Tanking grouped mobs and keeping aggro

[tawek]

<div>I've tanked for a group with some success against single heroic mobs.  My avoidance and defensive stance meant I held off the damage fairly well, and my damage output plus taunts kept the aggro.</div><div> </div><div>But when I've tried to tank heroic groups, I've had trouble holding aggro.  Anyone got any tips?</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Best example I can think of is when I duoed with a fury.</div><div> </div><div>I started with our two AoE's, then taunted and damaged one mob, trying to kill it fast so there was one fewer to worry about agro-control on.  But shortly after killing the first, the extras switched to the healer, and I couldn't pull them off.</div><div> </div><div>Anyone had similar problems?  And do they have suggested solutions?  Tactics I may try include:</div><ul><li>No longer trying to kill one fast; instead constantly switching mobs to maintain agro.</li><li>Switching off defensive stance, or even switching on offensive stance.  This means more dps, so more agro.  Also faster killing of first mob so reducing the number that need to be taunted.  However, maybe this would be counterproductive, as lower defence=more heals needed.  And more heals means more risk of healer getting agro.</li><li>Using mez immediately after AoEs, so I don't need to worry about one mob for 15 seconds.</li></ul><p>Part of my problem may have been the fury: I think they were new to the game.  The fury wasn't amenable to suggestions, so it wasn't possible to discuss things they could do to help me keep aggro.</p><p>Anyone any experiences to share about how they tank grouped mobs, and ideas for doing it better?</p>

[Karath Morningst]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>tawek21 wrote:<div>I've tanked for a group with some success against single heroic mobs.  My avoidance and defensive stance meant I held off the damage fairly well, and my damage output plus taunts kept the aggro.</div><div> </div><div>But when I've tried to tank heroic groups, I've had trouble holding aggro.  Anyone got any tips?</div><div> </div><div><font color="#ccff33">Sure. I tank 75% of the time (non-raid), and most of the rest of the time, it's another Swashy doing the tanking. We're both level 60.</font></div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Best example I can think of is when I duoed with a fury.</div><div> </div><div>I started with our two AoE's, then taunted and damaged one mob, trying to kill it fast so there was one fewer to worry about agro-control on.  But shortly after killing the first, the extras switched to the healer, and I couldn't pull them off.</div><div> </div><div>Anyone had similar problems?  And do they have suggested solutions?  Tactics I may try include:</div><div> </div><div><font color="#ccff66">First off, if you're not level 52+, you don't have hurricane yet. It helps a LOT in keeping aggro on a multi-mob heroic encounter. The added % chance of your primary-hand autoattack turning into an AE helps build hate, but it also gives a chance for added procs (interrupt, inspired daring, poisons, etc) going off and further compounding the hate on the whole encounter.</font></div><div><font color="#ccff66"></font> </div><div><font color="#ccff66">If you're trying to keep aggro, keep a poison up (minimum player-made for your tier, preferably the very high damage, very low DoT, and even better, use legendary if you can afford it), keep a mitigation debuff poison up (I tend to go with a noxious debuff or a crush/pierce debuff depending on the makeup of the rest of the group and if I'm using any slashing weapons at all), and, if you've got the coin to blow, use a stun/stifle/dps slow or other 'misc' poison. All this poison adds to your aggro in addition to it's debilitating effect on your enemy.</font></div><div><font color="#ccff66"></font> </div><div><font color="#ccff66">If you can live through it, have the healer(s) not put any sort of reactive effect on you until you've established aggro (no cleric reactive heals, wards, or preemptive regens). You want every single one of those creatures you've just pulled to have some level of direct hate on you. If you damage/taunt one out of three, and another hits you and causes a reactive to go off, is absorbed by a ward, or any of them damage you and that initial hit is regenerated before you've hit the others, they're going to make a beeline for your healer.</font></div><div><font color="#ccff66"></font> </div><div><font color="#ccff66">In some crazy pulls (like say, a group of a dozen double/triple down arrow mobs), you simply aren't gonna be able to get hate with all of them as a swashy as we have no true 'encounter' attacks/debuffs), you will know that chances are very good that you're going to have to pull some of them off of your healer as they swarm you. In those instances, pull back to your healer, and as the mobs swarm in, queue up your AEs. Chances are that you're going to miss one or more of them due to random dice rolls and the maximum AE targets that our AE's can hit. Identify which ones are hitting your healer after that and single-taunt/damage them til they're all off the healer, or are all dead.</font></div><div><font color="#ccff66"></font> </div><div><font color="#ccff66"></font> </div><ul><li>No longer trying to kill one fast; instead constantly switching mobs to maintain agro.</li><li><font color="#ccff66">I generally do this method, however, in most cases, once I get aggro, I dont lose it as I've stuck a poison on the mob and when I switch off of it to the next mob on the healer, I'm still generating hate over time on it.</font></li></ul><p><font color="#ccff66"></font> </p><ul><li>Switching off defensive stance, or even switching on offensive stance.  This means more dps, so more agro.  Also faster killing of first mob so reducing the number that need to be taunted.  However, maybe this would be counterproductive, as lower defence=more heals needed.  And more heals means more risk of healer getting agro.</li><li><font color="#ccff66">I play almost exclusively in offensive stance. About the only time I ever go to defensive stance is when we're trying to single-group a groupx2 mob. Even on Cazel, I tank in offensive stance. Our damage output keeps aggro for us, and killing the mob a lot faster and making sure our debuffs on our attacks stick on the mob have a great effect in mitigating the amount of damage a mob can do to us. If you are in situations where you just die way too fast without defensive stance up, try to keep swindler's luck up at all times to keep your miss rate down.</font></li></ul><p><font color="#ccff66"></font> </p><ul><li>Using mez immediately after AoEs, so I don't need to worry about one mob for 15 seconds.</li><li><font color="#ccff66">About the only time I use mez in a group environment is when we get a mean ^^^ add (such as the roaming djinns in Poets Palace). In that case, I turn autoattack off, target the add, mez it, retarget the original mob, taunt it, and back up far enough that the mezzed add is out of AE range. Some of the time though, I'll have gotten to the add too late and ended up with a poison stuck on it and well, my reflexes aren't so finely honed that I can easily target the add, see the poison icon on it, click the poison debuff effect off, mez the target, and then move away, dragging the original back.</font></li></ul><p>Part of my problem may have been the fury: I think they were new to the game.  The fury wasn't amenable to suggestions, so it wasn't possible to discuss things they could do to help me keep aggro.</p><p><font color="#ccff66">Not to pile on the fury, but, it sounds more like an adjustment to their tactics would have best benefitted your duo. Perhaps they were putting up a regen as soon as you pulled or pretty quickly after the fact? Maybe it was something as simple as the fury not assisting you and spending time nuking other mobs in the encounter?</font></p><p>Anyone any experiences to share about how they tank grouped mobs, and ideas for doing it better?</p><p><font color="#ccff66">Just a couple more suggestions. When you pull, use your ranged combat art. It's got a bit of a delay on it (though nothing like a longbow) and hits twice as well as snaring the target, so, thats 2 hits, a snare, and 2 chances to proc your poisons. That's a pretty darn good bit of hate for one button and you can quickly target another mob, taunt it, and swap to a possible third mob for a quick triple attack by the time the group has reached you. Once they are closing in range, fire off your AEs. Don't be afraid to space them apart and, for example, hit just 2 or 3 mobs in your first AE, and get the rest of the stragglers in your second AE.</font></p><p><font color="#ccff66">Always always always turn the mobs (pull them to you, then run forward through them so they turn around with their backs to the rest of your group). Even if you aren't grouped with other scouts who don't want to have to go to the opposite side of the tank to use flanking/back attacks, you will spare your group any front-area attacks that many mobs have (bears in Enchanted Lands are probably the first ones you'll see with a really nasty frontal area attack).</font></p><p><font color="#ccff66">Don't be afraid to experiment with using a 1-handed weapon and a round shield. Ideally, every swashy should have 2 slashing dual-wield weapons, 2 piercing dual-wield weapons, 1 round shield, 1 1-handed piercing weapon, and 1 1-handed slashing weapon.</font></p><p><font color="#ccff66">Create a macro for pulling. Go to 'o' for Socials, hit the Macros tab, create a new one, name it Incoming, pick an icon you like, and in the command text, put a single line:</font></p><p><font color="#ccff66">/g I am pulling %t. Be ready!</font></p><p><font color="#ccff66">Change the message text to whatever suits your character style, but the key part is /g (groupchat), and %t (the name of whatever you have targetted).</font></p><hr></blockquote>

[tawek]

<div>To Cherok Windcry,</div><div> </div><div>That's probably the best post I've read on the various forums on this board, and I've read many good ones.  A comprehensive and extremely helpful answer to my question.  Many thanks.</div>

[Syrano]

A lot of how you tank will depend on your group make-up and group skill level.  I find myself tanking for a couple of different group combo's, with the biggest factor depending on whether there is any external crowd control.Unlike you folk folks, if I'm tanking I tend to stay in defensive stance. Increased surviveability for my groups seems to be more important than my own damage output.  Generally my damage output is still leading the rest of the group, even defensively.  If fighting yellows/oranges I may expiriment with offensive stance, depends on the buffs available in the group makeup.As for CC, never ever underestimate our crowd control abilities.  When I pull, I tend to pull with a ranged attack, followed by a snare, this ensures one mob of the group arrives late.  As the mobs approach, look for the one b-lining for the healer (in any multi-mob pull, one inevitably goes for the healer).  Mez that one with charm, you get a 15-20 second reprieve.The next several steps are somewhat key.  Target priority is important, I'll drop healers first, then casters, then tank/dps mobs.  (Primarily because casters go down fast and eliminating mobs is key). We get two stun attacks, one is very tricky to use.  Brazen Thrust will stun a mob for a good 5 seconds, Cheap shot lasts for 6.  Use them!  You can often use Brazen thrust on a pull or on any mob that is engaging a group mate.  It is adviseable to have a stealth/brazen thrust macro.  Yes our combat stealth dumps aggro so this can be... challenging.  Often I find getting brazen thrust off on a mob that's not on me is more improtant then the aggro dump (if a mob has its back to me, I try to kill it, not tank it.  The damage I do will either drop it, or make it turn). I'll use cheap shot on the target mob I want to kill, this nifty stun is a basic crowd control and then immeidately move behind the mob to flank and backstab.  At this point if I don't have aggro on it, I will!  You can use this technique to get aggro on most mobs, unless someone has had to do a large amount of healing. The rest of a multi-mob fight is sort of ring-around-the-rosies, if necessary keep switching targets but I usually find I drop them pretty fast.  Target priority is always whichever mobs are not already hitting me.  If all are hitting me, it's the order I mentioned above.Other Tips:When tanking, try and keep all mobs IN FRONT of you.  Your defense is much higer (even in offensive stants) against mobs in your front arc.  especially if you are using a shield.  None of your innate defensive skills will be used by mobs attacking from the sides or rear.  It helps to have a terrain wall or other obstacle at your back.  NOTE: Mobs will always move to encircle you, the logic seems to be based on your current focus of attack (they spread out to either side in a semi-circle).Make sure all buffers buff before the pull and avoid heavy duty stuff during the fight. If you have a CC class (Coercer/Illusionist) then you never have to really worry about CC, standard tanking rules.I don't use Hurricane in these situations.  It breaks stuns/mez and really destroys any real CC efforts. Given that my strategy is focused on CC, Hurricane just isn't worth the added aggravation.  However, in some situations it makes sense, always pull the group of mobs AWAY from the mezzed mobs.  This makes sound AE sense anyway, but never hurts to remind folks.<div></div>

[Belizarius]

<div></div><p>Sounds like you were doing about as well as could be expected of a Swashy, tanking groups is awkward.  If the Fury didn't want to discuss tactics then they probably deserved to get aggro.</p><p>Even tanks with AE taunts sometimes need to switch targets to pull mobs off healers though.</p>