This is a guest post by the venerable Meloree, tankadin of Edge from Garona-US, a world top 100 progression guild and currently 26th in the US. Meloree is a widely respected poster at Maintankadin with years of tanking experience under his belt, and might be best known for trailblazing the Bleeding Edge of TPS movement that has elevated Festergut into the target dummy di tutti target dummies.
We tanks, as a rule, spend our careers locked in a brutal, no-holds-barred cage match with the Random Number Generator. We work to eliminate corner-cases, and make sure that on both short time-windows and long time-windows we can remain healable through whatever a boss dishes out. We find ways to smooth out damage intake, as well as reduce it. We seize control over our own destinies by minimizing the effects of the RNG on our personal survival. We do the same thing with threat – even when hit or expertise weren’t king threat stats, we tended to prefer those as threat stats, for smoothing out threat production and ensuring a nice consistent threat ceiling for DPS to play with.
So Vengeance is a Great Idea, Right? Right.
Vengeance – and I’m sure everyone is familiar with it by now – gives a tank additional attack power based on how much damage s/he is taking. It’s a short-term rolling average with a rapid decay. It’s intended to give tanks an additional scaling mechanism with gear, so as to make threat less of an issue in late-expansion content. It’s worth noting that in actuality, Vengeance has more of an impact in the initial tier than in final tiers – it allows Blizzard to make tank threat somewhat less overpowered in T11, so that it can scale with DPS all the way through T14. Vengeance is attempting to solve a developer problem, even while it’s being packaged as solving a player problem.
Conceptually, this is something I heartily approve of. I miss the threat game, and being able to completely ignore threat for the majority of the Wrath expansion was pretty disappointing. Even in ICC, where people were starting to report threat issues, I personally did almost all of my progression with a 245 weapon, roughly 1% hit, and 26 expertise. Very low threat stats, overall, but it was still enough to stay ahead of the DPS – without Tricks, or Misdirect, or any other hoops to jump through. Paying attention to threat stats, and balancing them against survival stats is one of the things that makes tank gearing interesting, and that was sorely lacking in Wrath. So far, I’m completely on board with Blizzard.
Where It All Goes Horribly Horribly Wrong
I’ve spent a couple of paragraphs on background, so hopefully we’re now all on the same page. Vengeance has a few major implementation issues. The first, and most important, is that while is scales positively with one survival stat – Stamina, it scales negatively with another – avoidance. It’s worth considering that the stat it scales positively with is a short time-window survival stat, and the stat it scales negatively with is a long time-window survival stat. It’s worth noting further that increasing your avoidance reduces the consistency of Vengeance. It reduces time-to-stack, it reduces average stack size, and it increases the variability of the stack size. While Vengeance may well be relatively stable for tanks in T11 content, if Wrath is any indication, it will give fits to tanks in T14 content.
Currently, raiding T10 content, Vengeance causes quite a few headaches that we’ve had to adapt to. First and foremost, avoiding damage in the first couple of seconds of an encounter will basically cause DPS to have to hold off. Sixty seconds in, avoidance streaks are a non-issue, but those first 2-3 swings are critical for the fight. On light hitting bosses, like Marrowgar, we’ve found ourselves searching for ways to take additional damage, so as to keep Vengeance stacked a little bit higher. That’s right – I stand in fire. To me, this indicates a major failure in Vengeances implementation. If it’s causing me to seek out additional (consistent) damage sources in order to give my DPS a threat ceiling that they can rely on, it’s simply not working the way it should.
Given that Vengeance’s variability matters only in the first few swings of a fight, I’m worried that on progression DPS-race bosses – bosses which traditionally are a brutal punishment on tanks, as well – we’ll find ourselves calling wipes if the first couple of swings miss. Typically, on those fights, if DPS has to back off at all, you lose. Early avoidance therefore means, you lose. This is something that we can only weakly influence through gearing – we’ll always have avoidance, and the first few hits will always be extremely variable because of that. Vengeance is RNG that we can’t realistically defeat.
I use a mod called Vengeance Status. It’s simple, lightweight, it’s just a small bar that fills up as your vengeance stacks up, and empties as it decays. It also gives a few useful numbers at the end of the fight (Max value, average value). In ICC last night, my average stack size on most bosses was in the 30% range. I’m hitcapped, very nearly expertise capped, I use a 2.6 speed 284 weapon. I find myself having to call out for DPS to be cautious on a very regular basis, simply because I’ve avoided a few hits, and my threat production feels completely dependant on getting reasonable levels of Vengeance up.
Vengeance contributes roughly 150% more AP than I have natively on gear. That translates, very roughly, to a full stack of Vengeance more than doubling my DPS/TPS output. Especially with the consolidation of raidbuffs, DPS players produce a much larger fraction of their fully-buffed DPS in 5-mans or soloing. Tanks produce a much smaller fraction of their peak TPS in those situations. Generally speaking, with low stacks of Vengeance, tanks can’t hold threat, but with full Vengeance, you leave the DPS so far behind that you might as well WoG instead of ShoR. In other words, in addition to the risks Vengeance presents in progression, it makes threat feel extremely imbalanced (in a bad way) everywhere else. Remember the good old days of taking off your pants for heroics? I miss pants.
Hope?
There is good news, though: Blizzard has some really easy options for fixing Vengeance. If you were to receive some Vengeance on avoidance – remove the negative scalar – it would serve it’s purpose very well. It should have a minimal impact on PVP, it would reduce it’s dependance on RNG, it would remove the counterintuitive reverse scaling, and it would fix the “first 3 swing” dependance. That would also, coincidentally, help tanks with the problem of outgearing old instances. Another option is for Blizzard to simply turn off Vengeance in PVP, and balance it properly for PVE – probably by removing the decay function. Another option is to give some of the benefit of Vengeance statically, reducing the RNG dependance.
Vengeance is broken, Blizzard. It’s counter-intuitive, it’s frustrating, and most importantly – it’s not fun. Fix plz.
@hazmacewillraid
I’m curious, do you think this wonky Vengeance mechanic is Blizzard’s way of re-introducing the “Wait for Sunder” threat generation of previous expansions?
It’s entirely possible, that’s their intention, but it won’t work. The game has moved on, the raiding culture has moved on, and enrage timers preclude that behaviour.
1) Tricks/MD are only temporary on the target they’re cast on. If you taunt, you inherit the tricks/MD threat, and it doesn’t disappear. If we have to do that on every boss, we will.
2) There’s all kinds of cute tricks you can do to force vengeance to stack, that are counterintuitive and annoying. Watch the boss timer, and turn your back just before he swings, if you’re on GCD, for example. Take a hit, no threat loss, force Vengeance up. Is that the new mark of a good tank?
3) With MD/Tricks, DPS will start right away, as always. There’s no real display on how much of the threat is temporary, so DPS in progression will basically have to assume that they’re good to go – because they can’t afford not to. Good tanks will simply be expected to own the boss by the time the temporary threat wears off. And good tanks will find ways.
It largely comes down to quality of life. We can defeat vengeances annoyances – we can force ourselves to take hits – but it’s counterintuitive, it’s frustrating, and it’s not fun.
Also, hooray for having a comment to respond to!
@resonate1794
Excellent post. I always love reading the thoughts of such high-level tankadins.
Vengeance goes back to a problem Blizzard’s had many times throughout its history of raid systems — it gets WORSE as your avoidance gets better. Suddenly there’s this extra hidden downside of increasing your survivability, and you’re forced to find some sort of balance between durability and threat output. This is seriously some TBC-level stuff right here. Are we going back to the days of butt-tanking or /sit macros again?
I agree that reducing or removing the decay from Vengeance would avoid most of these problems (except for the ramp-up time), but Blizzard seems to really be opposed to making too many things “PvP-only” in this game. Hopefully they’ll come up with a good solution to this issue, though.
.-= Resonate’s last blog ..Welcome to Guarded By the Light =-.
Personally, I don’t have any problems with tanks being a near-zero damage control spec for rated BGs, with basically no place in Arena. All tanks are hybrids, with a valid Arena spec. That said,
I don’t think Blizzard wants to make Vengeance PVE only, even if I personally think it’s the best solution.
I understand that Blizzard wants tanks to feel at least somewhat viable in Arenas, and that they like Vengeance as a mechanic in PVP right now, because it punishes targeting tanks. Especially in rated BGs, it makes tanks very powerful for location control.
The ideal solution for Blizzard is something that improves the quality of life in PVE, while keeping Vengeance balance in PVP. This is why I think that Vengeance on avoidance is liable to be the best solution. It won’t make the ability markedly more powerful in PVP, but it will help immensely in PVE.
@resonate1794
And when you think about it, that pretty much echoes how they solved our mana problems from TBC — gave Blessing of Sanctuary mana regen on dodge/parry/block. It would be kind of amusing (in a way) if they made the same tweak to Vengeance.
.-= Resonate’s last blog ..Welcome to Guarded By the Light =-.
I think it’s amusing (in a sad way) that they still don’t realize that we attempt to avoid or reduce incoming hits.
Respectfully, I don’t think that’s it at all. Blizzard knows full well how tanks think, and I think the idea of throwing a little bit more RNG – a little bit of different RNG – at tanks really does appeal to them. They’re attempting, I think, to make gearing and gemming a little bit more thought-provoking. The problem is, by playing off a long-term survival stat, we really can’t influence the critical moments very much, no matter how we gear.
Where I think they’ve really missed the boat, though, is on what lengths we’ll end up going to to remedy the problem to our satisfaction, and how much of a quality of life decrease it is.
I have actually been saying the same things about Vengeance initially. The other major issue is tank swap encounters, in which the new tank will have no Vengeance at all, while the previous did; this causes an enormous TPS swing and DPS need to be very careful of it. It also played havoc on any “Air Phase” or “Boss stops and casts for a long time” bosses (Currently, think Sindragosa and Rotface respectively; in Cataclysm, think that sound dragon who starts with an A, and Ascendant Council). And also, that Vengeance is more effective with worse tank gear, which seemed counter intiutive to what its intention was (To help tanks that have higher gear, and to avoid needing multiple tanking sets).
Any time I brought up these issues on Maintankadin or Tank Spot, it was completely disregarded, I was told that wasn’t the intent of Vengeance, and that it wasn’t something to worry about, and that it would be fine come Cataclysm. I had wanted alternative ways to obtain Vengeance (Similar to Warriors Vigilance talent), and I have noticed that Hand of Sacrifice doesn’t provide any Vengeance stacks from its damage.
It is a bit of a relief to see someone else saying the same things…
It may well be fine in Cataclysm – at least in Tier 11. In fact, I expect that in T11 and T12 we won’t have much of a problem with Vengeance. However, reverse scaling effects – like any scaling effect – become far more predominant as gear levels increase. If you want a good indicator for T14, just look at T10.
@Rhidach
There’s something sublime about getting to read comments and not having to worry about answering them. :D
…
Dude, “venerable”. I’m only just barely old enough to get a bit insulted when people imply that I’m old.
@Rhidach
Would it be better if I called you a “storied institution”?
No, that’s a little bit too impersonal. I have a thick skin, I’ll suck it up.
Meloree, awesome job. Thank you for the add on too.
I’m not a huge fan of Vengeance. I guess I will put faith in Blizz it get it set up the right way for later on. For now threat still isn’t much of an issue.
I will say thou, on tank swap bosses its horrible. Not taking damage and then being expected w/a simple taunt to match the tank that was getting hit is hard for DPS to understand.
Thanks for posting this up.
.-= Chasey’s last blog ..WoW is 6 years old and Quotes to live by =-.
Interestingly, we haven’t had any issues with the taunt-swap boss (Saurfang is the only relevant one). Primarily, I think, because he has a fast enough swing timer to get you some vengeance quickly – and the initial Tricks threat gets inherited by the 2nd tank just before it falls off.
I’ll certainly grant, though, that for some potential taunt-swap boss implementations, it could be a nightmare. Now I kind of wish I’d addressed it.
Oh, well, long post was long enough.
Nice post.
Leave it to me to pick out something that was not even the general focus of the post but I wanted to thank you for it.
The whole taunt just as MD or Tricks is about to fall off and keep that threat thing. I can’t believe I never even thought of that. Brilliant. Thanks for the tip.
I do agree that at some point the whole avoidance thing will become a problem. I have that on my warrior and bear with rage, now I’ll have it with vengeance. So instead of saying, let me get hit to build rage first I’ll say let me get hit to get vengeance first.
.-= TheGrumpyElf’s last blog ..NaNoWriMo =-.
To be strictly honest – we never thought of it, we discovered it at Saurfang. It’s not something we’ve yet had to really exploit, and I sincerely hope I never have to.
The problem with your thesis is that you assume that avoidance will increase in later expansions, but that does not appear to be the case.
Remember that bosses in T12, 13, and 14 will effectively be “leveled up” – they will act as though they were level 89, 90, and 91, without actually being so. This is prevent what we saw in Wrath, where you would be hit and expertise capped by two or three items, and those stats would be wasted after the hard cap. While your dodge/parry raw amount will scale with gear, the bosses who are 88+ or 88++ will also have an easier time hitting you – provided they balance the numbers well, the end percentage of avoidance that tanks will have in percentage terms should remain roughly equivalent each tier (except when you’re fighting T11 bosses when you have T13 gear on).
For tank swap encounters, that means the boss must be tauntable, which means the 2nd tank will at least have a large running start, which should be enough to get them going while Vengeance gets ramped up. If not, then that is what Tricks/Misdirect are for (and it would be silly if those abilities did not have a purpose of some kind).
It makes for an odd mechanic in ICC when you can have huge avoidance numbers, but considering the absurd stat conversion rate of stats in Cataclysm (most DPS classes will never be hitcapped, for example), I highly doubt it will be an issue the way you think it will be.
Certainly boss expertise, assuming it happens, addresses any average-stack-size argument. However, you’ll probably note that I spent very little time and space on that.
Vengeance still exacerbates overgearing problems, especially in 5-man content, and adds a very uncomfortable level of RNG to the beginning of fights – something that we’ll have to jump through hoops to compensate for.
However, if avoidance is kept stable, through levelled up bosses – as opposed to simply increasing more slowly – I’ll certainly grant that Vengeance presents less issues with mid-fight stack drops. It still doesn’t address the more serious problems at all, though.
Even in ICC, DPS doesn’t pull threat mid-fight. They pull after 30 seconds, when Tricks/MD wears off, if you had “lucky” avoidance in the first few seconds. That problem is never going away so long as we have any avoidance whatsoever.
Welcome to being a rage tank.
Bears and warriors have worked with the chance of their avoidance screwing over their early threat for a long time, and have done a pretty good job of it for the most part. I don’t think the devs should change the Vengeance mechanic just because it brings paladins and DKs more in line with bears and warriors. They might change it because it doubly screws rage tanks on long avoidance streaks, but IMO they’re more likely to give us rage on avoidance than to give all tanks Vengeance on avoidance.
Am I complaining? Oh heck no! I love the rage mechanic – it’s why I rolled a warrior. And that love for rage carries over to its newest clone.
Yes, we stand in the fire on purpose sometimes, on content we overgear. We also like to “gear down” with DPS and PVP plate for lower content, not only for the increase in threat stats, but also specifically to lower avoidance/increase our damage taken. But it doesn’t influence our progression – we put on all our armor and tanking gear and we don’t have any problem clearing content.
Also, I think it bears keeping in mind that the devs intend to ramp up boss expertise with each tier of raiding, to keep tank avoidance down. While this has some unfortunate implications re: the scaling of the block masteries vs the off-attack-table masteries, it should serve to keep Vengeance relatively high in progression content.
.-= Button’s last blog ..Tanking the Elemental Bosses =-.
I have alts of all four tanking classes, I’ve tanked on all of them, and my primary alt is a feral druid. I’m fully comfortable with the mechanics of rage. It’s worth noting that in 4.0, white damage is a huge fraction of rage generation for both rage tanks – rage is far less dependant on taking damage than it ever has been. You won’t be doubly-penalized because of Vengeance.
However – the really important point here – rage tanks don’t start pulls with 0 rage. If we didn’t start pulls with zero Vengeance, I wouldn’t have many issues left.
Perhaps that’s the simplest solution, though; an “enrage” clone that fills up the vengeance bar.
A few weeks ago, I was reading the complaints on Maintankadin (or somewhere else) regarding the long ramp time to get 3 HoPo for a SotR hit, and how it was causing us to be block chance deficient for the entirety of short-window fights and the first part of long-window fights. I thought that the devs response was come Cataclysm, we would get some kind of on-demand (and on cooldown) ability that would instantly provide us 3 HoPo, so we could pull and then SotR, ostensibly for block capping. Now that the devs have changed the SotR (or talented WoG) block bonus mechanic in Cataclysm to be increased block damage vice increased block chance, making it much less important to have the block bonus at the start of a fight, perhaps they will also change the upcoming on-demand ability from providing 3 HoPo to providing full Vengeance.
@resonate1794
Divine Plea has been adapted for this purpose (3 HoPo), and it’s already in place on the beta I believe. Your idea for utilizing that function for Vengeance as well is an interesting one, but I would think that if Vengeance stays in in its current incarnation, we would need to come up with a solution for all tanking classes, and not just Paladins.
.-= Resonate’s last blog ..Welcome to Guarded By the Light =-.
IDK, I both agree and I disagree. I tank on both a feral druid and a paladin. I notice that I have less issue with building threat on my paladin than I do on my druid, no matter the content (5mans-ICC) and I can only attribute this to being both rageless and Vengeanceless. Paladins don’t start out with 3HoPo and thus take more damage to start a fight thus building Veng faster IMO. As a feral if I enrage then charge and dodge 2 of the first 3, I’m empty with nothing but taunt left to keep aggro. I think that gearing a paladin to have “mostly” block (30% damage redux) instead of dodge (100% damage redux) is also a reason for this. In the long run I truly think this all boils down to DPS being smart, plain and simple. We are tanks and we do what we need to do to get and keep aggro, thats our job and it’s not really that hard if dps is smart. I also think this is why tricks and MD now have their threat “buffs” go away after 30secs. If this is an issue for anyone try asking your rogues and hunters to co-ordinate a 15sec difference in their “threat buffs” which is a very simple and smart thing for them to do anyway. Again I want to reiterate I agree in the fact I don’t like the way vengeance works, but I disagree in that its much different than how rage works, yes we have an ability that gives us rage, but it’s barely enough to do one swing on a mob, and in general thats why we pull so fast in 5mans, I constantly am moving on to the next mob or group of mobs while one or two are still standing to keep my rage up, my vengeance up, and my threat that much ahead of the dps. While I’d like to see something done to give us a little bit of a fix with vengeance, I also don’t see it as being a big issue if we simply ask/tell/make dps play smart.
Interesting, I’ve had essentially zero rage problems on my druid, since 4.0.1. Sometimes I have to not Maul on cooldown, but that’s about it. I haven’t aggressively paid attention to Vengeance, but I find threat a little smoother on my druid, overall, probably due to not having 25% of the damage and threat tied up in a 10 second cooldown.
Either way, I don’t really buy the “smart DPS” line. They can easily turn that around to a “good tanks” line, and they’re correct to do so, in my opinion. A DPS will happily cite examples where they can’t afford to pay attention to Omen, because of near or post-enrage enrage timers. It’s certainly always been my philosophy that threat is a tank problem to solve.
Obviously, if DPS attacks the wrong mob in a pack, and pulls, that’s their problem, I’m primarily concerned about single-target output. And DPS are basically incapable of pulling single-target threat from a tank, played correctly. It’s just that “played correctly” often means finding fires and breaking avoidance streaks by doing a quick 180. That’s not, in my opinion, good gameplay.
Regarding MD: Our guild has all but stopped using it. MD is incredibly misleading at the start of the fight and creates the 30sec pull issue from the ranged DPS. The only phase MD’s are actually used are for add pickups in 2 & 4. The DPS has more targets to split between and they’re already used to waiting for the tanks to get into position. The moment we stopped using MD’s on the pull, things drastically improved: The DPS stopped getting aggro, the raid didn’t have to second guess their threat numbers, and we even saw that there’s a minor bug regarding boss aggro on LK where he can turn and one-shot random raid members if things like a searing totem are placed next to his feet–even chasing them 10 yards away.
I also find it greatly helps not to blow wings on the pull, but when I get my first Sacred Duty proc, but I’m sure your personal mileage may vary depending on how patient your ranged are. I still have to salv one overzealous warrior 5 seconds in, but he’s weird…
As for taking damage on purpose, does anybody else remember the good ol’ days where you had to turn around -and- sit down (for an auto-crit or three) on ZA bear runs just to have mana? The vengeance system reminds me a lot of those days and will probably be fixed in the same fashion where avoidance = additional resources. And I’m reasonably sure they’ll just disable vengeance from PvP targets to save themselves headaches–as much as I’d love to lay the beat-down as a flag carrier. Or, y’know, add a small amount of vengeance stacking based off white melee hits to break up avoidance chains just a little bit. But I don’t see Blizzard taking away that RNG, especially if doing so encourages DPS to be less vigilant of the threat meter. I could potentially see them having taunt generate vengeance if the target is not already attacking you.
Unfortunately, the threat meter is all but gone, as far as DPS are concerned, and it’s likely to stay that way. It’s not a matter of bad habits, either – it’s a matter of Blizzard’s increasing ability to set challenging enrage timers. When 2 seconds actually matters, they can’t throttle or wait. It’s up to us to figure it out for them.
Taunt generating vengeance is a decent idea, but I highly doubt we’ll see vengeance on white, so long as it’s active in PVP – and in PVE it’s functionally identical to just having some of Vengeance’s value applied statically.
Some of my DPS pull between 25-30k DPS on the sub 3 minute fights now – I find myself completely reliant on Vengeance stacking up at least a little bit to weather the Heroism+cooldowns+trinket proc storm on pull, when they’re peaking at closer to 50k. That normally means taking a couple of hits to the back, and finding fire to stand in.
This…
“Some of my DPS pull between 25-30k DPS on the sub 3 minute fights now…
to weather the Heroism+cooldowns+trinket proc storm on pull…”
is what I meant by “smart DPS” there is absolutely no reason a dps should do this, ever. The enrage timer is not 3 min, you’re going to blow thru this fight anyway and the dps is being stupid imho.
As to your reply to my initial comment. Thanks. I also have to say my druid doesn’t really have many issues with rage, but of my two tanks the druid has more issues than the paladin, there are probably more factors for this than I can count and its pointless to go thru them here. It was just a small observation I’ve noticed and wanted to mention. Some things to consider tho, are that we tanks might try not using damage reduction CDs on pull such as on a druid not using enrage on pull IF you have 4pc T10 or not using Barkskin on pull. Paladins purposely going in without HoPo to make sure we have less avoidance etc etc etc. Any number of the multitude of things we could do to take extra damage in that first 10-30 sec.
Again thanks for your replies, and the excellent discussion.
I agree that there are ways we can arrange to take more damage on the pull. The problem is that it’s silly and counter-intuitive to have to do so, in my opinion.
However, what I really want to reply to is the “stupid dps/smart dps” line of discussion. There’s really a couple of comments to be made there.
First and foremost – they don’t actually pull. I find ways to make sure that they don’t. And I consider it to be my failure if they do. Frankly, allowing the DPS to chase record parses, and record boss-kill times is the only thing that keeps them even mildly focused after 6 months of farming, so as a raid leader I won’t discourage it.
Secondly – it may be farm content now, but in a couple of weeks we’ll have progression. I expect many of the enrage timers to be very tight in hardmode – aggressive play from the DPS is the only thing that will get us through those timers for the first few kills, I’d much rather have them comfortable with it, and I’d much rather have them convinced that I’ll do my part.
Thirdly – All DPS cooldowns should be blown on pull, unless you have a specific phase to save them for, or you know the fight duration well enough to plan usage differently. There’s a huge opportunity cost to not burning them, though, as trinket-procs are all up at start of pull, and stacking cooldowns with trinket procs is just good practice.
You might disagree with the reasoning, but I object to categorically denying that there’s any reason ever – even if it was hyperbole. Never underestimate the psychological benefit that a DPS gains knowing that their tank will find a way to make sure that they can do their job.
I don’t disagree with your reasoning or your choices whatsoever. I simply don’t see things like personal records as a reason to be worried about how to deal with Vengeance and its downfalls. I have and never will equate a progressive kill with a kill we have on farm and are chasing records or achievements on. When you’re going for that progressive kill it’s all about playing smart and if dps have to use the skills given to them, (Cower, Feint, etc – or waiting 3 sec for me to get a couple hits in first) to make that happen then that’s their job as much as it is our job as tanks to keep aggro, it is a team game after all.
I, as a feral kitty MS with bear OS know very well the importance of using my CDs early in a fight but if it comes down to me using that ability or killing the boss, I’m choosing to kill the boss. It’s just smart play imo.
I’m in no way saying that dps shouldn’t be doing all they can to max out their dps, but to compare a 3min record chasing kill now to what’s going to be happening in 2-3 weeks… Their ability to be as close in threat at lvl 85 isn’t going to be there like it is now (you’re not going to see crit capped kitties with 30% mastery doing 30k bleed crits) at least not the way I’m looking at stats on gear from both a dps and tank perspective.
I too take great pride in never having to ask my dps to hold off on either of my tanking toons, but if there ever comes a time that I need to, I expect them to know from past encounters that there really is one heck of a good reason and to do so.
Lastly, yes I truly hope blizz does something like making taunt give say 10-20% Vengeance when under that, or something like what has already been mentioned because as you said going out into T12 and T13 I can see this being an issue, unless the boss expertise is really going to scale that much. Which in all honesty is what has me the most excited about the upcoming expansion, that “new frontier” feel. Cataclysm HERE WE COME!
As always thanks for the replies and the discussion.
I think we might be talking past each other a little bit. I’m not equating progression kills with farm kills. I’m suggesting that the habits and skills you develop in farming can aid in progression – or equally hinder. I like aggressive DPS, so I encourage that style of play in farming.
It does, however, demonstrate some of the limits. Because there will be tight enrage timers in progression. There will be fights where waiting for 3 seconds is not an option. We’d best be prepared to deal with those.
Certain habits we develop in farm content stay with us into progression. Also, todays record setting is the next tiers expected standard. Having a raid that knows what it is capable of, and that it won’t be threat capped now saves the learning curve in the next tier, when it matters.
@Anafielle
I spent way too long thinking about how to write this post. I can’t tell you how glad I am that we got an expert to write it yourself. This really clearly lays out all the major problems with Vengeance – a ton of them that I hadn’t even seen yet. Well done!!
I was in Mumble last night and two of my guildmates were talking about this issue & mentioned this post. I can’t tell you how cool it is to hear a ret pally tell a mage about Vengeance, quoting directly from this post. I know my guildmates probably read more blogs than your usual raiders, and certainly have a vested interest in reading this one, but it’s nice to hear the information permeating out. And you and I both know it got to the highest levels!
I’ll definitely be recommending that Vengeance addon to every tank I know.
Meloree, you have to come back and post again! This one was definitely a success!
Sure. I really enjoyed the process, I’d be happy to again. Just as soon as I come up with a topic worth writing about – or you guys hand me one that I can really sink my teeth into.