opinons on my role during multiple mob trash tanking.

[cajmrn]

Hi Guys,

Once again I can't begin this question without mentioning how awesome this site is. It's practically single handedly ripped me away from my mage!!.

Now for the question. In instances (higher level ones that is) It's going to be rare that you take on groups of mobs with enough CC that would allow your tank to take down one mob (in combat) at a time. My question isnt about that, i've read all the posts on spell rotation and pretty much have that down. What I would like to ask about is when the tank has 2+ thrash mobs on him that cannot be CC'd.

In essence he should be trying to hold agro on all of them right? so does it make sense to just focus on one mob and spank it down or mabye dot another up say mid-fight mabye with curse of agony that takes longer than all other spells to do a lot of damage or some other DOT that would not pull agro of the tank?

My logic was more spells going = +dps ? Don't want to seem like one of the damage watchers just thinking about time efficiency and using my affliction spec to its full potential .

[Turmeric]

your logic is fine, but there is no right or wrong answer. Learning how far I can push this exact scenario is responsible for more deaths than anything else outside of a 25 man raid. Some advice is:

Curse of Agony is great for this, the delayed aggro build can help massively. At 24 secs tho, it doesn't always finish so can be waste.
Don't use immolate - its front aggro loaded.
Corruption is a nice midway spell, lots of damage evenly spread, spammable and even procs nightfalls if your so specced.
Siphon Life - I spam this on multi mob pulls where I will be expected to AoE with seed. The 3-6 seconds spamming SL means more time for the tank to aggro, and I then spam seed. When I do start getting hit I have the occasional small heal to help me out as well.

Conclusion: Highly situational, use Corr mainly and above all learn your tank, their aggro threshold, tanking style etc.

[cajmrn]

Thanks for the awesome info and help. I tried it out this weekend in Heroic Ramp and SV worked great!!!

[Dalnaresh]

In instances I'd stick a low rank of corruption (nightfall ftw!) on secondary targets and then get down to spamming shadowbolts on your nuke target. A single thunderclap and demo shout will mean you won't pull aggro unless the tank gets two resists in a row (unlikely). If you see a caster mob, stick CoT on it once the tank has established threat. Play the whole thing by ear. You never know when you might need to CC something in an emergancy - a dot isn't going to allow that.

In raids its slightly different. Unless you have a specific task to do (Curse of Tongues on a specific add, Banish duty) do what you are most comfortable with. Personally I don't like doing more than dpsing down the kill order one by one (you never know when a lag spike or something takes out an offtank and I really don't want a mob heading to me because I've been dotting it for the last 20-30 seconds...). Best case I'll stick a corruption up in order to increase my nightfall proc potential on my main target.

If you are on banish duty, I'd be tempted in most cases (especially in the Void Reaver chamber) to do almost nothing except banish. Keeping these mobs locked down until a tank is ready to pick them up is more important than my dps in these situations, and the same is usually true for our mages on sheep duty.

[cajmrn]

Thanks for all your info and especially the raid perspective of things. Thats going to be very helpfull I haven't been 70 for too long on this toon so the kara attunement is about to be finished, I'm guessing by wednesday of this week. I'll keep all of this in mind.

Thanks agian

[Vorph]

Depends on the tank too.

Paladin - Assuming you don't vastly outgear the tank, go nuts and cast whatever you want once all the mobs are standing inside the consecration. I've had warlocks who think that just because there's a paladin tanking it's okay to pop off a seed immediately after I toss my shield and I'm still trying to LoS the pull. Don't be that guy. You shouldn't cast anything but a curse until the pull is in position.

Druid - Up to 3 mobs and he's probably fine, more than that and you need to be very careful, and make sure he knows that people are damaging his other targets so he is aware that he has to tab target/lacerate them all rather than just use swipe. Beyond 3 [elite] mobs, you should focus fire and let the druid only worry about keeping just enough aggro on the other targets to keep them off the healer.

Warrior - greatly depends on the warrior, some can hold 2-3 like a druid, others struggle to hold one. I find it's usually best to focus fire unless it's a warrior I've had good experiences with before.

And I don't mean any offense to warrior tanks there, they're just much more common and therefore much more prone to having idiots at the wheel. Paladin you have to try hard to screw up and you can pretty much tell how the fight will go just by looking at their gear (if it doesn't look mostly like warrior gear + a spell damage weapon, be afraid). Druids require some basic tab targeting skills to hold aggro on large pulls, but with proper raid target marking it's fairly easy.

[cajmrn]

This is great, I've posted the link to my question to my guild site to get the perspectives of our tanks specifically. We have one of each just like you mentioned:a Druid, a Tankadin, and a Warrior that regularly tank for us thus far.

I must say you're totally right about the Tankadin. I think my smoothest run of Shattered Halls was with a tankadin . great addition to the hordies

Thanks.

[Turmeric]

I'd add that in a 25 man raid, where every target is either tanked or CC'd, you can afford to go a bit more nuts. A good example is the Lurker trash in SSC (apologies if you've never seen, 3-4 DPS targets, 2 sheep and 4-5 non elite nuke adds). Here, you can afford to load up dots in the kill order. By the time you are done, the 1st target is dead and you can spam 2-3 bolts and renew dots on 3 & 4. The non-elite trash (that we Sbolt down asap) means each tank has 3-4 seconds of aggro time per target so you can let rip. Affliction locks, rogues with blade flurry up and warriors excel at DPS here, assuming you avoid the sheep enough.

Great fun

[forketta]

Curse of Agony is good only if you are not on curse duty, and if trash lasts more than 24 secs. Because it has slow thread adding.

Corr is good: Good damage, nightfall (if specced), good spell coefficent (if specced), fair threat.

Immo is good IF your tank already have aggro: it has too initial threat to be used as a starter.

Si/Li is good when your tank can hold more than 1 target. Nice healing on you, BUT low damage, high thread compared to the damage done.

UA is good: Nice damage, fair threat. Besides is core ability of affli locks. Just be aware of the mean duration of the fight, not to waste his full duration.

SB or DrainLife as needed: SB more damage and less threath, and ISB procs. DL has more aggro, less damage, but is godly for lifetapping.

If my tank is focused on 1 trash target, that will last around 30 secs, i will cast my dots starting from the one that lasts longer, and ending with the shorter one. And try to use a casted one followed from a instant one. EG Si/Li - Ua - Curse of Agony - Corr - Immo - SB
If my tank is on more than one target, i cast CoS - Ua - Si/Li - Corr following his aggro order, then SB trash starting from the one with less life (less likely to get aggro) and watching carefully who tank is targeting, and my aggro.

That is my experience in 5 men. Haven't stepped foot in 10 - 25 men, (and have no intention to do it) so no advice there from me.

Wanna suicide youself? Use CoE and spam Searing Pain. you will draw aggro from everyone!

[cajmrn]

Woot!! so I got keyed last night did BM for the first time. Man I love that place 30mins and your done. It was great was 2nd in dps, using all the advice, to this full epic rogue (has had kara on farm for sometime now) he did about 200k more damage than me LOL so I wasn't really trying to compete.

I may get into a Kara group this friday very excited to try these strategies out. I'm part of a VERY CASUAL guild and my GL brought in her husband (the rogue previously mentioned from BM) to help the 70s that were inclined to raiding but didn't want to leave the guild. Case in point, theres really no pressure so its going to be cool to be able to try this stuff in a larger group scenario. We're going after attumen.

Thanks again guys