Post by WoWTheoryCraft
This has come up a few times and I think it's worth explaining in detail as there's some obvious misunderstandings about it.
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Agreed. If you are using soul shatter within a minute then there's a problem (learn to control your dps). I love this, because it shows a wonderful lack of understanding about threat and dps. If I "control my dps" for less threat, it means I am doing visibly less damage. And doing half the dps just so I don't pull aggro for half the fight, then popping SS and going at my normal dps for the other half is not a good use of my time.
I'm afraid yawgmoth is the one who's showing a lack of understanding about threat and dps.
Say your tank can output 2k TPS, but you're capable of 3.6k DPS (generating 3.6k TPS).
As you will be standing at range you can run your threat up to 130% of the tank's before you pull aggro.
You give the tank a 10 sec head start, during which he builds up a 20k threat lead.
Position after 10 secs: Tank 20k threat, yawgmoth 0 dmg / 0 threat, us 0 dmg / 0 threat.
Now you start to DPS with your normal rotation, you're pulling 3.6k DPS/TPS.
Position after 36 secs: Tank 72k threat, yawgmoth 93.6k dmg / 93.6k threat, us 93.6k dmg / 93.6k threat.
Oops! We've just caught up to 130% of the tank's threat, if we don't do something we're going to draw aggro.
This is where yawgmoth suggests using Soulshatter and dropping 46.8k threat, but it's better to wait a while and manage your DPS output to control your threat.
Position after 82 secs: Tank 164k threat, yawgmoth 259.2k dmg / 212.4k threat, us 213.2k dmg / 213.2k threat.
Oh dear, yawgmoth's caught up to 130% of the tank's threat again.
He's done more damage than us so far, but with Soulshatter on CD he's now forced to sit out the rest of the fight at 2.6k DPS or he'll draw aggro.
Let's use our Soulshatter now and show him how it's done. ;P
Position after 188 secs: Tank 376k threat, yawgmoth 534.8k dmg / 488k threat, us 594.8k dmg / 488.2k threat
It's over 3 minutes into the fight and we've finally caught the tank again, but because we managed our DPS early on and waited to use Soulshatter we're now 60k ahead of yawgmoth on damage.
Although our potential DPS is the same, intelligent use of Soulshatter has allowed us to do more damage during the fight.