Warrior threat generating macro

[Drommon]

Hello,

I am looking to create a high threat macro. I use a warrior as my tank and would like to create a macro that generates high threat across multiple mobs. I have broken down instance combat into 3 phases. There is the prep phase, the threat buildup phase and the dps phase.

Right now I have prep macros for all my toons (see signature). Currently my threat generating abilities for the warrior is mixed in with my tank macro. I am thinking of separating them out and making the phases a bit more discrete.

For example my prep macro for the tank excutes in order bloodrage, commanding shout, taunt.

My tanking macro looks like (it is a click sequence)

/castsequence reset=combat Shield Slam,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
/castsequence reset=combat Thunder Clap,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,
/castsequence reset=combat Shockwave,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
/cast Devastate

So what I am looking for any thoughts on building a pure threat generating macro or click sequence.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Drommon

[Drommon]

Did you read my macro sticky thread? I think there is a link in there to a long discussion about warrior macros as well.

Yes I did. It is also where I got inspiration for some of my click sequences. I believe I have posted in your thread as well. I am looking for something specific, but oddly I don't know what it is yet. So I am trying to brain pick the members of this site for anything on threat generation. In the end I will post what I come up with. I am at work now so studying the behavior of warrior abilities is beyond me at the moment. Maybe Elitist Jerks will have something. But they are more suited to soloing and gearing up beyond level 80.

Drommon

[Drommon]

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=25164

Good stuff in there


I have read that thread and honestly it has left me looking for more. But it does have a gem in it. One of the posters uses a similar prep macro but before he !startattacks he uses heroic strike. So there is an upgrade to my prep macro already. I will be starting the battle with heroic strike. Something like this for a prep macro

/castsequence reset=combat/15 bloodrage,commanding shout, heroic strike, taunt

For threat generation across multiple mobs probably would have these abilites in the macro ->

Shield block to activate revenge, thunderclap for mutliple mobs maybe some others like shield bash. And of course shockwave for mini CC (stuns all the mobs). It also has to do with timing as well.

Last night while in Nexus I taunted a group of mobs. One of the mob went to the warrior, the other 2 went to the priest. Oddly this happened after the prep phase and before the DPS phase. The other 4 toons had not done anything yet. I generally wait to build aggro before I start the other toons click macros. I didn't wipe because I used a thunderclap followed by shockwave to stop that. But I had to do it manually. And of course there will be those situations, but I am looking to macro it in. I am looking for a high threat generating macro across multiple mobs.

Drommon

[Drommon]

Maybe I should start with Challenging Shout and then follow up with a combo from this list

High Threat: Sunder Armor (http://www.wowwiki.com/Sunder_Armor), Heroic Strike (http://www.wowwiki.com/Heroic_Strike), Shield Slam (http://www.wowwiki.com/Shield_Slam), Devastate (http://www.wowwiki.com/Devastate), Revenge (http://www.wowwiki.com/Revenge), Thunder Clap (http://www.wowwiki.com/Thunder_Clap)

hmmm, it will take some fine timing and tweaking to get a good clicker out of it.

Drommon

[Drommon]

I usually charge --> shockwave --> thunderclap before any of my other characters DO ANYTHING. (including heals)


I used to do exactly that, until I charged out of range of my casters :) and then wiped :)

Now I wait for them to come to me.

Just a different style thats all.

Drommon

[Conanette]

If i where you i would begin with adjusting your build and choise of glyphs, before considering adding HS or Cleave to your rotation, there is alot of threat to be gained from that.
Vigilance glyph alone gives you a 10% lead on TPS over your highest threat DPSer, and a >5% lead on the rest.

Talents like impale, improved revenge, shield mastery and incite should also give you a noticable threat boost.

Starting with challenging shout or taunt wont get you far, as taunts doses not give you threat, only makes you catch up with whoever it is that are leading on threat at the moment. When building AoE threat, its not much else to do then to use shockwave and TC as often as possible, unelss you want to more micromanagment then needed.

Also, make sure to use shield block each time its off cd, as its gives a good boost to Shield Slam threat, wich should be your main source of single target threat.

[Drommon]

@Conanette -

Thank you for your kind reply. You have given me much food for thought. I will definately take your advice into consideration.

Drommon

[Drommon]

Besides the Omen addon are there any other *good* TPS addons?

[Conanette]

Omen is the only i use, i think they are pretty dominant and cover most peoples needs, so i cant recall seing any compeeting mods since the vanilla wow days.

[Multibocks]

I used to do exactly that, until I charged out of range of my casters :) and then wiped :)

Now I wait for them to come to me.

Just a different style thats all.

Drommon

You could intercept back to your group after the first sequence. Should get you enough time for a heal to land.

[Drommon]

On the Omen subject....

In heroics, I usually kill the mob before it registers on the thread meter (TPS is a ? for the first few seconds prior to calculating your actual TPS).

On bosses I really only use it when I'm grouped with a Warlock, since they've got threat issues. :)


Yeah, you know I just read the omen forum and from the sounds of it omen takes 3 secs to update. This mean it would work well for bosses. Omen also doesn't do AoE threat either.

And yes, when the boss fights go on too long the warlock on my team suddenly gets popular :)

Drommon

[Drommon]

You could intercept back to your group after the first sequence. Should get you enough time for a heal to land.


I never thought of that. I am going to give that a try.

Drommon

[Drommon]

Hmmm, what about this macro as a battle opener ->

/castsequence reset=combat/15 bloodrage,battle shout,heroic throw,heroic strike

These are all instants. Heroic throw generates high threat and does damage based on AP. Herioc strike will be ready for the next attack. Then I will start a rotation sequence that would include more AoE type threat generators like thunderclap and shockwave. I will have to manage GCD's and manage a well placed HS in a click sequence. It isn't optimal and won't be because of rage generation but i will get something down. :)

Drommon

[Conanette]

What i do when i pull, both when multiboxing and during "normal" play, is to use Heroic thorw or ranged attack to pull, then run back a few steps behind the rest of my team, and charge back in to the mob(s). Reason i use charge is because it gives me the starter rage i need to get my rotation going.

After the charge i just start using my normal threat rotations. I dont use a castsequence macro for it tough, has played warrior so long that it just comes naturaly without thinking about what im doing. But for you i sugest using shockwave, then the main threat macro you decide to go for.

Considering the long cooldown on shockwave, and since its some aiming involved when using it, i would press this manualy everytime its off coldown, instead of having it in a macro.

I would sugest a click macro that uses TC every cooldown, Shield slam every 6 seconds and devestate as a filler.
You cant always rely on Revenge beign redy to be used when you want to, but if you can fit it in then it belongs between shield slam and devestate in priority. (revenge has 50% chanse to stun with talents, wich is nice if you want to heal as little as possible).

There is 2 reason to not use HS in your macro, if you use it twice before you atack, you just cancle it. The more important reason is that you only want to use HS if you have enough rage.

Also, considerign that you have all magic DPS, i would sugest using commanding shout instead of battle shout. (Both can be minor glyphed to last longer)

[Naji]

Make sure to use Glyph of Devastate & Glyph of Sunder Armor. I usually never have low rage in heroics atm so I usually Charge, Thunder Clap, Shockwave, toss two Devastates on the first kill target and one or two Devastates on the other mobs.

I can usually just spam Heroic Strike while throwing around devastates on the mobs and use Shield Slam when its up. Usually I dont shield slam until I've established aggro on everything with a few sunders unless Sword & Board procs.

[Drommon]

Thanks everyone for your responses. I did a lot of tinkering with my warrior macros and right now it looks like my original clicker is the best after a solid battle prep.

I changed the way do combat. I experimented with everything posted here and I came with this ->

before battle I do bloodrage, commanding shout, charge. This gives me a lot of rage. I start my charge in the middle of a formation (another poster suggested this). At the end of the charge I reposition and then shockwave for the stun.

During battle I just spam my clicker using my original rotation.

/castsequence reset=combat Shield Slam,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
/castsequence reset=combat Thunder Clap,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,
/castsequence reset=combat Shockwave,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
/cast Devastate

Thunderclap needs to be timed to allow devastate to go off. This schedule works very well. So far no mobs went after my healer or dps toons.

I tried timing with heroic strike and I tried prepping with heroic strike. The problem with heroic strike is that when I use it during the prep stage it aggros the mobs when I use it, thus negating in some cases my charge. Heroic strike is also very difficult to time in a clicker. I did get it to time right but it was going off every 6s but by then the mob is dead. I guess I could make it for a boss. But then again bosses call for different strategies and require more management of the team. For trash mobs everything should be on a clicker that you can mindlessly spam. For some bosses, you are going to need all that extra button space :)

Now there is room for improvement so If I come up with anything I will post it.

Drommon

[Multibocks]

Sweet I will give this a try, I love having Shockwave in the clicker.