Battlegrounds on test servers

[jpark]

The battlefields sound like they are being well received. Given that they will introduce a tactical element to battles, and provide awards for objectives other than kill count, there may well be a role for a defensive warrior in them.

And a healer for that matter.  Currently, pvp is based on damage and kills.  If you spend your mana "healing" your not putting forth "contribution".

[Merusk]

Notice that I said spamming growl... the auto cast from growl is now gone, and you must press growl every time you want the pet to growl.

Say it ain't so.

That's...ludicrous.

That's beyond ludicrous that kills the whole effing class.  Christ, this along with the incredibly stupid looking beaststalker armor makes me glad I started leveling up my warrior and priest alts.  I think it's all a plot to decrease the number of hunters out there.  Rogues will be next  :-D

[Glazius]

- The CTF battleground has some problems, the biggest being that Paladins can shield up with the flag and run home unmolested. Blizzard claims that shouldn't be happening, and will address that before the game patches on live servers (hopefully).

Fix:

The flag is an interactable non-grabbable object. Interacting with it despawns it and puts a constantly pulsing offensive aura on your character. Call it "I've got the flag" and put in appropriate flagbearing SFX.

When you use a class ability that seals you off from the world (no damage in no damage out) the aura, being offensive, drops, and as it drops it spawns the flag-object where you're standing.

I have not actually played WoW but this seems like it would work.

--GF

[Sogrinaugh]

Hunters have cause to be a little upset with the wand situation. One of the few things only hunters brought to instance groups was that in long fights, they could continue to do moderate ranged damage when OOM, and by using only auto shot, could regain mana during an extended fight. That's the primary reason why epic raids like MC were a bizzarro world where hunters were in demand. Now, not so much.

Growl is entirely borked. Two autoshots only pulls an equal level mob off a pet when the hunter is spamming growl. It is worse at higher levels due to increased resists. That rather kills what I was using my hunter for - cash farming for my alts. That's a greater cause for concern, as it affects most hunter utility, not just end-game instances and PvP imbalance. Notice that I said spamming growl... the auto cast from growl is now gone, and you must press growl every time you want the pet to growl.

So, to sum it up, casters no longer have to press buttons to auto-fire wands, but hunters have to press buttons in order to attempt to keep a mob out of their blind spot. If growl isn't resisted repeatedly.

Pretty happy to have a warrior that's nearly 60.

What the fuck is blizzards problem?  I dont know anyone at all that thinks hunters are overpowered, or were overpowered, in any of thier capacities.  Yet they get nerfed in little stupid annoying ways every motherfucking patch.  What im sensing is some sort of "need", on the part of the devs, to incesantly fidgit with the fucking classes.  Even when its not particularly warranted.  And it pisses me off to no end, because though i dont play a hunter i feel with some certanty that these fucktards will eventually turn thier attention elsewhere.

I mean, with all the bugfixes that are needed (HELLO ASSHOLES, my meditation is STILL bugged, with and without mage armor), do these chimps really need to waste thier time throwing bananna peels under the feet of otherwise functional, balanced class features?

The game is still fun, but it just seems like they make it suck alittle bit more each patch.  At least warlocks got some much-needed love, even if said affection broke a talent.

[Sky]

Hey, look at that! I picked the right week to cancel (58 hunter).

Not to mention long-standing unfixed hunter bugs like the AotH bug, pet run speed bug, or the aforementioned 'dead zone' (literally).

[Rasix]

You know, they fuck up hunters on test servers ever single patch (always hear of at least one *OMG WE'RE BROKEN* post during each one).  Then come live, everything's fine and everything the hunters bitched about is resolved.  (Well, your pets did get screwed pretty hard at one point if I remember right.  It's hard to keep up.) 

I doubt any of the major hunter nerfs (seem like bugs) will make it live.  And I really can't get all excited about caster classes getting autoshoot wands.  This just seems like a case of sandy vaginaitis on the case of the hunters.  Really, I'm amazed that any class that has the ability to shoot a weapon doesn't have autoshoot.  The ability just seems like common courtesy to the player. 

Still, we've only had 2 hunters reroll and these guys were uber catasses that realized we were low on dedicated main tanks.  I doubt we'll see any decreases from this either.

[naum]

Have played a hunter and mage both up to near lvl 40 and I don't get the "hunters being upset because wands can autoshoot"… …I don't know the exact ratio but I'm guessing the difference in DPS is a factor of at least 4X or 5X between what a hunter can do with ranged weapons and what an equivalent level wand user can do.

Wands just don't do enough damage and really are only useful when (a) low on mana (though engineering bombs are better!), (b) a quick cast to deal with runners (to save hotkeying a lower lvl instacast spell), or (c) as a pulling mechanism. If you're sitting back of a group dishing out wand damage, solely, you're not really helping your group, IMV.

[Amp]

What exactly are hunters crying about?   I'm guessing most have never played a  mage and you know what Bliz,   take the fucking shooting wand back and fix the goddamn game breaking mage bugs.  Nova is supposed to lock someone in place, not warp them the fuck across my screen so we get a benny hill skit of mele characters chasing some monster around.  I'm afraid to use the spell now for fear of a group wipe that's happened more then once directly because of the frost nova bug.
I've had more things break in the last 4 patches concening my class then i've had fixed.  Each patch we get another broken spell.  And each week my play time diminishes. 
 And they give us an  auto shooting wand. 

 /boggles   My wand at lvl 60, hits for 75 consistantly.  70fucking5 hps.

Maybe if the wand ya know....did something other then spit on the target but it doesn't.  All it does iss destroy my mouse button when I try not to get aggro. 
Why a wand doesn't have a special ability like the  mele weapons get  is just beyond me.  A wand is a mages (and priests) mele weapon.   The only reason it's there atm is for stats.   And so I can have a nice glitter trail when I run around IF.

But crying about 75hp damage on auto shoot.   I find that humerous.  Blizzard also claims in the original manual that Mages are glass cannons with the HIGHEST DPS in the game.  And we all know mages are not dps kings by far, so that description has changed.   We are also transportaion kings (read: taxi service).  But now engineers are getting a tereport spell on a long timer.
None of the characters are unique.   And none has a total hold on any one aspect of the game. 

[Merusk]

Notice that I said spamming growl... the auto cast from growl is now gone, and you must press growl every time you want the pet to growl.

Did some checking a bit earlier.  Folks on the hunter forum say this is a bug and has been acknowledged as a bug, but isn't listed on the 'known bugs' page.

Have played a hunter and mage both up to near lvl 40 and I don't get the "hunters being upset because wands can autoshoot"… …I don't know the exact ratio but I'm guessing the difference in DPS is a factor of at least 4X or 5X between what a hunter can do with ranged weapons and what an equivalent level wand user can do.

It's a combination of things.  First, wands are listed as a much higher DPS than any bow. Idiots will ignore the speed bonus, ranged attack bonus and specials hunters get in, the fact that wands get resisted quite often while shots rarely miss, and the caster can't cast and must wait for a global cooldown after hitting the 'turn off autofire' toggle before casting.  They're just looking at the raw numbers listed on the items and going "OMGWTF My blue bow does 31 dps and a mage's level 55 green wand does 70!"

Second is that, as Trippy mentioned, Bliz shot themself in the foot by saying many, many, many times "Autoshoot is a hunter's class perk, no other class will ever get it."  Instead of understanding it as a change of position due to overwhelming requests, it's being taken as "OMG We were LIED TO!!11"

Third is the inferiority complex hunters already have.  We're an unfinished class and it really shows in the endgame.  Sure, we WTFPWN solo content, but that stops at 60 when you want to do instances.  Unless you've got a good group of friends or a close guild you're not going in a  5-man.  Plus there's so damn many hunters that even though 2-3 are welcome on most 10+ person raids the slots fill up quick leading to a "well, guess I'm not wanted" syndrome.

Then there's the usual MMO problem of folks get bored and look for things to bitch about once they cap instead of finding other things to do or alts to play.

[Pococurante]

Notice that I said spamming growl... the auto cast from growl is now gone, and you must press growl every time you want the pet to growl

Here I was feeling all jaunty about sneaking out the office door to get some WoW time in.  Depression...

[El Gallo]

This is almost as fun as the last test server patch, when hunters were screaming bloody murder about how they were screwed and Blizzard hates them and their daddy never loved them enough because of a a couple bugs and one change (on TEST server, mind you), which were removed and reversed respectively before the patch hit any live servers.  I like the whining and blubbering as much as the next guy, but please at least wine and blubber about things on the production servers (it's not hard to think of something!).

OMG I QUIT!!!!11!

[Phred]

This is almost as fun as the last test server patch, when hunters were screaming bloody murder about how they were screwed and Blizzard hates them and their daddy never loved them enough because of a a couple bugs and one change (on TEST server, mind you), which were removed and reversed respectively before the patch hit any live servers.  I like the whining and blubbering as much as the next guy, but please at least wine and blubber about things on the production servers (it's not hard to think of something!).

OMG I QUIT!!!!11!

Ya because if they hadn't whined and screamed it wouldn't have made it to production servers untouched of course. Note, the original dev response to the change to how to-hit was calculated on the test server was that it was an insignificant change to hunter damage, showing blizzard doesn't really test shit at all but just guesses. When numbers were actually posted showing it was a huge dps nerf they decided against it. So, if you think whining about shit on the test server is a waste of time, your head is so far up your ass you can't see daylight. Hunters already got the shaft with the attack bonus buff nerf when we didn't have a test server so we could compare before and after and now we have the 1984 speak answer that attack buffs never affected ranged attack and no way to prove it didnt.

Better to whine about shit while it's on the test server than wait until it goed live and newspeaked into having always been that way.

[El Gallo]

mmmm asshead.  I can;t believe that game never got released.  Anyway, I agree with you that complaining about changes you believe to be ill-advised on test is a good idea.  I disagree that your first response to a change you don't like on the test server should be to quit the game or switch classes in protest, especially because they have demonstrated their willingness to change things before sending a path to the production servers.

[Righ]

I disagree that your first response to a change you don't like on the test server should be to quit the game or switch classes in protest, especially because they have demonstrated their willingness to change things before sending a path to the production servers.

Out of interest, who are you disagreeing with? If you are trying to ascribe the hysteria that you've painted to forum participants here, I think you're channeling Sir Bruce. If you're jumping between an argument with folks here and those on the WoW forums, you are just going to annoy those of us who aren't the ankle-biters normally found on Blizzard forums into disregarding your points.

There are issues with hunters both on the production and test servers. Those of us here who play hunters are quite capable of discussing those issues rationally. If we choose to play another class or another game, we will do so, without melodrama or hysteria. To draw comparisons with the bleating masses on the WoW forums is disingenious and reflects poorly on yourself, not on those of us here who are concerned about various issues in the game.

[Calantus]

Looking at it a bit more, there are reports that the auto-shoot feature makes the wands shoot at the rate displayed, rather than the slower rate wands normally get (from experience I believe this is a matter of not being able to activate the wand again while the previous shot's animation is still running). That could be part of the complaint.

[Trippy]

Notice that I said spamming growl... the auto cast from growl is now gone, and you must press growl every time you want the pet to growl.

Did some checking a bit earlier.  Folks on the hunter forum say this is a bug and has been acknowledged as a bug, but isn't listed on the 'known bugs' page.

It is now:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-realm-test&t=25725&p=1&tmp=1#post25725

[Xanthippe]

Are the battlegrounds on test for level 60s only, or are there also lower level battlegrounds?

Once I realized getting to 60 meant long raids (which I do not particularly enjoy) over and over again to get that 1 in 40 chance of getting a shiny weapon or piece of armor, I started to get bored, and slowed down on levelling.  I have a 53 undead rogue on a pve server, and a 48 nightelf hunter on a pvp server.  Since the honor patch, I haven't played either much, preferring my 24 human healer shirtmaker who lives in Ironforge.

I haven't cancelled yet, because I'm waiting to see if battlegrounds improves the game.  I'm worried it won't, much; then I'll cancel.

The level 60 battlegrounds will give those who have catassed their way through MC and Onyxia raids a place to wear their shinys, so won't lead to much fun for my playstyle (since I don't do large raids).

Although lower level battlegrounds... hmm.  Might be fun before people get twinked.

[Abel]

Are the battlegrounds on test for level 60s only

In any case the Warsong Gulch battleground won't be. From http://www.wow-europe.com/en/pvp/warsong-gulch.html :

Warsong Gulch is designed for small, balanced teams, and a game of Warsong will not start without the requisite 10 members per side. We want to make Warsong Gulch a fast-paced affair, and team balancing is a very important part of making the experience fun for all participants. In addition, players will be grouped by level sets of 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, and 51-60. Every consideration was made to create an environment you can jump into and get involved in right away.

DAoC battlegrounds anyone ?

[El Gallo]

Out of interest, who are you disagreeing with? If you are trying to ascribe the hysteria that you've painted to forum participants here, I think you're channeling Sir Bruce.

Maybe.  Basically, I was echoing Rasix.  I was certainly exaggerating, but I figured that anyone who has been here would understand that.  It's not exactly an uncommon thing on this forum.  Here's a recap of what I perceived in this thread (or the false impressions my Cartesian SirBruce demon planted in my brain):

There are 3 hunter issues on test server.  Two of them (growl not generating enough aggro and growl not working passively) are obvious bugs that will be fixed before the patch gets moved to live (if they aren't, Blizzard OMGSUX).  The third (wand autoshoot) is just petty whining that I cannot believe even the anklebiters are complaining about.  Then I see some "I'm gonna quit/change classes" or "I'm glad I quit/changed classes" comments.  I concur with Dr. Rasix's diagnosis: sandy vaginitis.

So yeah, poking a little fun at that bit of melodrama seemed legitimate to me (or the Sir Bruce controling my mind).  Fuck, I post melodrama and get called on it all the damn time.  That's what makes these boards go round.  I thought everyone knew that.  Maybe I've grossly misread these boards for the past 5 years, or maybe I've just misread you, but I honestly did not expect this to be a big deal.  If I crossed some line, I apologize.

There are issues with hunters both on the production and test servers. Those of us here who play hunters are quite capable of discussing those issues rationally.

I'm sure they are.  However, they did not do that in this thread.  Point me to the thread where that happens and watch me not tease people for discussing things rationally.  I don't seriously play a hunter (just a 20 something alt) but I believe they have issues.  I just don't think that 2 bugs on test and wand autocast are on that list.  Things like pets not improving beyond level 60 is an important issue.  Pets are an important part of a hunter's package, but they don't improve.  They should add better pets/pet focus items/better pet buff spells or items/something like these to high end instances/pvp rewards/quest rewards so hunter pets can keep improving.

You know what that sounds like?  It sounds a lot like the problem that casters have with their spells not improving past 60 while melee (and hunters) continue to get better and better as they acquire better and better weapons.  I wonder if, when/if Blizzard ever fixes the pet scaling issue, many Mages will scream bloody murder about it.  Because when Blizzard tried to take a TINY step towards helping mage scalability with autocast wands, many Hunters decided to blubber about Blizzard wounding their inner child.

To draw comparisons with the bleating masses on the WoW forums is disingenious and reflects poorly on yourself, not on those of us here who are concerned about various issues in the game.

If you are bound and determined to think less of me for making a teasing post in this board, there's nothing I can do to stop you.  I think you often have worthwhile things to say, so I'll still read your posts and take them for what they are worth. 

[Calantus]

I think the problem is not that people are complaining about bugs on test, but they are acting like they were intentional changes that went live. Hunters and warlocks just really piss alot of people off as a collective because the legitimate issues make certain aspects vent their spleens on trivial shit and then everyone jumps on the "blizz hates us" wagon as if blizz gives a flying fuck to put down a specific class. And really its very detramental to the actual problems being fixed. I know if I was a blizz employee I wouldn't look too hard at the warlock or hunter forums.

[Ironwood]

This is just a symptom of what happens when your bug testers are also your players.

There's no way in hell the average bnet moron can play with his transferred character and not distance himself from the changes.

[Phred]

Hey, look at that! I picked the right week to cancel (58 hunter).

Not to mention long-standing unfixed hunter bugs like the AotH bug, pet run speed bug, or the aforementioned 'dead zone' (literally).

AOTH bug was fixed by nerfing which attack buffs could affect hunters. We no longer get ranged attack bonus from warriors shout or paladin's attack buff. According to Blizzard we never did get the attack bonus from these spells, which is funny because they were the means used to stack up AOTH bonuses to huge levels that caused Blizzard to fix the bug in the first place. Welcome to 1984 where we've never been at war with...

[Phred]

Looking at it a bit more, there are reports that the auto-shoot feature makes the wands shoot at the rate displayed, rather than the slower rate wands normally get (from experience I believe this is a matter of not being able to activate the wand again while the previous shot's animation is still running). That could be part of the complaint.

This is the part that has me a bit concerned. Wands have a very fast attack speed compared to bows. 75 dmg hits may not seem like much but every 1.2 to 1.5 seconds adds up. My bow currently hits for around 150-200 non crit and is a 2.30 speed weapon. Gonna be testing this on my mage when it goes live to see just how much of a boost in dps it becomes. Saying big deal, it only hits for 75 is fine when you're used to 400+ dmg fireballs but remember it takes 3 seconds to cast that fireball. Wand damage is going to be more like arcane missles I think.

[Amp]

Well i've been paying attention to my wand damage since this whine started.
I hit anywhere from 50 to 120 or so with the wand but i'd say it averages to 75 or so damage (blue wand, can't remember the stats on it atm).
Thing is, no matter how fast or how much damage the thing does, I can still click just as fast as auto shoot considering you have to be standing still to use it.
And really, if you are down to using your wand in a fight, you're  dead because you're probably out of mana, which means no shields no blink, no nova and cloth armor..  I just don't see the issue.
It's a pointless whine.  I read it's a bit of a pain in the butt to make it auto-shoot also but I haven't tried the test servers.
I'm finding mages are just too gimped at lvl 60 and most times dungeon runs cost me more then I recieve in loot (plate drops OH I NEED...leather drops OH I NEED, cloth drops....what cloth drops), so instead of crying about it i've shelved him (till they fix all the bugged spells)  in favor of a druid.
I did get a kick out of the fact that a blue responded in the mage forum for the first time in 2 months, and it was to lock 2 decent threads because they were started in all caps in the title.   Not sure which is more insulting.  That or the blues  just ignoring the forum altogether.

[Abel]

I'm finding mages are just too gimped at lvl 60 and most times dungeon runs cost me more then I recieve in loot

Are you kidding me ?

Except for hunters there frankly isn't much to whine about class balance in WoW. Unless you're into nitpicking.

[Amp]

   I'm not gonna turn this into a thread about mages cause i'd rather not highjack the thread.  But let me just say this....Go make a mage to 60.
They are quite gimped.   No sta +dmg gear makes your mage hit a ceiling at 60 while mele characters get stronger and stronger. 
I get more mana.  I don't need more mana.  I can't use more mana when i'm dead with my 3000hps.  And i'm wearing mainly sta gear if you can get a chuckle from that.
I had a rogue one hit kill me in the wetlands the other day.  I had half my hps (1500) plus my mana shield and I died to a rogue in one shot.  Kinda silly really,  but what's more frustrating is having no chance at all.  I chose the pvp server and I enjoy it quite abit.  Don't know how someone can play on a PvE server.  But the mages need some new gear.  And to make that wand of some use.  A special talent with it like a special move or something.  I dunno.
/shrug
The bugs in the frost line (arcane missles broken since release and having claimed to have been fixed in about 3 separate patch notes)  and just being generally ignored by the devs on the forums for the last 2 months, legitimate well thought out posts about bugs  being completely ignored,  made me lose interest.  I really enjoy playing the character but on a pvp server, you are an easy HK so are always first targetted. 
Could just be me but I think if you can stand to read the mage forums for more then 5 mins you'll find some decent posts outlining the problems with mage.


Having a clueless Blue as our rep doesn't help our cause either.  What did he claim 2 mtns ago before the blue posts went silent on the mage forum.  Oh yea, "I don't use my sheep much" or something stupid to that effect.  Main crowd control spell gets gimped and that was the response from our rep.

Just silly shit.  Anyways that druid is a hellofa lot of fun once you get your travel form at 30.  How do druids die?

[Merusk]

Just silly shit.  Anyways that druid is a hellofa lot of fun once you get your travel form at 30.  How do druids die?

What level are you, because they die often and early at the high levels.  The 2 druids I group with die more often than the mage I group with because they don't have any aggro reduction to speak of and we only have them to use as healers because, frankly, playing a priest is boring as hell.   It could also be that the druids are all mmo nooblers while the mage is a vet and knows not to nuke hard and early, or else he'll die.  However, all it takes is one badly timed heal and 'whomp' dead druid, party wipe, start over.

[El Gallo]

I'm finding mages are just too gimped at lvl 60 and most times dungeon runs cost me more then I recieve in loot

Are you kidding me ?

Except for hunters there frankly isn't much to whine about class balance in WoW. Unless you're into nitpicking.

Top end mages are getting obliterated in the dps department because of weapon mudflation and the lack of any spell upgrades or worthwhile focus effects.

[Rasix]

It's funny that one class would think they're the prize pig in the "in need of some adjustment" category.   Read anyone class board for 5 minutes and you'll wonder how they just don't fall dead the second they step out of town.

If I had to go from just reactions from my guild, I'd consider the current bitch to be warlocks.  We used to have a warlock overcrowding problem, now we're lucky to have one on anymore.   Summoning  and stam buffing has now become an issue for us.   

Top end mages are getting obliterated in the dps department because of weapon mudflation and the lack of any spell upgrades or worthwhile focus effects.

Single target yes and over the course of a PVE raid, always the case.  There's just some stuff though you can't do without mages.  If you ever see a mage's name pop up at the top of the DPS tracker though, watch out for incoming storm of rogue bitching.  Hell, they bitch enough as it is. 

But then again as I said, everyone does.  There's never been a MMORPG class that someone couldn't write a 10 page essay about how completely useless and gimped they are.

[Paelos]

I think Warlocks and Warriors are pretty even on the low end of the class balancing. Mostly because Warriors are tanks in most situations and our tanking talents suck ass. A full protection specced warrior still can't hold aggro over a 2H paladin. That's horribly stupid.

[Amp]

But then again as I said, everyone does.  There's never been a MMORPG class that someone couldn't write a 10 page essay about how completely useless and gimped they are.

True, but mages do have end game problems.  This is already being addressed so it's not a case of whining, there is actually a problem.  Otherwise they wouldn't be buffing the mage class sets.
What pisses me off most is that in the last 4 patches we've had a spell broken.  My frost line is just nasty with that graphical warp, my arcane missles still waste mana without firing, and when I take out my guild to twink them and drag them up through levels, i've been getting resisted by  Lvl 15-20 creatures.     Level 20's debuffing 31 talent point talents.  Oh and here's the best and latest I ran into before shelving him, my cold snap not refreshing my shields like it's supposed to.
I think i've had my counterspell resisted by guys my own level more in the last 2 weeks of play then the entire time i've been at 60.
There are problems with the mage.  Forgetting the dps issues, the spells are very much broken.  I'd love for them to just fix the spells.  This would give me some interest in playing the toon again.  This isn't even addressing the balance issues being faced with high end resist gear.

As for the warlocks, yea they needed the luv too, and are getting it.  The warlock  Blue poster is the same rep as the mage.  The mages haven't seen him in the mage forum in months but he's all over the warlock forum.  I'm GUESSING after he's done with the warlocks it's off to fix the mages, but i'm not holding my breath.


And to my druid, I figured when I pulled aggro from healing I might be able to just drop into bear form and wait for the tanks to pull aggro back.   I thought maybe I could just sit there without hitting him. 
If i'm the only healer that could be a problem I guess, but when i'm in bear form I have this insane amount of armor. 
I'm only level 31-32 so I dunno how viable this will be in higher end instances.
One thing i'm not to impressed with is that I get one res every 30 mins and it costs me a reagent.  But then I guess we can't have it all and thier are a million pallys around.
I also find I suck as a group healer( not the druid class just me).  I'm so used to the mage that I tend to forget about my party.

[Jayce]

One thing i'm not to impressed with is that I get one res every 30 mins and it costs me a reagent. 

But it can be used during combat, so you can res the priest so he can flee for the instance line :D

Get engineering and you'll have two per 30 minutes.

[Lantien]

I think Warlocks and Warriors are pretty even on the low end of the class balancing. Mostly because Warriors are tanks in most situations and our tanking talents suck ass. A full protection specced warrior still can't hold aggro over a 2H paladin. That's horribly stupid.

Actually as a Warrior, I've think we've done pretty well in the grand scheme of things. The protection tree could use some sprucing up, and a direct conversion of rage via an instant attack skill into damage that I don't have to dump a ton of points into the Arms tree would be lovely. But those are minor nits compared to the problems with some of the other classes (Warlocks, certain styles of Paladins believe it or not).

As for your aggro holding problems, what sort of build are you using?  What's your level?  As a warrior, here's how I normally start fights.

1. Gun Pull, or charge.  Charge is sexier and gives me more rage, but sometimes it's tactically unsound.
2. Go into Defensive stance, if not already there.  Slightly more threat in defensive stance, thanks to the talent of Defiance.
3. Demoralizing Shout the group to get some initial attention.
4. Build up enough rage to get shield block going.  With the initial attention on me, the enemy will hopefully hit me, and I can get Revenge going.  The problem you may be seeing is at this point, Paladins like to stun, because they believe that more stuns = less hits on the tank, which is a good thing. Sadly, it also means the attention on you is gone, since Paladins are 2Hing, and Rogues are doing chopchopchop.
5. After getting hit, build enough rage (5 points is trivial) to land Revenge, which generates insane threat/aggro. If I've lost aggro for some reason, use Taunt, that will get it back on you. Use Bloodrage to get a free 10 points of rage.  Don't worry, a good priest/healer should be doing so.

6. At this point, keep Shield Block/Revenge going.  Use Sunder armor for even more rage for kicks. If you're still using focus, use taunt again, and then follow up with Sunder to build up some extra rage. If you're desperate, swap to battle stance and use Mocking Blow, to get the aggro on you for a few seconds.

7. The key is the shield block/revenge.  If at around 10-20%, the aggro is on the Paladin, don't bother, Paladins are strong folks, they can take a hit or two. If it's a Rogue or Priest, scramble to get attention back on you.  Using a combination of Taunt and then Sunder tends to help. Mocking Blow, again if you're very desperate.

The main problem is when you have multiple adds.  It's very common to be tanking one guy, get healed, and then see the other 4 guys on the healer.  Another situation is where you pull a few folks, and the Paladin consecrates, resulting in the all the extra mobs on the Paladin.

In the latter situation, I could care less.  If the Paladin wants to take on 3 guys, it's his funeral.  I may try to cleave to get the attention of another, or even swap focus and do a quick taunt if things are bad.  But self-healing guys in plate = no sympathy.

In the former, building rage for Cleave is vital, or even something as simple as swapping stances for Thunder Clap.  Using taunt also comes in handy; you may be ping-ponging rage for a bit though.  A smart priest knows to cast fade at this point.  If not, berate your priest. Really though, you should be having someone do some sort of CC. Mage Polymorph, Druid Sleep, Priest Shackle, Rogue Sap, Warlock Seduce, etc. If your group can handle a group of mobs without these tools, great.  Just keep on plowing.  However, if they can't handle more than 2 mobs, then you need to let the group know they need to take it slower and actually engage Crowd Control tactics.  It's not popular for the people that was to just mindlessly run through instances, but it's better in the long run to know how to use these tactics for difficult places where having superior #s isn't an option.

You'll note that besides mentioning defiance, even a 31/20 arms/fury warrior can do everything I just said.  I won't lie, it's much easier to do this with a Protection specced warrior (easier to get revenge to light up, and Revenge has a %chance to stun). However, the mechanics are there for Arms/Fury warriors who are willing to use a 1h/Shield to be quasi-competant.

But then again as I said, everyone does. There's never been a MMORPG class that someone couldn't write a 10 page essay about how completely useless and gimped they are.

True, but mages do have end game problems. This is already being addressed so it's not a case of whining, there is actually a problem. Otherwise they wouldn't be buffing the mage class sets.
What pisses me off most is that in the last 4 patches we've had a spell broken. My frost line is just nasty with that graphical warp, my arcane missles still waste mana without firing, and when I take out my guild to twink them and drag them up through levels, i've been getting resisted by Lvl 15-20 creatures. Level 20's debuffing 31 talent point talents. Oh and here's the best and latest I ran into before shelving him, my cold snap not refreshing my shields like it's supposed to.
I think i've had my counterspell resisted by guys my own level more in the last 2 weeks of play then the entire time i've been at 60.
There are problems with the mage. Forgetting the dps issues, the spells are very much broken. I'd love for them to just fix the spells. This would give me some interest in playing the toon again. This isn't even addressing the balance issues being faced with high end resist gear.

As for the warlocks, yea they needed the luv too, and are getting it. The warlock Blue poster is the same rep as the mage. The mages haven't seen him in the mage forum in months but he's all over the warlock forum. I'm GUESSING after he's done with the warlocks it's off to fix the mages, but i'm not holding my breath.

And to my druid, I figured when I pulled aggro from healing I might be able to just drop into bear form and wait for the tanks to pull aggro back. I thought maybe I could just sit there without hitting him.
If i'm the only healer that could be a problem I guess, but when i'm in bear form I have this insane amount of armor.
I'm only level 31-32 so I dunno how viable this will be in higher end instances.
One thing i'm not to impressed with is that I get one res every 30 mins and it costs me a reagent. But then I guess we can't have it all and thier are a million pallys around.
I also find I suck as a group healer( not the druid class just me). I'm so used to the mage that I tend to forget about my party.

Amp, I think it's still somewhat viable.  However, most Druids are expected to mainheal themselves and 4 other people because because it's very rare that you will see per 5 person group, that you have the luxury of having both a Priest and a Druid available, so they feel that if they're unable to heal, they can't help the other classes in case their partymates are also getting ripped up, and will get blamed for not healing. In these cases, in all fariness, a tank class should be scrambling like mad to pull aggro off (arguably Warriors can do this the fastest), while the Paladin (because you know there's at least 1 paladin in every party) should be taking over healing duties.  However, in reality, the druid panics and heals themself, getting more threat, the Warrior is either engaged on a mob or too busy being wailing on the mob that the MT is tanking, and most pickup Paladins are loathe to drop their mana pool past 70%, or are unwilling to stop dealing damage to do healing assistance, citing small mana pools and not being specced to heal. Crafting a response that's not laced with profanity or insults the moral fiber of their mothers can be difficult, especially if you wipe on that point.

[sidereal]

And to my druid, I figured when I pulled aggro from healing I might be able to just drop into bear form and wait for the tanks to pull aggro back.   I thought maybe I could just sit there without hitting him. 

You could, but if you're not going to hit him you may as well drop to Cat and Cower.  If you're in an environment where you'll get one- or two-shotted in Cat, you need better tanks or you need to stick to spamming Rejuv and Regrowth for healing.

Druid is better as a secondary-everything.  Healing and buffing when necessary, tanking in Bear when a healer gets aggro, backstabbing in Cat elsewise.

[jpark]

On aggro and the use of a shield - don't forget to add a shield spike.  It is passive damage, since each opponent attacking you in addition to the one you have targeted has a chance of getting damaged by the spike.  Using Shield block seems to increase this likelihood even more.

Challenging shout is good for emergencies - AoE taunt - but unfortunately it is on a 10 minute timer.  This is where CoH tanks shine over WoW tanks.