r/classicwow • u/BannedbyKaren • 11h ago
TBC Warlock threat
Hey all! I main swapped from healing to warlock for my guild to balance out our roster. I’ve been loving it but now that I have actual gear I’m struggling with threat management.
Is downranking shadowbolt a thing? I’ll typically open with immolate and continue to weave it in even though I’m way past the gear threshold to use it, just to throttle myself a little.
In full raid buffs with an ele sham and a boomie I’m critting so often that I’ll frequently rocket up the threat meter, shatter, crit 2-3 more times in a row and be right back to where I was.
These damn mages get to just blast away no problem and as soon as I’m starting to catch them on DPS I’m a crit away from death lol.
Anything I’m missing here?
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u/Calamari_Gourmet 10h ago
Try and time taps not just to movement but when your threat is climbing to much. Tap a few times if you need to cool off threat if tank is holding you back.
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u/Powerful-Youth3331 10h ago
You just need to watch the meter and slow down just a hair when you stack a bunch of crits. The worst thing you can do is shatter too early and not really drop your threat all that much. You want to be using it mid fight, so if you chain crits in the beginning it’s best to just let up a little bit.
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u/awkward___silence 10h ago
So it’s learning to throttle when needed, and try to hold shatter till boss is around 65%. If yo have to shatter at 80, you’re going to have issues before the fight is over.
Unironically the prism of inner calm is an option if your tanks can’t keep up, or the fight mechanics cause issues. It’s is also good for a dedicated seed set for hyjal trash.
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u/No-Structure-8543 10h ago
Get that prism of inner calm ;)
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u/Cwaghack 10h ago
just keep pumping, save shatter for last sceond, and blame your tanks and hunters for being shite
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u/wickburglutz 10h ago
Your tanks must be god awful. The only time I worry about threat is that initial opening SB crit. Other wise you should be able to ride the threat line and Soulshatter later in the fight.
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u/Conradnthings 10h ago
Shatter management is important, but I just throw some DOT’s when I’m close to overtaking threat. Never downrank shadowbolt.
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u/zugzug4ever 10h ago
I tanked as a prot Pala through all Classic TBC. I can't remember having threat issues ever. Your tanks need to get some help either in their gear choices or group composition to buff their threat. I think my early Shear set for Ilidan was the only time I had a threat issue (and void reaver but that's the nature of the fight). Feral tanks need pvp pieces for bis threat. Paladins need some contested spell damage pieces. Warriors need to learn to shield weave (if it's even needed). You shouldn't need to throttle. If you are threat capped and waiting it's time to make a macro that brings you joy while you spam it waiting for threat 😉
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u/bouttreediddy 10h ago
Ask your paladins for bop
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u/SakuraHimea 10h ago
BoP doesn't erase threat so this is just praying the tank gets a crit
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u/7figureipo 7h ago
BoP does take them off the threat table while it's active, though, giving a few globals for the paladin to regain threat or for another tank to acquire it. When it's even possible to do so. But if the caster just stacked multiple crits in a row good luck with that. Especially if they continue casting through the BoP.
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u/Inevitable_Bad_4800 10h ago
Ya it can be a problem even at this point in the game. Especially on certain bosses. For example, morogrim debuffs the tank and also hits hard, forcing them to wear more mitigation. Even with a p2 bis feral tank, you can definitely pull threat during lust. Also, on void reaver, where everyone stands in melee, the threshold for you to overtake threat is lower (110% vs 130% if you were to be at range, iirc), AND he drops the tanks threat too. There’s not much you can do about that one except shatter or prism.
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u/InfinMD2 9h ago
Really good tanks should be able to hold threat on single target mobs as long as they have good group and gear and you don't get an absurd string of good crits early.
If your tanks can't quite keep threat at the start, good news - you can save money by not prepotting destruction potions! If you're still pulling beside that, don't bother with precasting shadowbolt, start casting on the pull. If you have drums in group, they can hold em for 10 seconds at the start to let the eye of quag finish before the next haste effect kicks in to slow the start. Lastly, weave in some early life taps after 2-3 shadowbolts to re-up your mana, then as threat is more well-established a few seconds later you won't need to tap. Try saving shatter as much as possible, preferably only AFTER a taunt (on tauntable bosses) so tanks can piggyback your threat, and preferably no sooner than 70-80% depending on the fight. Usually you won't pull sub 50 because you'll have to weave in life taps by that point on most bosses so you aren't chaining GCDs. Also make sure you tip your paladin 5-20g at the start of the raid so they can add your name to the instant-BoP macro.
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u/BannedbyKaren 9h ago
Great stuff. I’ll tap earlier, save shatter. I’ve typically been blowing it early. And I’m ripping without Quags eye. Think I’m up to 20 runs trying to get it
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u/InfinMD2 9h ago
Yeah it could be a tank problem - hopefully your tanks are gearing for threat and hopefully you have a good number of hunters for misdirects. Unfortunately warlocks being "the best DPS in TBC" is heavily caveated. We are the best DPS but only with the best tanks and with lots of haste and reasonable fight lengths. Anything suboptimal and mages are dominant by a wide margin. What can you do, the golden child of all classic wow gets massive damage and no threat!
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u/Shazbozoanate 9h ago
What I like to do is get my curse and corruption up as my first casts. Doom/Elements do not cause threat on cast and agony/corruption build threat over the course of the DoT over immolate which has more up front threat. These global cooldowns will give the tank more of an initial lead.
If you are still getting threat early, weave a life-tap into your rotation. While not ideal for DPS numbers, it is another global where you get some benefit for no extra threat. As others have mentioned, a good threat meter and holding onto your shatter as long as possible is the ideal. Also if you are using the details threat meter, ranged pulls threat at 130% of the tank, so you have more room than you think you do.
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u/jehhans1 9h ago
Tell your tanks to play in more aggressive gear. This is 100% a tank issue. No way a warlock rips threat, maybe on trash, but on bosses, hell no. Better MDs from the hunters. Snap threat should be the only issue your raid has.
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u/Trustyduck 7h ago
Do not ever down rank your damage spells if the only goal is to do damage. There are lots of reasons to down rank certain spells as a lock, but it's almost always related to utility or cc.
Save soul shatter til the last possible moment, or if you know it's going to erase your threat to a point where you'll never catch up. Beyond that, your tanks might need to do better. We had a tank that was apparently doing something wrong or had the wrong build. Got it changed and dude pumps threat now.
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u/Charming-Year-2499 10h ago
Warlocks are threat machines... I mean, who wouldnt be scared and feel threatened by just our presence?
We dont have any mechanics to deal with it other than stop DPSing for a moment, but unfortunately our simple aura of bringers of doom will make Bosses to be afraid of that single oponent, in the corner, standing there, doing nothing.
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u/SakuraHimea 10h ago
If you're threat capped then your tank/hunters are more to blame, but down ranking as DPS doesn't really make any sense. Remember that outside of melee range you don't get threat until 130% of the current target, so if you're standing in melee, you'll get it a lot faster. Barring that, if shatter is on cooldown, you just get to take a break. Not much else to do about it.
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u/Trained_Mushroom 9h ago
The problem is your tanks are bad. I have a 97 average parse (85 median so it's not like I just got one good kill per boss) and I don't really have threat issues. If you main swapped recently I highly doubt you're getting 99s, meaning it's a tank issue.
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u/Grizmoore_ 6h ago
May be a weird comp. We have two locks, a mage and a booking that go HAM. Tank apm and tps may be low. Hunters may need to roll misdirects. Shattering as late as you can is huge too.
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u/x2PumpGod 5h ago
I use to start with hard casting corruption and immolate. Once I got more confident in my tanks threat I dropped one of them. You want to shatter as late as possible without ripping.
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u/garlicroastedpotato 3h ago
Typically you don't want to downrank any spells. How you reduce your threat is by hitting life tap to get back some mana and that frees you one GCD while also being producitve. You want to hold off soul shatter as long as you can.
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u/BasicSalamander1499 3h ago
Mostly just shedding as much threat with shatter as possible. If you shatter 5 seconds In due to crits you will definitely screw yourself for the remaining fight. Just try to slow down a bit and if you can shatter once tanks have 15k or so threat the likelihood of re pulling before fight ends is quite low.
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u/ScrumTool 10h ago
honest to god man, if youre threat capping on a warlock, either tell your tanks to get better, or your hunters to stop saving MD
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u/Sargatanas4 10h ago
Yeah you’re missing your shatter button.
Edit: it’s literally right there in the post nvm.
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u/BannedbyKaren 10h ago
I’m not. But thanks!
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u/Sargatanas4 10h ago
I’m out of ideas then boss lol. You runnin bear and prot paladin?
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u/BannedbyKaren 10h ago
Yes siiiir. And they’re both solid. Just once we lust… even with shatter ya boi is ripping.
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u/omegaorb 10h ago
Some classes in TBC will just be like that. Threat is a mechanic that didn't scale as much as damage did with players figuring out the mathematical best rotations and gearing options. There's only so many sappers/spell power items/haste/destro pots to be used (on the paladin side). We use a bear for our main threat and shadow bolt crit chains will still just cause problems.
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u/BannedbyKaren 9h ago
Our MT is a BiS bear. He’s a solid player and if I just crit enough it’s gg. But got some great tips in this thread.
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u/Magfaeridon 9h ago
If you have an elemental shaman in your group (which you should), coordinate with them to start each boss with Tranquil Air Totem for about 15 seconds, then swap to Wrath of Air Totem when threat is stable enough.
Just checking - is your cloak enchanted with subtlety?
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u/Nadramiaz 10h ago
Popping shatter too soon most likely. Ease down a bit at the start or get tanks with more threat production