Agro????

[DUNN]

<DIV>Well here i am almost 5 months later and i have been raiding playing the role of a MA or just plain hole filler.  Sudenly i am being asked to off tank. I say cool finally i can do some tanking.  I have better gear thean most tanks anyway and have all my taunts at addept 3.  So what is the problem you  may ask?   Even spamming all my debuffs, buffs and my 3 taunts  the [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] thing turns and i cannot get it back. Assasin took it first but instead of turning back to me it does a b-line for the MT.  I use to tank for 4 wizards/warlocks and never had problems.  The worst is when trying to pull off someone with hold the line on. Not going to happen.  To add insult to injury the MT Zerker tanked all of them after i somehow got aggro and got one shoted.  I have better gear HAHAHAHA <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  That was due to bad group set up thogh. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Also i have to realize that they are not use to having a SK tank and they don't know how to manage aggro when a Sk tanks.  Still though was a sad day for me though we did manage to kill the mob.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Plus i must be rusty or something after not tanking for so long.  Sorry to have gien us a bad name yesterday LOL</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Exmortis_MT]

<P>SKs are seriously biffed by our high level slam not landing on epics, leaving us with only 2 measly taunts, at which even upgraded to adept 3, leave us with less threat then Guards app1 variants.</P> <P>Funny, in EQ1 we could out taunt any class hands down.  Never lost a taunt war ever. </P> <P> </P>

[Humuhumunukunukuapua]

<DIV>You shouldn't beat yourself too much over it.  From a numbers perspective, it seems like the "offtank" role is a position that gets progressively harder as the fight goes on.  For example, the MT from the beginning of the fight is generating hate from his hits, taunts, debuffs and buffs, basically using everything under his power to generate hate from the start.  The amount of hate you generate as on offtank from the beginning of the fight will obviously not be as great at the MT, because you are primarily trying to dish out DPS, with some debuffs possibly, and not using threat-generating taunts just yet to avoid stealing aggro from the MT.  Meanwhile the DPS of the group (wizzies, assassins, etc.) are going all out on DPS, and are keying their rate of DPS to the TOTAL amount of threat the MT is generating through all of his/her methods (taunts, damage, buffs, debuffs).  The end result, is that during the fight the MT is #1 on the hate list, DPS are #2 and an offtank is #3 if not last to healers depending on how much healing is required.  What's worse is, as the fight progresses, this gap in threat generation only grows!  So that to move yourself from #3 on the hate list to #2, you have to generate even more hate to overcome the DPS the wizzies and assassins have put out over the past couple of minutes.  So you are at a natural disadvantage as an offtank, IMHO.  That's why it was hard for you to pull off aggro, and when you did, the MT got it back, because he's been focused solely on generating aggro from the start.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The only way to overcome is to (1) make up hate in a hurry through a high damage spell (e.g., harm touch), (2) through a ward up, evasive manuver, intervene to block enough damage for the MT to regain aggro or (3) graven embrace cross your fingers, and hope it works.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Seems like the true value in offtanking is when dealing with secondary GROUP mobs that will key onto healers, as it can be difficult for an MT to switch between the main group mob and secondary group mobs to keep aggro from all of them.</DIV>

[stahlej]

<div></div><p>Generally, I never had any issues to hold aggro on mobs when I am grouped with people who are under level 50 or when I was pre-50.</p><p>But when I am in a group of 50’s I have serious issues to hold aggro if they aren’t very cautious, even thou I got Adept III taunts.</p><p>Our ability to taunt scales very poorly with other classes ability to generate aggro at that level for some reason. At least that’s what I have experienced...</p><div></div>

[far]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Humuhumunukunukuapua'a wrote:<BR> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The only way to overcome is to (1) make up hate in a hurry through a high damage spell (e.g., harm touch), (2) through a ward up, evasive manuver, intervene to block enough damage for the MT to regain aggro or (3) graven embrace cross your fingers, and hope it works.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>GE? GE on who the assassin? That will still leave you 2nd (at best on the aggro list) Seeing that GEings the MT is just out of the questions.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Second casting evasive only affects people in your group and if raiding the MT is seldom if ever in your group, so evasive and intervene wont land. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Wards will give you aggro with every mob currently engauged (reguardless of how many groups of mobs you are fighting) if you are only trying to grab one make sure that you cast after the MT has cast a few buffs.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Other things to consider are proximity. If you can lead the mob you wish to tank out of AE range of the MT  you can break out AEs (doom judgement if applicable/ae taunt, really the others are trash for aggro generation against a single mob).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The question of course is getting that initial aggro spark to pull it off the MT and pull away out of his range. For this try to land your disease resist reducing dot (you did pick it didnt you?), followed by HT and if nesicarry rescue, and as moving away from the MT insidious whisper/wrath. Only after you have control of the mob try to mist. (This is of course assuming you are only peeling 1 mob, multiple mobs is slightly more buggered).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Once they get back on the MT who has hold the line up and is trying to keep the boss entertained its embarassing trying to get aggro back, (ht burned and most likely failed and praying that maybe rescue might work).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As stated above if decrepit hits you are a durn sight better off at this attempt, but as they used to say when i was guilded, let the zerk/pallies offtank the sk will just mess it up. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The differance is not really in the taunts we get, if you look at them they compare favorably to other classes, but its the lack of group buffs that makes us so utterly lackluster in a raid enviroment, doubly so.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>1. We cant really improve the other 5 people in our group significantly in any meaningful way (unholy str for 3 anyone?), or hunger (umm yay you can kinda hit more often) and have a token disease buff. Grant/Evasive are kinda pointless (killed every instance and nearly every x4 mob in game and grouped with mt 2 times (out of perhaps 150 encounters)  when you are not grouped with the MT and then you deal with proximity for it to be effective so splitting the mob off from the MT is slightly more difficult. So we dont dramatically improve the group we are in (specifically in raid encounters)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>2. We dont get buff aggro. Ok we get 1 group buff aggro spell while the other tanks get several, this means that can in a far more efficient and even manner gain aggro with all mobs currently enguaged reguardless of distance by simply group buffing, so they have aggro of spell X number of people in group X number of group spells (assuming a fairly even aggro value for each buff, which isnt the case but they are in the same range).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This is part of the double shafting that sks get, now if this group buff aggro was an intentional part of game mechanics or not is up in the air and depends how tightly you have wrapped your tinfoil hat, but its there and makes for a very unbalanced playing field.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Perhaps their is something I have yet to learn about sk aggro,but lord knows ive tried.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>/But we have a bird and terd and a horsey so everything balances out</DIV> <DIV>//right?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Margen]

<P>Only 37 here, but from my experiance I can hold aggro fine on a single mob fine (except for trigger happy wizard/warlocks and some scouts).  But I do have problems with groups of mobs, this is spamming all my taunts, AOE, shield bash, buff etc.  And god help me if your in a multi group format, did the boat ride to Ferrot recently, which is in the form of waves of attacks, by the third wave I was basicly out of power simply down to using my taunts.</P> <P>As the above poster stated, us being limted to really a single group buff seems to limit our ability on aggro, specially in comparison with Guardians and Beserkers.</P> <P>V/R</P> <P>Blackoath 37th Troll Shadow Knight</P>

[Ixnay]

<DIV>An SK's ability to get and maintain agro on end game mobs just plain sucks and is inadequate compared to every other tank class.  This is broken and needs to be fixed.</DIV>

[far]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Smileonadog wrote:<BR> <DIV>An SK's ability to get and maintain agro on end game mobs just plain sucks and is inadequate compared to every other tank class.  This is broken and needs to be fixed.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>Gnomes need to be fixed.</P> <P>That said maybe you can hold breath and all your problems will be fixed with the upcoming combat changes.</P> <P>And sony will come by your house, wash your car, mow your lawn, and give you oral.</P> <P>Point being no developer plays or cares much for the class, hence they dont read much in this forum, or post any specific fixes outside of cosmetic typos in text of spells. We get relagated down to having same dps as a zerker, BUT we also get the WORST mitigation (seeing as pallies and guardians are already the chosen ones in the eyes of sony) and the beserker gets use of a tower shield which has a higher AC and better mitigation factors (let alone taunts and buffs).</P> <P>Red headed step child.</P> <P>But we get harm touch every 30 minutes, level 20 and under mobs quake at our approach.</P>

[megatra]

<P>^^^ lol so true. But i have ruinous touch master so level 25 mobs quake at my approach <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P> </P> <P>anyway it's possible to hold aggro very well on single targets epic mobs. tanking drayek was easy for me. taunt, dreadful wrath, plague sword, and sickening anger everytime they pop. never lost aggro. but i agree we need more taunts. i also agree they shouldn't nerf our dps down to pally. not if we don't get any kind of mitigation de-nerf. on epic mobs i usually do as much damage as the high end scout classes. in meeting of the minds our scouts do 40-80k damage total. i am consistantlly between 60-70k. seemed fair. thought my role as an SK was dps, sony. guess i'm wrong. now what is it?</P>

[Vitriol]

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> megatraum wrote:<BR> <P>anyway it's possible to hold aggro very well on single targets epic mobs. tanking drayek was easy for me. taunt, dreadful wrath, plague sword, and sickening anger everytime they pop. never lost aggro. but i agree we need more taunts. i also agree they shouldn't nerf our dps down to pally. not if we don't get any kind of mitigation de-nerf. on epic mobs i usually do as much damage as the high end scout classes. in meeting of the minds our scouts do 40-80k damage total. i am consistantlly between 60-70k. seemed fair. thought my role as an SK was dps, sony. guess i'm wrong. now what is it?</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>They are nerfing our DPS tremendously.  Guards and pallies are going to be able to do the same DPS as us.  Even if they up the +hate on our taunts to = a guard, guards are still going to be the preferred tank due to hit points.  Especially since we can just AC transfer the "true" tank.  Seriously, my biggest gripe is our one piddly group buff.  Group buff agro > all.</P> <P>Our best spells (wrath, pet, baleful, doom) are going to take a major nosedive when they make spells stop scaling with caster level, since we get these in T4 or level 40 tops.  Leaving us with the far too power costly coil and sword lines as our main DPS spells, since we get them at 49-50.</P> <P>As much as things are borked now, I have a feeling SKs are going to be more like orange mohawk stepchildren after revamp.</P> <P>At least I finally dinged 50.</P>

[Vitriol]

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> farbe wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Smileonadog wrote:<BR> <DIV>An SK's ability to get and maintain agro on end game mobs just plain sucks and is inadequate compared to every other tank class.  This is broken and needs to be fixed.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>And sony will come by your house...and give you oral.<BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <DIV>Go Ixnay! :smileywink:</DIV>