Being an Aggro Monkey - And Loving It

Farming up some emblems on my mage the other day (Oculus again, /groan), I realised something which probably makes me a very bad person. I reaaaaally like stealing aggro sometimes. A quick explanation is in order, I guess.

My mage is fire-specced. She was Arcane (purple-pink-rainbow-sodamnpretty-squeeee), since 3.0 when she was a cute level level 64 gnome with pink hair rather than the troll lass with a magenta mohawk she is now, all the way up until a few weeks ago, but... it was getting boring. Once more very high DPS despite a roller coaster ride throughout Wrath; wonderful cooldowns that seemed to be ready all the time; absurdly low threat; and decent efficiency. But it basically involved counting to four. Arcane Barrage, my purplepinkrainbow-squee spell of choice since since Outlands, was no longer worth casting except on the move, and even then only if Presence of Mind was on cooldown and thus preventing a nice instant Arcane Blast. Blast four times, Missiles, repeat. Yawn.

So - fire spec now. It's a lot more tricky for me to make work, tracking Living Bomb and the Improved Scorch debuff took a while to get implanted, and Hot Streak can be flaky as hell when your crit is still a tad on the low side. But it's FUN. And the first time you get to plant Living Bomb on a whooooole buncha stuff and watch it all explode in sequence... well. I cackled. I'm not usually a cackler, but I'll make an exception for that.

But the main thing that makes it fun, right now? Omen screaming aggro warnings at me. Yeah, tanks probably know me - I'm That Mage that watches the tank charge and then instantly starts applying LB to every mob in the pull, then drops Flamestrike, and then... the first LB starts to blow up and suddenly Mr. Tank isn't so interesting, noooo, not compared to the pyromaniac troll cackling to herself at the back with only 10% threat reduction and an inexplicably spiky dress, lolaoe-ing with impunity. Most tanks don't actually have a problem, even nuking my evil heart out I may get a pulse or two of high aggro warning and then everything's dead or fascinated with the tank again. With paladins in particular, I rarely even get that (and is it wrong that it's not as satisfying if I don't?).

But back to Oculus. We had a pugged warrior tank, and, well... his threat generation wasn't the greatest. He wasn't undergeared, by a long shot, and as far as I can tell his points were all in sensible places. But eeeevery pull I got a mob... or two... or four charging towards me. I got to use Frost Nova, Ice Block, Invisibility, even a desperate Mana Shield a few times. I was having immense fun, and although I was actually chatting to the healer on Vent and she cheerfully informed me that if I died it was my own damn fault (I know that!) I managed to stay alive until all the mobs were dead. Each and every time, much to everyone's chagrin. About halfway around the ring o' constructs he informed me that I should watch my aggro. Right you are champ! Continued doing exaaactly the same thing until the end of the instance. Clearly I am a bastard.

I think that's the only time I've honestly enjoyed a good chunk of the Oculus. I did a fair amount of damage, but mostly I was just having fun using all those survivability options that rarely get a showing outside of PvP. I feel a little guilty about the poor tank. But only a little. In fact, only a leetle, which is even less. I've seen tanks in worse gear generate plenty more threat.

Besides he may have been letting the mobs go to teach me a lesson. Muhaha, I refuse to be taught lessons! /cast Ice Block