Thread: Guide to Threat, Aggro, and Guardian Skills

Haven't had a chance to read the entire thread, but i searched it and saw nothing on this.

"Additionally, casting heals will also create threat on all nearby monsters."
^Not true. Casting a heal only generates threat on the mobs that currently have aggro on the player healed.

Example: Minstrel A heals player B, mobs are aggro'd onto player B, therefore minstrel heal generates threat.

Example 2: Minstrel A heals Minstrel A, mobs are aggro'd onto player B, minstrel heal generates NO aggro.

There was some tests done on the minstrel forums, i'll see if i can find them and edit this post. The conclusions reached in that post itself are slightly misworded, but oh well.
Edit: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=330937

Originally Posted by Malephor

Haven't had a chance to read the entire thread, but i searched it and saw nothing on this.

"Additionally, casting heals will also create threat on all nearby monsters."
^Not true. Casting a heal only generates threat on the mobs that currently have aggro on the player healed.

Example: Minstrel A heals player B, mobs are aggro'd onto player B, therefore minstrel heal generates threat.

Example 2: Minstrel A heals Minstrel A, mobs are aggro'd onto player B, minstrel heal generates NO aggro.

There was some tests done on the minstrel forums, i'll see if i can find them and edit this post. The conclusions reached in that post itself are slightly misworded, but oh well.
Edit: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=330937

I wasn't sure about how healing threat worked. Thanks for the info.

I am curious why new adds pretty much always aggro on healers. Like skeletons spawning in Gorothul, they always go right after the healers. Perhaps the healer is spamming fellowship heals? If so, then targeted heals might help a healer avoid aggro longer.

This is a brilliant post cheers!

Originally Posted by Forohir

I am curious why new adds pretty much always aggro on healers. Like skeletons spawning in Gorothul, they always go right after the healers. Perhaps the healer is spamming fellowship heals? If so, then targeted heals might help a healer avoid aggro longer.

My guess:
Minstrels usually have a fellowship buff running (tales), and spam some other buffs. These buffs have a small aggro component, which is enough to aggro fresh mobs.

The test to prove it:
Use a minstrel and a guard, with no buff stances or guardians belt. The guard aggro a slow mob without damaging it (just run up to the mob, get hit a few times and back away). Let the minstrel spam non damaging buffs on the guard to see if the mob turns away from the guard at some point.

Yes, looks pretty solid, but I do have one thing.

I don't think WR works quit like what you posted.

I think its more like this: (all numbers are made up by me)
mob #1
hunter 1400
champ 1000
mini 800
guard 1200

guard uses WR:
mob #1
hunter 1300
champ 900
mini 700
guard 1300

In other words, our threat lvl goes up a set amount vs the group vs a single mob, we don't gain 100 from each fellow member. I believe this is what we were told it did.

If there are 3 mobs, then each mob that is target-able, we gain a set amount on that mob, while lowering the fellows threat by a set amount, in essence.

so it could look like this:
mob 1
hunter 1000
mini 800
guard 900
mob 2
hunter 1000
mini 800
guard 800
mob 3
hunter 800
mini 800
guard 900

use WR:
mob 1
hunter 900
mini 700
guard 1000
mob 2
hunter 900
mini 700
guard 900
mob 3
hunter 700
mini 700
guard 1000

So the guard has aggro on mob 1 and 3, while we are tied with the hunter on mob 2.
All amounts are equal, guards go up, fellows go down.

Originally Posted by AS1476

I don't think WR works quit like what you posted.

I think its more like this: (all numbers are made up by me)
mob #1
hunter 1400
champ 1000
mini 800
guard 1200

guard uses WR:
mob #1
hunter 1300
champ 900
mini 700
guard 1300

In other words, our threat lvl goes up a set amount vs the group vs a single mob, we don't gain 100 from each fellow member. I believe this is what we were told it did.

Thats not how I understand the explanation of WR. I believe you do get threat from each nearby (~10m) party member. The problem is that the ******* is usually standing 30m away so you cant steal his threat. If your understanding was correct, I do not think WR would work nearly as effective as it seems to for me.

Here's a couple dev posts that shed a little light:

Originally Posted by Graalx2

Whirling Retaliation transfers threat from all Fellowship members near the Guardian. It lowers the threat from every mob that the Fellowship members has threat with and transfers it to the Guardian. It is a flat number of threat transferred not a percentage. It transfers an amount of threat approximately equal to the Warden's Maddening Strike.

Originally Posted by Graalx2

The threat transfer is entirely separate from the melee portion of this skill and is not limited by targets. However each monster's threat is treated seperately. You may gain 10,000 total threat from 100 mobs but each mob only gains 100 threat versus you.

From that, it sounds like for each mob affected, you gain a flat amount of threat regardless of how many of your fellows are in range. So it is (using imaginary numbers):

you: 1000
f1: 700
f2: 800
f3: 900
f4: 1000
f5: 1100

WR...

you: 1100
f1: 600
f2: 700
f3: 800
f4: 900
f5: 1000

..for each mob in range.

It lowers the threat from every mob that the Fellowship members has threat with and transfers it to the Guardian.

This statement is very specific to how the skill works and would be incorrect (it is not actually transferring the fellowship members threat) if your theory is accurate. If you are correct, its a misleading and imprecise use of the term "transfer".

The threat transfer is entirely separate from the melee portion of this skill and is not limited by targets. However each monster's threat is treated seperately. You may gain 10,000 total threat from 100 mobs but each mob only gains 100 threat versus you.

This statement has no reference to the people in your party and could easily have been intended to mean "You may gain 10,000 total threat from 100 mobs but each mob only gains 100 threat versus you for each nearby member in your fellowship that has threat on the mob"

So on the lower half of my post that's what I'm getting at.

We don't get 100 from each fellow for a 500 total, we lower each fellow by 100, and we go up 100, for each mob we hit, for each fellow in range, that has threat on any particular fellow.

Of course we still don't know what magic number of threat is transferred, but I would say WR is more effective early in a fight vs later.
It would never be a catch up skill, as a flat amount isn't gonna do much, unless the fellow stops generating threat, and all we did was WR.

Won't hurt to use it as often as you can, especially early, but saving it for a later time is not going to be as effective.

Thanks for the post I have been a Lvl 65 Guardian (Borgoin) for almost a year and am finally getting around to finding out what a Tank's responsibilities should be. You have given me some great ideas and useful tips on how to keep aggro focus on myself. Was wondering if you have any tips on separating to monsters from each other. I was in an instance the other day and had to keep 2 wargs away from each other otherwise they heal themselves. They tended to focus either on me or on the hunter alone. Was very hard to keep them away from each other, I think we were very lucky to even have made it through. Just thought you might have a pointer or two ????
Thanks,
Borgoin

Originally Posted by ulipappa

Thanks for the post I have been a Lvl 65 Guardian (Borgoin) for almost a year and am finally getting around to finding out what a Tank's responsibilities should be. You have given me some great ideas and useful tips on how to keep aggro focus on myself. Was wondering if you have any tips on separating to monsters from each other. I was in an instance the other day and had to keep 2 wargs away from each other otherwise they heal themselves. They tended to focus either on me or on the hunter alone. Was very hard to keep them away from each other, I think we were very lucky to even have made it through. Just thought you might have a pointer or two ????
Thanks,
Borgoin

Just be sure you're aware which of your threat skills are AoE (check the skill tooltips). Only use single-target skills on the enemy you want to hold, and make sure the person holding aggro on the other one is also only using single target attacks. Once the other warg is out of your AoE range, you can use AoEs if you need to.

I am beginning to accumulate empirical evidence that using Stamp (I have it traited for a 5-sec cool down), has a threat component, particularly if I interrupt an induction in progress.

Has anyone else "noticed" this?

It is not unusual for me to say, interrupt a defiler who is trying to heal who has aggro on someone else and see the mob immediately turn and swing to me after his brief delay in being interrupted.

Great guide, easy to follow and understand while still being very informative. I've been playing my guard for almost 3 years now, and I was nodding in agreement with pretty much everything you said. Good job Forohir.

Originally Posted by Winnower

I am beginning to accumulate empirical evidence that using Stamp (I have it traited for a 5-sec cool down), has a threat component, particularly if I interrupt an induction in progress.

Has anyone else "noticed" this?

It is not unusual for me to say, interrupt a defiler who is trying to heal who has aggro on someone else and see the mob immediately turn and swing to me after his brief delay in being interrupted.

Well every single skill we have is probably being affected by Threatening Presence and/or the 2 Blue Line bonus if you have the appropriate traits slotted. As such kick is going to give you a much bigger boost in threat than you would expect given its tiny dmg output.

However, what you're probably noticing is just a delayed update of the mobs target. You have likely already generated more threat on the mob, but it is still targeting the same person from before (because mobs don't update their target while in a skill induction or animation). Hitting kick will interrupt the mob, freeing it from an induction (and putting it in a no-animation state) allowing it to update its target (hopefully to you).

On the other hand, if you use kick like me to interrupt SC, and follow up with a fast skill, you're getting a massive burst of dmg involving 5 attacks in around half a second. Given that you're using kick to up both your damage per second and your number of skills per second (see first paragraph) at the same time, it wouldn't be surprising if you noticed a big increase in threat when you use this combo.

I really love this guide. It taught me a lot.

I only recently started grouping regularly with my guardian. I ran my first Grand Staircase at level 57 with a group of level 65s. It was a struggle for me to keep aggro at first, but as the instance went on I discovered that I really, really enjoyed managing aggro and slowly started getting a feel for it. Ever since, I've been given lots of compliments on my tanking (which is nice. It's good to know when you're appreciated.)

But I would estimate that reading this article will help with my tanking immensely. There's a lot of stuff here that I just didn't understand mechanics wise. I didn't know that Whirling Retaliation stole threat, for one. I also didn't realize just how Challenge, Challenge the Darkness, and Engage worked. I knew they were different from my other skills, and I used them accordingly. But now that I understand how they work I can trim out a lot of unnecessary stuff my skill habits. Like using Engage/challenge on mobs I already have aggro from. I feel kinda stupid about that now. :P

Thanks for the guide and all the great comments on it.

Thanks, help me a lot, good work.

This is a great guide, and should be required reading for all you aspiring guardians!

Two things I would love to see added.

First, it should be noted that whirling retaliation only transfers threat from fellowship members WITHIN 10 METERS of you. So that pesky hunter in Strength stance is usually not going to be sapped if he's standing 20-40 meters away. Also, the effect works on all mobs in the area, not necessarily only the 5 mobs that are hit by the actual damage of Whirling retaliation.

Second, I think that Guardian's Threat Stance (+20% perceived threat), as well as perceived threat in general, are widely misunderstood topics. Perceived threat artificially magnifies the size of your actual threat with each mob. So if your threat is 100 with a given mob, then you activate Guardian's Threat Stance, your threat will "appear" to be 120 to that mob, but if you take Guardian's Threat Stance off, the threat will fall back to 100. For this reason, I usually use Guardian's Threat Stance as an emergency skill only: If I lose aggro I will enable Guardian's Threat Stance to get the mobs to return to me; once Challenge is off CD (which it usually is within a few seconds), I pop Challenge, quickly return to block stance, then use all those yummy block/parry events to gather "real" aggro so that hopefully I get back to the top of the threat list. The ultimate goal is to stay in Block stance as much as possible, because it helps your healer keep up with heals as well as allow him or her to heal less, thereby reducing their healing aggro.

Again great guide and thank you for your effort!

marked this as a favorite in IE. Will be referring to this often. Thanks for the effort.

Thanks for this post! Very helpful!

Originally Posted by Forohir

Actually I can't think of any other class that has such a skill, except maybe captains. If they do, I wouldn't be surprised if it has 'challenge' in the name.

Captain's force taunt is from Grave Wound, but it only works as a force taunt if you also have the Leader of Men capstone slotted. See here: http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Trait..._Men_%28Set%29

"Grave Wound will force your target to attack you for a limited time."

Note that the wording uses "force", but not challenge...

This is all great info to have. Went on my first Kin raid last night, and now it all makes more sense...lol

Originally Posted by Forohir

I originally considered using 'taunt' or 'force taunt' instead of 'challenge', but in the end I think this confuses a lot of players who've played WoW or City of Heroes, where 'Taunt' has a very specific meaning.

I chose the word 'challenge' because Turbine seems to use that word as part of the skill name for every skill that has a forced-aggro-for-duration effect. Guardians have Challenge and Challenge the Darkness. Champions have Champion's Challenge. Wardens have Defiant Challenge.

Actually I can't think of any other class that has such a skill, except maybe captains. If they do, I wouldn't be surprised if it has 'challenge' in the name.

I'll try and add the skill tags when I have some more time.

Originally Posted by DelgonTheWise

Captain's force taunt is from Grave Wound, but it only works as a force taunt if you also have the Leader of Men capstone slotted. See here: http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Trait..._Men_%28Set%29

"Grave Wound will force your target to attack you for a limited time."

Note that the wording uses "force", but not challenge...

In the RoI Dev diary for captains,Raskolnikov officially uses the term "Force Taunt". The effect is being added to Captains' Routing Cry (4 target AoE attack) when traited.http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdia...veloper-diary-

Thanks for the good post it help me a lot with my argo and threat lvls.

Ive been playing the gaurdian for a month now and had no idea what to do intill i read this post

This is a nice rundown. Any way it can be stickied?

Quick question, is better to use engage and then switch to guardian's threat or using engage with guardian's threat up generates the same REAL threat (not perceived)?

Originally Posted by Feomalo

Quick question, is better to use engage and then switch to guardian's threat or using engage with guardian's threat up generates the same REAL threat (not perceived)?

Here's a rundown on both situations (assuming there's no other perceived threat modifiers in play):

1) You start with 'Guardian's Threat' off. You use 'Engage' on a mob that you don't yet have aggro on (or lost aggro on). Instantly you're vaulted to the top of the threat list, but only just barely (you'll have the same threat as whoever had it last). Until you turn on 'Guardian's Threat', there's a slight chance you'll lose it again immediately. But once you turn it on, even if you lost it, your perceived threat causes you to take a 20% lead in threat, and the mob will stick to you like glue.

2) You start with 'Guardian's Threat' on. You use 'Engage' on that same mob: as soon as the 'Engage' hits, you'll have a perceived threat of 20% over the top of whoever last had aggro.

Since, in the end, you always end up with the 20% perceived lead in threat, it's best just to leave Guardian's Threat up the whole time.

Originally Posted by Oryaan

This is a great guide, and should be required reading for all you aspiring guardians!

Two things I would love to see added.

First, it should be noted that whirling retaliation only transfers threat from fellowship members WITHIN 10 METERS of you. So that pesky hunter in Strength stance is usually not going to be sapped if he's standing 20-40 meters away. Also, the effect works on all mobs in the area, not necessarily only the 5 mobs that are hit by the actual damage of Whirling retaliation.

Second, I think that Guardian's Threat Stance (+20% perceived threat), as well as perceived threat in general, are widely misunderstood topics. Perceived threat artificially magnifies the size of your actual threat with each mob. So if your threat is 100 with a given mob, then you activate Guardian's Threat Stance, your threat will "appear" to be 120 to that mob, but if you take Guardian's Threat Stance off, the threat will fall back to 100. For this reason, I usually use Guardian's Threat Stance as an emergency skill only: If I lose aggro I will enable Guardian's Threat Stance to get the mobs to return to me; once Challenge is off CD (which it usually is within a few seconds), I pop Challenge, quickly return to block stance, then use all those yummy block/parry events to gather "real" aggro so that hopefully I get back to the top of the threat list. The ultimate goal is to stay in Block stance as much as possible, because it helps your healer keep up with heals as well as allow him or her to heal less, thereby reducing their healing aggro.

Again great guide and thank you for your effort!

A lot of times you won't stay ahead of the high DPS members of your broup when you turn off the 'perceived' agro you will lose it. That 20%(28%) keeps you at the top of the list and losing it will often put you under. In group raids (content), I almost always run in GT because of this and also because I don't really ever to be short on responses. Often, I lose out on some as they are happening too fast.

Since block as a stat is super easy to cap and w/out block stance you'll be somewhere close to 25% anyway and block doesn't help with parry anyway and often I'm waiting on response CDs to end, I'd prefer to not worry about agro by staying in GT.

Will you be going into depth about trait lines? I see you touched on it with Challenge skills, but what about vexing blow? That is, by far, one of the first traits you get, aside from your level 15 class quest. Vexing blow is usually glossed over, but is fairly useful because, traited, it hits up to a maximum of three targets. (later on, can hit up to 8 with legacies in your weapon/belt).

Still...its something to note because often times, most guardians don't know what vexing blow can do, and usually flail at low levels thinking they don't have enough AE aggro abilities, not even realizing the one they have *right* there.

I know this is an old thread but it really taught me a lot, up till now i had no idea what all this meant....now i do, if the OP is still around, thanks man

Nice post, even if it is rather old. One thing which might be interesting to many of you fellow guardians is hidden in the german guardian class forum(http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...n-in-Schaden): which skill increased threat by how much.
In that thread the threat of the each guardians skill is measured in terms of damage which is nessecary to pull aggro from a guardian who only used one skill on a mob.

Just to add a little tip that wasnt listed, this is something I use and have taught the guards in my kinship to use as well when starting a fight.

When pulling a group of mobs, using a frey the edge is a great start.... but someone mentioned opening with challenge then going into your normal routine while waiting for a block response.

Instead, save your challenge for if you lose aggro to something... do this instead.

Before you pull with FTE, Hit Ignore the Pain (wound removal but grants an immediate block response) then use frey the edge to pull everything towards you. When the bulk of your mobs are within a few meters of you, Hit Litany followed by shield taunt. You will have everything that you pulled (and with proper building of your tank an immediate block response again) and can focus heavier single target taunts onto the dps target to ensure you dont lose it while holding the others.

Great reading, thx from my alt

I would like to ask a one question about aggro.

Often, when I'm groupped with someone on my RK, and do nothing while he/she gets aggro (on any class) they deal lots of damage, but mob switches to me as soon as I use smallest, weakest healing skill.

Question: is tiny healing really generating much, much more aggro than very big DPS?

I think Heals can generate even more agro than dps, at least speaking of end game raiding, in saruman t2 i can hold the dps but i lose agro for heals for a couple secs, shamefully, but i'm trying to keep that from happening.


At your lvl, i'm not sure, probably the tanks you run with aren't very experienced...



-------------------------

Also, going with the title of the thread:


Me and my group are trying to beat acid t2, and we got boss to 200k(around this, a bit more i think). However, we're not killing adds, we're burning boss asap to die before the acid rises...Now, this would seem easier, but it's being hell for me to hold agro, as i lose it sometimes when adds appear...others i lose it before, and very rarely i can hold during the whole run. We tried to switch tanks(we're both guardians) but the results were the same...Our plans have changed for dual tanking, kinda like this:

1) I start with challenge + ctd and let the other tank enter in action when it's about to expire
2) My friend throws both challenge + ctd and hits engage when ctd is about to expire, and tries to build agro as much as possible(use pledge after to get some reactives, and such)
3) i grab every add with Ignore the pain + litany + shield taunt when they're all close to the group, and run for my life(kite)

Now, we did some changes at some points, but resists are a pain in that boss too:

1) He starts with challenge
2)I enter and start with challenge, hit ctd
3) He enters again, challenge is off cd, so he uses challenge and then ctd and finally engage


Thing is, these plans aren't being very helpful(the adds are easy to grab though, problem is just agro over time on boss), and our best try was actually when my friend only threw the first challenge and i started after and vice versa.

(Short rant)

I'm absolutely NOT a fan of how our blue cap works(and i pray to god that it gets changed, please) because i don't want to sacrifice survivability and get crit relics or more crit oriented gear for a remote chance to crit litany with just shield spikes + cappy relentless attack + rk improve rune sign of storm.

So either we would need crit rate in the the best gear, or perhaps, a change to the way the blue caps works. That boss hits HARD, and i saw in some videos tanks with 24k going down to 3k in short seconds. I don't even get to 20k most of the time, but i'm a pretty balanced tank that wants mits capped even when a cappy banner goes off or a raven from a lm, and good b/p/e(though b/p/e looks kinda weak in that boss, duo to his insane finesse, as such pledge is super important there(and we use it 3 times, 1 before starting boss and 2 during the fight), even more than usual).

(/Short rant)

Anyway, our other tank used blue cap when we tried with him solo tanking, and i checked about 3 litany's stacked on boss, he still lost agro about the time me and he lose agro with 3y 4b(which is when adds pop up usually, or a bit before depending on the dps/resists)


I ask for any little detail that we might be missing, and that could help us, because we're getting close but losing agro so many times is kinda a killing blow because the person getting agro gets one shotted, easily.

Originally Posted by KrauserJoestar

-------------------------

Also, going with the title of the thread:


Me and my group are trying to beat acid t2, and we got boss to 200k(around this, a bit more i think). However, we're not killing adds, we're burning boss asap to die before the acid rises...Now, this would seem easier, but it's being hell for me to hold agro, as i lose it sometimes when adds appear...others i lose it before, and very rarely i can hold during the whole run. We tried to switch tanks(we're both guardians) but the results were the same...Our plans have changed for dual tanking, kinda like this:

1) I start with challenge + ctd and let the other tank enter in action when it's about to expire
2) My friend throws both challenge + ctd and hits engage when ctd is about to expire, and tries to build agro as much as possible(use pledge after to get some reactives, and such)
3) i grab every add with Ignore the pain + litany + shield taunt when they're all close to the group, and run for my life(kite)

Now, we did some changes at some points, but resists are a pain in that boss too:

1) He starts with challenge
2)I enter and start with challenge, hit ctd
3) He enters again, challenge is off cd, so he uses challenge and then ctd and finally engage


Thing is, these plans aren't being very helpful(the adds are easy to grab though, problem is just agro over time on boss), and our best try was actually when my friend only threw the first challenge and i started after and vice versa.

(Short rant)

I'm absolutely NOT a fan of how our blue cap works(and i pray to god that it gets changed, please) because i don't want to sacrifice survivability and get crit relics or more crit oriented gear for a remote chance to crit litany with just shield spikes + cappy relentless attack + rk improve rune sign of storm.

So either we would need crit rate in the the best gear, or perhaps, a change to the way the blue caps works. That boss hits HARD, and i saw in some videos tanks with 24k going down to 3k in short seconds. I don't even get to 20k most of the time, but i'm a pretty balanced tank that wants mits capped even when a cappy banner goes off or a raven from a lm, and good b/p/e(though b/p/e looks kinda weak in that boss, duo to his insane finesse, as such pledge is super important there(and we use it 3 times, 1 before starting boss and 2 during the fight), even more than usual).

(/Short rant)

Anyway, our other tank used blue cap when we tried with him solo tanking, and i checked about 3 litany's stacked on boss, he still lost agro about the time me and he lose agro with 3y 4b(which is when adds pop up usually, or a bit before depending on the dps/resists)


I ask for any little detail that we might be missing, and that could help us, because we're getting close but losing agro so many times is kinda a killing blow because the person getting agro gets one shotted, easily.

First, I'd say that you're probably not going to beat him with 2 tanks as you can much more use the DPS from a real DPS class. Second, yes, its very hard to keep agro on that boss since everyone goes full bore as soon as he starts. Some things that might help. Start the fight from in front of him. If you don't know you can get all the around the room to the door leading out and start the fight from there. Gives you a couple of seconds of good agro building while everyone else gets behind him or moves up to him from behind. Another thing that you can do is put Shield Wall on the guy who's consistently pulling agro. For me, it was a champ. That way if he pulls agro then at least the boss won't one shot the other guy. You, as the tank, can take that hit while you build agro. Third, have the mini in group drop 'call to greatness' and uhm..the other skill that opens up your gated skills. that way you'll have block responses up immediately as the fight starts. We start the fight with a countdown from 10 and everyone will pop their skills that reset (i pop pledge at 1s) and then run in. I start with a fray, challenge, litany, shield-taunt, CtD, fray, (melee skill if other taunts aren't up), Challenge, etc..

that should help a bit with your agro issues there.

Originally Posted by lestat86

First, I'd say that you're probably not going to beat him with 2 tanks as you can much more use the DPS from a real DPS class. Second, yes, its very hard to keep agro on that boss since everyone goes full bore as soon as he starts. Some things that might help. Start the fight from in front of him. If you don't know you can get all the around the room to the door leading out and start the fight from there. Gives you a couple of seconds of good agro building while everyone else gets behind him or moves up to him from behind. Another thing that you can do is put Shield Wall on the guy who's consistently pulling agro. For me, it was a champ. That way if he pulls agro then at least the boss won't one shot the other guy. You, as the tank, can take that hit while you build agro. Third, have the mini in group drop 'call to greatness' and uhm..the other skill that opens up your gated skills. that way you'll have block responses up immediately as the fight starts. We start the fight with a countdown from 10 and everyone will pop their skills that reset (i pop pledge at 1s) and then run in. I start with a fray, challenge, litany, shield-taunt, CtD, fray, (melee skill if other taunts aren't up), Challenge, etc..

that should help a bit with your agro issues there.

The way that I tank this is pretty simple and I solo tank it for my kin. I start with a fray as soon as he is active, then immediately challenge. 11s into challenge I engage and then the champ (if there is one) ebbs to me. I wait 10s or so and then CTD. Build as much threat as possible during CTD force taunt. 10s after CTD force is up I challenge again. This should get me through to the boss being dead. I agree that this fight does kinda suck to tank, with classes that have poor threat management skills being the most difficult (RKs in particular). One thing that helps me some is to trait selfless defense so I can put a -10% perceived threat on an RK.

This also has to be a collaborative effort - burgs have to pre-emptively HIPS and then throw a couple provokes. Champs have to ebb at the right time (i.e., right after the engage is called). RKs have to pop calming verse the instant they get aggro. Cappies need to throw oathies up as soon as the fight starts so that the maximum amount of threat is transfered with ebb and engage.

I echo the sentiments BTW of previous posters - using two tanks here is not going to work well for you I don't think. You just lose too much DPS.

First of all, thanks for the replies, lestat86 and mmdur1(You use the same exact rotation i do on that boss btw)

The door little trick, should give a couple precious seconds...i like that idea. The SW is also a good idea, but sometimes you think certain person might pull and other pulls it. So, i'm not too keen to use it.


And yeah this has to be a collaborative effort. Thanks for the help guys, and i'll post some feedback once my group does it again.



Edit: One question mmdur1...if the adds spawn while boss is still alive, what are we gonna do? they kill everyone fast, that's why we had another tank to grab them.

Originally Posted by KrauserJoestar

Edit: One question mmdur1...if the adds spawn while boss is still alive, what are we gonna do? they kill everyone fast, that's why we had another tank to grab them.

I guess minstrels use Fellowship's Heart, which should aggro all adds and they start kiting. But I'm not sure, since my kin is not using that tactics to kill the boss in 90 seconds.

Well that's the issue...we usually don't have/use Minis. We will think of something.