Damn the aggro full DPS ahead...

[Khazid]

Id have to agree with Turmeric. Even if you are very carefull and are sure that the mob has no cleve or area attacks that can hurt those around you, his example is perfect. If someone else gets above the tank's aggro while the mob is chasing you then its him thats paying for it. I guess it all boils down to 2 things: 1) does the mob go down without you going all out? If so, then whats the point of going all out. And 2) has anyone other then yourself ever died because you pulled aggro off the tank? Remember. Being the best raider doenst mean that you do the most damamge. It means that you play your part the best, and part of playing a DPS class is aggro management. On the other hand, If you must go all out in the end, Soul Shatter BEFORE you go all out to lower your aggro significantly, instead of AFTER you already have a mob chasing you down, that way you wont piss off hypersensative guildees when Soulshatter is resisted.

[Elricc]

Whilst it always looks good to have something die at your feet its also probable that there will be times it will last just long enough to kill you &/or a team member & causeing wipes will end up costing you raid spots.
When i was raiding kara i started out low on the damage meters & stopped raiding to work on my gear (I was at the guild i was in thens required 68+ blues etc with enchants) after i leveled tailoring to 375 & got my FSw set & some other bits i went raiding again & could easily top the charts-i could also easliy pull aggro & cause a wipe.
i have since found it best to "walk the fine line on the aggro meter" & have a chuckle when someone calls out that i'm going to pull aggro & i hold just short of it.

[Majestrix]

Originally Posted by panamareg

My lock puts out some major firepower for our guild. I pay attention to my aggrometer (omen), but many times I will judge that at the rate the mob is being killed, I can drop restraint and finish them off prior to them running me down and killing me...

So if you can kill the mob before it gets to you and/or kills you why can't you just wait the extra 5 or 10 seconds for it to die through sustainted group DPS...

It may not seem like much to you, but pulling the mob out of position is a bad thing for many, many reasons.

That haven't been said if you tried this in my guild more than once you would have it politely explained to you that this was not acceptable. Contiued use of this tactic after that would get you replaced and on my do not raid list.

If you actually wiped the raid with this trick after being told to watch your aggro I would most likely gkick you on the spot...

Raids are about being a team. Doing your own thing and getting people killed just doesn't fit it. My guess is your guild will replace you with someone who might not be as "leet" on the damage meters, but can actually follow directions if you keep it up.

Maj

[Fimotik]

I agree wholeheartedly with most of the comments posted by raiders. In a 25-man environment, the greatest skills you can have are discipline and situational awareness. DPS is a crude measure of skill, and raid leaders who review performance will look at things like whether you pull aggro (an indication of poor skill in my books). When I look at WWS, DPS done by a DPS class is one of many things I look at, others things are:

-How many times did that person die, and what to?
-How much damage did they take and how much healing as a percentage of raid healing did they require?
-Were they using the required abilities in the right proportions (non-damage curses, % of various abilities in their total damage, were fire mages scorching etc)
- Did they use their trinkets whenever cooldowns were up?
- How many potions/elixirs/flasks/buff food did they consume and what sort?

Managing 25 people in a raid environment is difficult, and discipline is key. Pulling aggro off a tank (assuming the tank is generating sufficient threat) is bad in a 25-man environment. It can get you killed, but as others have important noted, it has a high tendency to get others killed from aggro-creep, cleaves, AoE etc. Anyone dying has to be rezzed and rebuffed, and that consumes valuable raid time.

From a DPS standpoint, the mobs dying a few seconds later from controlled DPS is better than it dying earlier along with a couple of players, taking minutes in raid recovery.

[Neith]

As a 41/0/20 specced lock, unless you have not put points into threat reduction in both affliction and destro (which is a miserable failure on your part and should be corrected as soon as you farm 50g for respec) and you're pulling aggro off the tank it means only 1 thing - you need a tank. A tank is not someone that can run up to the wall and beat his head flat into it. A tank is someone that can actually hold aggro and produce sufficient threat for raiders to kill stuff.

Check out your tank's TPS (Threat Per Second), a good tank in T4 equivalent gear would have 1.1k TPS at least. Anything less - you need a new tank or tell the current one that he fails at tanking and needs to read a lot of forums on how to do it better.

[Marsyx]

Nearly everything said here is spot on...raiding is a tricky bit of business.

Most of us here will either have tanks as alts or friends who are tanks and I hear on an almost constant basis how annoying it is to have aggro stolen. Good tanks will have two, three, or four things beating on them at a time. They are the only line of defense for those squishy healers keeping him or her alive. Now assuming little ole me pulls one of those mobs off the tank....bad news, I may be able to kill it before it reaches me, but now the tank is running after it, with one, two, or three mobs in tow to try and regain aggro off the mob I shouldn't have pulled in the first place.

Long story short...you may be able to kill it faster, but for solid raid progression and group dynamics, waiting is key.

[ydnandrew]

I think it's pretty simple. If it causes problems of any sort, back off. If not, proceed.

Occassionally on bad pulls (generally only in 5 mans) I will overdo it on purpose, knowing that I can handle the mobs. Just be careful with aggro because sometimes you won't be the only one who dies. The tank can't always get aggro back after you steal it. A healer may be next and the whole thing could snowball. You don't want to be responsible for 10 (or 25) people wiping.

[Tzarph]

Being an old EQ junkie (my main was a wizard) with lots of raids under the belt, I can only say that Turmerics words were pure wisdom. Read, remember and roll.

[xenon]

Maybe it's ok to perform this way in kara or any Heroic.
With the proper gear, you can even solo some of the trash in these instances.
Killing maiden within 1,5mins, not bothering about agro at all etc etc. All fun, but...

You don't learn to control your agro with the raid, you don't have the people in your raid adept to high DPS classes, you don't have your tank learn how to maximize his threat etc etc.
In 25man raids, trash is often immune fear/deathcoil. On top they die and they migh explode or spawn other rash (a good example are the boglords in SSC). Imagen them spawning the poison area in middle of the casters/healers; that's a 100% wipe AFTER the trash dies.

A good warlock know to manage his threat around 100-110% so even when he gets a crit he doesn't pull agro. NEVER get your threat at 131%, you'll pull of the tank.
If ever, for some reason you pull agro.. start running towards the tank, soulshatter if you know the tank can hit it, or even die; never soulshatter if the mob in between the healers.

It's better to be 2nd or 3rd place and not wipe then to be at 1st place and die or wipe.
Every dead or wipe takes more time of the raid as when none died.

[Replicant]

ask paladin to cast you Blessing of salvation...