The threat minigame
At Tankspot we have a thread about the threat minigame and how broken it was at Sunwell level. Lots of interesting points in that threat. As I am cruising around in 10-man and T4 content, I never knew it was broken, so the vivid descriptions of excellent tanks really struggling and having to use tricks like turning their back on mobs to get the necessary rage was really interesting to read.
Yet, like other posters, I do miss the threat minigame. Kadomi, what are you talking about, some might say. Let me explain. As tank you traditionally did two things. You fought the mob by tanking it and binding it to you. You fought the rest of the party by trying to outTPS them. Especially in PUGs you were pitting yourself against the group. I am sure DPS never viewed it like this, but it really was a constant struggle, where you as tank had to be on top of your game. I will admit to eyeing the TPS column in Omen a lot, to figure out how much TPS I could squeeze out, and to see if I needed to work harder. I prided myself on being the best tank in my guild when it came to the speed of building initial threat and maintaining it. I patted myself on the shoulder that DPS didn’t have to wait very long before laying down the law. I played the threat game, and I was good at it. There were a bunch of people who could outthreat me, and having them in my group made me work even harder. It was a challenge, I loved it.
The threat minigame is gone. Even against power-crazy retribution paladins, I can snag the threat and run away with it, miles and miles. I can tank through Seed of Corruption flying past me. Threat is all mine. I have read how threat was broken in Sunwell, but it was not at my level of content. Instead of sacrificing damage for innate threat, I now provide excellent damage when tanking. I play with the group instead against it, in a way.
I miss the challenge. Shield Slam crits make me cackle, but not as much as doing 1600 TPS in the pre-patch Eagle gauntlet in ZA did. I will have to find a suitable replacement for the threat game.
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I’ve thought alot about this recently. I’m sure they’ll be one. Either that, or the threat mini game will be back in wrath. Or… there’ll be entirely new minigames that have nothing to do with threat, along the lines of “dont stand in the fire” and “run away when you get the debuff”.
Who knows? I’m enjoying the ease of tanking atm and seeing the big numbers, fiddling with macros & rotations… and of course playing alts.
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The challenges will come once Wrath hits. Until then there’s only one thing to do: Have fun!
Talldar´s last blog post..2-man Botanica – talking about fun and such
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Don’t complain.
People don’t realise that Blizzard did NOT tune everything specifically. They basically reduced global variables. In their eyes – They have set us up for Wrath. Wrath IS TUNED to what we have currently.
I do believe however that Blizzard should have changed Talents – And left HP and Physical damage alone on bosses. But like before, they want us to experience what we can before WotLK hits.
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As someone who either plays a healer or a RDPSer, I want you to know that tanks all over the world have my support. And when you say things like “Shield Slam crits make me cackle…”, I remember why I prefer to be as far away from you insane tank folk as my spells will allow. =)
On a more productive note, I feel the same way about the loss of downranking. I liked the minigame of finding the right rank of a heal to bring a target just up to full without going over. Now I feel like I’m walking around with the biggest hammer in the world and no nails in sight.
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admin Reply:
October 24th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Oh, I bet that must feel different! The only healer I have seriously played is a paladin, and downranking didn’t really happen, as you were mostly spamming FoL in raids. For other healers it’s probably a monumental change. I have read surprisingly little about it, so it must have gone over alright.
Funny how we all had our own minigames. I am sure new ones will evolve with time.
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I read a lot about everyone missing the threat game. The challenge of it. I wonder when we reflect back on this moment a year from now if we’ll still think the same.
I, for one, am looking forward to my DPSers not having to hold back and me not having to bark at them when they don’t.
Things have changed, but I think we’ll find that not having to constantly be focused solely on having the highest threat will be a change for the better.
Veneretio´s last blog post..Your Role: Maximizing DPS and Minimizing Damage Taken
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admin Reply:
October 24th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I think I phrased this post too harshly. Yes, I miss the threat game and ‘winning’ at it. But yes, I also love the changes and the DPS I suddenly do, and the no limits rage and AoE threat. It’s the greatest fun to tank at the moment. I just haven’t done it long enough to not miss my safety zone, the old threat game.
But it’s not really a QQ, just an observation.
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Yeah. Count me as one of those Sunwell tanks that enjoys the new world a lot more. I agree it was a badge of honor seeing your tps top certain numbers, but it was very stressful. I think with threat the way it is now tank burnout will be a lot less. Something Im sure a lot of people experienced one point or the other in progression guilds.
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You want to play the threat game? Bring along a protection paladin, and fight it out over AoE packs.
There’s still a game there, it’s just that nowadays it’s only played between different tanks…
Namthe´s last blog post..…Wait a minute, what?
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“I remember back when…” Everyone complains that tanking is too much work, not fun, burns people out. I also remember as a DPS member of the run having to cater to the tank and healer because what they do is so hard and being a DPS is soo easy. Now we just need them to fix healers and we are good!
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Under ‘interesting tank phenomenon’, I figured this out last night.
Now, with a 10% reduction on outgoing damage, you’d think defensive stance would be the last place a prot warrior would want to be when soloing.
However, as it turns out, it is where you want to be if you’re soloing. The only time you don’t is if you’re DPSing where someone else is tanking, and/or DPSing where you’re not taking damage. Otherwise, my DPS is higher in defensive stance.
Why, you ask? Revenge. We all know devastate procs Sword & Board, but it’s easy to forget that revenge does, too! More revenge gets you sweet damage from revenge and more free shield slams!
I tried soloing on the island in battle/zerker with a shield, with a d/w setup, and in def stance with a shield. I did 100 more DPS in def stance than I did the other two ways, *and took less damage*.
Seems strange when you think about it, and when it finally hit me that revenge also procs Sword & Board, then I knew why it was working.
I discovered this by accident while soloing my way to the Crescent Key for the key achievement. I had everything old but that one. I tried running through Dire Maul East in Battle/Zerker stance first. Decent damage, but I also took a lot. Switched to def stance, and my damage went up, and my incoming went way down! I kinda thought ‘What? But def stance does less damage…’ Then I realized why and I had a good chuckle.
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mavfin Reply:
October 27th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Just to note: I was doing 600 DPS soloing on the island, in T4/heroic *tank gear*, with only like 1150 AP. What i haven’t done yet is try it in DPS gear with near 2K AP. I’m curious to see if I can keep revenge up enough, and/or keep my block/avoidance high enough to not take too much damage. I’ll see what happens, but may not have much time for a few days.
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admin Reply:
October 27th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Let me know how that goes. I am still not sure as how to best gear myself while soloing. I have been sticking to def stance, but have been switching between my former solo gear focusing on str/AP and my regular threat tanking gear with mostly SBV. Can’t really feel much of a difference yet.
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mavfin Reply:
October 30th, 2008 at 5:29 am
In my DPS gear, which raises my AP by about 800, and my str by enough to make my block value just as high as my tank gear, I do about 200 more DPS (25% or so more) than I did in tank gear. I do take a little more damage, so you’ll just have to gear for incoming damage depending on what you’re fighting. When you can use DPS gear w/o getting beat up, it’ll be great, or you can go for less downtime and still kick some ass soloing.
The next question I’ll have to answer is how best to DPS as prot when not getting hit. The answer may be that ‘dual spec’ is the best option, i.e. go Fury or Arms to DPS in a raid. I just haven’t had enough time to tell if puncture is going to give me enough devastate uptime to jumpstart the S&B rage machine. I know without puncture I was rage-starved some if not getting hit.
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Let me start by saying keep up the detailed break downs of mods. love it!
But to the point of the post here is the thing: we lost the threat minigame, true. However we gained the DAMAGE minigame…which, imo, is even better.
Think about it, the threat minigame, if you were good, was a game you’d usually win. Almost always, in fact, but when you lost it was DISASTER.
Now you have the damage minigame. Try and out dps your dpsers. THIS is a game you will almost always lose when paired against your best raiders, but when you do win…oh how sweet will it be?!
Ultimately Threat WAS BROKEN. I’m glad they’re doing something about it.
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