WoW Threat & Aggro Glossary
Every enemy in World of Warcraft keeps a running score of how much each player has annoyed it. That score is threat, and whoever is on top of it has aggro — the enemy attacks them. Group play is built around keeping that top spot on the tank. When a damage dealer or healer "pulls aggro", the boss turns away from the tank, and in Classic that is often the start of a wipe.
This glossary explains the threat terms you will see in guides, addon menus and group chat, and points out where Classic Era, the Classic progression realms and modern retail work differently. In short: in Classic, threat is a resource the whole group has to manage; in retail, tanks generate so much threat that it mostly matters for taunt swaps and for the first seconds of a pull.
Threat
Threat is a hidden number each enemy keeps for every player and pet it is fighting. It starts at zero when you enter combat with that enemy and is cleared when combat ends. The basic rules, documented by the community wiki from in-game testing, are the same in every version:
| Action | Threat generated |
|---|---|
| Damage | 1 threat per 1 point of damage, multiplied by your threat modifiers |
| Healing | 0.5 threat per point of effective healing (overhealing counts for nothing), split evenly between all enemies fighting you |
| Buffs on allies | A fixed amount per buff, split between enemies |
| Gaining mana from some effects | 0.5 threat per point |
| Gaining rage from some effects | 5 threat per point |
Two consequences matter in practice. Healers draw threat from every enemy in the fight at once, which is why a healer is often the first target when a pull goes wrong. And threat from damage is per enemy: hitting one target doesn't make the others notice you, but cleaves and area spells do.
Aggro
Aggro (from "aggravation") is the state of being the enemy's current target. The enemy attacks whoever has aggro until something changes it: a taunt, a special boss mechanic, or another player overtaking the current target's threat by a margin — see the next entry.
"Pulling aggro" means taking the enemy's attention away from the tank, usually by accident. "Holding aggro" is the tank's job.
Threat cap and the 110% / 130% rule
An enemy does not switch targets the moment someone passes the tank on its threat list. You have to exceed the current target's threat by:
- 10% (110% of the tank's threat) if you are in melee range of the enemy;
- 30% (130%) if you are outside melee range.
That margin is what players call the threat cap or "aggro cap": the most threat you can safely build before the enemy turns to you. A ranged player can therefore go further over the tank than a melee player, and a melee player who steps out of range is suddenly safer — while a ranged player who walks into melee range loses their extra 20% margin.
Good Classic damage dealers play right under this line: they let the tank build a lead on the pull, then deal as much damage as the tank's threat allows. The threat meter is how they see where the line is.
Threat modifiers: Classic vs retail
Stances, forms and auras multiply the threat you generate. Multiple modifiers stack multiplicatively.
| Modifier | Classic Era | Modern retail |
|---|---|---|
| Warrior Defensive Stance | ×1.3 (talents can raise it further) | — |
| Warrior Battle / Berserker Stance | ×0.8 | — |
| Druid Bear Form | ×1.3 | — |
| Paladin Righteous Fury | +60% threat from Holy spells | — |
| Tank specialisations | — | Large built-in threat multiplier (documented at ×5 since 2011) |
| Blessing of Salvation (Paladin) | −30% threat on the target (5 min in Classic Era, 10 min in BC Classic) | Removed as a raid buff in Legion (7.0.3) |
| Misdirection (Hunter) / Tricks of the Trade (Rogue) | Misdirection from The Burning Crusade on; Tricks from Wrath | Send all your threat to a chosen ally for 4 s (Misdirection) or 6 s (Tricks) |
Why the gap is so large: Blizzard has raised tank threat several times; a Cataclysm hotfix in August 2011 alone moved the tank modifier from 300% to 500%. With a ×5 multiplier a retail tank stays far ahead of anyone without paying attention, which is why retail threat problems are mostly about taunts and the opening seconds, while Classic still rewards careful play.
Aggro table
The aggro table (or threat table) is the list each enemy keeps of everyone it is in combat with, ordered by threat. It is per enemy: in a pull of five mobs there are five separate tables, and the tank can be top on four of them while a mage is top on the fifth. Full explanation: Aggro table.
Aggro range
Aggro range (aggro radius) is how close you can get before an idle enemy notices you and attacks. Community testing puts it at about 20 yards for an enemy of your own level, changing by roughly one yard per level of difference — higher-level characters can walk closer — with a minimum of melee range and a maximum of 45 yards. Height counts more than horizontal distance. Full article: Aggro range.
Threat meter (aggro meter, aggro tracker)
A threat meter — also called an aggro meter or aggro tracker — shows each group member's threat on the current target, usually as bars with a percentage relative to the tank. It is how damage dealers know how close they are to the threat cap.
A bit of history explains why so many names exist:
- Before patch 3.0.2 (October 2008) the game didn't tell addons anyone's threat. Meters such as KTM and early Omen estimated it from combat logs and shared the numbers between group members over hidden addon messages.
- Patch 3.0.2 added an official threat API (
UnitDetailedThreatSituation), and Omen became the standard meter for years. - WoW Classic (2019) was built on the modern client but initially exposed no threat data, so the community went back to estimates: ThreatClassic2 and its library LibThreatClassic2 calculated threat and shared it between players running the addon.
- Classic patch 1.13.5 (July 2020) added the threat API to Classic as well, removing the need for that chat traffic.
Today most players use either a dedicated meter or the threat display built into damage-meter addons such as Details!. In retail, many tanks rely on nameplate colours instead of a separate window.
Aggro warning
An aggro warning is any alert that you are about to pull, or have just pulled, an enemy. The default interface already gives one: your portrait and target frame show a coloured threat glow driven by the same threat status the API exposes:
| Colour | Meaning |
|---|---|
| None | You are not high on the enemy's threat |
| Yellow | You have more threat than the current target but haven't taken aggro yet |
| Orange | The enemy is attacking you, but someone else has more threat — you are about to lose it |
| Red | You have aggro and are top of the threat list |
For a damage dealer, yellow is the warning sign: back off before it turns red. Threat-meter addons add sounds and screen flashes at a chosen percentage, often 80–90% of the tank's threat.
TPS (threat per second)
TPS is the average threat a player generates per second — the tank's counterpart to DPS for damage or HPS for healing. It answers the question "how hard can our damage dealers push?": the higher the tank's TPS, the more damage everyone else can do before reaching the threat cap.
TPS is mostly discussed in Classic, where warrior and druid tanks compare abilities by threat per rage spent and theorycrafters simulate tank TPS for gear choices. In retail, tank threat output is high enough that TPS is rarely tracked.
HPS (heals per second)
HPS measures healing output per second, the healer's equivalent of DPS. It matters for threat because healing creates threat on every enemy at once. Full article: HPS.
Taunt
A taunt forces an enemy to target you. Warrior Taunt, Druid Growl, Paladin Hand of Reckoning and Death Knight Dark Command all work the same basic way: they raise your threat to match the highest threat on the enemy's list and make it attack you, so that any further threat you generate keeps it on you.
In Classic, Warrior Taunt forces the enemy to attack you for a few seconds; Mocking Blow and Challenging Shout force attacks for a short time without moving you up the threat list, so the enemy returns to whoever really has the most threat when they expire. Taunts can also be resisted in Classic, which is why tanks open a pull with damage rather than relying on Taunt.
In raids, taunt swaps are part of many boss fights: a boss applies a stacking debuff to its target, and the second tank taunts it away so the first tank's debuff can expire.
Leash and reset (aggro timer)
What players sometimes call an aggro timer is really two behaviours:
- Leash — an enemy chases you only so far from where it was pulled. Past that point it clears its threat table, becomes immune while it runs home (it "evades"), and resets to full health.
- Out-of-combat timer — if nobody damages, heals or is attacked by an enemy for a while, combat ends and threat resets.
Two practical rules: trash in dungeons and raids generally does not leash, so running away rarely works inside an instance; and bosses that reset after a wipe also reset their threat tables, so every attempt starts from zero.
Threat drops and threat transfers
Several classes can lower or move their threat — useful when you are near the threat cap:
| Ability | Class | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Feign Death | Hunter | Removes you from enemies' threat lists (can be resisted) |
| Vanish | Rogue | Removes you from all threat lists |
| Fade | Priest | Temporarily lowers your threat |
| Invisibility | Mage | Lowers threat over a few seconds, then removes you from threat lists |
| Soulshatter | Warlock (from The Burning Crusade) | Large threat reduction on all nearby enemies |
| Misdirection / Tricks of the Trade | Hunter / Rogue | Send your threat to the tank for a few seconds — standard on the pull |
Tips: managing threat in Classic
- Give the tank a head start. Wait for the tank's first few hits (a couple of Sunder Armors from a warrior) before opening up; threat leads are built in the first seconds.
- Kill the tank's target. Focus fire on the marked target; the tank holds the others with less threat than the one everyone is hitting.
- Watch your meter, not the tank. Use the threat meter and keep below 110% in melee, 130% at range.
- Healers, stay out of trouble. Your threat lands on every enemy; let the tank tag everything before big heals.
- Use your drops early. Feign Death or Fade at 90% is a non-event; at 111% it's a dead healer.
Running dungeons as a fresh character is the best way to learn threat; if you'd rather skip the learning curve on a new character, see our WoW dungeon services.
Related WoW terms
- Aggro range · Aggro table · HPS
- Targeting, assist & swing timer terms
- Abilities, racials & combat stats
- Rotation and LFG / LFM in the general gaming terms
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