pulling agro question in raids

In order to hold threat against 4320 TPS, a tank only needs to hit the target first and then sustain at least 3323 TPS. This is because the agro rip happens at 130% of current target's threat. The only one of your scenarios which fall under that threshold is the no-crit melee, which isn't realistic because tanks are practically always at range from the boss (see my earlier discussion about how the game defines "range" for the purpose of threat). Small humanoid bosses (e.g. second phase Styrak) might be a problem, but most bosses do not fall into this category.

As for the threat numbers, pulling *averages* from a recent Dread Guard run (and adjusting for Upheaval):

• Slow Time: 3858.76
• Project: 7140.35
• Force Breach: 2097.66
• Double Strike: 2810
• Shadow Strike: 2950.7
• Telekinetic Throw (with FP): 14240
• Telekinetic Throw (average): 10504

I have a 69 hilt and a 72 off-hand. All of my mods are 72s, with three or four B variant mods (low willpower). I'm using the crafted ears and implants (very low willpower). Absorb/Shield augments.

Thus, my threat scenario over 30 seconds with precise numbers: 8592 + 3858.76 + 7140.35 + 2097.66 + (6506.631) + 2810 + 2950.7 + 7140.35 + 14240 + (16600.94) + 2810 + 2810 + 7140.35 + 3858.76 + (26566.95) + 2950.7 + 2810 + 7140.35 + 10504 + 3858.76 + 2810 = 145197.261

5328.70 TPS (after 13.5 seconds)
4839.9087 TPS (after 30 seconds)

That's a realistic set of numbers drawn from a practical combat log. Remember, I only need to keep ahead of you by 30%. Which is to say, I can keep threat off of you in the first 13.5 seconds if you're pulling a DPS of 6927.31 (average, not instant spike), and 6291.88131 in the first 30 seconds (again, average). Now, if you're pulling anywhere near 6.2k DPS over 30 seconds, I would expect you to have some fairly significant spikes (yay, Scatter Bombs). That's what the taunt is for. Depending on exactly *where* in time you hit your burst, I might adjust my taunt timing to ensure the target is debuffed when you hit that burst, so you don't momentarily exceed the 130% threshold. (e.g. I might move the AoE taunt up ahead of the TkT if you hit your burst *during* the channel)

Note that if you're guarded, it's insanely easy-mode: 9236.41 DPS over 13.5 seconds, or 8389.18 DPS over 30 seconds. I really, really don't think those are achievable thresholds given current gear levels, regardless of spec or skill.

I really don't agree. There was a time where this was true (before tank threat got buffed from 150% to 200%). In the current game, barring any positioning/mechanical shenanigans or horrendous under-gearing, I just don't see any excuse for a tank to lose agro, even for a moment. Believe me, I would love for that excuse to be there! It makes my life easier if I'm not expected to hold the boss with 100% reliability, but I just don't see it.

:-) Yeah, NiM TfB is unfortunate. It needs to be buffed. A lot. With flowers.

I'll be on the PTS tomorrow (though not as "Tam", since someone snagged that name before I could), and probably dropping by your Vent as well. We can shoot the breeze with Makeb champions if you like. I always enjoy a challenge.

If you have a Guardian he could also use Guardian Leap (Not sure on the % but it lowers by a moderate amount). There are many ways to adjust threat, you would also need to account for heals. Watchmen Sents, Gunslingers and I "think" one spec of Scoundrel can passively heal will add to total threat.


If you want to know about how quickly threat can be generated throw taunting off of each tank, check a Terror log from TFB of a tank. In the last phase they have to keep taunts on boss, so that would give a nice sampling of threat generation.


As far as your last statement, I am assuming a static situation with no guards, drops or outside interference. I am not 100% sure the amount of % each class's aggro dump reduces threat by, so it is difficult for me to put that in. I can say that in the cases I made above, the threat drop would have to be more then 25% if it was to do any real difference within the beginning of a fight (Remember, threat is pull was shown in the 3, 6 and 13.5 second windows. Now that I am looking at it, my threat for me was based off of a 30 second sampling vs 13.5. The data is wrong, but does not change the point since my threat gets lower the longer the fight persists.)

We could probably sit here all day modeling threat in relation to:

Specs
Taunt Trading
Taunt Distance
Rescue's
Guardian Leaps
Class Aggro drops (If I remember sentinel's is/used to be 100%)
Combat Stealth
Guard's
Guard Switching
DPS pulling
Relic/Adrenal/Inspiration usage times and how much threat each buff generates in a "normal" rotation.


The possibilities are.....................huge. I think the key thing to remember is that there are a great many tools given to address threat. We need to understand how it functions to use the proper tool.

Agreed.

My point was merely that there are indeed many other tools you can use to lower threat - so both of your portrayals of stealing threat off the tank is not taking into consideration all the tools at your disposal to prevent that situation.

All of our guilds (Tam's, severity, carnage, among many others) are very good and very practiced on how to handle these situations. We probably all have raid leaders who know who the top DPS are and handle their threat in different ways. Carnage also has two very good gunslingers, we obviously always guard them when needed, and we typically use the taunt then drop threat method - they never seem to pull unless we are careless. Even if that weren't enough, if we truly had to push the limits of DPS at the start of the fight, we could use one of those other methods to reduce their threat.

Actually - you could also utilize DPS taunts too to build threat if you are vocal about calling out taunt timing. Imagine 5 taunts to build threat at the beginning (not that many people roll with 3 guardian DPS, just saying)

Surrender, Cloud Mind, Diversion and Force Camouflage are exactly a 25% reduction (instantly). Rescue and Guardian Leap are the same. Combat stealth drops agro by 100% (odd that Force Camo doesn't), which means that Scoundrels have the best agro drops in the game by a pretty wide margin.

A 25% reduction is pretty significant when paired with the taunt. It gives the tank a lead of *at least* 55%, which can be pretty significant depending on when exactly the pull happens.

+1 I think discussions like this are really good to have, if only because it allows to explore the solution space. People need to understand the tools that are out there and how we can employ them to solve these problems. Even if we don't agree as to the best approach (my "optimistic" always-hold-agro-all-the-time, or your "pessimistic" save-taunt-for-swap).

At least we agree that asking the DPS to hold back is *not* the right answer. :-)

We still pull agro in story mode but its not a problem at all because the bosses don't hit hard enough to flatten us in that short time.

You give that 130% number which is misleading. That is if I am standing at range. If I move within 4 meters it goes to 110%. In every situation tanks can not stand greater then 4 meters from the boss. What happens when you throw in a mdps spiking as high (Combat, Infiltration)? Dread Guards, Kephess, Dash'roode, Thrasher, Warlords and Styrak (6/12) fights you will not be able to generate that extra threat from standing out. In the other 6, what happens if a Guardian is the tank of choice?

Yes, there are cases where I wouldn't be able to pull. But there are equally as many where I would and you would be in trouble. On top of that, throw in a miss on one or two of your initial abilities. What happens then? The whole model is destroyed since the dps is hitting 100% of the time (or 99.51% in my case). What I am saying is where you may be right in some cases, you can not be relied upon. The dps can be. The dps can also get lucky and crit on their opener and nothing you can do with crits will stop the pull. It points out the unreliability of your point.

You mentioned yourself that you would hold back on the taunt positioning or adjust to to accommodate the dps.

This points to the original Pull --> Taunt --> Drop scenario I mentioned before. You did it this way because if you had not you would have been labeled a bad tank by your standards . Making you a good tank for anticipating. I will add here, I have pulled threat "through" a taunt before. It went down like this: Pulled Threat --> Boss was taunted --> Lost aggro --> Unloaded a crap ton more --> 6 seconds later I had threat. I made Thin's life miserable on the first few tentacles because I could. After that he threw in the second taunt and guards. My point here is that without the dps and tank working together to manage the threat, the tank can and will loose it. Timing the taunt with the dps pull is really the key.

I had to comment on this one line because I giggled. This is the one fight in the game where I make all the DPS hold for 5-8 seconds. Probably won't be a viable method in NiM, but it is such a PITA how often the DPS steal threat on the tentacles because they all have to stand in melee range. Not to mention there are two tentacles, so trading taunts doesn't work either.

Unless you roll through the *center* of the boss, you're not going to trip the melee threshold. Melee vs range for purposes of threat is measured as a 4 meter radius from the exact center of the boss. This is why humanoid bosses are the hardest to hold. If you're talking about something like Thrasher, your camera would have to be entirely obscured to actually be in "melee" range. Not even a melee DPS would be doing something like that.

Missing sucks. It doesn't happen very often, but it certainly brings tears when it does.

Not quite. I position my taunt just *before* the DPS hits their max burst, so that they burst over me during the debuff and I have 6 seconds to catch back up again. I would only result to Pull > Taunt > Drop if I absolutely couldn't ever hold threat off of a particular DPS, which as my scenario indicates, should never be a *consistent* problem.

:-)

Yeah, I've lost agro during a taunt debuff as well. Well, lost my top threat position. Hasn't happened since 2.0 (since the tank single-target threat buffs were utterly disgusting), but before 2.0… I actually had my Focus sentinel pull agro three times on the same tentacle, once *immediately* following a taunt. Granted, we were playing cutsy tricks with agro and not guarding her, simply because we wanted to see if she could pull. (answer: yes!) I'm pretty sure that wouldn't happen post-2.0 without miss/crit issues, but it certainly has happened to me in the past.

DPS cooperating with the tanks to manage agro is obviously ideal. I try to really good about this when I'm on my Combat sentinel. As ego-boosting as it can be to rip agro twice on the same boss, it's really best not to.

I do agree. However, I use those models because they are there 100% of the time. The others may or may not depending on group comp.

That is because 2 light sabers are better then 1, therefor 1 sentinel equlas 2 guardians . Also, 1 lightsaber can block 1 blaster pistol, but 1 lightsaber can NOT block 2 blaster pistols because 2 > 1

I seem to recalls some bugs regarding the dumps a long while ago. Have we done any tests to see if they were fixed or if these numbers are actual? You also can't forget those pesky Shadows in the combat drop catagory, I mean they still think they can dps silly guys. I do think scoundrels have the best aggro drop in game, but that is not due to the combat stealth only. They also have a regular aggro drop. So they should never have threat! Muwahahahahaah!

I do recall some inconsistencies in my threat logs as a sentinel. Yep found it. Here is a log from NiM EC Progression stuff. I actually have a -9,000,000 threat at one point. I also finish with a -22959.58 TPS.

I agree 100% This is why the "Pull --> Taunt --> Drop Threat" is the *best* way. Or rather most reliable way.


Here, here! Gotta break those dps records and stand in the red to do so!

Protip: you get bigger crits if you LoS your healers.