Tauren trees & aggro – are we getting the short end of the uh.. stick?
Hello Tauren and Night Elf friends.
– Subtlety talent (10/20/30%)
– Bracing Earthsiege Diamond
– Enchant Cloak – Subtlety
– Cower
– Barkskin (and Improved Barkskin)
– Nature’s Grasp
– Warstomp
Dark Legacy’s Donald:
If this is your tank, you’re in trouble.
http://www.darklegacycomics.com/87.html
- the tank is stunned, frozen, or otherwise incapacitated for a few moments
- the tank dies; another tank class needs to pick up the mobs in a hurry
- the tank has already used his aoe/ranged taunt/s, and needs a few more seconds to pick up
- the tank does not have instant snap-aggro on multiple mobs
- someone else pulls aggro and drops to full health; you NS+HT them to full, and pull off
- you have HoTs ticking from a previous phase of a fight, new mobs spawn
- MC resist on Instructor, he runs for a priest, I save priest and get aggro, splat, bye bye Immortal.
- The eye-stalks in the gauntlet leading to Loatheb
- HoT aggro on Gothik’s summoned adds
- Gluth’s zombies (although I often helped to kite them, so it depends)
- KT’s giant bug adds – drop aggro so the tank can pick them up more easily
- Malygos P2 – buggy adds that aggro to you and one-shot you, yay my favourite
- Sartharion – how many times did I get destroyed by whelps? SO MANY. (Hint: sometimes AOE snap aggro isn’t so snap)
- Auriaya – initial heals on the pull – close your eyes and pray you don’t die
- Mimiron – P3 adds are simply a nuisance
- Vezax – the few seconds before the Animus is able to be picked up
- Yogg Saron – I absolutely cannot avoid pulling the faceless adds as they spawn
- Algalon – get the constellations out of my face, I’m trying to work here
- Faction Champions – speaks for itself
- Anub – avoiding the little bugs; helping the tank to pick up the big adds
- Not to mention the many, many times during trash pulls that someone does face-pull, or gets feared, or pulls aggro and needs a huge heal, or the tank is stunned etc, which often leads to me getting massive add-aggro, through no fault of my own.
If it was a healing spell that someone was asking for, or a major raid utility tool – something that would bring us closer to being a pally or a priest or a shaman and start stepping on their toes, then I would understand the opposition. And I would likely agree – I don’t want the classes to merge – I want us to maintain our niches. But in this case, it’s a trivial personal utility spell to temporarily drop aggro – which is something that (for some reason) we lack compared to everyone else. It won’t hurt any other class, nor will it detract from their unique abilities or roles.
I don’t want Shadowmeld (well, yes I do.. but I’m not actually asking for it), I won’t even ask for anything brand new – buff Cower, I’d be happy with that. Let it work globally, not just on one target, and let it work at range, so that it is similar to a Fade ability. I would happily pop into kitty and cower for a second, and then back to tree. That even fits in with Blizzard’s philosophy of wanting druids to shift often in order to use different tools – and it would require us to weigh up the sacrifice of being unable to heal for a few seconds while we drop threat.
Give Cower the Shadowmeld treatment (although not quite as good as meld) – buff it to be useful for any spec of druid.
I’d love that, actually.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
- Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
- Cataclysm: the brand spankin’ new 31pt talent trees
30 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
I’ve seen this a lot in the past, either where I’ve been healing or just in a raid where an add spawns and runs straight to a healer, punching their face in before the mob can get taunted/hit by anyone else.
But this problem isn’t just for Trees!
As a Moonkin, I find that sometimes my threat can get very high, especially if I’m chaining crits in back-to-back Eclipse procs.
I would love to have a threat reduction ability as a Moonkin. At the moment all I can do is stop DPS, which isn’t great. As a healer, stopping healing (for example, if you know an add is about to spawn) can be difficult or even impossible.
Boize´s last blog ..When RL and WoW Collide
I just wanted to point out that Barkskin doesnt trigger gcd, so I would suggest that + bearform, gives you just that extra armor/hp to survive, you might even use the Frenzied Regen for the added heals.
Shamans don’t have a threat dump ability either.
Paladins have their bubble on a long CD, but that is probably “enough”.
Really, only Priests have fade. And fade is way more powerful than shadowmend because you can continue to heal while faded and still will not be able to get a positive aggro value. You can even fade pre pull and go all out and you won’t pull aggro because of the negative threat from fade.
> I would love to have a threat reduction ability
> as a Moonkin. At the moment all I can do is stop
> DPS, which isn’t great. As a healer, stopping
> healing (for example, if you know an add is about
> to spawn) can be difficult or even impossible.
I would love to have 30% passive aggro reduce on all damage spells on my warlock.
(At least I have soul shatter.)
But that’s a completely different point than her post. There is a different between the need to temporarily get rid of some aggro NOW (fade, iceblock) and the need for more passive aggro reduction. Fade wouldn’t help you if you just generate to much thread, because you get it back when the buff fades.
Shadowmeld rarely, if ever, works for me. It’s not a great aggro drop; usually it breaks immediately after I pop it because of a blow already in the process of landing, and if that happens it was useless.
That being said…I have no points in Subtlety and I rarely have aggro issues. The only times I’ve died to it is if, well, someone messed up a misdirect or taunts were resisted, and that’s so rare and often happens so fast that all having a Fade would do is dump my aggro on another healer (because there are no tanks with threat). If a tank has threat I am never pulling off them.
In my guild aggro goes to Paladins –> Shamans –> Druids –> Priests for healing. I think we’re one of the most threat-efficient classes out there. Shadowmeld is really only utilized by our Druids to try and avoid a wipe, and unless you time it perfectly and you’re the last person targetted, they’ll just go through the remaining list and then come back to you.
*nod* @ the mob going through the threat list, Bell. If it doesn’t go after the druid, it’ll just go after someone else, and out of many of the healers who would get heal threat, the druid is probably one of the best-equipped to handle “tanking” it for a brief time, via bearform+bash, frenzied regen, and barkskin (and warstomp, for those equipped with hooves). On lighter aggro, we can also heal on the run while taking the mob over into range of the tanks.
I haven’t wished for a fade at all, except when dpsing
I even make use of my threat to bring multi-spawning adds (burrowers on Anub, for example) over to the tanks… like a walking mob-magnet of aoe threat.
I think most of the mobs in the game must be vegetarians, given how quickly they rush the broccoli when they haven’t been picked up by the tank.
I have fairly good luck with Shadowmeld on the rare occasion I need it. It’s not perfect, mind you, but it has sent mobs running back to the tank, exactly where we want them to go in the first place…
Now, I may be dreaming, but I think I read somewhere that in the major rehashing of things for Cataclysm, an aggro dump ability will be included for more classes, if not all. I just woke up a bit ago, so I’m not at my best atm…
Speaking from the “my druid was a nelf but is now a cow” perspective…
I miss shadowmeld greatly. Not for dropping threat in raids or groups, but just out farming and doing dailies.
sass´s last blog ..Tanking Questionaire.
I just wanted to make a list of the other classes thread drops because there seems to be some confusion
Priest – Fade – Fade out, temporarily reducing all your threat for 10 sec.
Druid – Cower – we know how poorly this one works
Shaman – Wind Shear – Instantly blasts the target with a gust of wind, causing no damage but interrupting spellcasting and preventing any spell in that school from being cast for 2 sec. Also lowers your threat, making the enemy less likely to attack you.
Paladin – Hand of Salvation – Places a Hand on the party or raid member, reducing their total threat by 2% every 1 sec. for 10 sec. Players may only have one Hand on them per Paladin at any one time.
Every healing class has some threat reduction (cower counts, even though it’s bad), and even though every healing class has one they’re all unique and have there ups and downs. For example, Fade is only temporary, but works on multiple mobs. Wind shear does an interrupt, and only works on 1 target. Hand of Salvation is a Paladin flavored threat drop that works over time, and can be cast on anyone. You can use it to save yourself, or help out that dps who is threat capped on fights like Hodir.
Fade may be the original, and most talked about thread drop for healers, but Wind shear and Hand of Salvation can still be nice way to drop a bit of threat. It’s definitely time for a druid flavored threat dump that works
3 of these threat drops are DD threat drops.
Fade and the Paladin bubble are a “I need to heal now and you don’t touch me” button.
I don’t see how hand of salvation is more useful than cover for a healer herself.
* It works over time.
* It reduces threat by 10% which doesn’t help you if the tank doesn’t have aggro yet.
* It reduces threat by 10% which helps shit because you only get aggro if you’re 30% over your tank. So the mob will only return if the tank spots or is again 30% above your aggro.
*** Cover
tH = threat healer
tT = threat tank
A mob will only run towards you if you have 30% more threat than the tank.
tH > tT * 1.3
A mob will only return to the tank if the tank has 130% of your threat (I assume the tank is no longer in melee range because the mob ran away).
Cover reduces your thread by 1600.
tT > (tH – 1600) * 1.3
From a certain point of threat cover doesn’t work *if you have aggro* because 1600 less threat doesn’t let you fall under your tank by 30%. Let’s see how long cover works:
tH = tT * 1.3
tH / 1.3= tT
tT = (tH – 1600) * 1.3
tH / 1.3 = (tH – 1600) * 1.3
tH = (tH – 1600) * 1.3 * 1.3
tH = 1.69 * tH – 2704
0.69 tH = 2704
tH = 3918.8
tT = 3013.4
If your tank has more than 3013.4 threat, which means you have more than 3918 threat, the mob will never run back to the tank upon covering.
I guess Wind Shear will have similar values.
They are intended to be used before you get aggro, as part of a DD priority list.
I agree with others shadowmeld isn’t that great. I use it usually to save from a wipe. I see your point about needing a threat reduction for healers but these situations you mentioned are too few for me to worry about. I can usually time my HoTs at a good time where I won’t get aggro. If I do get aggro then, yes, shadowmeld will do the trick, hey but I want an aoe interrupt like you have, lol, I have a lowbie Tauren and I love war stomp.
Really Druids as a class need a better threat reduction, cower does crap when I eps as a kitty, I usually just pray for a warrior tank, and then I get vigilance. IMO mages produce more threat than anyone, but mirror image, ice block, and invis save my butt plenty of times. So Druids really are lacking in this area.
Mages are arcane these days and skill 40% threat reduction. More than any class in the game. Arcane mages don’t know the word aggro.
Really? Well I am not sure if I am running with sucky tanks, but I drop my mirror image once I start a boss fight, if I don’t and simply wait a few seconds and then dps, I pull aggro off of many tanks in PuGs and in my raiding groups. This is why I have to use my aggro drops. Of course arcane is much better on aggro than fire, I mean I yanked aggro off a tank in ToC in arcane spec last week, we still use our aggro drops, if not then the dps is probably not high enough. If there is a mage in Onyxia who is asked to dps the whelps and doesn’t have aggro issues, then I don’t know what they are doing. This is why we have so many aggro drops, and I use them all.
Kayllnn´s last blog ..Leading the Raid
I’d swap shadowmeld for war stomp any day.
And I don’t think meld is a proper dump since you regain the threat you had when you exit from the shadows.
There are two different tools: threat dumps (where you remove some or all of your threat, permanently), and temporary threat reductions (where you drop threat, but it comes back again shortly thereafter).
Shadowmeld is similar to Fade – you drop your threat for a little while, but get it back again. Shadowmeld gives it back when you come out, Fade gives it back when Fade wears off.
I’m not asking for anything big like a Feign Death effect – that’s over the top. Either a “drop X amount of threat” (reduce your threat by a moderate chunk, permanently) or “significantly reduce threat for X seconds”.
I’d be happy with the latter.
Keeva´s last blog ..Tauren trees & aggro – are we getting the short end of the uh.. stick?
I love Shadowmeld. I don’t have to use it often, but when I do, it usually saves me from a death.
It also gives the tank enough threat so that when I come out of Shadowmeld, I wont be fighting for aggro again.
Littlebark´s last blog ..Taler Forty Four: Everyone has already talked about it!
I’ve only tried to use shadowmeld as a threat dump a couple of times. It’s not reliable & I always forget I have it…
lissanna´s last blog ..Why raids need trash mobs
i’m bad in that i don’t use shadowmeld for a temporary aggro dump. i guess part of the reason for that is that it doesn’t seem to work. or maybe it’s just my timing is off. /shrug
i like not having an aggro dump as it forces me to play smarter and be more aware of what i’m doing.
RE: DruidFade mileage in WotLK – a tally
Keeva I think you listed every one of my recent raid deaths here (except Algalon).
Nice post
Given how often I’ve mourned the lack of a proper Fade on my alliance druid.. I feel for all of you Tauren!
Shadowmeld’s iffy, as I think a lot of other posters have said, because aoe damage or dots or a hit will often get the mobs coming right back at you before they can make it to the tank. As a raiding moonkin, I have it hotkeyed for the ‘omg the stars all aligned and all of Eclipse gave me crits but now the mob wants Chicken’ moments, but I’ve also got one-two of our paladins in guild well trained that if I’m calling for a Salv.. it’s because I’m probably about to pull aggro.
(As a tree, Gluth’s zombies ate me alive several times and I finally gave up and just helped kite. It’s times like those I would’ve really, really appreciated a healing-threat-drop on less than a 2 minute cooldown!)
Cazenovia´s last blog ..Disc healing in Outlands, first impressions.
Hi Keeva,
I love your blog, you always give such an in depth argument. But in this case I simply must say too bad.
One of the things I enjoyed about WOW when I first started was that different classes and different races had unique abilities. I know your not asking for Shadowmeld, you are asking for a fade ability. But then I would say that Tauren druids would have a distinct advantage in pve over their night elf counterparts as they would have an interupt / stun AND an aggro dump.
I would suggest you use your racial to your advantage. You pull aggro – Warstomp > catform > cower.
As a Tauren Moonkin, I run in to similar problems if I run things with an undergeared tank. A few Wrath or Starfire crits and sometimes I have to wait around and /dance for a few seconds.
My suggestion is to change Barkskin to reduce your threat by X% in every form but bear and dire bear form. I know a few kitty Druids have aggro issues as well and granted, they have cower, but popping Barkskin to drop aggro isn’t a bad idea I think.
Abi´s last blog ..The Icecrown Citadel Progression Plan.
Slight correction.
It should be noted that unless a mob ’sees’ you cast a HoT, the ticks won’t count as your threat. Basically, they think the target with the HoT is healing itself.
(This is why pre-HoTing before the pull works.)
So new spawns won’t run to you just because HoTs are already ticking. As soon as you cast a heal on their target after they spawn, however…
Firstly just a slight clarification to Desprez’s comment:
If you are ‘not in combat’ and HoT someone, then all active HoTs are considered the healing of the recipient *until you join combat*.
If you are ‘in combat’ (regardless of LoS etc), then all cast HoTs will be correctly attributed.
Pre-HoTting works great for Trash as there’s no combat pulse so you aren’t in combat for a bit while the tank is.
Pre-HoTTing the tank on bosses will still get you aggro if the tank isn’t on Full Health before they hit the boss, but the group has engaged (and therefore everyone’s in combat). HoT’s don’t cause aggro if they tick for full overheal.
At least this was the result of the testing I did just after the Wrath release.
Secondly:
Shadowmeld is not a threat reducer, it is a threat suppressor. Unlike Fade though, you can’t continue to perform actions or it will break, returning you to whatever threat you had. Therefore, unless you actually have ‘aggro’ (i.e. the mob is targetting you), Shadowmeld is no more effective than standing still. Unlike Fade, HoTs on your target will continue to rack up threat, it simply won’t be visible until you break Shadowmeld.
Overall, I’d be all for getting a threat dumper, or active thread suppressor (like Fade), but the difference between a NE and Tauren druid is that the NE can be slightly slacker and suppress aggro once every two minutes.
Bloomindraal – I’m asking for a Fade for all of us, not just Taurens. I believe druids need a better way to reduce/dump/displace aggro, not just the Tauren resto druids. It’s just noticeable on the Tauren side because at least the NEs have an option (however unreliable it may be in some circumstances).
Also, if you read the part that I wrote about Cower – I explained that it only works on single mobs, so it’s useless if a pack of adds is charging over to stomp on your face. Plus, they have to be right up on you to do that – so anything heavy-hitting will probably one-shot you, particularly if your War Stomp timing is off. What I really would like to see is a *proactive* threat reduction tool. As a resto druid (or boomkin), you can’t use Cower proactively (nor War Stomp or anything else that we have – it’s all reactive.)
I want personal control over my threat – and really, the only way we can control it (if it’s high) is to stop healing. That isn’t always very practical. Other than that, all we can do is react when things go wrong. I don’t want to react, I want to *act*.
Abi: interesting! I didn’t think of adding something to Barkskin. I like it. Although Barkskin already does quite a bit, so Blizzard might be hesitant to make it a one-stop-shop for damage *and* aggro reduction.. might be seen as a little greedy
Interesting idea though!
Perrin: great post, thanks for sharing your testing!
I think I see Shadowmeld more of a “stick your head in the sand for a second until the tank can grab the mob” kinda deal (oh, and hope you don’t get any splash AOE damage, etc). As a lot of people have said.. it’s not amazing, but it can be handy.
I don’t want people to focus too heavily on the NE vs Tauren aspect. It’s not about races or racial envy. The only reason I bring race into it is because NEs do have a bit of an option – but I do still believe that *all* of us should have some kind of threat dump or reduction ability – even if it’s just a buff to our existing Cower to make it not so crummy!
Keeva´s last blog ..Tauren trees & aggro – are we getting the short end of the uh.. stick?
Correction to my last post:
I was informed over lunch that unlike what I beleived, Fade doesn’t suppress your threat generation while active, so really its pretty much the same as Shadowmeld except that you can move and continue to cast (and it won’t break you from combat).
Were you discussing WoW mechanics over lunch – or did someone send you a note about it?
There is a lot of misconception about how fade works. This is how it works:
> http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=586
>
> Apply Aura: Mod Total Threat (Fade)
> Value: -90000000
When you cast Fade it reduces your threat by 90000000.
When Fade fades, it increases your threat by 90000000.
That means:
a) Unless you’re 90000000 ahead of your tank, you will loose threat as soon as you cast fade.
b) When you are faded you can continue casting and your threat goes up as normal. But because your total threat is reduced by 90000000 you have a negative threat value and you will never ever be able to produce 90000000 threat with healing or damage.
c) When Fade ends your tank has better used the time to build up more threat than you have during the duration of fade. Otherwise the mob comes back to you.
Now, what I don’t know is if you can pull aggro from freshly spawned mobs whiled faded.
Example:
You cast Flash Heal for 2000 -> 1000 threat total
You cast Flash Heal for 2000 -> 2000 threat total
You cast Fade -> -89998000 threat total
You cast Flash Heal for 2000 -> -89997000 threat total
Fade ends -> 3000 threat total
A bit late reading this, although I normally fail to keep up with blog sites. I ran across this post and found it definitely interesting. I am a lv 80 Druid NE, currently at Heroic Anub 25man, and I can attest to the aggro issues. I feel sorry for Tauren especially with their lack of a fade like ability. I even end up dying from aggro after using meld. On fights where the tanks threat is dampened or there are a few tank switches I am always worried, not to mention spawning adds. At times I feel like I am literally riding the tank in threat, and competing with other dpsers. Don’t get me wrong, our tanks are decent but I can see your points about homogenisation. It’s not uncommon for a warrior tank to vilg me.
Am late to respond, I know.
But really. You mention a big part of the solution right at the start: Put those points in subtlety!
Can always toss some moonfires for kiting.
I thought recently about changing my little Ashluna into a moo cow as my ‘main’ priest is horde. The first thing I thought was ‘oh no shadowmeld!’.
Another situation that is hard for druids is healing a tank in a caster situation. If the mobs are spread around the room you can hot the tank he takes damage from the melee mobs and the caster mobs all go ‘DRUID!’
Since druids ‘mostly’ have to pre hot its definatly a situation where a fade would be excellent and indeed its no ones fault.
As someone who is mad about priests, fade is my favourite spell and I certainly wouldnt begrudge it being given to my druid friends especially since it means they wont get squashed when I fade… sorry! *hides*