of misses/parries/etc and will have no Rage to work with. When I see a problem persisting, I'll tell Rogues to Vanish or at the least to just slow down.

As for my damage taken, I generally have just one healer on me, so I'm afraid if anything happens that he won't be able to heal through a 10k hurtful and cave-ins that I haven't been able to get out of. It depends. Plus, on two of our first Gruul kills, the MT died at some point (25% and 10% I think) and I tanked it the rest of the way.

I'd still like some more +hit, it's really ridiculous how nonexistant it is.

Cel · 05/04/07, 4:48 PM

Originally Posted by Quasar

I'd still like some more +hit, it's really ridiculous how nonexistant it is.

I think they reduced the amount of +hit out there on purpose, as they want things like Improved Faerie Fire to be worth something in a raid.

xyruul · 05/04/07, 5:02 PM

I have to constantly watch my OT agro on Gruul or I pull it off the MT every single time, not just at the beginning, but through the whole fight. On KTM I dance around 99% of his agro, constantly scared that I'll pull it (which I have done many times), but I'm always trying to stay above 98% for our enhancement shamans.
Maybe you guys are just using the wrong skills or something? I have absolutely no issues with threat, outside of enhancement shamans not watching threatmeters in the start of a fight where I get a string of misses/dodges. Our dps is pretty good too, we get 4.5 channelers down before Mag comes out without pots.
I use mangle every cooldown, spamming lascerate, and only maul when I have >25-30 rage. Leave demo/FF to other people or throw them in 20s into the pull.
If that is what you are doing, have your raid leader give you a better optimized group for agro? The difference from having a holy/prot paladin, tree, prot warrior and resto shaman and then going to an enhance shaman, fury warrior, trueshot hunter is unbelievable for agro. You obviously don't want that all the time, but unlike warriors, group makeup accounts for a huge part of a bears agro potential.

• Sirloin · 05/04/07, 5:29 PM

For those seeking +hit:

Try and grab a Romeo's Poison Vial since its getting +31 hit rating in 2.1.

◊ Anias · 05/04/07, 5:52 PM

Or just add a 2pc blue leather set to your "I need hit rating" set. There's a few of them and they have hit rating as their 2pc bonus.

To expand on what I was saying earlier regarding socketing - If you need just a few more pieces of hit, you can get it from socketing yellow gems into the yellow slots (instead of the default solid star of elune) especially if it gives you the socket bonus (as it does in the case of the clefhide stuff). If you need a lot of hit, I favor finding an item with an inherently high hit value and just dumping all the hit on it you can. Hats are a pretty good choice due to the enchant for hit value. So are boots due to surefooted. The goal is an item with high stam and hit on it to start, that you can then add hit rating gems to and an enchant. Because you don't get penalized for stacking gems of the same type or an enchant of a similiar stat, it's surprising how easy it is to make an "of the hit" piece.

dukes · 05/04/07, 6:08 PM

You might want to look at getting pieces other than pure-tank pieces. I'm starting to head towards a more hybrid set - getting 4 pieces of malorne (of which I have 3 currently, wanting to grab the chest next time it drops), as well as using the gladiator gloves/pvp belt/barkchip boots (have you SEEN them next patch!? freaking insane!) and then using things like Razor-scale battlecloak for fights where i'm tanking for a short period of time (karathress/mag). It all helps to give me more damage for more threat early on in fights (and I'm generally in the DPS group, which helps a hell of a lot) and it means I can actually DPS later in the fight instead of doing half damage because of being stuck in pieces like Heavy Clefthoof. I'm still finding hit to be a problem though - I think gem slots are going to have to be the answer (especially with the malorne helm change, which is a pain).

Basically - hit is not the only way to get more threat. More damage stats help too, and stacking bits like Heavy Clefthoof really doesn't help you in that respect.

Quasar · 05/04/07, 6:35 PM

Originally Posted by Cel

I think they reduced the amount of +hit out there on purpose, as they want things like Improved Faerie Fire to be worth something in a raid.

You're suggesting I'm being punished for my raid not having a Balance Druid?

Originally Posted by Sirloin

For those seeking +hit:

Try and grab a Romeo's Poison Vial since its getting +31 hit rating in 2.1.

For tanking? But my Mark of Tyranny is like my blankie.

Originally Posted by dukes

barkchip boots (have you SEEN them next patch!? freaking insane!)

Haven't seen the change and Thott/test has the old info.

Originally Posted by dukes

Basically - hit is not the only way to get more threat. More damage stats help too, and stacking bits like Heavy Clefthoof really doesn't help you in that respect.

Only Clefthoof I'm wearing are the boots. =(

But while it's not the only way, it's the only way that affects me. I'll try throwing on some +hit pieces here and there to hit around 5% when OTing Gruul (assuming I ever raid again) and see.

Monsanto · 05/04/07, 6:41 PM

I haven't found a lack of +hit to be a problem in bear form other than a potential bad string of luck off the pull. Once threat is established, druids pump it out at a pretty good rate. Don't get me wrong, I'd love more +hit but I'm not thrilled at the sacrifices you'd have to make to get it.

There was a post not too long ago, from Athninra and Tangydn about the new way lacerate works. Basically almost all of the threat is innate and you can pretty much treat the dot as being negligible. Before this change, I stopped using lacerate in a lot of situations. After reading that post, I've been using it more and I can feel a difference in a lot of situations (probably the best benchmark for druid aggro is accidentally pulling aggro on Gruul when you're just the hateful strike sponge).

Dev0 · 05/04/07, 7:39 PM

Well when I change to the clefthoof set I planned on switching out my + def trinket for the "forgive the spelling" Augsian Compass which gives +36 stamina I believe and alittle damage reduction, however going with the romeo's poison trink and then adding the helm enchant would get me around 50 hit which would make a difference I'm sure.

Also to be Clear Generaly I do not have any issues whatso ever with threat, altho there are those bad luck times where I'm panicing alittle because everyones just about to pass me on the meters. I'm just trying to eliminate those times or atleast make them even more rare with hopefully minimal reduction to my stamina.

dukes · 05/05/07, 4:16 AM

Originally Posted by Quasar

Haven't seen the change and Thott/test has the old info.

352 armour
24 str
24 agi
36 stam
22 int

Rather good, and I've already started farming for them (as far as farming can go with a 1day cooldown on heroics). Pretty sure I've seen them and let them be d/e'ed before, which is really pissing me off.

Liar · 05/05/07, 7:37 AM

Originally Posted by dukes

352 armour
24 str
24 agi
36 stam
22 int

Rather good, and I've already started farming for them (as far as farming can go with a 1day cooldown on heroics). Pretty sure I've seen them and let them be d/e'ed before, which is really pissing me off.

Agreed, the buffs to the items which I considered PvP gear myself before are really nice. I will definitely try and get the bracers and pants of that "set" as well because they are good for PvP for one (I am a PvE carebear so all PvP gear I have are 3 Gladiator set pieces) and are great OT sets in encounters where you start tanking a mob, then DPS.

They are still not the best mitigation items you can get for MTing (Clefthoof and T4 is usually better), but they already earned their worth for the OT encounters.

Gwyd · 05/05/07, 12:24 PM

Luckily enough I kept them to use for spot healing in pvp.

Zodak · 05/06/07, 3:39 PM

druid threat scaling sounds like an AP issue to me. since druid TPS is directly affected by our damage, i dont see why one would ever stack more +hit compared to more +str/ap. with so many abilities to use in case your main ability misses (maul) with a mangle/lacerate/swipe backup for initial aggro pulling, i would think your problem is your damage output at that point. not to argue that +hit is worthless, but in terms of points, i would still value more +str if i had to choose when we're discussing TPS.

threat production is very much a part of end-game gearing as raid dps goes up for druids. maul and mangle generate a ton of threat and after looking and my damage done in raid fights i do more damage with maul than mangle which is why i wear my idol of brutality over my idol of the wild now. up your damage and you should see a significant bump in your threat caused. if youre still having threat problems, perhaps its your ability rotations not creating enough threat at that point? or maybe your dps hasn't quite adjusted to their upgrades, it also their responsibility to hold back if their dps is too leetsauce

mek · 05/06/07, 5:01 PM

Originally Posted by Zodak

druid threat scaling sounds like an AP issue to me. since druid TPS is directly affected by our damage, i dont see why one would ever stack more +hit compared to more +str/ap.

For lack of a better term, "burst threat", i.e. threat when you need it. As I mentioned above, Nightbane landing is a very sensitive example of this - if you chain miss a few attacks, a healer will die and your raid might get breathed. Another good example is Magtheridon being released. If you're looking for raw TPS then AP is probably your best bet, yes... but +hit helps prevent accidents.

Zodak · 05/06/07, 5:14 PM

Originally Posted by mek

For lack of a better term, "burst threat", i.e. threat when you need it. As I mentioned above, Nightbane landing is a very sensitive example of this - if you chain miss a few attacks, a healer will die and your raid might get breathed. Another good example is Magtheridon being released. If you're looking for raw TPS then AP is probably your best bet, yes... but +hit helps prevent accidents.

yes, that does occasionally happen, but we have a hunter transition for landing phases to misdirect on our MT for nightbane, and the same for maggie. i just think that in relation to these accidents, and in relation to the necessary TPS for high dps time intensive encounters, in my opinion +hit is still a loss over more sustained threat generation overall.

Boevis · 05/06/07, 7:52 PM

Originally Posted by Liar

Agreed, the buffs to the items which I considered PvP gear myself before are really nice. I will definitely try and get the bracers and pants of that "set" as well because they are good for PvP for one (I am a PvE carebear so all PvP gear I have are 3 Gladiator set pieces) and are great OT sets in encounters where you start tanking a mob, then DPS.

They are still not the best mitigation items you can get for MTing (Clefthoof and T4 is usually better), but they already earned their worth for the OT encounters.

That's why I kept the boots too, though one of my guildmates described it as "the oddest change to an item since the patch that took agi off arcanist"

Ziggyny · 05/07/07, 11:21 AM

Originally Posted by Quasar

Lack of hit on my tanking gear is the bane of my existence. Consider OTing on Gruul - already half-rage starved, without enough hit you won't stay ahead of DPS. Without enough defenses (sta, dodge, etc) you will die to later Growth hatefuls. It's a pain I can't really solve. I'm using Cobrascale Helm with the cenarian enchant simply because it has so much +hit and even then I'm only running about 3% in my bear gear.

I am the normal hateful tank for my guild, and I have to get Salvation or I'll pull off the warrior tank. I used to not get salv, but then I'd end up spending a third of the fight with auto-attack turned off not doing any damage at all.

I don't have any +hit in my tanking set at all, but I manage my rage such that I never miss out on mangling. I don't lacerate unless I'm at risk of wasting rage due to being at 100. Mangle when it's cooled down and the occasional Maul thrown in when I'm around 40+ rage work just fine for me.