The entry is meant to serve largely as an introduction to the post I’ll be making soon after. However, it warrants its own entry because of the complexity of the subject matter. Be that as it may, you should know my take on threat is nearly identical to that of Kenco’s. So you can skip it if you’ve been there and done that. But I wanted to go into more detail on the basic concepts and highlight what I call “threat anomalies” (an important concept I think Kenco failed to discuss in his own guide).

Disclaimer: This post may induce conceptual and mathematical headaches.

Threat

“Threat” is a numerical value representative of the amount of hate a person has on a mob. After extensive evaluation of WoW’s threat mechanics, many players interested in the system have agreed to normalize threat around one point of “white damage” done to a mob. This means meleeing a mob for 100, without any threat modifying stances or talents, would generate 100 threat for a person on that mob.

Mobs can also use abilities that directly affect threat. For example, a mob can cast a spell that lowers a person’s established threat by a fixed percentage.

Threat Modifiers

Some classes have abilities and talents that affect their threat by a specific percentage. These percentages can create what are known as “threat modifiers.” For example, druids have a talent called subtlety that reduces the threat their spells generate by 20% at its maximum rank, meaning a modifier of 0.8 is applied to the threat of all the druid’s spells.

Many abilities have an innate threat modifier based on their threat production relative to unmodified white damage. For example, one point of effective healing done by healing touch generates threat with a 0.5 modifier. So if you heal a person for 5000, none of which is overheal, you will generate 2500 threat on a single mob. Holy light, on the other hand, has a modifier of 0.25, so a paladin who effectively heals someone for 5000 with holy light would only generate 1250 threat.

Furthermore, some abilities can have different modifiers for each component of the ability. For example, siphon life generates threat for its damaging component, but its healing component generates no threat.

Mobs can also use abilities that apply threat modifiers to people. For example, Kalecgos can place a debuff on someone that doubles their threat generation for a fixed amount of time.

Threat Lists

Each mob has what is called a “threat list.” A threat list is a catalog of players for whom the mob will react to threat generation. Certain actions can put a person on a mob’s threat list, including:

• Body pulling the mob.
• Damaging the mob.
• Putting a debuff on the mob.
• Buffing someone already on the mob’s threat list.
• Healing someone already on the mob’s threat list.
• Taunting the mob.

This list can vary, depending on how each mob is coded. For example, a mob could potentially be designed to use an ability that affects anyone in a given radius, and this mob could put those affected by the ability on its threat list. However, such abilities do not always put a person on a mob’s threat list, even though it might put them in combat. Many world mobs with demoralizing shout put anyone affected by it in combat without putting those people on their threat lists, for example.

AoE Threat

It is important to note some abilities divide their threat generation based on the number of threat lists on which a person resides. For example, a druid on the threat lists of ten mobs will have their threat caused by healing touch divided by ten, spread evenly across each mob. So effectively healing someone with healing touch for 5000 will generate 250 threat for each mob that has the druid on its threat list.

Healing, power gains (energy, mana and rage) and AoE buffs like battle shout typically divide the threat generation by the number of threat lists. But this might not always be the case, given WoW’s mutability and unique cases. For example, while the mana gained from the proc on Insightful Earthstorm Diamond generates threat at this point in time, the mana gained from life tap currently generates no threat.

AoE damage is typically not divided by the number of targets affected. This was not the case with some spells in the distant past, but most have changed to reflect this fundamental concept.

Aggro

A person with “aggro” is a mob’s primary target. This is not always the person highest on a mob’s threat list, however. This is because there are different values typically required to pull aggro from someone else. For a person in melee range of a mob, they must usually exceed 110% of the threat attributed to the player currently with aggro. And for a person outside of melee range of the mob, they must typically surpass 130%.

It’s important to note that a person with 120% of the currently aggro’d target’s threat will pull if they duck into the mob’s melee range, even if they do nothing before and after crossing into melee range.

Some mobs use abilities that can drop the standard requirements to 100% or below. Knockbacks used on the current player with aggro will typically do this. So even a person below the traditional ranged and melee thresholds, they can still pull if they are above 100% of the aggro’d target when he or she gets knocked back.

It is important to note that anyone simply targeted by a mob does not necessarily have aggro on that mob. Mobs will sometimes target a person to cast a spell on them, but they subsequently return to the player with established aggro once the cast has complete. Likewise, spells that cause the mob to select no one can work similarly and it is not always an indicator of someone losing aggro on that mob.

To further complicate the idea of aggro, some mobs do not actually aggro anyone nor follow the traditional guidelines of threat. Some mobs indiscriminately pick targets to cast spells on and cannot be forced to attack anyone highest on threat. Most prominent of these mobs in the current expansion is probably Dorothee and the Shade of Aran in Karazhan.

Taunting

Warriors have an ability called “taunt.” This ability forces a mob to aggro the warrior for a given amount of time. It also grants the warrior threat equal to the value of the previously aggro’d target before the taunt. If the warrior already has more threat than the person off which they taunted, however, their threat does not change. Paladins and druids have righteous defense and growl respectively. These abilities are simply variations of the warrior taunt and apply the same concepts of threat.

A person cannot pull aggro from a person taunting as long as the taunt debuff remains on the mob. However, once the taunt debuff has dropped, the traditional aggro thresholds of 110 and 130% apply.

Threat Anomalies

A “threat anomaly” occurs when threat behaves or mobs react to threat generation in an unexpected manner.

There are many game mechanics that can have strange effects on threat. For example, some adds during boss encounters will often spawn and ignore all threat generation mechanics for a short period of time. This is prominently evident during the Shade of Akama encounter in Black Temple, as the door adds spawn and ignore any threat generation for a short period of time. On the other side of the spectrum, some adds during encounters spawn with an established amount of threat on random targets. This is most evident during Solarian in Tempest Keep (or at least was when I was doing the encounter over a year ago).

Such examples no longer produce “anomalies,” as they are currently understood mechanics. Rather, variables that are still unknown cause anomalies. As new patches are introduced with new proccing gear, new proccing meta gems, new proccing enchants, and changes to abilities, new anomalies are always introduced and can take a lot of time to dissect between each patch. And sometimes various anomalies are debated exhaustively without any real conclusion. I believe how threat affects Patchwerk and Supremus‘ hateful strikes is still argued to this day, because it is also affected by people’s current hit points, and possibly people’s positioning and how latency can affect the server’s registration of each player’s position.

Testing Threat

The only way to accurately test threat mechanics is to do so by first understanding conditions that create anomalies, or by removing the conditions that create them. Unfortunately, this is difficult given certain environment. Getting 25 people to risk wiping because you want to experiment with Supremus’ hateful strike is near impossible. And you can’t exactly remove the positioning and latency issues unless you bring enough healers to keep the tanks and melee alive when the fire spawns right under their feet. So people often use Patchwerk as a reference point, but there’s a possibility his and Supremus’ hateful strikes aren’t similar enough to make perfect parallels.

One of the reasons threat mods like KTM and Omen have never been 100% accurate is because recognizing, understanding and removing anomalies in every case is an endless feat. Furthermore, coding bugs can create erratic behavior in various running scripts and change the results of a given test. But you can at least increase the accuracy by reducing anomoly-creating conditions and conducting repeated tests. For example, you can trigger the end heal on lifebloom and prevent the HoT from ticking by purging it with a shaman of the opposing faction, allowing you to test the end heal’s threat directly without the HoT creating secondary threat during your test of the end heal. This type of testing is important when dissecting the threat of a given spell or ability.

Conclusion

“Established” testing might not always be accurate. Unless repeated and extensive experiments have been conducted and reported with no logical fallacies, you shouldn’t always take what is written as gospel. “We tested the threat of the end heal on lifebloom and concluded that it does not generate threat” is not evident of fact. It does not provide empirical evidence. It does not detail the experiments used to prove the claimed law. It is simply conjecture.

Casting doubt on the results of someone’s test is part of the scientific method. It is an important step in the refutation or reinforcement of particular concepts and conclusions. The empirical evidence taken from an experiment is the foundation on which an argument should be built. And if the foundation itself is flawed, then so too is the argument. But if the foundation is sound, the argument structured well, and all doubt has been exhausted, then it can be written into law.

Until Blizzard patches the game and changes the law itself.