pulling agro question in raids

Yes, but the best way to top dps meters is to figure out who does more damage than you, then slowly convince the healers that person hates them so the healers let them die and you win.
60% of the time, it works every time.

I would often see that in my tank logs as well. If you have agro on Kephess when he leaps, you get a MASSIVE threat debuff. You see the same sort of thing with Bonethrasher (always an issue for 2-man progression). With that said, Force Camo does seem to occasionally do some really weird things. For example: http://www.torparse.com/a/251790/29/0/Threat (disclaimer: not my finest hour for DPS). I'm not sure exactly why it's like that.

My log was from Firebrand and Storm caller.............not sure what would have happened there.

Of those, Dread Guards and Warlords you are attacking your own, untanked target for the first however long and if you're blowing your load at the start of Kephess you're wasting DPS potential, you should be waiting for the first pillar which gives both tanks ample time to taunt fluff. Probably the biggest issue there is that Kephess debuffs the highest threat tank as soon as he stands back up so both tanks need to be top.

The only specs in the game that benefits from popping everything right off the bat with a cold start are Combat Sentinel (GCD 2), Scrapper Scoundrel (GCD 0), Sharpshooter Gunslinger (GCD 0-3 depending on rotation/group) and possibly Infiltration Shadow and Gunnery Commando but I'm not as familiar with those specs. If you're coming in with procs from clearing trash (namely 30 stacks of Centering) you can add Focus Sentinels (GCD 1) to the list but with a cold start they're looking at GCD 3 before its really useful.

Of those, few people raid seriously on a Scrapper but its all about front loaded burst. Fortunately, they have travel time. Combat is my biggest concern and depending on rotation can burst HARD and near instantly. Sharpshooters that pre-cast Flyby during positioning and follow up with Speedshot -> Trickshot can hit ludicrously hard as well but its only really frontloaded if they're pre-casting otherwise you get 2 GCDs leeway or they start with a lower burst.

Importantly, unless you have a Combat Sentinel (or a way to start with 30 stacks of Centering like the exhaustion zone before TFB) you get more out of waiting for Inspiration before you pop everything thanks to multiplicity. Rarely will waiting 15 seconds for Inspiration cost you another use of a CD and if you have 2 Sentinels staggering Inspiration the gain is even higher if you wait. A third Inspiration is a DPS gain still but its less significant unless it is synced with your second round of CDs but then threat is a non-issue at that point. Point is, unless the boss is on farm or you have a Combat Sentinel, most pulls won't open with an Inspiration.

While I agree that a great tank will have no issues holding threat over bursting DPS, I still fail to see WHY DPS insist on bursting at GCD 0 (without a Combat Sentinel) when waiting a few seconds for an Inspiration window would give them more benefit. If you are in a position where a non-Combat Sentinel can reliably start with Inspiration you are likely already farming the boss or its only applicable to your first pull at which point the argument is largely moot.

On a vaguely related note, highest possible threat opener for a Guardian I can come up with is:
0 - Throw (2200)
1.5 - Leap (1300 -> 3500)
3.0 - Sweep + Combat Focus + Saber Reflect (2800 + 8600 -> 14900)
4.5 - Guardian Slash + Riposte + Taunt (4600 + 2000 -> 21500 + 30% -> 27950)
6.0 - Master Strike (10000 -> 37950)
9.0 - Blade Storm + Riposte (2800 + 2000 -> 42750)
10.5 - Hilt Strike + AoE taunt (3300 -> 46050 + 30% -> 59900)

Total TPS = 5700

Those numbers are using the minimum values from my logs for each of those abilities and since Throw is largely resource gain and the threat battle actually starts at Leap, effective TPS is 6650. Of course, that assumes I can use Saber Reflect for threat purposes (with no reflects I might add) rather than for mitigation. If we discount that the total threat is: 45300 with a gross TPS of 4300 and an effective TPS of 5030.

Personally I use a slightly different rotation that focuses more on getting my survivability mechanisms up and seeding my rotation for later but at the 10.5s mark my threat is within 1% of the maximum. I just have a slightly lower curve until the 7.5s mark thanks to the delayed Master Strike.

Le Sigh


You do realize I can crit Kephess for 23k (no decimal in there) off the GCD for his burn phase? Add in latent dots, a time cast and CD's............good friggin luck. Nice for the tanks, is that they are used to taunt swapping for this so they should naturally pick him up. The funny thing is that the point of that conversation was to be able to use the extra threat gain on taunts from standing at range vs melee. Please read and understand the conversation.

Please add in Saboteur Slinger, Hybrid and Dirty Fighting on the 4th GCD which (will shoot their dps through the roof), Focus Guardian, Watchmen Sentinels (The can rip after the 30 centering build if you aren't carefull, they get threat from heals as well), Vanguards, TK Sages (will have some of the best front loaded burst if things proc), Hybrid and Blanace Sages can force crit some burst in the first 2-3 GCD's, Infi Shadows have some very nice on demand burst. So, I have Guardian, Sentinel, Vanguard, Gunslinger, Scoundrel, Commando, Shadow and Sage now......I believe that is all 8 AC's; no?


I am not going to go into the openers for all the specs, but suffice to say that your intent is to highlight the classes that can frontload their damage. All the AC's have a way of frontloading massive damage in their openers. If you get the same skill level with each one, they will all rip in the beginning. That is what we are discussing, is a tank bad if he gets pulled off of and what can be done to change it. MY argument is, there is an at LEAST 50% chance that it can happen and the tank will be helpless to control it without the Pull --> Taunt --> Drop Threat scenario.


I couldn't agree more about positioning of Inspiration. Please take note that the numbers I was using was without that ability present. It was also with me wasting a GCD for the armor crack (I leave the commandos and the Guardians to apply that for me). My damage would go up considerably with using an Inspiration and outside armor crack......


We are not discussing dps tactics that you don't understand. The model is isolated to my numbers. I have not gone though adding in a Sentinel or other dps to the mix. That would just further complicate some base observation.



First off.........Effective TPS? Seriously? No, just no no no. The ONLY area that would come in is multiple targets and we would have to model it completely different. In any event, your 4300 TPS is dangerously close to not being enough for my damage. Just for you, I adjusted my initial log to show 11 seconds vs 30 here. My TPS at the end is 5452 TPS. You are behind by about 1.1k TPS. I would need 5590 TPS to pull off of you here (best case scenario). However, we account for the fact that you are a Guardian and I have moved into melee range for my abilities we come to 4730 TPS that I need to pull off of you. I am sitting at 5452 TPS.......I pulled. Now what? I am a Saboteur Gunslinger......


The results of the show, that Guardians have bad Threat generation in the beginning. As result a Guardian can do absoluetly nothing to keep threat. The raid must resort to some other methods of managing the threat (Pulls, leaps aggro drops) or use the Pull --> Taunt --> Drop method. (I will also point out that your taunts are blown and you have about 10 seconds before they are up again ).

Now if I use my threat drop at the end I pull my threat down to 4089 TPS. You are sitting at the 4300 and all I need is 700 more TPS to pull again.....Do you think I could do that much more threat in that 10 second window before your taunt comes back? I do, especially with Relics and Adrenals still active. God forbid I get an Inspiration anywhere in there............................................. ....

And this is the reason I despise you and half of our DPS. Terrible people.

I fell for this. I am an idiot.

No wonder I KEEP dying on trash

Do you understand how the aggro mechanics on Kephess work? If the tanks swap pre-emptively they are building off each other but if they wait until after the debuff goes out they are only building off the next highest threat target. Given how heavily all 3 tanks suffer in the threat department when they aren't actively tanking that probably isn't them. You also realize of course, that the end of the first pillar is a PERFECT time to taunt Kephess... for both tanks.


At the 4th GCD tanks are more than halfway through their opening volley and both myself and KBN have just taunted. I am ONLY considering the ones that actively benefit from popping everything on their opening volley. Anything with DoTs or set up benefits from waiting until that set up is achieved.

I will admit I overlooked Focus Guardian who should be added to my list, but to be honest its not a build I commonly see except among tanks who use it for the DPS offspec.

I am not denying that any class CAN front load its damage. I am arguing that few specs actually benefit from doing so. It also depends on your idea of 'front load'. I consider front loading to be inside the first couple (literally 2) of GCDs, by GCD 4+ tanks are in a reasonable position and most have or will shortly be burning taunt. I don't know why you consider Vanguards to be a 0 GCD burst class unless they are starting the fight with stacks of Pulse Generator, but even then they still need 2 GCDs for set up before they unload with that.

Of the specs I listed, I run a Marksman Sniper, Carnage Marauder, Focus Sentinel, Assault/Hybrid Vanguard and TK Sage. I know exactly how hard and when they can and do burst. I also run Guardian and Shadow tanks so I know what their threat generation is like and work my DPS burst around that.

Congratulations, you're one of the best geared DPS in the game. What's your point past that? If you're holding off until Inspiration your initial argument is moot if you're not then you're wasting DPS potential simply to make the tanks job harder. If you're getting Inspiration on your opener thanks to a Combat Sentinel then we go back to "Congratulations, you're one of the best geared DPS in the game".

TPS is a useful measure if you both start at the same point. However, Guardian's essentially get a free Saber Throw before the threat race really starts. As such, my 'effective TPS' is discounting the first GCD and has nothing to do with multiple targets. If you aren't waiting until the Guardian has leaped in (or even if you are pre-casting on the Throw) its not really the tanks fault. If you are knowingly exceeding the possible threat generation of your tanks you need to learn to manage your threat better. There is a big difference between being a good DPS and being a high DPS.

I don't know why you are trying to compare to the melee threat threshold as a Gunslinger... Combat is literally the only DPS I am seriously concerned about though. Every second their in combat and delaying their opener they have the chance to proc HoJ and lose a chuck of DPS. Every other spec either gains DPS by waiting a few seconds to blow CDs or at worst, doesn't lose DPS by doing so.

If you discount Saber Reflect all it shows is that Shadows have better initial threat generation than a Guardian. You also need to remember I am assuming I don't miss, but I am also using the minimum numbers for these abilities, not the averages while you are using your higher potentials. Regarding the taunts, yes they are both blown, but at this point I still have 6s of the fixate debuff and only 3 seconds after that before my taunt is available again. If I'm actively tanking much of that time is spent using Focus burners and I've got all my heavy hitters coming off CD right before that fixate buff wears off.

You are also working off a largely fallacious (although understandable) argument. You need to surpass the tanks threat TOTAL by 30% not his threat generation. I know the TPS vs DPS argument is used a lot but early on (especially in the first few seconds) it isn't really that accurate for a number of reasons including varying start times and varying threat curves between tanks and DPS. Now if you're waiting 10 seconds before you blow everything and you still rip off the tank I totally agree its the tanks fault. On the other hand, if you're going all out at GCD 0, who has aggro can completely come down to RNG between crits and misses.

Most of the time it'll be the tank with aggro but if they miss on a threat bomb or if the DPS crit on a few of their big hitters it can quickly change. Personally, I prefer not to put it up to chance which is why (aside from the mathematical/DPS benefits of waiting) I ask my DPS to hold off a couple of seconds. Literally just count to 2 once I leap/have positioned the boss and then go balls to the wall if they want. I do the same thing for tanks when I'm on my DPS toons, sometimes even then I rip aggro if the tanks don't taunt preemptively and even when they do I still see it swap to me when the fixate expires.

Ultimately, if you're capable of generating more threat than is possible from the tank while using a front loaded threat rotation and taunting then YOU need to hold back until the tank has sufficient aggro. Failure to do that does make you a bad (albeit very high) DPS. As an aside, if thats the case you are well and truly above the DPS requirements so you have no risk of hitting the enrage as a result of holding back for 5 seconds, all you are doing is stroking your epeen.

Yes I know this is a double post, but just noticed with your logs that you are PRE-CASTING Flyby before the combat starts and I didn't want that to get lost in the wall of text above.

This is not a true representation of an Ops encounter opener. You either need to discount the Flyby damage (giving ~4000 DPS over those 11 seconds) or add in 3 seconds of casting it before hand (giving ~4400 DPS over 14 seconds). To be perfectly honest, if I had a DPS like you in my raid that was more interested in numbers and wanted to pre-cast Flyby before I pulled, I'd move the boss out of it (or just let them get destroyed) until they got the point.

I'm all for discussions about how high tank threat needs to be to hold over reasonable DPS but when people misrepresent what is possible for no point other than stroking themselves, it defeats the purpose.

I am going to finish raiding, then get to passive aggressively telling you why you are wrong.