strange agro when tanking?

[djinnz]

<DIV>i tank with my 70 bruiser about every group i play in, do hof most days, i think like most avoidance tanks i struggle with the same things, berzerker mobs that spike damage and the mob on the table, but one way or another i get through without any deaths.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>however the last week or so im noticing some strange things with my agro managment, what im seeing is wizard and scouts pulling agro from me mid to end fight, i can sometimes see how it happens a big nuke or resisted taunt or 2, but sometimes it seems unexplainable. i wouldnt have bothered posting, just put it down to bad luck etc, but i recently started parseing to help choose gear to maximise dps and what im seeing is that im loosing agro in fights were i have top dps by 100-200 am pulling (hence more time to build agro, taunting on inc etc) and am taunting during the fight. does anyone else have any experience of this?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>i have noted for sometime now when duoing with my defiler that when a mob hits 0% health and is healed or saved in someway, happens quite alot, it has no sense of agro list at all, it will nearly always turn and hit the defiler. however i think this is a seperate issue, or maybe just a different symptom of the same problem</DIV><p>Message Edited by djinnz on <span class=date_text>05-18-2006</span> <span class=time_text>12:54 PM</span>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<P>There's a couple reasons this could happen.</P> <P>First, if you pull a group, the adds can (and will) resist your abilities that keep their aggro. Whether your Encounter taunt is resisted (yes, even at Master 2 I get resists often enough), or your aoe damage abilities miss or roll low damage.. some of these DPS classes can do some pretty extreme aoe damage and pull aggro cuz you've barely hit them. With crits (and some classes abilities of increasing the chance astronomically) it's just more noticeable now.</P> <P>Second, if you run parses with ACT, check out the Damage over time graph. Bruiser DPS is mostly from CAs, and I can watch as my DPS rollercoasters up and down throughout the duration. If the scout or wizard happens to land a huge crit right during your dip, they can pull aggro there too.</P> <P> </P> <P>The first situation you can avoid some by moving on to the next mob before the first is finished, and let the DPS folks' AEs kill it off, so you can get a head start on aggro. I did this the other day when the first dozen fights or so i kept losing aggro near the end of fights on group encounters... i actually rarely lost aggro again after that. I usually switched over when the mob turned orange, nearly red.</P> <P>The second can be avoided by spacing out the combat arts, leaving some 10s gaps every couple arts so your damage is more normalized over time.</P> <P> </P> <P>The 0% situation seems weird.. haven't run into that one personally yet actually. Definately sounds like a memwipe situation or bug.</P>

[djinnz]

<DIV>thanks for the reply, i agree with the points you make, il try spreading my CA's out a little more, i have a feeling i have been loosing agro even during peaks of dps, but have never checked to be sure.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>overall i get a feeling somthing is different in agro, i tank a hell of a lot and play way to much, so when even subtle changes are made i tend to notice, its totally possible a run of bad random luck that im miss reading, i was expecting replies to say they had noticed simlar tbh, im guessing as im not hearing that, its not a change, just me reading to much into stuff</DIV>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<P>It's possible there might've been a change.</P> <P>I'm usually relegated to DPS, so I doubt I tank nearly as much as you. I just noticed a similar experience in one of my tanking moments, but mostly fixed it by spreading out the aggro... or rather, grabbing aggro on the next mob early.</P> <P> </P> <P>One thing you really have to consider though is that a lot of people, despite not changing in gear or level in a long while, may have been maxing out some powerful AAs. Crits and procs can create some really nasty spikes, and AAs are full of those for the DPSers (including us brawlers). It's possible the only change you are noticing is that folks with a lot of AAs are getting more noticeable spikes.</P> <P>I wish there was some taunt AAs actually.. would have been nice for us brawlers. But no... we just get a crapload of damage and avoidance abilities, with a few "ooh neats" thrown in. No mitigation.. no taunts... you'd think as a Fighter archetype those (and avoidance) would have been the major additions from AAs... I guess devs found it easier to create damage abilities as our taunts.</P>