World of Warcraft Warrior Guide To Understanding Threat

· This guide originally appeared on the official World of Warcraft community forum. It is an older guide that I believe was last updated during the last week of January. With that being said, this guide is AWESOME! It's not only a fantastic guide for Warriors but for anyone that wants to know how threat truly ticks in this game.

· This guide should be consider a "classic guide" and probably will later on. Some warriors after reading this guide were able to increase their warrior skills by 100%. That has been said quite a few times by quite a few players! Anyway, it is kinda long but here it is!

· It's often said that we will never be able to work out the way threat and hate lists and mobs' AI works, because it's too complicated and unknowable, that we'll only ever have crude approximations and guesses. I've conducted some decent, rigorous tests, and i have what i believe is a good list of hate values and explanations of gaining and losing agro and the behavior of taunt. I am also able to debunk a few myths about how threat works.

1. Definitions
· We define "aggro" to be who the mob is attacking. We define "threat" to be a numeric value that each mob has towards each player on it's hate list. Note, as we shall soon see, even for a normal mob, the target who has aggro is not necessarily the player on it's threat list with the most threat.
· We define arbitratily that 1 point of unmodified damage gives 1 point of threat.


2.Gaining aggro on a mob Updated Jan 31
· Suppose a mob is attacking player 1. In order for the mob to switch to player 2, he must do more than just exceed the threat of player 1. If he is in melee range of the mob, he will draw aggro when he exceeds 110% of player 1's threat. If he is outside melee range of the mob, he will draw aggro when he exceeds 130% of player 1's threat.

· E.g. mob is attacking player x. x does 100 damage to mob, then stops. Player y starts hitting the mob. The mob will start attacking y when y does over 110 damage.

· Proof: this is easy to demonstrate. Get two players both doing autoattack on a mob (not warriors of rogues; we'll see later they complicate things). Have player 1 do a certain amount of damage, then stop. Have player 2 keep attacking till he gets aggro. You have an upper and lower bound on the threat required to get aggro - 1 attack before he got aggro was not enough, but the attack that he got aggro was at least enough. With low damage attacks (i.e. fists only), you will get a very good value of 10%. Testing for the non-melee range value is the same. Just replace it with a low damage ability such as a low level wand.

· If player 2 has exceeded 110% threat but not 130% threat, they will draw aggro immediately if they do a threat-generating ability within melee range of the mob, but proximity alone will not cause the mob to shift to them.

· This is only a description of the normal mob targetting. Obviously there are mobs who will attack secondary targets with special abilities, ignoring their current threat / aggro.

3.Threat modifiers from Warrior Stances
· In Battle Stance and Berserker Stance, all threat from a Warrior is multiplied by 80%. In defensive stance, the multiplier is 130%. With Defiance, it is 145%.

· Proof: a simple modification of the above proof. Get a warrior to do, say, 1000 damage in defensive stance, without defiance. Get a non-warrior to take aggro with white damage. You will find it does not happen before 1430 damage. The warrior's 1000 damage caused 1300 threat in defensive stance, and the 10% barrier means you need more than 1430 to gain aggro.

4.Threat does not decay
· Threat never, ever decays. Here is test data. Warrior does 83 damage on mob in battle stance, gains aggro. From above, we know it will take more than 83 * 0.8 * 1.1 = 73.04 threat to gain aggro. Warrior waits for 5 minutes getting beat on. Then mage starts attacking slowly. Mage does 73 damage, but does not gain aggro! Mage does another 2 damage, and does gain aggro. From the warrior's initial hit to losing aggro, the time taken was 496 seconds.

As an upper bound, assume maximal threat decay. i.e. the mage only needed 73.000000001 threat to gain aggro. Then the warrior's threat had decayed to 66.36363636, from 66.4. This means he went down to 99.945% threat in 496 seconds.

At this maximal rate of hate decay, the time taken for the warrior's threat to decay to 90% of the original value would be 26.5 hours. In fact, if a warrior logged in as soon as the server came online after the weekly reset and hit a mob, his threat would not decay to 50% before the server reset next week. I think this is enough to rule out threat decay.

5. Threat values for some warrior abilities Updated Jan 20
· The following list is not exhaustive, but includes all the major tanking abilities.

· Note: the following values are given in raw terms. In reality the warrior must have either a 1.3 or 0.8 or 1.45 modifier on these, depending on his stance and talents.

· Note: * All abilities do not include threat generated by their damage. This will be discussed more later.

Sunder: 261 (260.95 - 261.15)
Heroic Strike*: 145 (143.9 - 148.8)
Revenge*: 315 (313.9 - 318.3)
Revenge Stun: 25 (23.4 - 29.1)
Shield Bash*: 180 (175.4 - 180.3)
Shield Slam*: ?? 250 (estimated from Cop's data. More on that later)
Shield Block: 0 (0 - 0. Can be higher - more on this later)
Thunder Clap*: 130 (126.9 - 134.8)
Demo Shout: 43 (42.8 - 43.8)

· Note that debuffs associated with abilities are not connected to the threat they generate. Demoralizing shout generates the same amount of threat whether the debuff is on or not. Sunder armor generates the same threat after 5 debuffs are on as when there are 0.

6.Healing, "you gain x ___", etc
· Each point of healing, when completely unmodified by talents, gives 0.5 threat. Replace the proof for (2) by the second person only healing.

· Note: overhealing doesn't count, only the actual amount healed. This is easy to demonstrate.

· Abilities that put "you gain x mana" in the combat log give 0.5 threat per point gained; life is the same. Examples would be drinking potions, but not natural regen, or the Shaman's mana spring totem.

· Abilities that put "you gain x rage" in the combat log give 5 threat per point gained. However, this is not modified by warrior stance. Such abilities include bloodrage, improved blocking talent, unbridled wrath, and 5/8 Might.

· Like healing, these only give threat if you are below the maximum.

7.Explaining Cop's 4.0 damage to heal ratio

· Cop stated that in his tests, each point of damage by the warrior took approximately 4 points of healing by the priest, for the priest to get aggro. Here's how:

· Warrior in defensive stance, with defiance: 1.45 multiplierGaining aggro from Warrior: 1.1 multiplierPriest with discipline: 80% threatHealing: each point gives 0.5 threat

· Together, 1.45 * 1.1 / 0.8 / 0.5 = 3.9875. Pretty darn close to 4.

8.Threat from pulling? Updated Jan 19

· There is no threat associated with pulling. The smallest amouts of threat we could generate drew aggro from a body pull, no matter how long we waited after the pull. However, there are advantages to having the tank pull, as explained in the next secion.

9.Taunt Updated Jan 19
· Casting taunt causes three effects.A) The warrior is given as much threat as the person who currently has the mob's aggro. Obviously if the warrior has aggro, this will do nothing. Also, this effect will not lower the warriors threat. For example, if player 1 has 100 threat and aggro, a warrior could have 105 but not aggro; after taunt he would still be on 105 threat.

· B) The mob recalculates its actual aggro target. If the warrior was on the mob's hatelist before the original aggro target, the mob's actual aggro target will switch to the warrior. Otherwise, the mob will remember it's original target.

· C) The normal taunt debuff. The mob is forced to attack the warrior, even if the warrior is not its actual aggro target.

· The threat that the warrior gains from (A) is permanent, regardless of the outcome of (B). Note that it will not necessarily give the warrior the equal highest threat on the mob. If player 1 has 100 threat and aggro, Player 2 has 109 threat but not aggro, and the warrior has 0 threat, then the warrior is given 100 threat, not 109, so he could easily lose aggro to Player 2 after taunting.

10.Implications Updated Jan 19. Updated Jan 21. Note this section is just my opinion.

o Let the tank pull! Then he will be first on all the mobs' hatelists, and his taunts will always return aggro to him.

o Given that targets at range will only draw aggro when they have more than 130% of the mob's target's current threat, it's important for a tank to keep the mobs well away from the casters. If a healer does draw aggro and you taunt it off him, make sure you also move it away.

o Heroic Strike should not be used as a primary threat ability. Suppose you are tanking a level 62 mob. Let's give him 8,000 ac raw, and even assume he has 5 sunders stacked, for 5750 final ac, so he will take 48.89% of damage. A 15% crit rate is balanced by the 10% penalty to damage in defensive stance, and a 10% chance of a glancing blow chance for 50% damage. Then you can expect the 138 damage from Heroic Strike to contribute 67.5 damage on average, for a total of 212 unmodified threat. This is still only 82% of the threat a sunder would give. Even with a 1.3 speed weapon, you will still do 94% the threat of sunder per time interval.

· Best practice is to spam sunder, and use HS in between to soak up excess rage.

o Revenge ftw. You can expect to do about 345 unmodified threat with Revenge, including damage, against the mob in the example above, which is exceptional for the low rage cost, even throwing in 10 for a shield block. However, there is a rage cost of shield block, in that you will block more attacks, so take less damage, so gain less rage from damage. Two blocks for 180 damage and you can say goodbye to another 4 rage.

o Demo Shout ftl. Demoralising shout does one sixth the threat of a sunder. Even spammed in defensive stance with defiance, you're doing no more threat than 42dps on each mob. Besides picking up whelps in Onyxia and tanking panthers in the Panther boss encounter in ZG, i can't see a compelling reason to use this.

o Shield Slam ftl. Given the 6 second cooldown, there is no improvement in threat per second by using shield slam. With shield slam: 3 sunders and 1 shield slam every 6 seconds. About 212 threat per second, unmodified. With the 30 rage from the shield slam you can cast 1 sunder and about 1.2 heroic strikes, assuming you have the talents (which you would with any shield slam build), and are losing 3 rage per Heroic Strike from lost white damage rage (i.e. assuming 90 modified damage per hit). The 4 sunders and 1.2 heroic strikes every 6 seconds gives about 215 threat per second.

· The only improvement is if you are spamming both sunder and HS, and want even more threat. Suppose we have a 2.0 speed weapon, HS spam and sunder spam. That's about 280 unmodified tps. Changing one sunder for a shield slam gives us 318 unmodified. However, the same effect would be achieved by changing to a 1.4 speed weapon and casting HS more often. And these values aren't taking into account autoattack damage, which makes the margins comparatively smaller.

o There's no amazing super secret randomised blizzard aggro algorithm. The concepts are simple and the values can be fitted with nice numbers. Even formulas for threat-reducing knockbacks can conceivably be worked out, if threat values are carefully monitored.

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WoW Warrior Guide To Being The Perfect Tank

For a warrior in the World of Warcraft, one of your most sought after skills will be as a tank with a group in an instance. There are many different dungeons and instance throughout the game, and you will constantly see people advertise for them, needing a tank, healer, and others to join them.

By making yourself a good tank, you will earn yourself many group invites to instances throughout your time as a WoW warrior. This, in turn, will earn you some great friends, great loot, and good killing fun.

To be a good tank, you first need to know how to handle your character in a fight. From the beginning of your toon to the end, you should know your best fighting tactics and you should be able to pick out the main mob to go for in a fight. During your training, you should be able to pick up weapons that will cause a lot of damage to a mob you are fighting and you should practice with it a lot to ensure that you know how to handle yourself when it comes to being in an instance. Gather all the training that you can, all the spells and abilities, and any enchantments or special armor that will help you during your fighting.

When you are invited to be in a group, and you have the time to run the instance, you should go. It doesn't matter if you have run that particular instance before or not, the more experience that you have with any instance, the better you can do overall in the game. If you aren't familiar with that particular instance, ask your friends or guild members who have been there for any tips or advice that they can give you. You can also check with some of the World of Warcraft websites that show quest information and give advice on different areas of the game.

Meet with your party and greet them all warmly, after all, they will be covering your behind while you are in the middle of the mobs. Ask politely for any buffs that will help you, or anything else that your group members can do or provide (such as potions or enchantments) that will allow you to be a better tank. Make sure that you make friends with the group healer, as they can be the difference in your run from a graveyard or a resurrection if you die.

Remember that you are the rock of the group. Others in the group will include a mix of healers, warlocks, hunters, rogues, and so on, and most will be casters. Casters are usually physically weaker than warriors or hunters, and you should try your best to protect them by keeping the mobs on you, while they pick them off from a distance. Some group members, such as warlocks and hunters, will have minions or pets that will help tank. This can be great, especially if you are charging a large group of mobs and you know that you will be overwhelmed alone. Mark the targets with different symbols for each different minion or pet, so your group members will know which ones to attack. If you aren't the group leader, ask them to do it for you so all of the tanks know where to go.

Once you are in the instance, you should be in the lead. If you don't know where you are going, and someone else does, let them lead, but stay right with them. When you see a mob, pause and make sure that everyone is ready, especially if it is a large group of mobs. Choose the highest level mob and mark it, as that is the one that you need to go for. Let the group know that you are ready, and then head in for your kill.

Use all your skills and abilities as a tank to kill the most powerful mob there. The others in your group will start picking off the others, or helping you with the one you have chosen. Once you slay that mob, move on to any others that are left standing. Make sure that you help to slay any mobs that are left so they don't hurt your other group members too much.

If an item comes up that is green, blue, or purple, and is one that you either need for a quest or that you can use or wear, it is always polite to ask if you can “need” the item instead of just doing it. More than likely, it won't be a problem, but there are always those few that will gripe about people needing. If you don't win it on a roll, it gives you the chance to go back to the instance with another group and regain the xp that you get from each instance until you gain the item you need to finish your quest.

Being a good tank is more than just knowing how to handle yourself in a fight, it takes a constant sense of where you are, what your strengths are, and how you can use them to become a great tank and to ensure that your group will make it through.