Some help with holding Agro

[Seipherwood]

<p>I just came back in november and recently hit 80, im having a heck of a time holding agro, now ... i know my gear and CAs arent the best but i know that already, what im needing help on is AA setup for a complete Tank spec and a Complete DPS spec, ive tinkered with countless ones and none of them have been able to hold agro all that well ive got my 3 main taunts up to Adept 3 and Defensive stance, the rest is app4/adept 1 which im working on upgrading to Adept 3. Any ideas on AA setup? Ive seen a few on here but they didnt quite work for holding agro for me. Someone suggested full str/sta for all points but that seems a bit useless.</p>

[Hardain]

<p>It's the same Str 4-4-8 Sta 4-4-8-8-2 Int 4-4-8-8-2 that we have used for yeas, but if you need aggro you could swap the last points from Sta to Str4 for hate. Also use off stance.</p>

[Jrral]

<p>One thing about builds: with the release of TSO the hate mechanics have changed. Before that 1 point of damage equalled 1 point of hate/aggro. Since TSO 1 point of damage is about 1/2 a point of hate. So pure melee damage isn't nearly as effective at generating aggro as your taunts and other direct hate increases. To balance that out, damage by the DPS types is also less effective at generating aggro than your taunts. So when tanking you no longer want maximum damage, you want maximum hate generation and to treat damage as just an additional tool to help round things out.</p><p>I posted my build guildlines here:</p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=439558�" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...58�</a></p><p>Basically STR 4-4-4-8, STA 6-4-4-8-2, INT 6-4-4-8-2. STA and INT give defensive bonuses in their 4th abilities and useful final abilities, STR gives additional hate and improved taunt effectiveness in it's 4th ability. In the TSO tree I go for the defensive improvements and the additional taunts, Rescue bumps and things that add hate gain.</p><p>Also, look at your gear and see about trading out some of the stuff with offensive bonuses for stuff with +aggression, defensive bonuses and/or hate procs. For instance, since the STA line's been changed to work with any shield, not just bucklers, it's better to trade out your buckler for a tower shield with a larger +threat proc on it.</p><p>The above is for main-tanking. For off-tanking, go with Hardain's str/sta/int build and switch to the offensive skill improvements in the TSO tree. Here you might also want to switch back to a buckler, round or kite shield, something with better offensive stats than tower shields have.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p><cite>Tabitha@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I just came back in november and recently hit 80, im having a heck of a time holding agro, now ... i know my gear and CAs arent the best but i know that already, what im needing help on is AA setup for a complete Tank spec and a Complete DPS spec, ive tinkered with countless ones and none of them have been able to hold agro all that well ive got my 3 main taunts up to Adept 3 and <strong><span style="color: #ff0000;">Defensive stance</span></strong>, the rest is app4/adept 1 which im working on upgrading to Adept 3. Any ideas on AA setup? Ive seen a few on here but they didnt quite work for holding agro for me. Someone suggested full str/sta for all points but that seems a bit useless.</p></blockquote><p>Defensive stance is your issue I think. Until fighter rebalance 2.0 goes through (sometime in Jan it rumored) holding agro in def stance is extremely difficult. If you really like being in defensive then I'd suggest wisdom spec'ing or just have some uber hate transfers in every group. If your healers can handle it then tank in offensive and you should have much less trouble.</p>

[LygerT]

<p>you need to go upgrade all of your abilities, it's rare to find anyone regularly out there grouping with less than adept 3's all the way accross the board so you will have issues at least until you are even on that playing field.</p>