After a Chawakanda comment on a recent Regis post I thought it might be useful to put out a brief guide for DPS on how to know when it’s okay to start attacking in earnest.
Each tank has a signature AOE ability. Waiting for this ability before doing AOE damage is not a guarantee that you won’t pull aggro but not waiting for it is generally a guarantee that you will.
Warrior
The main warrior AOE threat tool is Thunderclap. It is a short-range, instant AOE. It looks like this:
It makes a sounds like a lightning bolt and can also be identified by the cracked ground effect it causes.
Druid
The druid AOE ability is called Swipe. It is also a short-range, instant AOE. Here are before and after pictures of what this looks like:
You can tell this has hit because all affected mobs will briefly turn red.
Paladin
Paladins have an ability called Consecration. This is a short-range area effect centred on the paladin. It looks like this:
The yellow sparkles on the ground are pretty identifiable.
Death Knight
While Frost death knights might not always use this, a DK tank can usually be expected to cast Death and Decay. This is a short-range area effect, though unlike consecration it can be placed on a specific spot. It looks like this:
Look for the giant red circle on the ground.
What have we learned?
Your randomly-assigned tank will appreciate it if you wait for them to do one of those things before raining fire, ice, arrows or knives on top of your enemies.
Pally Sparkle-farts. What would we do without them?
My guild calls the pally consecration “pee on the floor”, as it enraged mobs to have their nice clean dungeons befouled.
I guess DK’s need to see a doctor since their pee is red.
[…] Showing the DPS what each tanks’ most common AoE looks like. […]
As much as I applaud this handy diagram, I fear Pug DPS still wont’ wait for the teltale indicatinos before unleashing their own WTFBBQPWNAGE against the things I try to tank. 🙂
Waiting means they might not be the highest on the Recount meters. DAS IST VERBOTEN!
You’re right, this isn’t going to help with all players.
However, I think there are people AOE early because that’s what they’ve seen others do and they don’t know any better.
I’ve been doing the Bear thing since BC and I’ve never, ever noticed that Swipe turns the mobs red when it hits. I’m going to have to go home and play with this now and marvel at my painfully unobservant nature…
^^ THIS.
You are not alone, my unobservant friend!
(Hrrrm… will he even notice this reply? 😉 )
Me neither and I’ve been a Bear since vanilla o.O
Is it a really brief blink of red or what?
It’s brief, but it’s not a blink. Maybe 3 seconds or so? (I’ve since noticed now that I’m looking for it. :P)
There’s a couple others that might be worth mentioning – Shockwave (for prot warriors, looks like a big cloud of dust – I have a lot of trouble seeing this one) and Howling Blast (looks like, well, snow).
Is Shockwave a good threat generator or just good for getting inital threat? (ie: Just enough to keep the mobs of the healer.)
I thought about including some others but I wanted to keep it fairly simple. Also, it’s meant to be the minimum thing to watch for.
I sometimes save Shockwave, partially because the stun can cause some rage issues if I want to spam Cleave. But Shockwave is pretty decent threat, even on a single target.
I considered putting in a Pestilence screenshot as well since I don’t feel my DK has really secured a group until I hit that.
As for Howling Blast, I forgot to include my usual disclaimer that I haven’t tanked as Frost. {8^) I’m going to try it as soon as I get another decent 1H.
I always use Shockwave after a tclap when I first charge a group of mobs because it stuns the mobs, giving me time to tab+devastate through all of them and really get some solid aggro.
The reason is simple: even if they decided to target a premature DPS, ha, they’re stunned, they have to stand there while I unload everything I have on them. Which generally makes them hate me more again 🙂
I usually do though it depends a bit on rage. It’s almost always fine when I can charge first but for packs that I have to pull / wait for like in Halls of Reflection it’s a bit more of a rage issue.
At level 70 in Burning Crusade, Consecration was incredible AoE threat for a protection Paladin. Today, at level 80, it’s actually pretty terrible — the spell did NOT scale well from 70 to 80.
The thing you REALLY want to listen for from your Paladin tank is the warm, comforting “gonnnng!” of Hammer of the Righteous. Consecration hardly does enough threat to hold aggro off healers, nowadays. 🙂
Again, trying to keep it simple. Consecrate is good enough to buy you time to gong the mobs before they go running off in all directions. Really, I see DPS waiting for anything as progress.
Haha, a very good point! 🙂
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but, yes, Swipe causes all affected mobs to “blush” red.
I have long found it a fun way of seeing if that caster is in my Swipe radius, or if he’s just… that… little… bit…. outside.
Then I wiggle my bear butt back in range.
Of course, Tidy Plates and Threat Plates addons give you something else to look at, but the red bluch is handy.
By the way, husband the tank tells his groups to count to 3-Mississippi or, alternatively, 3-Elephant, before charging in after him.
Brilliant!
Maybe you can add a screenshot with a dk using pestilence and/or blood boil (I’m always irritated when a dd-dk uses it since its such a unique sound and in my brain associated with dk-tanks). I play a frost-dw-dk-tank (not so often these days) and my standard-trash-pull goes like this:
D&D so that melee-mobs will run through it to me – grip a caster or any other mob – Icy touch and plague strike (usually thats the time the other mobs arive) then pestilence and blood boil.
Anyway, great idea 😀
I considered mentioning Pestilence as well but wanted to keep it simple. Besides, Pestilence won’t hit until almost five seconds after D&D is dropped and you can’t really expect everyone to wait that long on trash.
I usually do Death Grip, D&D, Icy Touch, Plague Strike, Blood Tap then Blood Boil, adding a Strangulate if I need to pull a 2nd caster.
I can expect them to wait if they don’t want to pull the mobs off me.
While DnD is a powerful threat tool, it won’t stand up to Blizzard or Volley spam until IT/PS/Pest/Blood Boil.
I tell my DPS, when tanking, to wait for Pestilence. Sometimes they even do.
You’ll be seeing a lot less of it once Cataclysm hits, but for five-mans I’ve found the best tanking spec, in my personal experience, to be single disease Frost.
That opens with Howling Blast, then Blood Boil spam, and maybe a DnD. though dropping Death and Decay will lead to a rune blackout I call Six Seconds of Terror. It may not be worth the time for you to show what Howling Blast looks like, as we’re losing Frost tanking in Cataclysm.
Do us DKs a favor. Show them what Pestilence looks like, not DnD. Blood tanking has enough AoE problems as it is, without conditioning the DPS to go on DnD.
Unholy DK DPS has to use DnD for AoE DPS. Costs us twenty percent of our dps, at least, if we don’t.
Moody: I keep meaning to try Frost. I started with Blood tanking because I levelled in that tree and knew it best. Thought it would provide a more gentle learning curve for tanking as a DK.
Also I find that in the few cases where DPS pull aggro on anything it is pretty brief.
Stray mobs come back to me after the diseases have ticked once and then Blood Boil solidifies my threat lead. Maybe it’s because I have D&D glyphed.
Besides, I’m trying to condition DPS to pay attention to what the tanks are doing. Waiting for D&D is better than not waiting for anything, even if it isn’t as good as waiting for Pestilence.
[…] for it! April 17, 2010 The folks over at the Wayward Initiative have taken the effort to post pictures of each class main AoE ability. It’s a good guideline […]
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[…] Wait for it by Brokentree at Wayward Initiative. i.e. When to start DPS so you won’t get your face chomped by a mob on whom the tank does not have aggro. Raiding […]