Capturing hate during the pull

[Thoral]

<p>I'm having a bit of trouble capturing the initial aggro of epic mobs when I pull during a raid.  90% of the time everything works great, but that last 10% the mob runs past me to a healer.  I don't want to tell the healers not to preward or put reactives on me.  I'd rather figure out a way to capture the mob even with prewards.</p><p>I've been using my encounter taunt first because it has a longer range and is master 1, then my shield bash to try and stop their physical movement, and then my single-target taunt.  However, using these three abilities doesn't always stop the mob.  I still get resists to my taunts and I can miss with my shield bash.  I saw somewhere today that Decimate always hits for high damage, so I was considering using that instead of shield bash.  I also tried Goading Gesture instead of my single-target taunt for a while until I noticed that the resistability is better on my single-target taunt.</p><p>What three or four arts do all of you open with to make sure you capture epic mobs on the pull?</p><p>Thanks!</p>

[YummiOger]

<p>Decimate = 100% hit Rate and -70ish DEF</p><p>then Exact Strike --> Infuriate --> AE taunt --> Single Target taunt--> Start CA rotation....</p><p> Front Load damage output. 1 Damage =1 Threat per DEVs. </p><p>I only use Taunts if i have no other CA up. Taunts are pretty useless IMO.</p>

[vinere]

If i remember reading right, EQ2 suffers from the same problem warriors had in eq1 for a long time, and thats an innitial aggro cap.  What this means is the first action you take on a mob will have a capped amount of hate no matter what CA/Ability you use, and this cap is rather low.  Thus you are much better off hitting range attack, and then spaming ae taunt right after.  The range attack will get you on the hate list, and thus it removed the initial aggro penalty, and all your CA/Abilitys will land for full aggro.

[thial]

First taunts are very useful and they work and there is no reason not to use them..1200-1800 hate is that amount of damage if it lands. There have been times where just one taunt got agro back on me where it would have taken two CA's to equal the same amount of hate and thus loosing agro for longer, they work. If there so useless take all 4 off the hot bar and MT a raid or group w/o them if the dps is any good your not gona have fun. I do think though all fighter taunts should have 10-20% more hate on them..<p>Are you having trouble with single target mobs or group mobs? I rarely have an issue with a single target mob. Group mobs take more strategy I guess you can say.What I normally do for a group encounter is arrow pull if possible if I have to body pull the second I can I nail the mob with infraction(Single) hit guard(group) than Impede(single) than Siege(group) that takes 2-3 seconds than I follow with accelerated strike (AA) decimate-mar-slander assault. Than I role my CA's keeping accel up and hitting taunts as they pop. Single target mobs I just take the AE's out the cast order...Also when using guard make sure all the mobs are in range you can still use guard on one mob but if the rest of the encounter is to far away its not gonna land on the mob and you gota wait 30 seconds for the next one....You could also try using sentinel or sphere or even immobility(I'm almost positive it works on epics just has the resisttime penalties) to control the mobs. Another note when I'm in the MT group there is usually no one that really needs moderate you could always put that on a healer..</p>

[Yimway]

Arrow tag it on incomming, you MUST be the first person to do damage.Hit encounter taunt as its range is longer than decimate.Decimate as soon as in melee range.  follow this up with infraction.  Your melee based taunt will have a higher hit rate vs an undebuffed mob than your straight taunts.  Then go with your highest dps abilities (anything that crits over 3k), the hit taunts.I do find that in VP I'm starting some fights with reinforcement to guarantee an aggro lock so that people don't need to hold back.

[Thoral]

<p>Thanks for the input everyone.  Im going to rearrange my button bar like this:</p><p>range attack, AE taunt, Decimate, Infraction, single taunt, executioners wrath, mar...</p><p>I'll try body pulling, waiting for the mob to clear whatever danger made me body pull, and then try to get off a ranged attack.  I assume this is possible if I'm quick enough.</p><p>Out of all this discussion, I think the most important thing I learned is that Decimate always hits and should draw aggro even if everything else misses or is resisted.</p><p>Thanks again!</p>

[vinere]

If you body pull you are alrdy on the hatelist and wont need to range attack.  Once you are on the mobs hatelist you arnt subject to the initial aggro cap.  Only the action taken to get onto the hatelist has an aggro cap.

[thial]

<cite>vinere wrote:</cite><blockquote>If you body pull you are alrdy on the hatelist and wont need to range attack.  Once you are on the mobs hatelist you arnt subject to the initial aggro cap.  Only the action taken to get onto the hatelist has an aggro cap.</blockquote>This is interesting I was not aware of that..thanks heh

[YummiOger]

<cite>vinere wrote:</cite><blockquote>If i remember reading right, EQ2 suffers from the same problem warriors had in eq1 for a long time, and thats an innitial aggro cap.  What this means is the first action you take on a mob will have a capped amount of hate no matter what CA/Ability you use, and this cap is rather low.  Thus you are much better off hitting range attack, and then spaming ae taunt right after.  The range attack will get you on the hate list, and thus it removed the initial aggro penalty, and all your CA/Abilitys will land for full aggro.</blockquote><p>I believe this is incorrect. iv been raid tanking in eq2 for 4 years and iv never seen, hear or experienced such a phenomina.</p><p>Do you have any information to back this up?</p><p>DEVs have stated/posted that 1damage = 1threat. so if deciamate hits for 2,000 damage to pull off a defiler on incoming, that statement says it is indeed 2000hate (plus group modifiers of course) .. no cap given or implied.</p><p>We have brawlers (1rst aggro on brawler) and pets (1rst aggro on sommoner) pull many times on mobs. Does not seem to be the case. i can easily peel aggro from them.</p>

[Yimway]

<cite>Ahdam@Permafrost wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>vinere wrote:</cite><blockquote>If i remember reading right, EQ2 suffers from the same problem warriors had in eq1 for a long time, and thats an innitial aggro cap. What this means is the first action you take on a mob will have a capped amount of hate no matter what CA/Ability you use, and this cap is rather low. Thus you are much better off hitting range attack, and then spaming ae taunt right after. The range attack will get you on the hate list, and thus it removed the initial aggro penalty, and all your CA/Abilitys will land for full aggro.</blockquote><p>I believe this is incorrect. iv been raid tanking in eq2 for 4 years and iv never seen, hear or experienced such a phenomina.</p><p>Do you have any information to back this up?</p><p>DEVs have stated/posted that 1damage = 1threat. so if deciamate hits for 2,000 damage to pull off a defiler on incoming, that statement says it is indeed 2000hate (plus group modifiers of course) .. no cap given or implied.</p><p>We have brawlers (1rst aggro on brawler) and pets (1rst aggro on sommoner) pull many times on mobs. Does not seem to be the case. i can easily peel aggro from them.</p></blockquote>I also find this to not be true.  In fact, i would say the inverse is true.  The initial action grants more aggro than the natural threat and it has to be overcome by some margin to get targets to switch.Providing I do damage before a heal ticks, or someone else smakcs the mob, holding agro is SIGNIFICANTLY easier.  If someone else beats me to tagging it first, aggro is pretty squishy.

[TheSpin]

<cite>Ahdam@Permafrost wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Decimate = 100% hit Rate and -70ish DEF</p><p>then Exact Strike --> Infuriate --> AE taunt --> Single Target taunt--> Start CA rotation....</p><p> Front Load damage output. 1 Damage =1 Threat per DEVs. </p><p>I only use Taunts if i have no other CA up. Taunts are pretty useless IMO.</p></blockquote>I have to disagree with this especially because taunts can be used in half the time of a combat art.

[Rahatmattata]

<cite>Thoral wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I'll try body pulling, waiting for the mob to clear whatever danger made me body pull, and then try to get off a ranged attack. I assume this is possible if I'm quick enough.</p></blockquote>T'isNo reason not to shoot a mob in the face for 1.5k on the pull IMO. Although, I believe if you ranged on pull with say a 7 delay bow and then start melee, your melee autoattacks won't begin for 7 seconds <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/0a4d7238daa496a758252d0a2b1a1384.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /> Not sure. So you may be gimping yourself depending on what weapons you have and the distance of the pull, and haste and blah blah etc blah if true.

[Solkarr]

<p>One extra thing you can use, that gives good agro, and does not cause social agro, the way an early arrow or taunt can, is cast your raidwide defense buff as soonas the mob sees you on the body pull.  The go into your notmal routine.  Just click it to remove it before the pull, then tie it into your incoming macro or what ever method works for you.  A raid wide buff cast once the mob knows you exist creates reasonable agro, with no social issues, and it casts relatively quickly so it will not be causing you to miss time for taunts.</p><p> Solkarr </p>

[Solkarr]

<cite>Rahatmattata wrote:</cite><blockquote>T'isNo reason not to shoot a mob in the face for 1.5k on the pull IMO. Although, I believe if you ranged on pull with say a 7 delay bow and then start melee, your melee autoattacks won't begin for 7 seconds <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/0a4d7238daa496a758252d0a2b1a1384.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /> Not sure. So you may be gimping yourself depending on what weapons you have and the distance of the pull, and haste and blah blah etc blah if true.</blockquote>The bow delays and melee delays aretracked seperately.  You can melee immediately, however ifyou have say a 9 second delay bow, and shoot an arrow, then melee it for say 4 seconds and then try to back up and shoot again you will have to wait for the next arrow still.

[Khurghan]

<cite>TheSpin wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ahdam@Permafrost wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Decimate = 100% hit Rate and -70ish DEF</p><p>then Exact Strike --> Infuriate --> AE taunt --> Single Target taunt--> Start CA rotation....</p><p> Front Load damage output. 1 Damage =1 Threat per DEVs. </p><p>I only use Taunts if i have no other CA up. Taunts are pretty useless IMO.</p></blockquote>I have to disagree with this especially because taunts can be used in half the time of a combat art.</blockquote>The problem is taunts don't gain benefits from +crit, +ca and debuffs etc like CAs do. You will get PotM procs and some damage from having a coercer in the group but that's about it for taunts.

[Rahatmattata]

<cite>Solkarr wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rahatmattata wrote:</cite><blockquote>T'isNo reason not to shoot a mob in the face for 1.5k on the pull IMO. Although, I believe if you ranged on pull with say a 7 delay bow and then start melee, your melee autoattacks won't begin for 7 seconds <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/0a4d7238daa496a758252d0a2b1a1384.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /> Not sure. So you may be gimping yourself depending on what weapons you have and the distance of the pull, and haste and blah blah etc blah if true.</blockquote>The bow delays and melee delays aretracked seperately. You can melee immediately, however ifyou have say a 9 second delay bow, and shoot an arrow, then melee it for say 4 seconds and then try to back up and shoot again you will have to wait for the next arrow still.</blockquote>Thanks for clearing that up <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Thoral]

<p>I haven't heard that before.  I will certainly try it.  Anyone else ever try this? </p><p><cite>Solkarr wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>One extra thing you can use, that gives good agro, and does not cause social agro, the way an early arrow or taunt can, is cast your raidwide defense buff as soonas the mob sees you on the body pull.  The go into your notmal routine.  Just click it to remove it before the pull, then tie it into your incoming macro or what ever method works for you.  A raid wide buff cast once the mob knows you exist creates reasonable agro, with no social issues, and it casts relatively quickly so it will not be causing you to miss time for taunts.</p><p> Solkarr </p></blockquote>