VF - agro control?

[Isio]

Well met friends. I have a question about our agro control. This evening I was down in the rift at lvl 13 with a group and one of our members was a lvl 12 warrior, it did not matter what i did, i could not keep agro from him. Even when i was the one who pulled and used both of my hate gainers at the start.
Even after a rescue he would pull it right back.

Is this how it will always be? Is the warrior going to be the #1 tank in all positions? I know our bard constantly pulls agro from me as well, and thats with me spaming my 2 taunts and rescue as soon as they are up.

I know its a two way street with agro control, but it seems I am lacking when it comes to being the MT.

so far I have 85 strength, 100 con, and 78 dex with all top notch gear, weapons and shield.

Any help would surely be appreciated.

Isio Demetres

[ellestil]

At level 16 you gain another hate gain ability, and this will help you out somewhat. At early levels, dps more than anything else determines hate control. No amount of taunts you can use will hold hate from someone spamming specials. Warriors get dps AND hate abilities and this is why they get aggro easier. Paladins are less dps and less hate gain abilities at lower levels but this improves as you level up.

The hate gain needs to be increased though for all tanks atm. It's not quite balanced between dps and tanks atm.

[Vengeful]

Yeah, Pally hate gen really blossoms at 16. You'll want to make a macro that reads something like this:

/cast "Upbraid I"
/cast "Guardian's Assault I"


Upbraid should always be used prior to another ability as it doesn't trigger the global cooldown.

At level 22 you get a buff for your party that lowers their aggro generation considerably.

Other tricks you may want to consider include:

1) Never use Holy Strike (after you get Guardian's Assault) because it drains too much end for little result.
2) Make sure you use Hammer of Valus when you can and always flank when you use it.
3) Seperate your melee strikes with spells because spells do not interrupt your endurance regen.
4) Use Marshalling Cry to your advantage moreso than the advantage of your party. (i.e. Pull with smite, cast marshalling cry and judgement of the impure, and then use your taunts and Hammer of Valus to build the maximum amount of aggro prior to others hitting on your mob).



When in a group with another tank of a different class, you may feel that you are lacking in aggro generation on trash mobs, but Paladins can definately tank when it counts. By the time you begin raiding you will have several abilities that will increase your effectivess of tanking a solitary mob.

1) Zeal - Causes your special attacks to hit twice
2) Blood Oath- Increases battle prowess against target until you switch targets
3) Paragon of Justics- sizeable stat/damage increase.

When in a group with another tank and when it is unwise to use your Virtue on trash mobs, it may be easier for a Paladin to fall into a support tank role, and indeed we may benefit the group moreso than a Warrior in that position.

But when we are the solo tank or in a raid situation where we can use several virtue points on one mob we will be up to par as the other tanks.

[Isio]

Thank you for the tips. I have guardian assult now, but it seems if Im not mashin it over and over i lose agro still on a dime. Im a one button wonder. lol

I'll give the other tips a try and see how it goes. Thank you again

[Apostle]

I said it on another board, and I'll add my 2c here as well. I honestly think something is definately fubar with agro right now.

Im a lvl 26 paly currently and a friend of mine and I (him being a cleric lvl 28 ) were duoing 3 dot mobs, so I started testing things. I did not put the -20% agro debuffer on him, but then again he is a cleric. I did nothing but spam my agro abilities to include Marshaling Cry in association with rescues etc.. I couldnt keep agro off of him. I switched over to just using damage abilites and my agro got much better.

I honestly think something is broken right now. We'll see. Heck, even in groups I do much better if I ignore upbraid and Guardian's Assault. Bards are still the worst at taking agro away from me, followed by rangers and healing classes. (rangers are a lot better now that their deagro can be spammed after global cooldown if I recall correctly)

[ellestil]

I sometimes wonder if the taunts are working at all. Like you say, if I do nothing but use taunts, it seems like the other classes can easily pull aggro off me. However, if I use combat abilities instead and push my dps, I hold aggro much better. It almost makes the taunts useless to use, rescue's are still useful, but you soon learn that once you rescue someone, you better follow it up with some damage to hold the mobs attention.

I seriously think the taunt graphic is working "red eyes over mob", but the actual hate gain portion is not working like it should. Anyone else try just taunting as an experiment vs just going all out dps?

[Vengeful]

Originally Posted by ellestil

I sometimes wonder if the taunts are working at all. Like you say, if I do nothing but use taunts, it seems like the other classes can easily pull aggro off me. However, if I use combat abilities instead and push my dps, I hold aggro much better. It almost makes the taunts useless to use, rescue's are still useful, but you soon learn that once you rescue someone, you better follow it up with some damage to hold the mobs attention.

I seriously think the taunt graphic is working "red eyes over mob", but the actual hate gain portion is not working like it should. Anyone else try just taunting as an experiment vs just going all out dps?

I'll test this tonight, hopefully.

[Apostle]

Just for anyone who doesnt know, OldPaly posted that the devs acknowledged the problems and are already working on plans to work it out.

[LadySirse]

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