wow Taunt Changes on the PTR Explained

[Starym 3,776]

 

There are some big changes coming to taunts on the 8.1 PTR which players noticed and talked about them on the forums, and today we're getting some official info on the matter. The changes are related to the threat bonus after using taunts and some of them that had players worried are only related to tooltip text, so the extra threat is not actually being removed, but it is getting reduced. The intention seems to be to keep the actual taunt gameplay pretty much the same as it is now so it's slightly weird this is even being tinkered with. In any case check out the full explanation:

Taunt (source)

Sorry for the delay in responding to this; I wanted to make sure I had all my info 100% correct before I said anything, rather than risk giving you incorrect or incomplete info.

So first off: the threat bonus from using taunts is not being removed. That's a tooltip change that was made entirely for consistency; every taunt increases threat generation while it's active, but it was only mentioned in the tooltip for a few of them for some reason. So that's just basic housekeeping.

However, separate from the tooltip change, we are going to experiment a little with reducing how big the threat bonus is on the 8.1 PTR. Currently, it's pretty massive, which is a holdover from when it was first added in Mists of Pandaria. Remember, back then active tanks were dealing huge amounts of damage (and thus, threat) due to the Vengeance mechanic, and so the offtank needed a huge threat boost to be able to keep aggro through tank swaps. That mechanic hasn't existed for a few expansions now.

Nowadays, in BFA, threat is once again something tanks need to keep in mind, and that massive bonus opens us up to all sorts of wacky issues as DPS (both from tanks and from damage dealers) increases. As one example, there's a risk that we end up in a situation where certain tanks need to use their taunt on cooldown as part of their single target rotation. That would be bad for several fairly obvious reasons.

So, we're going to try it with a lower bonus on the PTR and see what happens. Our expectation is that there is no tangible effect on your gameplay; you still use taunts exactly how you do now, and they have the same result.

[dartbodman 64]

How can there be taunt changes on the PTR is there isn't a PTR

[Hypersonic 113]

I don't know, if need a change a taunt then it's a buff. Lot of times it's just worth nothing. Especially in dungeons when someone burst adds and tank can't get aggro even with taunt. I feel it lot of times useless and like one of my dps abilty generate more threat so worth to use that instead taunt.

Ps.: It's have a PTR of course. 

[jinsu2301 273]

5 hours ago, Hypersonic said:

I don't know, if need a change a taunt then it's a buff. Lot of times it's just worth nothing. Especially in dungeons when someone burst adds and tank can't get aggro even with taunt. I feel it lot of times useless and like one of my dps abilty generate more threat so worth to use that instead taunt.

It seems to like you don't fully understand how taunts work? Taunting does three things: 1. it copies the threat of the player who has the highest threat, 2. it forces the mob to attack you for three seconds regardless of threat, 3. it boosts the threat your attacks generate for those three seconds.

Taunt will guarantee you pulling aggro of a mob. That's the whole point of the ability, it's a fail safe. It's not worthless unless you don't know how to use it correctly...

Edited September 25, 2018 by jinsu2301

[Nightwinds 10]

 This isn't really going to be a super impactful change for most tanks, if youre having threat issues after taunting still you probably need to look at your stats and rotation a bit.

[Baguettson 31]

51 minutes ago, Nightwinds said:

 This isn't really going to be a super impactful change for most tanks, if youre having threat issues after taunting still you probably need to look at your stats and rotation a bit.

I don't know, when adds pop / mob aggro and you can't taunt all of them for whatever reason, it sucks to be unable to take their aggro because they nerfed tank's threat generation, i'm afraid they're trying to """fix""" something that's not broken, and will end up making tanking an experience even less pleasant than now.

[Nightwinds 10]

On 9/26/2018 at 5:12 AM, Baguettson said:

I don't know, when adds pop / mob aggro and you can't taunt all of them for whatever reason, it sucks to be unable to take their aggro because they nerfed tank's threat generation, i'm afraid they're trying to """fix""" something that's not broken, and will end up making tanking an experience even less pleasant than now.

That's the intention, to make threat more meaningful. I don't agree with a lot of blizzards changes, but this one in particular makes sense to me. There is an extreme disadvantage for some tanks over others when it comes to the current iterations of taunt, being that some generate extra threat and some don't. Outside of that in general to address the not being able to taunt "all of them", I think that's kind of the point. Tanks do massive amounts of dps, they all have cleave, and dbm tells you when to taunt, its a fair assumption that most tanks don't even target swap anymore, because they haven't needed to, dropping our threat gen a bit this expansion, has kind of pulled you back into tab targeting and generating on different mobs.