Targetting Binds/Macros/Hotkeys to help maintain aggro?

[Bayani]

Hey there, everyone. I've never really played a tank outside of City of Heroes before, so I was wondering if anyone had any tips on maintaining aggro and rescuing teammates? I was in a group in the Ka'Jin Forests last night. I did the pulling, so that I'd grab the initial aggro but eventually, the ranger or the bard would take the aggro off of me. Is there any trick to maintaining aggro aside from spamming taunt, shield bash, etc? And are there any suggestions on hotkeys to create or use to aid with rescues?

[Kastagir]

I can't speak for Pal or DK, but if you're a Warrior here are a few things that I've found to be effective:

1. Always pull, and use Infuriating Shot, not the generic ranged attack ability. IS generates agro and lets you control the start of the fight. If a Ranger tries to pull, club and bind him and ship him back to his treehouse.

2. Always have your defensive target set to the most likely person in the group to pull agro off of you. 90% of the time this'll be your primary healer, but sometimes it's the overzealous Sorc. Personally, I'd opt to just let the Sorc die, but since the healer is likely to try and save him with heals that should be yours, you might need to Rescue the nuker.

3. Set up two macros: a pulling and a targetting. The pulling should be something like </g Incoming %to> without the <>. You'll use this once when you pull and will designate the group's primary target that they'll focus on from the start. The second macro is a 'change target' macro and is used during the fight to tell your group to re-assist you on a new target. This is useful if you pull one mob, but he brings a squishy healer with him that should die first, something like </g CHANGE TARGET TO %to>. Your group should never change targets unless you specifically tell them to.

4. If you pull more than one mob, and you don't have any crowd control (root/charm etc) in your group, be sure to 'tag' each of the extra mobs as soon as you have agro from your primary target: a Savage Cut and Taunt on each will generally hold their attention through a good number of heals, then switch back to your primary target. If it's a long fight, don't be afraid to reapply a punch in the mouth to each of the adds just to remind them who they really hate. If you do have a charmer for crowd control, be sure to keep them as your defensive target and be ready to hit 'Withdraw' on them if they start getting beat up. Rescue them if they're going to die, but don't right away - give them a chance to recharm.

5. Sometimes, if you're sword/board, you won't be able to do enough damage to hold a mob's agro. In an emergency, don't be afraid to dual-wield and up your damage. Once you have agro again, switch back to shield. You can do this with two simple macros once you're atacking:

/wear "Name of main hand weapon"
/wear "name of offhand weapon"
/cast "Taunt II"
/cast "Protect I"

The second macro to reequip would be:

/wear "name of shield"

Handling groups of mobs without crowd control gets a bit easier at level 22 when you get Roar of Fury, an AE taunt.

Just a few observations from my experience. Feel free to add, comment or criticize.
[/list]

[LupercalHorus]

Only a minor correction on the /wear command

You have to designate a slot for the item, especially if you're switching shield with an offhand weapon.

/wear "Weapon Name" secondaryhand
/wear "Shield Name" secondaryhand

Will do the trick. Otherwise if you just use weapon name and no slot, you'll switch out with your mainhand which doesn't really accomplish a whole lot.

[Garbar]

Hi, hope this helps.

Macro:

/Cast "Shield Bash I"
/Cast "Taunt I"
/Cast "Taunting Strike I"

That is a 1 button, Tripple taunt macro. Shield Bash and Taunt do not trigger the Global cooldown. So this command will execute all 3 abilities in one press, if shield bash and taunt are refreshing it will just Taunting strike.
Note* Useing this macro you WONT be able to trigger stinging cut off Shield Bash crits, so lazyness doesnt pay off in the end ;-0

I have it bound to E, I have my Rescue Bound to Q. I let the monk in my group pull usualy and when he pulls the mobs in I target the right side mob usualy, hit E then Q and already have fairly solid agro. I then usualy Kick or Rend armor both have very high crit rates and trigger stinging cut often. I then use Command: Press the attack on whoever i deem deserves it, Usualy a melee class that hasn't blown all there endurance 6 seconds into the Fight. I use "Taunt I" everytime it refreshs (just taunt I not the macro) becuase [b] It uses Energy and doesnt reset auto attack or endurance regen [b].

If i do this, Keep my endurance in check and dont intrupt auto attack and endurance regen needlessly by hitting keys at the wrong time then its almost impossible for other class's to drag agro from me. I can usualy do admantiam foeman 3-4 times before I start loseing agro and on the few occasions i have its usualy followed by a wow just did a 2-3000 crit by one of the DPS class's.

Anyways, Hope that helped!

[Angbor]

Be sure to make use of our aggro management Warcries and rescues. Without those there is no hope.

"Withdraw I", "Protect I", and "Shout of Defiance I". by level 20.

[Gunnarr]

Thought I saw it in here someplace but can't find it. Is there a way to put stance changes into your macro?

/changestance defensive
or something of that nature, same for offensive stance. want to work stance changes into a couple of macro's of mine.

Thanks for the info! Great ways to change up offhand weapons.

[LupercalHorus]

/combatformset defensive
/combatformset offensive

As well as:

/wear "Weapon Name" primaryhand (or secondaryhand)

Quotes have to be there and you have to have the name of the weapon exactly, including apostraphes or anything of that sort.

[Gunnarr]

Thanks, thats just what I was looking for

[LadySirse]

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