Bad Tactical Memes

[Darian]

I completely disagree here.  Yes, the target often will turn back to who it was attacking before, but it's FAR from pointless.  1) It gets you hit which gets you rage, 2) It gets you hit instead of the (likely) squishier target the mob was on first, and 3) It gets you hit so you have a shot at using Revenge.  If you're low or empty on rage, that is a good time to use taunt if they are on someone else.  You hit them, they hit you, hopefully that gives you enough rage for a bash, or if you're lucky, Revenge will trigger.  Waiting to use taunt until you have enough rage to reclaim aggro for good is a very bad idea, as it hurts your ability to get said rage.  If you're behind on aggro and out of rage, you're unlikely to get yourself back at the top of the list without getting abused/hit (unless you dual wield and go into battle stance which you often can't safely do).  Also, though only gimpy warriors rely only on taunt (sadly, that's all some do), it is vital when used right.  At higher levels, 1 or 2 seconds equals dirt nap for a priest, and taunt will give you 6 seconds to regain aggro or have the mob die.[right][snapback]98237[/snapback][/right]

Oh, hell yes. Taunt is what it is, and nothing more: a method of getting a mob's attention. It's not a method of keeping it. Its purpose is exactly as you describe: get you hit and keep someone else from getting hit for a couple of seconds in order to be able to use other skills to lock the mob down.

Another HUGE use for taunt is if you have an off-tank in the group serving as a main assist while you keep the last mob to die securely locked down. You're not going to HOLD aggro on the mob the off-tank is engaging -- but you can sneak in a taunt occasionally for the sole purpose of getting hit for a couple of seconds and building up some more rage.

I was convinced that battle stance dual wielding was superior at locking down multiple mobs than defensive stance.  I still believe that's the case... but only in WC and the early game.  It is just not so later in the game.

That's probably very true; between the minimal decrease in actual hit points mitigated by being in defensive stats, the minimal effect of armor on mitigation due to low AC numbers, the lack of concussion blow and shield slam, and the microscopic dodge/block/parry numbers you'll have, defensive stance is sorely gimped at low levels. Further, given the relatively low HP carried by low-level mobs (even elites) compared to the relatively high damage output a low-level warrior is capable of dishing out, it's generally more effective to go ahead and beat the snot out of your enemies at that stage. However, once you find yourself having to resort to mocking blow to keep a situation under control, it's best to go ahead and flip back to defensive stance.

(Of course, your experience playing with ME thus far has an entirely different color: as an experiment for me, every last one of Synik's talent points is in fury, since Darian was arms/prot to 60, and has been prot/arms since.)

[Darian]

So, when are you going to cap Synik so you can critique Durambar?  :)  GG's feedback usually doesn't go deeper than, "Yarr!  Yah did a fine job!"
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I'm pretty sure if you were doing anything that needed correcting, GG would mention it. ;)

Might be awhile before Synik caps, simply because as much as I'm enjoying my time on Terenas, I've got responsibilities on Stormrage I have to deal with. But I intend to get there so I can help y'all get more end-game stuff accomplished!

[Kevin]

Example:  In BRD there are 5 elite humanoid pulls, which as a 4 man group at appropriate level, are really quite dangerous pulls.  We used multiple priest Mind Control casts for CC/healing with the medics.  We would kill the entire pull except for the mind controlled mob.  After 2-4 Mind Controls, that one mob HATED the priest with a furious passion.  That is a tremendous amount of hate to overcome.  It is much easier to kill that mob than to reclaim aggro.  Even without ANY rage, though, a warrior could keep his priest alive by spamming taunt as soon as it came off of cooldown (improved taunt helps a lot) if the priest moved away from the mob when it was taunted, and the warrior chased well.  In practice what we did was taunt, conc blow, taunt, which gives 17 seconds of complete priest safety (should be enough time to kill one of those mobs) without the warrior ever truly reclaiming the top of the hate list.
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This is where tactical mastery and angermanagement help you. I actually try to save rage or wait till I can bloodrage again before an MC'd mob is released. There a few things you can to do them to keep it on you for 15 seconds. Bloodrage if you can, taunt hit battle stance then Mocking blow it that will get you 2+6 seconds. Anger management gets you 3 rage in that time, staying in battle stance gets you more rage from damage or you can flop back into def stance. Blood rage will get you an additional 8 in that time (assuming you only had the initial 10 from it). When mock wears off taunt it for 2 more seconds that should be one more rage from AM so you have at least 14 (2 more from bloodrage) just from the skill build up. If you blocked you got another rage, you hit for more rage. You can not conc blow for 5 more seconds of stun there shouldn't be any diminishing returns on it. That is if it lives that long.

I can't get rid of tactical mastery just because of the uses of mocking blow if nothing else. I even use it in Motlen Core at times (when an elemental comes out of banish it's great if you can, plenty of time for the lock to rebanish then or to help you establish aggro). But you have to be quick on the stance changes. :)

Even without that taunt/conc blow/taunt is generally enough to keep the mob off the squishy. I will open with conc blow sometimes since it will hit a little better than taunt will when the mob movs. Taunt is very unforgiving about distance, conc blow seems to not give you too far away messages as frequently.


And yeah I don't go into detail because there is no need to. With both you can Concillian if there isn't any CC close I throw multishots out all the time because I figure the other mobs aren't going anywhere either.

The other thing about Bloodrage to consider and a reason that I don't use it until after I engage in most cases is that bloodrage generates AoE aggro too. Sure it is small aggro but it's still aggro that you waste if you hit before you pull. Actually it's twice as much aggro as dem shout is. This is also why imp sunder is so huge. You can shoot, bloodrage and only need 2 seconds (which is generally about how long it takes them to run to you) before a sunder, not 5. 10 immediate rage is generally all you need. It's another reason I like to charge/thunder clap/def stance/bloodrage/sunder/dem shout, you've bought yourself a fair bit of time to hit the other mobs with sunder, you've got anything that gets CC'd after you clap still locked on you if it breaks, you've lowered incoming damage even more, which isn't an issue for rage generation with 3 things beating on you (or it shouldn't be) and you have enough aggro on the charged mob to not lose it to the focus fire right away. But Bloodrage should be used liberally. One tick of a renew will make back all the health in most cases, even without the improved talent.

I like the CC applied after I pull for the same reason. If they CC before I pull, then I generally don't get the aggro from bloodrage and or dem shout or the clap (if I'm charging) applied to that CC'd mob. I'd have to dem shout before I bloodraged to get the CC'd mob to put me on it's hate table. It's great to watch a sheep or seduce go down early or a trap go down early and see that mob still run to me. I try to maximize the chances for that. I suppose I should do more with with a hunter pulling with rank 1 arcane then charge and do my routine instead of me pulling, that would probably maximize the rage I have available. But I don't like aggro being on anything else. I blame it on growing up with a priest and 2 mages in the group most of the time. The 5th slot would be a lock or hunter most of the time and the hunter will admit they were still learning the game and weren't very good. So there was no one else I could ever really trust to live long if they had any aggro at all. So the more that I could keep it centered on me, the better. :)

[Icebird]

You say that as if bloodrage and battle shout are mutually exclusive... ;)
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I guess I wasn't clear. I was using Bloodrage to generate the rage necessary to buff Battle Shout between fights so that I didn't have to worry about it during battle. The downside is that Bloodrage isn't always available to boost my rage pre-fight. On the other hand there were probably plenty of fights when Bloodrage was available and I simply forgot to use it.

I figure I've got 35 levels to work out the finer points of tanking anyway- by then I expect I'll have refined my approach a bit.

Chris

[bonemage]

I guess I wasn't clear. I was using Bloodrage to generate the rage necessary to buff Battle Shout between fights so that I didn't have to worry about it during battle. The downside is that Bloodrage isn't always available to boost my rage pre-fight. On the other hand there were probably plenty of fights when Bloodrage was available and I simply forgot to use it.

I figure I've got 35 levels to work out the finer points of tanking anyway- by then I expect I'll have refined my approach a bit.

Chris
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The game changes a lot over 35 levels, and I feel like I'm still refining my approach every week. Part of why I'm enjoying this thread so much is to hear from other tanks.

I'd recommend using Bloodrage in combat, Battle Shout. I usually use Bloodrage as part of my opening sequence. As I have Tactical Mastery (feel forced into it, actually) I charge, switch stance (can be done mid charge, before impact, no universal cooldown applied), demo shout, bloodrage, then start with the sunder/revenge/bash business. But, even without tactical mastery, you can charge, then demo shout or sunder to burn rage, then switch stances, it's just less forgiving. In longer fights, such as if a patrol or something else adds to the fight, is usually a good time to have bloodrage ready, and I find it typically is even if I opened with it.

[bonemage]

Even without that taunt/conc blow/taunt is generally enough to keep the mob off the squishy.  I will open with conc blow sometimes since it will hit a little better than taunt will when the mob movs.  Taunt is very unforgiving about distance, conc blow seems to not give you too far away messages as frequently.
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Just in relation to Mind Controlled mobs, I found it best to mash the taunt button repeatedly while waiting for the MC mob to break or be released. You'll get invalid target until it is broken so you won't be faced with wasting it or putting yourself on universal cooldown, but it will land as soon as MC breaks. You do bring up a good point about things landing after CC breaks. They're almost always running for someone else, and with client/server lag, that often puts you in chase mode if they get out of range before the server recognizes you've reacted to the break. Note that this taunt mash tactic is for Mind Controlled mobs only, though taunting a sheep before smacking it works if you're that worried, but hey, sheeped mobs break for the mage, not the priest, so there is a prioritization there... :whistling: Taunt also works on banished targets, but getting the timing right so it's still taunted when banish breaks is difficult, but again, it's probably not going for the healer. Anger Management's free rage is big while waiting to break CC, another reason I feel warriors are pidgeon-holed into at least 11 points into the Arms tree.

[Concillian]

I wouldn't be surprised if the wiki info was from before the warrior respec, where sheild slam pretty much sucked. Also before they re-adjusted some of the hate values of skills.

At the time, adding hate was primarily via sunder and/or shield block + revenge.

[Darian]

I wouldn't be surprised if the wiki info was from before the warrior respec, where sheild slam pretty much sucked.[right][snapback]98286[/snapback][/right]

You mean, "didn't exist." Or did you mean shield bash? Of course, even back before our respec, there were tanks who swore shield bash was the way to hold aggro. . .

[Icebird]

  As I have Tactical Mastery (feel forced into it, actually) ...[right][snapback]98272[/snapback][/right]

Tactical Mastery seems be a bit like Improved Arcane Explosion for mages. It makes such a big difference in they way you play that its hard to imagine any kind of build that doesn't include it somewhere. I'm definitely feeling the limitations of not being able to charge, switch to defensive stance and retain the rage from charge. I might have respecced to get it sooner, but I'm finding out how useful Piercing Howl can be (especially since my warrior is on a PvP server, another new wrinkle for me).

I like the idea of following up charge with Bloodrage to give an immediate rage pool to begin working with.

Chris

[Artega]

I though when some warrior crunched the numbers, Revenge generated the most aggro per rage point, with Sunder Armour coming in second?

Chris
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Shield Slam generates the most total aggro. Revenge generates the most aggro-per-Rage. Shield Bash comes in second place (cheaper than Sunder while generating more aggro.)

Versus more than two mobs at a time, Revenge is pretty much on all the time for me. I'll generally throw out a few Sunders to soften up the target, and then follow with either Shield Slam, or Heroic Strike if I'm not finding myself with way more Rage than I know what to do with. I also make frequent use of Cleave.

[Taeme]

Actually, I think shield slam generates the largest threat per rage trade off of available attacks on a normal tank. (Meaning a MS with some super weapon may eventually do more, as slam doesn't scale) We did some testing and it's pretty impressive after the 1.8 patch. To clarify - It was modified to generate more threat, and I don't know if testing was after it was modified.

I really can't give any opinion on sunder vs. revenge, as I spam both. Generating threat is burning as much rage as effectively as possible while using up as many of your options as possible. I don't think much about it past that.

[Taeme]

Keep in mind that bloodrage generats threat and should usually be used within battle if you're using it often. It's fine as a pre-buff if you're engaging one monster at a time, but in a pack fight it can add a touch more threat to all the mobs.

[Artega]

Keep in mind that bloodrage generats threat and should usually be used within battle if you're using it often. It's fine as a pre-buff if you're engaging one monster at a time, but in a pack fight it can add a touch more threat to all the mobs.
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I've never noticed Bloodrage generating aggro. Are you sure the warrior in question didn't hit one of his shouts with the rage generated?

[Kevin]

Keep in mind that bloodrage generats threat and should usually be used within battle if you're using it often. It's fine as a pre-buff if you're engaging one monster at a time, but in a pack fight it can add a touch more threat to all the mobs.
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http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index...topic=6293

Bloodrage does about twice the aggro that dem shout does. I've tested it and pulled mobs that peeled to a healer back with a bloodrage as well.

I've caused lava pack pulls in Molten Core to come to me with a bloodrage after the hunter pulled them as well. Bloodrage causes aggro.