Using the new ingame Aggro Warning
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 14th 2008 at 11:45AM
Today's patch will bring with it a long awaited feature: an ingame Aggro Warning. Almost since launch, addons like Threatmeter and Omen have warned raiders and other folks that mobs are incoming (pulling aggro means that you've attracted the attention of some monsters by doing a little too much damage or healing), and the functionality has been so widespread that Blizzard has finally implemented it in the official UI.According to what we saw on the PTR, it should come default whenever you head into an instance, but if you want to see aggro all the time, you can go to the Interface options, and flip "Display Aggro Warning" to always. Checking "Show Aggro Percentages" will give you a little percentage at the top of the target frame, showing just how much aggro you're getting from whatever you've got targeted.
If you've used a threatmeter before, you know that if you do pull aggro, you'll want to a) stop healing or doing damage immediately, and b) pop any aggro-reducing trinkets, abilities or talents you happen to have, like Feint or Disengage. Of course, if you have used an addon like Omen in the past, odds are you shouldn't get rid of it -- the ingame Aggro Warning is pretty thin, so odds are that your guild will still require Omen anyway for high level raiding. But as a simple heads up when you've got monsters about to come your way, the Aggro Warning does its job.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Shrikemoon Oct 14th 2008 11:55AM
STop healing? There might important reasons why you are healing and stopping might not be the best thing to do.
SINisterWyvern Oct 14th 2008 11:58AM
I agree with that, it might be better to have an add-on that uses the information and for healers puts out a message to raid/group that says they're nearing aggro and need someone to take over heals/boost tank threat (rogues/hunters)/or whatever they want to do about it.
RandomCow Oct 14th 2008 11:54AM
Idea behind using a Threat Meter is stop nuking *before* you pull aggro, not after.
Harmun Oct 14th 2008 12:40PM
I believe that this will warn you when you get to 100%- that means you have 30% left from range, or 10% left from melee before pulling the mob off the tank.
gridwerk Oct 14th 2008 12:58PM
Agreed, but theyre also useful for alerting for things like cave-ins in Gruuls, etc. Will the new threat meter UI do the same or will you just die, realize the futility of the UI, disable and continue to use Omen?
zappo Oct 14th 2008 11:57AM
I'm looking forward to this change, if for any reason just so people no longer have an excuse to not have any idea what their threat is. For that matter maybe this will point out to people the fact that maybe they shouldn't be taking aggro from the tank (I honestly think a lot of people don't get this at all).
My only issue is that this actually doesn't explain what aggro is. If I just started playing WoW then how am I supposed to know what this option is for, or if it should be turned on or not?
Also looking forward to replacing omen
Wii Willi Oct 14th 2008 12:03PM
I'm really looking forward to it being there. It won't replace Omen for raids by any means as it really isn't that sophisticated, but it will mean for 5-mans and heroics there are no excuses.
Of course the new mechanics to threat sound to me like (and I could be wrong) that people shouldn't be pulling threat as easily as they have before.
zappo Oct 14th 2008 12:38PM
Omen leaves a lot to be desired. I find it rather obtuse and I think there is a much better way to display your aggro. ZThreatMeter looks far superior for what I want. Omen had the defacto threat guessing library and everyone used it because everyone used it. Now at least people can start to innovate on that front. HUD integration comes to mind.
turkeyspit Oct 14th 2008 11:59AM
The Ingame Threat Meter is there for one reason: to queue Paladins to use their new Hand of Salvation talent :D
Angus Oct 14th 2008 12:00PM
Hmmm.
If I am the tank, how does it show the insane people trying to steal aggro from me for me?
Showing 100% all the time isn't helpful. Showing 10% above the demo lock that is about to get another 6K shadow bolt crit again and doesn't have soul shatter on his bar, is helpful. That or the hunter without feign death on his bar and mongoose on his weapons instead.
(I have run with both)
I'm guessing a tank will want Omen regardless of if they are raiding or not.
Tridus Oct 14th 2008 12:11PM
The way Blizzard usually does these things is that APIs will be available for modders to use.
So you can still use Omen and see more information, but Omen will be getting its base threat numbers from the game itself, rather then parsing out combat logs and trying to estimate.
So if you use a mod or not, you're seeing the same threat values. You're also not going to be parsing out combat logs and sending threat data to other people, which reduces CPU, memory, and network usage.
Its good news all around.
Nanda Oct 14th 2008 12:03PM
I'm glad Blizzard finally turned their attention at threat warnings, but I think they just didn't try hard enough. Omen is definitely staying in my AddOns folder.
skajake Oct 14th 2008 12:12PM
Quote[I think they just didn't try hard enough]
I believe you and most of the other posters in this thread are completely missing the point of this PHENOMENAL change. All threat addons now have 100% visibility to server side threat information via a new lua API. The whole point of this new technology was never to provide a prettier interface than the mod community. Instead it for the first time in the history of the game exposes the underlying threat values calculated server side.
Did you know that up until now KTM and Omen simply had to guess the threat values from abilities and match it against known item / talent modifiers?
RJ Oct 14th 2008 12:02PM
This is a nice feature, but I'm probably gonna stick with KTM.
Fletch Oct 14th 2008 12:56PM
I used to really like KTM, but was forced to change when it stopped working with Omen (which all the other guild members strangely seemed to prefer). Personally, I hate Omen and so I hope this feature will allow me to eventually migrate back to KTM (or at least something better than Omen)
Tridus Oct 14th 2008 1:12PM
@Fletch
As a note, Omen now gets its threat numbers from WoW itself, rather then from the threat library. If KTM works the same way (and I assume all threat meters will), you should be able to use whatever front end you want and get the same numbers.
So yes, you should be able to use what you want now.
Yalina Oct 14th 2008 12:04PM
Disengage has been completely reworked. It now flings the target backwards, bringing the hunter out of melee range and making them able to use their ranged weapon again.
Mephator Oct 14th 2008 12:28PM
Damn, you beat me to it.
Yeah, no more threat reduction, just a straight boot backwards so the melee target becomes a ranged target again.
macheadshot Oct 14th 2008 12:05PM
wasnt there a way to fully display the blizz threat meter with a /command?
Shionia Oct 14th 2008 12:32PM
"showing just how much aggro you're getting from whatever you've got targeted."
By itself, it doesn't seem useful to healers, who rarely have a mob selected. (I heal via mouseover macro and generally have either nothing or the tank explicitly targeted.)
However, quoting commenter Skajake: "Did you know that up until now KTM and Omen simply had to guess the threat values from abilities and match it against known item / talent modifiers?"
If true - and thus leading to better threat mods - then yes, hooray.