Feral Tanking Discussion - Page 49

ildlar · 01/18/10, 11:55 AM

I use a priority list for tanking a single mob/boss. It works great for me.

I usually start by charging + FFF and as I use a macro for using maul at all times i never push it (the only fight where i dont use macros is Saurfang as glyphed maul is quite equal to a wipe).

1. Use Mangle at every cd. It generates the most threat.
2. Apply Lacerate 1.
3. Use FFF at every cd just after Mangle.
4. Apply the rest of the Lacerate stacks.
5. If there isnt one to use either Demoralizing Shout (warrior) or Curse of Weakness (warlock) I use Demoralizing Roar
6. If none of the above is used i Swipe and only if Im not going to pull anything additional onto me.

If I know im going to have a hard time on getting initial threat I usually start of by 1 Mangle, 1 Lacerate, going Berzerk and using Mangle untill Lacerate is almost off I use one more to get the additional threat from Maul.

Daenerys · 01/18/10, 1:02 PM

Originally Posted by ildlar

(the only fight where i dont use macros is Saurfang as glyphed maul is quite equal to a wipe).

Just switch out the Maul glyph with Glyph of Growling for that fight. Not only does it let you Maul to your heart's content, but it makes it so you won't miss a Growl, either. I carry a stack of each glyph at all times; there are times when I want AoE threat, and there are times when I can't afford to miss a Growl (Saurfang, Northrend Beasts, etc.), but I still haven't found a time when I needed both. They are extremely cheap to produce, so use them like consumables.

Vaccine · 01/19/10, 4:28 AM

Originally Posted by Daenerys

Just switch out the Maul glyph with Glyph of Growling for that fight. Not only does it let you Maul to your heart's content, but it makes it so you won't miss a Growl, either. I carry a stack of each glyph at all times; there are times when I want AoE threat, and there are times when I can't afford to miss a Growl (Saurfang, Northrend Beasts, etc.), but I still haven't found a time when I needed both. They are extremely cheap to produce, so use them like consumables.

I use both normally. I found one situation where the SI glyph was useful and that was Algalon if you were taking a big bang (which I never had to). All other situations I've yet to find a point where another 15% on top of SI did anything useful.

As for Maul macros I just found I couldn't really deal with the loss of control. I still recommend it to my friends for heroic alts and the like but in raiding it started to annoy me. I even tried adding another button to cancel it when holding shift but it ended up just complicating it so I switched back to just pressing Maul.

Ghosa · 01/19/10, 12:04 PM

RE: SI Glyph

Maul is part of my trash mob glyph kit, SI is part of my MT glyph kit. I switch out as the raid progresses. While I don't often feel that SI is "necessary", it is handy, and on fights like Festergut, mandatory.

Supahflii · 01/19/10, 2:12 PM

I haven't found a use for Maul past tanking Heroics when my gear was a lot worse. Trash isn't a concern, and there aren't any AoE boss mechanics that are even worth it enough to consider getting Maul. That being said, I use Frenzy, SI, and Berserk (SI and Berserk stay while PvPing

, so I only need to reglyph one thing). Growl is important, but I feel during this transition time, our hit seems to be pretty high. Currently, I think I'm sitting at 359 hit, but have yet to really get any new pieces.

Vaccine · 01/19/10, 3:01 PM

Originally Posted by Ghosa

and on fights like Festergut, mandatory.

Could you explain this a little more? I've tanked Festergut 4 times now with absolutely no issue and my gear is best described as Ulduar/ToGC (only got the 2xt10 tonight after finally deciding I Wanted the pieces for tank over dps). I have about 71k with SI up and I've never felt in real danger during the 90% part. Whether that is due to better healers I don't know but with Barkskin/SI and Frenzied when Barkskin ran out it felt fine, along with usual healer CDs after SI ran out.

Ghosa · 01/19/10, 6:58 PM

Originally Posted by Vaccine

Could you explain this a little more?

Sure.

My primary goal when MTing a fight is typically to make life as easy as possible for my healers. I want to give them room to make mistakes. SI is my keystone cooldown at 3 inhales. The extra 15% from the glyph gives my healers just that much more breathing room. Can they heal me without it? Yes. But they could probably heal me through it if I forgot to wear my pants too -- at least some of the time. I wouldn't do that, though, unless I'd been drinking whiskey to get me through the boredom of the Snaurfang fight.

I guess it would be more accurate to say, "mandatory" if you want to maximize your chance of not wiping due to healer error/distraction.

Now my raid group (composed of players from a number of guilds) is best described as "casual players who don't suck too bad", so your own gearing/glyph choices might vary.

Drinksbeer · 01/20/10, 12:49 PM

I am having a few issues with the drop in hit/expt with the new gear I am picking up. I love the gear but I do not like the fact that I am now under both caps. Some people have said, don't worry about it....tanks tank under hit and expt cap all the time but I am having a little trouble rationalizing that. I now have a hit enchant on my gloves and hit gems in my gear (call it personal but I hate gemming for hit).

I would like to see if there is anyone else out there having the same issue and if you are under the hit/expt cap does it in fact pose a "real" problem with holding aggro as well as dmg, healing etc. Should I gem to get back to the cap or just say 'f it and go for stam/agil?

Thanks in advance for any input!

Tiffara · 01/20/10, 1:05 PM

That is an issue with the tier gear, but that's what offset and jewelry slots are for. Ikfirus's Sack of Wonder is very handy, as are Footpads of Impending Doom. If you don't need armor in the ring slots, there are some decent choices for hit and/or exp there.

Vaccine · 01/21/10, 3:21 AM

Originally Posted by Drinksbeer

I am having a few issues with the drop in hit/expt with the new gear I am picking up. I love the gear but I do not like the fact that I am now under both caps. Some people have said, don't worry about it....tanks tank under hit and expt cap all the time but I am having a little trouble rationalizing that. I now have a hit enchant on my gloves and hit gems in my gear (call it personal but I hate gemming for hit).

I would like to see if there is anyone else out there having the same issue and if you are under the hit/expt cap does it in fact pose a "real" problem with holding aggro as well as dmg, healing etc. Should I gem to get back to the cap or just say 'f it and go for stam/agil?

Thanks in advance for any input!

This has been mentioned at least twice in the last 5 pages. Check the last page and the gear-list I posted specifically looking at hit/exp capping as much as I found possible. There are also some gear lists on the same topic about 5 pages back.

Metan · 01/22/10, 4:44 AM

dont agree with cloak on the list,
737 armor from Sentinel's Winter Cloak - Item - World of Warcraft is really nice!
with this, simply get some "accurate gem" and activate nice +6 stam bonus
imo, you dont need to be "parry capped" some parry dont kill your TPS

Vaccine · 01/22/10, 7:15 AM

Well the list was aimed at getting as close to Parry/Hit capped as possible with decent gear, not the BiS tanking list for all situations.

For example the Blood Mirror tank (on BQL) has little risk of dying and takes very little armour reduced damage, about 90% of damage taken is magic damage. Of the remaining 10%, about 5% of that is bleed ticks, so only 5%, the initial hits from Delirious Slash, can be reduced by armour. That renders armour rings/trinkets/cloaks/necks fairly redundant as a wasted stat so switching to a hit/exp set is perfect here, especially as it increases DPS helping with the enrage.

murumets · 01/25/10, 8:03 PM

I am absolutely amazed at how many people on the last few pages don't use FFF in their tanking rotation beyond simply keeping it up on the boss.

The standard 4 GCD rotation (aka no Imp. Mangle) should be Mangle, FFF, Swipe, Swipe, repeat. Of course you apply lacerates and make sure the boss has a Demoralizing Roar type debuff on it, but that will be the rotation you use after the initial application of things at the start of a pull. Lacerate and Demo. Roar would take the place of one or both of your Swipe GCDs.

The 3 GCD rotation is a bit different as Mangle and FFF will come off CD at the same time occasionally, but it's nothing more than a priority system. You Mangle if it's up, FFF is it's up (Mangle over FFF), then Swipe otherwise. Lacerate to keep your stack on the boss and make sure Demo. Roar is up on top of all that of course.

Maeltne · 01/26/10, 4:22 PM

I always have improved Mangle, and pull with FF so my rotation usually looks like this
(0) FF
(1) Mangle, Lacerate, Swipe
(2) Mangle, FF, Swipe
(3) Mangle, lacerate, FF
Repeat from (1)

Which is easily represented in a castsequence macro. This is *slightly* subpar in that you could technically lacerate a little less and swipe a little more, but I find doing it manually actually results in a TPS/DPS loss, at least for me.

I also have a single target only sequence which replaces all swipes with lacerates and us this when I really don't want to be hitting anything else.

And a quasi-aoe where all lacerates/ff are replaces by swipes.

Finally I have a
/cast [mod] swipe
/cast maul
Note: the '!' is no longer required to prevent toggling.

Low rage situation? Use the appropriate castsequence macro only.
Infinite rage situation? Spam appropriate castsequence & maul macro.
Pure AoE? Hold a modifier (i.e. alt) and spam the macro macro only.

Barlow · 01/27/10, 12:17 PM

Originally Posted by Maeltne

I always have improved Mangle, and pull with FF so my rotation usually looks like this
(0) FF
(1) Mangle, Lacerate, Swipe
(2) Mangle, FF, Swipe
(3) Mangle, lacerate, FF
Repeat from (1)

Which is easily represented in a castsequence macro. This is *slightly* subpar in that you could technically lacerate a little less and swipe a little more, but I find doing it manually actually results in a TPS/DPS loss, at least for me.

There might be a pretty common reason for this. Since FFF is on a 1 Second GCD instead of 1,5 your Rotation leaves you with 0,5 Seconds left before you can apply the next Mangle. You should wait that 0,5 Seconds and Mangle after that. It's pretty common, that players "spam" Lacerate or Swipe, while watching the Mangle CD thus triggering an additional GCD, offsetting Mangle by additional 1,5 seconds not only resulting in a pretty huge DPS/threat loss but making improved mangle obsolete in the first place.

A castsequence on the other Hand, while slightly being not optimal in terms of threat prevents that, resulting in an overall increase of DPS and threat.