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Q u o t e:


#2 Front load AE threat , make FF an AoE debuff leave it on its same cool down fixed - Its not TC , its not Consecrate and its not DnD. Its a druid class specific and class unique ability high threat debuff + lowers armor = win for AE tanking with a physical dmg move I can't even think of a downfall in this ... oh yeah i can that means we need something to pull with. Think about it

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Honestly, this right here is my favorite suggestion ever. If I could use FFF as an AOE Aggro grab with the range like it is right now I would be incredibility happy. It could be used at the start of a pull to get a bit of threat on everything, making sure I have no mobs running through me and would be great for picking up that pat that was aggroed by mistake. Would also fix all the issues I have had on things like the HoS escort and the UP gauntlet. Even if it did not apply the debuff all over (though I would like it to) and just did its little bit of damage and the decent threat it has it would work very well.

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Q u o t e:
Part of my point was that many of you are posting something to the effect of "All druids agree that the main problem is X," when even within a few posts you see wildly different opinions.

So the kinds of discussions we are having are what changes to make to Swipe (if any) that will solve some of these problems without turning Swipe into Thunder Clap.

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This is long but we obviously aren't making sense so please bear with me. (Pun intended)

The problem here is you are looking at this as a fix that can be made with a scalpel when we're asking for an amputation. The original problems you listed are all true and all need to be fixed but the fix to one isn't the fix to another which is why we're all so frustrated. As I said in a previous post, the problems are situation based. Its also partly because the expectation from a tank has changed. No one wants to CC, everyone wants to dps as hard as they can, the tank is expected to protect them.

So the real question is "what are we trying to accomplish that swipe fails at?" You listed them out very well and clearly understand what we've been yelling about but seem to be missing what it all adds up to. So lets examine:

Lets assume we're in a gauntlet type situation which seems to be frustrating everyone. Heroic Strat I've tanked a lot on my DK. Pulls are in groups of 10+ with a couple elites in there. You run into the bunch target the elite and hit swipe and queue up maul. 1/2 the mobs from the pull are missed being out of range or behind you. You begin the dance of moving around and trying to compensate.

1) Swipe doesn't generate enough sustained threat.
The dps classes that we are trying to protect tend to have abilities that generate threat faster as time passes, eg. rogue combo points. As you are trying to get a swipe off to hit all the errant mobs you need to target off the elite and never manage a high threat mangle. Once you have all the mobs in your swipe cone the rogue now has 5 combo points and uses them which pulls the elite off you and he dies and the healer ends up with the aggro on the mob for trying to save him. Your group wipes. They kick you and get a pally.

2) Swipe doesn't generate enough burst threat.
If you have any chance at hitting all 10 mobs in the pull to get aggro you are forced to hit swipe first at the start of the pull. You get lucky and get initial aggro but then immediately get hit by 10 mobs. The healer frantically throws a gigantic heal on you and you are only on your 2nd swipe and first maul, shockingly the healer pulls aggro and dies. Your group wipes. They kick you and get a pally.

3) Swipe's angle and target requirement make it hard to use.
You got that elite targetted and hit swipe but well 3 out of the 10 mobs weren't in your arc and are running at the healer. You turn enough to put them in the arc and hit swipe to grab them but now the elite is out of your arc so swipe doesn't even fire. The 3 mobs kill the healer and since you didn't get any new threat on the elite, it kills the rogue. Your group wipes. You know what happens next.

4) Swipe is okay, but you want other abilities to throw in there with it (and without giving Swipe a cooldown).
Pressing "3" (my swipe button) 500 times in an instance is just not fun. Regardless of the dancing required to keep the cone together, spamming 1 ability isn't fun. Even worse is its one ability with no cooldown which means we're not pressing "3" resting for 1.5 seconds then seeing the GCD end and leisurely pressing "3" again we're instead hitting "3333333333" for every 2 swipes. This is the cause of the "does swipe tanking make anyone else'ss fingers hurt?" threads. On my dk to do the same thing I hit d&d target it and click. Hit PS then IT then Pest. then build aggro as appropriate. Each time calming waiting for the button needed to light up. In wrath you gave us some new buttons that are situationally useful but we all know the situation never comes up unless we're boss tanking as on trash we're just hitting "33333333". You know very well the % of an instance we're tanking trash vs a boss. Does any of this sound fun?

OK fine, there's the problems. All different situations. Different complaints. And they're all targetted on swipe because its the ability we have instead of d&d, consecrate or thunderclap. It needs to do the same job. Get aggro on everything around us for a certain length of time. That's it. Leave swipe the way it is or change it. We don't care. Give us the ability to do the job. Period.

Please.

Swipe can do its job. It's possible for a druid with thorns on spamming swipe to keep up with a warrior. Over a 20 second window (shockwave cooldown) a warrior gets 1x shockwave and 20/6 thunderclaps, then some randomish amount of reflective threat. If reflective threat is disregarded, a druid can pull ahead... by using 11 GCDs compared to the warrior's four. The extra two swipes then get to make up for damage shield... Oh, and all that druid swipe thread is -far- more reliant on crits too.

Anyway, the two primary problems with swipe are... (Comparing with warriors since they're the closest comparison.)
1. The ability must be spammed in order to keep up with the AoE threat generation of other classes. It takes us 11 GCDs to roughly equal the threat warriors get with four.
2. It's constant TPS. This wouldn't be so much of an issue if the TPS was high enough. Instead the TPS over 20 seconds is roughly equal to warriors, but warriors get over half their threat in the first two seconds of their ~20 second cycle.


Now to sidetrack just a bit towards single target threat, are any other druids noticing an extreme reliance upon maul in order to achieve acceptable TPS? The tools we have are normal melee swing, maul, mangle, lacerate, and swipe (feral faerie fire can be useful at times, but often is unavailable due to 'can not overwrite a more powerful version' nonsense.) Again, I tend to like comparing to warriors since they're the only other tank that uses rage and they have similar abilities.

Mangle - This used to be our staple for threat, but it's weak. And according to the patch notes, it's currently hitting for 20% more than it's supposed to be. The warrior analogue to mangle is shield slam, which with 3/3 sword and board averages about the same cooldown, and is already hitting ~20% harder - oh yeah, and shield slam gets a 770 threat bonus I believe it is? So, after savage fury is fixed, then mangle will be knocked down to ~1500 damage non-crit... So 3.1k threat for a non-crit mangle compared to the 5.1k for a non-crit shield slam?

Lacerate - I believe it's 515 static threat + 1/2 of damage now. So you're talking ~120 initially plus ticks of ~900 every 3 seconds once at a full stack - which ends up being around 1657 threat if spammed every GCD. That goes up if you don't use as often due to the DoT. Last I heard, it still scales as 1 damage per 20 AP, correct? If so, that means that we get just a tad bit over 1 threat per 20 AP from it... Compared to warrior's devastate, which supposedly gains damage based upon AP -and- has an innate threat component of 5% of the warriors AP? Pretty easy to see which one scales better isn't it?

Swipe - Pretty comparable to lacerate on TPS. It's a bit less until reaching a certain AP/crit level, barring bosses that give increased damage or the like. It's mainly of use because lacerate is most effective when not spammed (since the rolling DoT is actually some amount of TPS.)

Swing/Maul - And here's the problem. Heh, even without the maul glyph... Maul's damage is typically ending up being ~3x as much as a normal swing for me (and this is with just 2/5 rend and tear.) On single target fights where the mob is actually doing enough damage to spam maul, it's often 50% or more of damage done. That, and it has a bit of innate threat as well... So what happens when we don't have enough rage to spam maul? Well, I'd be surprised if it'd be possible to maintain 70% of the maximum TPS, probably more along the lines of 50-60%. Sure, it's fun to do really good dps due to how imbalanced maul is, but I'm already running into threat issues on ten mans and heroics due to not having enough rage to spam it. And if the weak state of mangle/lacerate/swipe is due to balancing for the TPS/DPS of maul... Because yeah, especially after mangle is no longer getting the double bonus from savage fury, I can easily see TPS being cut in half anytime that maul can't be spammed.

Sorry to get sidetracked, but yeah, there are more druid threat problems than -just- swipe.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I realize the answer is easy.

1. Demo Roar - Increase the threat to be something like 4-5k threat, but give it a short cooldown.

2. Swipe - Remove target requirement and spread the cone just a bit.

This should fix most issues, giving us Swipe, Maul, and Demo Roar in our AoE tanking situations.

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Q u o t e:
Part of my point was that many of you are posting something to the effect of "All druids agree that the main problem is X," when even within a few posts you see wildly different opinions.

We aren't going to turn Swipe into Thunder Clap, and I don't think many of you are asking for that (though a few are).

The problem is if we changed the cone or if we changed the threat or if we added another ability, then a large portion of this thread at least would respond "But you didn't fix the problem."

So the kinds of discussions we are having are what changes to make to Swipe (if any) that will solve some of these problems without turning Swipe into Thunder Clap.

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You can enumerate specific problems with Swipe, if it somehow helps, but that isn't really the point of what the OP said. He specifically enumerated examples where trash slips in between our ability to AoE it, and further puts out examples of other tanking classes' abilities that would not seem to have this problem.

I guess it is a bit of a pain point for me because my guild recently asked me to reroll as something other than a tank. The stated reason was that a druid would "contribute more by healing or DPS". If I had more confidence I would argue with them.

You ignored-then-changed itemization because you didn't want us to be different, but we can't have Thunderclap because you want us to be different.

I know you don't find this helpful, and I apologize, but until you begin to approach the true issue (Bear confidence/Bear vision) you are going to have these issues pop up over and over again.

You're breaking my heart, man. I love my bear.

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Q u o t e:
Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I realize the answer is easy.

1. Demo Roar - Increase the threat to be something like 4-5k threat, but give it a short cooldown.

2. Swipe - Remove target requirement and spread the cone just a bit.

This should fix most issues, giving us Swipe, Maul, and Demo Roar in our AoE tanking situations.

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This is the second solution I've seen in this thread that I think would solve a lot of (if not all of) the problems with AoE tanking mentioned in this thread, without making it too easy, imbalancing it in other situations, or "turning swipe into thunder clap." I think it would even be fine if the cone wasn't widened.

Then we could use demo roar for burst threat and not have to constantly spam swipe (allowing us to use barkskin, grab runners with taunt, etc, without losing threat on the other mobs). That eliminates the urgency of sustained threat, solves the problem of burst threat, solves the problem of swipe sometimes not firing because of the targeting component, and allows us to use other abilities in there, and lets us use our skill with our other abilities to handle emergency situations without shooting ourselves in the foot.

And yes, scaling thorns would help tremendously with sustained AoE threat.

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Q u o t e:
Part of my point was that many of you are posting something to the effect of "All druids agree that the main problem is X," when even within a few posts you see wildly different opinions.

We aren't going to turn Swipe into Thunder Clap, and I don't think many of you are asking for that (though a few are).

The problem is if we changed the cone or if we changed the threat or if we added another ability, then a large portion of this thread at least would respond "But you didn't fix the problem."

So the kinds of discussions we are having are what changes to make to Swipe (if any) that will solve some of these problems without turning Swipe into Thunder Clap.

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I don't think any fundamental changes (such introducing new abilities, turning swipe into TClap etc..) are required to solve our AoE threat.

If you simply remove the target requirement on swipe, and extend its range, this would solve most of the issues with our ability to pick up AoE packs, as requested in this post: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=13392254171&sid=1

I'm pretty sure every druid would welcome such a change.

edit: also, any word on buffing thorns for ferals and making them scale? That would also help our AoE tanking.

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Q u o t e:
How about learning to tank? I have no idea what you are talking about when you say mobs run right by you. Either A your healer is shooting off a big heal as you pull which is there fault or B your not pulling correctly. I AOE tank every single instance and every mob is on me like glue even the off targets. For one thing when you pull a pack they are not at the exact same place at once they kinda come at you in a line so start with Maul. With glyph thats 2 targets on you tab target the 3rd and use your Demo Roar. That will grab most of the mobs attention. Throw 2 swipes in then tank like normal. I honestly don't see what the problem is. Sounds like one of those "Hey look any fool can tank now so im going to do it" kinda arguments. In 3/5 t7 you can bust out 1400 - 1500 dmg swipes easily and with the roar coupled onto it thats easily 4-5K threat one your off targets right off the bat. I think you maybe trying to build up to much threat on your main target to quickly and is causing the AOE tanking problem not the ability itself. Only thing swipe needs is maybe a slight threat increase to help out a little bit in some of the more difficult places where high armor mobs cuts the dmg down on it alot.

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Entering a conversation about a well known issues to the majority of druids with anecdotal chit chat about how you're one of the few issueless druids is worthless and to be tossed out of the conversation.

High horse talk and self promotion are not the basis for argumentation and need to be treated as such. This isn't simply a matter of your disagreement, but one of blatant disregard to an obvious by-the-numbers problem. Congratulations on the sore arm for the pats you give yourself on the back.

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Q u o t e:



I guess it is a bit of a pain point for me because my guild recently asked me to reroll as something other than a tank. The stated reason was that a druid would "contribute more by healing or DPS". If I had more confidence I would argue with them.

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I haven't been asked to re-roll, but it has been implied that I should have levelled my enhance shaman instead. Granted most people were used to my shaman as he was my main. But now I find myself in a situation with 4-5 tanks and it would seem they'd be better off with 3-4 tanks and an enhance shaman.

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Q u o t e:
-- Swipe doesn't generate enough burst threat.
-- Swipe's angle and target requirement make it hard to use.

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These are the big ones I'd say. Just say for argument, swipe is exactly 4 thunderclaps in threat. When a warrior TC's at the start of a fight he's 4.5 seconds ahead of the druid. Which doesn't seem like a lot...but people aren't waiting these days(Sustained I haven't actually had a problem with). And bullet point two, it's fine when you pull and mobs are coming at you, but swipe sucks when a group of mobs AREN'T coming for you such as mid fight add pickup. You'll swipe, hit 2 or 3 of the adds and the rest run straight by you.

Moderate cooldown snap aoe threat is needed. Maybe not something with so short a cd that it's in a rotation, but short enough it's always ready for 'boss spawns adds every x seconds'. 15? 20? 30 seconds? I don't really know what the shortest instance of this is. Personally I think a aoe bleed(Front loaded threat like lacerate) would be neat since it sets up rend and tear. And yes, I'm stealing the idea of the warrior move from beta that never made it in :P

And don't forget that swipe can get parried/dodged, while TClap and other AoE moves cannot.

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Q u o t e:


Personally i don't see a cooldown on Swipe being such a bad idea

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PLEASE no cooldown on swipe without something to go with it. It is already hard enough to grab up things theat get by in one GCD, if swipe had a cooldown and somthing god by, how much harder would it be then to keep control of things as you are running around with swipe on CD waiting to swipe again to get the ones that got by.

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Q u o t e:
We want druids to be great AE tanks, and it may be that you aren't quite there yet. But we will almost certainly do it without removing the positional requirement AND adding a lot of threat to Swipe.

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well, I like my positional requirement..
/hint

bring on the OR!

Well I think we'd all prefer to see a fix to both threat and directional issues, but ultimately the biggest problem comes down to threat.
Positioning is annoying, but the only reason that chasing down adds/runners is really detrimental is that we are likely to lose threat on the mobs that we already have. Allowing us to generate enough threat so that if we need to stop spamming for a few GCDs (to barkskin, roar, or chase down a spawn) but still have a solid hold on our current targets would (imo) be a much better solution than just opening up swipe radius. A large radius would be nice but it wouldn't help our GCD consumption issues and it likely wouldn't help much with things such as random add spawns from various directions.

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Q u o t e:
My point above was that we are not going to make everybody happy, so you will probably find yourselves less disappointed if you don't get tied to the One True change that will fix Swipe for you.

We want druids to be great AE tanks, and it may be that you aren't quite there yet. But we will almost certainly do it without removing the positional requirement AND adding a lot of threat to Swipe.

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I'm perfectly fine with that. There are plenty of wildly different solutions in this thread that solve many, if not all of the problems people have brought up with swipe and our AE tanking ability in general, so hopefully you don't think we all are pushing for One True Change, and take a look at those suggestions.

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Q u o t e:
We want druids to be great AE tanks, and it may be that you aren't quite there yet. But we will almost certainly do it without removing the positional requirement AND adding a lot of threat to Swipe.

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This is exactly what I want to hear. I do like the positional requirement, it makes me feel unique as a druid tank. And in certain situations, it is advantageous over consecrate/d&d/shockwave as well.

For example, when trying to run through the first gauntlet event in halls of lightning, I can backpedal while spamming swipe and pick up the mobs as I go along, I don't have to pull them onto my AOE, instead I just have a nice mobile AOE. I'd like to keep it that way too; is one of the few places in the game where you can say "you know what, a druid tank works best here."

However, in too many places though (which have already been said and don't need repeating,) swipe just does not work.

a longer range would be nice - it would be alot easier to pick up mobs that are all over the place (i.e. whelps on 3 drakes after 1st wave :-| heh). It's hard to justify putting another tank in over a pally tank on that particular assignment.

Does anyone have any info on how swipe actually targets?

As far as I can tell it seems more like a chain attack than an AoE of any kind. If so, can anyone say what’s the maximum range swipe can jump to chain to it’s next target?
Or what the overall maximum range is?

It certainly seems capable of jumping to quite a distance from us with a spread out pack – I’d even hazard to say it seems to have a better range than consecrate or shockwave in this respect. Any thoughts?

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Q u o t e:
If the threat was high enough, it could have a cooldown to enforce not spamming it. (We'd be very reluctant to do this though.)

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DON'T DO THIS. It's already hard enough to pull extra newly spawned ads between the 1.5 second GCD, adding more time to it would make it worse, even if the amount of threat produced was higher. Not unless we have some extra buttons to pick up what swipe misses anyawys.