Tifi

Switching your stance does not trigger the GCD. Stances have their own CD, which is 1s. You should still be able to use GCD spells like Devastate while stance dancing. See e.g. Defensive stance on thottbot.

Author of EventHorizon Quartz_LatencyMF2 CooldownWatch

 

sveno

Personally, I just spam buttons, if you really want to dump rage cleave and spell reflect work. Also, I just let dps go all out from like 50% and down, I keep my 3 taunts ready and let them overnuke(use taunt, then aoe/mocking blow, then taunt again so you will have their aggro).

 

Liegeofchaos

Defiance
Badge Neck
Badge Pants
Badge Wrists
Badge Belt
Lower City Ring
Brutalizer
Nightstrike
Shard of Contempt

This all brings me to 183 rating (+46 expertise) and then Defiance is 52, which is -13%.

Of course this is my pure threat gear, I only wear 28 expertise in my EHP gear, which'll drop down to ~22 once I get an Unbreakable Will (tasty armor + mongoose enchant).

Needless to say, you can easily cap your expertise with Teron gloves pre-Sunwell provided you're dedicated to assembling an excellent threat set. Definitely helps those dps let out some pent-up rage on Teron.

 

pindle

What are relatively good TPS figures to keep in the back of my mind for a MT in decent gear with 4 T6? I've got a tank alt myself and heard some rumors already; we recently downed Illidan and it seems our current MT is unable to push more TPS than 800-900 constantly. This just seems awfully low to me seeing as even I can easily push 1400 TPS sustained on heroic bosses where I'm not rage starved. Note that that is wearing threat gear with alot of expertise, but still, with an abundance of rage and way better gear he should be easily matching that or am I wrong?

Before I take the risk of accusing our MT wrongfully; is our magic dps rightfully complaining about that? What TPS should I be thinking, e.g. Illidan phase 1 which is really static, shouldn't he at least be pushing 1200-1400 TPS as well?

 

Liegeofchaos

It all depends in what gearset he tanks Illidan, and what buffs he's receiving and what debuffs Illidan is receiving. A WWS parse would help in assessing your situation immensely, but I think you need to remember that tanking a non-dangerous heroic boss in full-out threat gear is a bit different from tanking a boss that could possibly kill you.

All the rage in the world isn't going to help you exceed the maximum theoretical threat per second you can output (even with infinite rage...beyond a certain point of incoming rage more rage is meaningless...you can simply only dump a finite amount of rage per second) in a certain gearset. You also have to remember that heroic bosses are lv72 and Illidan is lv73, so the parry / miss / dodge rate, and glancing rate of heroic bosses isn't so dramatic.

All things to keep in mind when comparing heroic bosses to Illidan.

 

pindle

Yeah was trying to find a nice one, but was our first kill AND had some new members so a few of the tries there were complete messups (including aggro from a new lock - which is kinda why I was asking!). This log should be representive for ph1 at least (I think one of the flame tanks moved to far enraging an add wiping the raid if you're wondering why it's so short). I agree it isn't comparable AT ALL to heroics, and not suggesting anything, hence I'm asking here: what TPS do YOU see going on? It just seems to me 800-900 is REALLY low, but would be usefull if I had more than just an opinion to back it up (I have no tanking experience in BT). Here's his profile btw.

He's a nice guy so I don't want to start bitching him, but I've heard others complaining (dps classes mostly) that his threat just should be a bit better since they're often threat capped, and I have just no idea what TSP figures he should be able to make there due to my lack of tanking experience there. I'm just looking for pointers to improve since our dps just can't kick ass if they constantly have to watch for aggro.

Edit: I've been looking into it myself but don't really know how long phase 1 lasted, which is kind of important to see the amount of SS/revenges landed during his tanking time. I could 11 SSs and his combat time is 4:04, making him do a SS every ~19 seconds. However, i can see phase2 started so we'd have to subtract at least 30-40 seconds I guess.... not sure how to read that.

 

Orsier

I tanked Ilidan for the first time yesterday with a more threat oriented gear than what he currently has on armory, and was putting 1200-1400 TPS. That was while being very focused on Shears and stuff because I didn't want to screw it up, so rage management wasn't great I guess. Considering his gear, he should probably put up more than 900 TPS. Any tank could, if gearing at least a bit for threat (with some hit / expertise / bvalue).

 

Fredaykin

At his level of gear he should be doing 1000 extrict minimum in a combat where rage starving should not be an issue. From what I can see in that WWS parse, that P1 was (more less) having a normal ratio for a normal rotation. At the same time the amount of HS is relatively high, but in an infinite rage situation and with a good rotation ratio could be normal.
If you look at the down parse (just after the one you linked) you see there an abnormal rotation ratio with a very high amount of HS (in a SS:rev:2xdev is 1:0.6:1.8 with 2:1 the relation HS:dev and 5:1 the HS:SS).
At the same time his hit with SS normal is ~640 and critic ~1.2k which I found a bit low in my experience.

It seems to me he's spamming too much HS without following a continues threat rotation cicle and missing the raw threat pomp up coming from SS and Rev, but without many more WWS there isn't anything certain.

I hope it can helps

 

KooZ

Been tanking illidan a lot and of all things his 'shear' is the most important ability to pay attention to. Next to that there are the fires, making sure you're not out of range of e.g. healers (when entering P3/5) and maximizing DPS output from melee on illidan by using small steps to move his place, without turning it towards the raid.

After that I was focussing on my threat. Not using shield block in your rotation is something you've got to get used to after using it contstantly in other bossfights.

Using a WWS parse (and not focussing on omen alone in regards to TPS) usually put my TPS at around 800 at illidan (remember, no Omen, WWS parse)

 

pindle

Well it was our first kill night so I can understand him not wearing threat focused gear.


Hmm I'll talk him thru his cycles, I'm not familiar with his connection/PC, could also be the culprit. Thanks!
As for SSs: do you wear alot more block value gear then or maybe have the Illidan shield accounting for higher SS dmg ranges?


Yes he does get the occasional shear, but that hardly ever kills him nowadays still. I'm the IDS priest so usually put on tank healing, if he gets a shear a shield + 2x max rank gheal generally keeps him up, in addition to the heals of a few other healers (who don't have much to do in ph1). I'm not really familiar with the difference between Omen and WWS (I know WWS is lower, but that's it).
A few of the dps in the guild told me they don't have to hold back a little, no, they only do like 50-70% of their usual dmg in ph1, just because of the threat cap. That can't be good.

Maybe he's focussing SB too much, trying to keep it up, instead of activating when shear casts. I'll try to find that out. He's been the guilds MT for a long time now and don't want to hurt him too badly

Btw: KooZ = KeeZ from GoT?

 

Ivanstone

He actually performed 17 Shield Slams (and 16 Revenge). You need to take into account the crits and avoided attacks. Probably still less then he could've for the time period though.

Two gear things he should consider doing is switching his meta to an Eternal Earthstorm Diamond and wearing an additional Expertise piece to bring it closer to the soft cap.

 

Fredaykin

As Ivanstone said above, changing the metageme alone should be a gain of ~50 BV, if he uses [Gnomeregan Auto-Blocker 600] is another 65 more (accounting the 10% of the meta) so he would gain ~115 BV.
If he uses the CD of the trinket in conjunction with SS (3 theoric rotations) will be +200 BV for 3 SS which is a nice jump in threat.
Before pointing finguers, discuss with him his overall strategy as a tank and try to see which recommendations both of you could come up with.

 

Fellwraith

It's not a dps race, I really don't think it's that big of a deal to ask your dps to watch omen. Your tank CAN get gibbed if he screws up a shear or if he gets unlucky with the trap placement in the final phase. If you wear more avoidance and block rating, you help mitigate both of those causes of a wipe.

Personally I wear gear very similar to what's in your tank's profile for Illidan. I really don't see the point in putting on a ton of threat gear as you don't have to worry about the enrage timer at all, even if your dps has to hold back a little. If your tank is only putting out 1k tps, that's still 1550+ dps with salv before you'll pull aggro (that's in melee range, factor in the 30% range bonus and it's far higher as a mage or warlock) - not great, but not terrible either. If they give the tank a headstart and pay attention to omen when they crit, they shouldn't pull aggro. You DO have to worry about the enrages if the trap is humping a pillar, in the middle of the raid (getting your whole raid hit with draw soul as you run to it is bad - edit: especially since it looks like you guys aren't using MS or wound poison), or up against the wall.

Things you can do to help (other than his gear choice): give him a feral druid (you did), give him windfury totem/enhancement shaman, give him BM hunters in his group and misdirect on a phase transition, give him a second warrior so he gets battleshout, and have your flame tank tclapping/demo shouting. I sincerely doubt any of you are pushing 1200-1400 tps on this fight without some or all of those things. The 1400+ sustained tps parse I have from Gorefiend has me at 740 dps, if you're doing that the first time you tank Illidan I'll be amazed. You might spike to that level on omen when you crit several times in a row, but that's not your sustained tps.

 

Anasurimbor

Does this "problem" only occur when you fight against Illidan? If the answer is yes then "who cares"? from my opinion Illidan is one of the encounters where threat is not really an issue. Of course you can support him and of course he could wear more equipment to maximize his threat, but why not play it safe? If it is a problem of his rotation of course you should try to help him, but I prefer a tank who doesn't want to do all at once and at first concentrates on surviving, especially if threat is not a great issue, instead of overastimating himself. It think it's better for a fight to last one minute longer than to wipe and have to start all over again. Of course if this problem occurs on bosses where it is more important, let's say Teron or RoS, or it is a problem of his threat-rotation then (as I allready stated) you might work on it together. But if it is only because you're dps is wining because they have to look at omen and are not able to constantly smash a button (again: in a fight where time is not really a problem): let them howl! It's a similar discussion as the one, one has from time to time with a Wl when he has to support the tank with an imp. Of course I'm in no position to judge you're Mages, WLs etc but I know from my own experience that a lot of people tend to see only their own small world instead of "the greater good" (of course there are also tanks an healers behaving the same way).

Again: if it is really a problem of his rotation etc he should try to do better. Only Illidan is in my opinion not an encounter where threat should be the largest goal (especially because you still seem to be in progress). Additionally, as you stated, you're MT is MT for a long time and so it seems he allready tanked Teron, RoS etc.. Were there similar accusations from you're Wl's etc?

After all this is said: a tps of 800-900 is not exceptionally good and so there actually might be some work to do. I tank Illidan with a high avoidance gear (raidbuffed and with hunter sting and insect swarm round about 81%) and only 6 expertise, 22 hit and get roughly 1100 tps in p1 for example (which is due to a lot of rage). Of course this still could be better, but you have to move Illidan and sometimes he won't follow etc..

I hope I could help a little bit and I'm sorry for this wall of text. Additionally I hope you can bear my grammar etc, english is not my first language ;-)

 

sveno

Which always really annoys me Hes such a bitch just standing there when you want to move him.

But about the tanking, I don't know if people do this, but your tank shouldn't really shield block everytime it's on cooldown. Atleast it doesn't sound very safe to me. Just press it when you see shear and you can't possibly get it.

 

pindle

I'll make that suggestion yes, not sure if he's comfortable swapping his trinkets but never hurts to talk about it. The reason of this post is to gain information prio to talking to him to make sure I'm not missing anything, so fingerpointing was never meant to be the outcome, just better raiding. We've been setting steps into SWP and as it is, I just never ever see us downing Brutallus e.g. because our dps just can't do what they need to do: dps hard.

He isn't putting out 1k TPS, he's putting out 800-900, not much more, and Omen hovers more around 800-850 than 900. They do give the tank a headstart - I talked to a mage who told me she waits till Illy is 95% or she will have aggro just fireballing thru phase 1. That sounds... odd to me.
He does get a enh. shammy, a hunter for MD and a feral druid. I'm not sure if he does his own TC (seems so following the logs) but will ask as well, and will tell the dps warrior to keep it up.

That's the problem: it happens everywhere. Teron, ROS, BB (well can understand BB), our dps literally waits and does NOTHING for the first few percent, because else they WILL aggro. This is not a problem in BT that much, seeing as we managed to clear it, but I just know we won't get far into SWP with these problems around, which is why I'm doing this

Will check that today, we have a raid planned so if we have enough ppl I'll have some time to chat a little with the tank and hopefully optimize his threat.

 

Zegai

Well, regarding RoS, we got him yesterday. Extremely messy and unclean kill - he was dead with the aura ticking for 4k, and with 6 healers (we used 7, two died to spite earlier but one self ressed), me and the p1 off-tank and 2 dps (a shadow priest and.. a mage I think) alive at the end.

Using spell reflect+shield block before screams really helped, as well as not fearing the use of cooldowns (I usually hold back a bit, especially on shield wall, if I see it won't make a huge difference).

Thanks for the tips. I just hope we can repeat the kill, it was so.. messy.

@On the threat topic above: Bloodboil is a very threat-sensitive fight, and at least IMO there is no need to force too much on the non-fel rage phase. Now, if he is not putting at the very least 1k on Gorefiend with a enh. shaman and shouts, then there is something extremely wrong. Not saying I put out amazing threat or anything (I actually think I could do better, but I have a hard time deciding if it's better to shorten my rotation to fit latency or to just increase the threat-cycles size. I get a bit itchy if I have to stop a bit).
Well, for comparison's sake:
Anonymous Player produced 1204 tps
I think I had a bshout from another prot war and probably two BM hunters in my group. No Blood Frenzy on Teron or shaman for me. Not amazing numbers, but I always have a very reasonable lead on Teron usually.

 

Crimsonstorm

Wow, thats bad. On a fight like BB aggro will always be an issue due to aggro drops and switching, so thats expected.

On most other fights though, you should be able to give the tank 5 seconds to start and then dps should be able to go, and never pull aggro (provided they have salv and/or use available aggro drop skills). Gorefiend especially, you should wear threat gear.

Without much better threat youll never be able to kill Brut, there is no leeway for having to stop dps due to aggro, or for waiting a bunch to start.

I would guess that your tank is doing a combination of not gearing well for threat generation, not following the rotation (SS/Rev/Dev/Dev), and not using heroic strike enough.

 

Anasurimbor

@ Sveno: yes, that's exactly the way it is. You want to pull him fast and he just stands their daydreaming of the good old times ;-)

@ Pindle: ok, thank you for the answer. Although there is some movement in the fight (which doesn't mean you can't build more thread of course) even with a high avoidance gear much more tps is possible. Additionally you stated that this occurs with nearly all bosses in BT. I'm always careful about such "accusations" (for example because of the exaggeration of many tanks about their threat just because they see now and then some large numbers after a shield slam crit or DDs just smashing buttons without thought. I'm not saying you or you're DDs are of such a kind, in the opposite, I'm just trying to explain why I'm careful :-)), but in this case it seems you're MT really has to work on his performance. It's always teamwork, the tank trying to build as much threat as possible and the DDs trying to make as much damage as possible without pulling aggro. Especially I think it's not just a problem of his gear choice but of his rotation! Before switching his gear he should at first try to optimize that. It will become more important in SW.

I don't know how much he reads about tanking and in particular about building threat. Maybe it would be a good idea trying to motivate him to learn a little bit more about it (for example reading this great guide). Of course if there are questions regarding this topic you're welcome to ask :-)

 

bludwork

Just my 2c but sometimes dpsers forget the objective of the raid encounter. Who cares how much tps your tank puts out in P1? The main thing is not to get sheared and not let parasites loose in the raid. That's the objective of P1, it's about control not a dps burndown.

 

Liar

Only within reason. Just because you can kill Illidan with 500 TPS sustained doesn't mean there isn't something horribly wrong. The only time I'd bitch at DPS is if they rip aggro within the first 10 seconds of the pull because RNG decided to screw you over and they were impatient or on aggro resets. Anything besides that should be your responsibility unless the DPS heavily outgears you (or the RL put you into a horrible group with absolutely no synergies while the DPS gets all of theirs).

Unexpected TankPoints error Clearly someone doesn't understand how EH works. That, or upgrading from T8 to T9 is optional in beating Arthas. Clearly.

 

Anasurimbor

That's exactly what I was trying to say: Illidan (especially p1) is not about threat and so I asked if it is just a problem with Illidan or a general problem. As it seems it is a general problem about threat building. Of course if he makes a good job (shear, positioning etc, in particular because it's still progress) and can't build a large amount of threat: "who cares?". But it isn't. Even if it doesn't matter for Illidan, it will be important later on. If it was just a problem occuring with Illidan then it "wouldn't matter". But it's the same for Teron, RoS and so on. So, for improving it seems to me their MT should start with improving his rotation (and his knowledge about threat building), because the numbers indicate (in my opinion) that that's the problem and not to artificially improve his performance by changing his gear (for exampls using more expertise, hit, block value etc), because that wouldn't solve the problem but just cover it up.

 

Tifi

Looking at the WWS link, his attacks never missed, but were dodged. Note that expertise is twice as good as +hit until you reach the dodge cap (6.25%), because it lowers the chance for both getting dodged and getting parried.
Having another Warrior keep Thunderclap and Demo Shout up is also a big help threat-wise. I normally refresh TC/DS after ~25s, because bosses resist so often. That's about 2/16 GCDs spent on debuffing, or -12.5% TPS. And that's without considering the rage loss or resists.
Other than that, it's really just about using the right priorities, SS>Rev>Dev, HS only (and always) with enough rage.

I'd also like to emphasize that it's not a spell rotation, it's a priority list. You want to maximize your gain by choosing an optimal spell, there's no advantage in following some fixed rotation. Which is one of the reasons why /castsequence always fails.

And just out of curiosity: Does he even care? Maybe that's the main problem.

Author of EventHorizon Quartz_LatencyMF2 CooldownWatch

 

Chillectric

I have a question that may have been answered but I couldn't find it.

It deals with the hit mechanics and rage generation.

When a boss parries, dodges, blocks, or you miss an ability (yellow) do you expend rage for that ability?

What about white parried attacks, do you still generate rage from them?

 

Liar

Fully avoided and missing specials expend rage, but only a small fraction of the actual cost. Blocked specials cost the full value (IIRC blocked Devastates will even still stack up the Sunder buff).

No, no rage generation there.


I have a question myself actually: it's about Thunderclap. Sometimes when I use it, it won't register ingame. I've had it happen a few times on Felmyst and Najentus lately where I would TC but it just would not apply although the combat log didn't show that it got resisted (as a matter of fact, it showed nothing at all). Moving the bosses slightly to rule out clipping issues was the first thing I tried but to no avail - admittedly, our Naj and Felmyst strategy does not give me much wiggle room in where I can move them without botching up our positions.

So, is it just bad luck or a real clipping issue with TC? I'm a Human Female Warrior in case that matters.

Unexpected TankPoints error Clearly someone doesn't understand how EH works. That, or upgrading from T8 to T9 is optional in beating Arthas. Clearly.