Some Crazy Aggro Ideas

[Legedi]

I found this thread on the WOW forums. There are a lot of interesting things in it. I'm not going to go into how they came up with these statements, you can read the thread if you want to see. I'm just going to talk about their implications. There are two statements, that if true, are revelations in how warriors tank, and how aggro works on raids in general.

1) You must have 110% of the aggro of the current target to pull aggro. I find this very believable from my experience. If you only needed >100% aggro could bounce around people a lot. But on raid mobs, if someone pulls aggro it's not just a single sunder that will get them back. It takes some whacking on in do it.

Take Onyxia for example. If someone pulls aggro off the MT on stage one (and can't dump aggro like a rogue or hunter) that means they have 110% the aggro the MT had. Now the MT must get to 121% of the aggro they just had to get it back... not easy to do.

This alone isn't that huge, but the next statement with it is game changing.

2) Taunt will give you exactly the threat of the player on top of the threat list - but not the 10% needed for the mob to change aggro, only a temporary aggro from the debuff! If you do nothing, you will stay at 100% of the mob's old target's threat, and will lose aggro with the taunt debuff. With a relatively small effort, you can gain aggro! Now this is harder to test. It also goes against our old belief that taunt doesn't create any permeate threat. Against none raid mobs they often die so fast that you can't test this theory. But I have one example that makes me believe this to be 100% correct.

A month or two ago I was tanking Golemagg. At around 70% I died. I got combat ressed and Shal (the ST) had aggro. I taunted Golemagg and got a few sunders on him. But he went back to Shal, and Shal died. Now if taunt didn't generate any aggro there is no way in hell I'd have aggro, but I did! That means that taunt had to generate aggro! A few sunders is not going to creat more threat that the healers or DPS classes for 30% of Golemagg's life.

Another example I have is tanking Giants in MC. They knock back their target a lot, and attack the backup tank. If I just try to sunder etc. to get back aggro it doesn't work very well if at all. But if I immediately taunt him, then lay into him, once taunt wears off I still have aggro. So taunt is making up that aggro I lost, and I only have to make up that 10% difference to keep aggro.

This has a lot of implication for raids:

1) If the mob is not tauntable, and you get aggro after +10-15 seconds, it's unlikely the tank will be able to aggro off you very quickly (like Onyxia).

2) If the mob is tauntable the ST can stay within 10% of the MT's aggro by just taunting, nothing else. This can be good if the ST wants to stay right up with the MT, but bad if the ST is doing a ton of aggro moves and could steal aggro easier than they thought possible.

I'm sure there are other implications from this information that other people could think of.

Edit: Changed the link to the actually original post. There is also a lot more explanations done in page 5-6 to clear some things up.

[Kevin]

Actually I don't think #2 is all that crazy and back in January of last year that is how I thought taunt worked. From Here

Remember with taunt, using it early doesn't really do anything. However, using it later on is great. Rogue just did a 5 combo evis? Taunt, all that hate is now yours and you should be able to generate just as fast as the rogue does while the combo points are building back up. Mage did an AoE that pulled something off you? Taunt it, that hate is all yours now, and you probably did a little more damage to it as well when you went to get it. When taunt is resisted that can be a problem, but that is why I plopped two talent points into getting it back even sooner. And of course depending on if you had to use it already you have your concussive blow and/or disarm to mitigate damage if you do lose the aggro on a hard hitter, or maybe a little luck with a revenge.

I never thought it was temporary, I thought it put you there on the the hate list and that you had to keep up with the aggro generation on it from that point. The 110% rule makes my observations from tanking from L1 to L60 fit a little better with somethings. It would explain why after just a tuant you still need to do a fair bit of aggro to keep the mob because you have to still make up that 10%.

Other things it means is that that rogue can open on one mob with a crit ambush, you can taunt and sunder it and have about 2.5 sunders worth of aggro on it nearly instantly too. It's how a warrior can hold mutliple mobs in an AoE too. Work on one, taunt another one work it for a bit, go back to the other just before or just after it peels and work it, etc. I've always done this. Focus on one mob from the pull and have do some weak AoE aggro to try and keep the mobs on you for the first pulse then pick up another one with taunt later. If you cycle through right the 10% you have to make up isn't as bad.

Yeah this makes more sense with my observations. I was never satisfied with taunt just putting you at the top temporarily. Now I believe that mocking blow is just the 6 seconds and then revert from how I've seen it work but that could be wrong.

[Mavfin]

I'll agree that it seems to make sense from my experience, too, GG. (you've covered it, I'm just agreeing)

[Quark]

These observations would explain how one tactic I use works particularly well:

As a Rogue, if I see a caster pull aggro, I'll try to pull aggro off them. I grab it, hold it for a second, wait for the Taunt icon to show up, then hit Feint to widen the gap between tank and everyone else. Every time I've done this, I never see it leave the tank again ;)

[Concillian]

The same thread exists in the Warrior forums, posted by someone else, but could be an alt of the priest poster:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.a...mp=1#post735732

[Sheep]

Does the Growl ability (Is a Druid's growl different from a Hunter's pet's growl?) function in the same way as Taunt?

[Warlock]

Does the Growl ability (Is a Druid's growl different from a Hunter's pet's growl?) function in the same way as Taunt?
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Druid Growl works like Taunt. It's not the same as pet Growl, which I believe gives constant threat. The naming is a little awkward.

[Shriek]

Does the Growl ability (Is a Druid's growl different from a Hunter's pet's growl?) function in the same way as Taunt?
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Pet Growl seems to add a set amount of threat per rank. It does not force the mob to aggro the pet, and it does not seem to add additional threat based on the other players on the hate list.

[Legedi]

Added a small edit to the original.

Some other interesting things have come up in that thread. Say if a lot of DPS toons are really pushing a taunt immune mob and are all between 100-109% of the MT's aggro. Then a hunter pulls aggro and FD. The mob treats the hunter as dieing, but the MT is no longer on the top of the aggro. The mob now goes through and PWNS all the other DPSers that were over 100% :o .

[Kevin]

The aggro order list is rather interesting too. It also points out why a warrior doing the the pull has other advantages because it puts you on the top of the aggro order and if someone pulls aggro and you taunt and they stop doing damage you don't have to do anything else to hold aggro. Which matches my experience.

The hunter FD stuff (and rogue vanish too I would presume) is pretty interesting as well.

We really should copy and paste the good stuff here before it disappears from the WoW boards.

[Walkiry]

The hunter FD stuff (and rogue vanish too I would presume) is pretty interesting as well.
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Well, if I've read you correctly, should a hunter doing a pull do so with the biggest DPS build and aimed shot with as much instant hitting he can muster, then FD right after the tank taunts? (If the mob is not immune that is).

[Pantalaimon]

Well, if I've read you correctly, should a hunter doing a pull do so with the biggest DPS build and aimed shot with as much instant hitting he can muster, then FD right after the tank taunts? (If the mob is not immune that is).
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Yes and no... I've used rogues as an aggro-leapfrog in that manner (PUG Rogues, anyways, that like to unload instantly). Unfortnately, a taunt resist can really screw things up :P

Although with this hunter case, taunt resist but no FD resist means that the mob is damaged and everyone's on equal aggro footing, which is never a bad situation to be in.

[Kevin]

Well, if I've read you correctly, should a hunter doing a pull do so with the biggest DPS build and aimed shot with as much instant hitting he can muster, then FD right after the tank taunts? (If the mob is not immune that is).
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Actually was refering to the cases later in a fight where you have the warrior at say 1000 threat, and a hunter/rogue at 1050 threat, a mage at 1015 threat, and a priest at 1080 threat.

The mob is still beating on the warrior because of the 10% barrier. The hunter/rogue gets a big crit and jumps to 1120 and pulls aggro then feigns or vanishes as the case may be. The mob will not go back to the warrior in that case it will go eat the priest and then the mage if taunt is resisted or it is taunt immune or the warrior can't get up to 1188 threat real fast to get in front of the priest again. That was interesting to see tested and conforms with things I've seen in the past as well.



The frontloading aggro by another class to transfer it to the warrior via taunt does have some interesting uses but as mentioned may cause issue if taunt is resisted or if FD is resisted and the warrior can't make up the 10% (which shouldn't be a problem even with a crit aimed shot for 3K damage) as that is only 300 threat more the warrior needs if the tuant hits and sunder for a defiance warrior is 260 * 1.45= 377 so the hunter can do 3769 damage and a single sunder after a tuant will get it back. But it still could have some good uses. It won't matter much in MC because in MC you sill have to be generating threat faster than the DPS to keep hold anyway.

[Artega]

We really should copy and paste the good stuff here before it disappears from the WoW boards.
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Already one step ahead of you. I've been searching through old links and trying to find and copy down technical threads off the Blizzard boards before they disappear, but most of these links are too old.

I intend on compiling all of these threads at some point and posting them as a reference. Any help would be appreciated (simply PM links to me if you don't think they warrant a new thread or revival of an old one.)

Obviously, I'm only doing this for Warriors, since Warriors are the only class I play. Maybe some others could do this for the other classes? :)

[Tal]

We really should copy and paste the good stuff here before it disappears from the WoW boards.
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Wow. That is JUST the kind of stuff that would go well in a Lurker Wiki...


;)