Thread: Block stance vs. Threat stance, and Engage questions

Hey all, another hunter here trying to learn more about the inner workings of the guardian.

Threat stance gives the +28% perceived threat which seems more beneficial towards the end of the fight, where the more aggro that has been built up, the more the % kicks in for a bigger gap between #2 on the threat list and #1+28%. Can this stance be used as a type of "taunt" if you are in block stance and loose aggro but have your taunts down, as the +28% will normally push you into the #1 spot long enough to engage or whatever, or is it more of a stance that once you swap into it (either in the beginning of the fight, or later into it), you stay in it for the fight's duration?

Block stance on the other hand gives Guards more of a chance for their bigger threat skills. It seems that all Guards I have come into contact with in end-game all have their #1 complaint of not getting enough block responses at the beginning of the fight to build that initial aggro, which in turn causes DPS to wait longer, and causes the fight to last longer (not good for the dps race type bosses in ToO). This also seems like the better stance at the beggining of the fight because 1. +28% of nothing in threat stance (or very little) is not much of a difference, and 2. getting an extra block or 2 during the first 30s is pretty huge for a Guard.


What are your thoughts on these stances? Does anyone use Block stance exclusively? What about only Threat stance? Am I correct in theory that opening up with Block stance for the first minute or so and then switching to threat stance later in the fight is the best way?


On a side note, is anyone else having issues with engage missing a bunch? I have always heard from guards while at 65 endgame and leveling up that having your big hitter(s) open up full bore in the beginning (or even during) a fight right after the Gaurds force taunt, then right before the taunt duration expires, hit engage and threat stance and you are golden... but it seems that maybe because of the lack of agility on end-game guards, or if its tacticle based, or what, but that threory of taunt/engage/threat stance doesn't seem to work as consistantly anymore...


I only have a lvl 47 guard (but tanked a bunch of 65 end-game with my warden, though she is a completely different animal), so I am just trying to understand the Guard more so I can see where they are coming from, so that I am able to do more damage without pulling, and we can down more content faster.

Thanks.

Well, when confronting multiple trash mobs, I go for Threatstance.
Use Forced Taunt and wait for the reactions to come up.
With 4 or 5 enemies bashing away on me, I NEVER get NO reactions.
The added 28% perc.Thr. ensures my AoE-taunts do their job well
enough to counter most crits by dpsers even though I only have a few
(okay, compared to other classes a lot, but still) AoE skills and cannot
hit every enemy with every attack.

On bosses, it's another ballgame.
For survivability I love to stay in Block, only to switch to Threat
when aggro is no longer feeling guaranteed...
When all my skills hit all (read 1) enemies, I do not need the added
28% threat, most of the time 100% threat will do the trick.
Depends mostly on who's with me, I've actually tanked the second boss
from foundry without any stance, because I got punted to the wall,
after rezz I was too occupied getting morale and aggro back and forgot to
reactivate my stance. Got aggro back with just engage and shieldbash,
after which I could return to my normal rotations.

So Engage? Nice skill, but from what I've heard of it, it's mainly to REgain threat,
when you've lost it, either by death or by a dev-crit by a hunter.
It copies the highest value aggro from any player in your FS, thereby bringing
you on par with that player. Follow up with any taunt and you are back in
business as a tank.

These are my two cents anyway, hope it helps a bit...

Originally Posted by SCHawks73

Am I correct in theory that opening up with Block stance for the first minute or so and then switching to threat stance later in the fight is the best way?

This is what I do most of the times when we are fighting a boss that's need fast and heavy dps.

Using the Acid boss in ToO as an example this is what I do.

1. Start in block stance.
2. Pledge (to get as many block responses as possible, as I know I won't need it later in the fight anyway)
3. Litany of Defiance, Improved Shield-blow (with 5set bonus), Shield-taunt, Shield-smash, Fray the Edge. (not always in that order but I try to get off as many agro skills as possible).
4. If I feel that my agro is good (no miss, bpe or resists) I will keep on with rotating agro skills and wait a bit with Challenge. If I feel it's bad I use Challenge with Engage at the end of it, then put up Threat stance and hope it will hold till adds comes.
5. But if everything is good I should still have agro at around 1.2-1.3M morale and put up Challenge and at the end of it I use Engage and put up Threat stance and that should hold till the boss is dead as long as I keep doing agro skills.

Tho in this fight it's very important that classes that can dump agro do so onto me or it will be very hard to hold agro. It is possible to use Challenge the Darkness after the first Challenge for a few extra seconds of agro before Engage and Threat stance is put up also which will make the agro gap bigger

Threat stance is the only way to compete in a DPS race as a tanking guard. Having said that, I love using block stance and if I feel that I'm in a group with people that manage or even care about managing their threat then I'll go block stance - but I'm not going to tell DPS to slow down in a DPS race situation just so I can block 5% more often (the loss is usually less because of guard threat bonuses from traits/gear). GT is simply a tool to manage aggro. I have used it as a single target force taunt, but I don't really care if DPS peels stuff off of me unless it's vital to the strategy for that not to happen. I see the above strategy as being too complicated but that's just my opinion. If the success or failure of a raid hinges on the guardian having 23.3% block instead of 19.3% block, then there are much bigger problems.

Engage does miss sometimes, but of course the frequency will increase due to the loss in the importance of agility to guardian builds and using the skill on higher level raid bosses.

You definitely have a strong understanding of the stances and how they can be used. You may actually have a better understanding of it than most Guards actually.

I agree with EvAmy for the most part. Threat Stance for multi-mobs is great because we'll have plenty of blocks and in those cases I'm usually the most concerned about the healer pulling.

Single-target is a tougher call. I usually stay in threat but use Ignore the Pain for a free block or pop Pledge to drastically increase my block chance. Lately I've been considering traiting Heat of Battle for the free block from Thrill of Danger.

I used to always use Block stance when doing moria instances. Now I generally only use it for soloing with sword and board (rarely cause I prefer Overpower for solo) or for a 3 man. Anything bigger and I will use threat and trait for more of my blue line. I've resigned to the fact that I won't do too much damage anyway and let the healer worry about healing me but nothing going to take my agro!

Thank you all for your feedback, it was very informative and I hope to hear more opinions and feedback as well to further my understanding.

As far as threat stance, it sounds like when you get up into the higher level content, ie T2 - T2C raid boses where DPS races are a must, then threat stance is pretty much required to hold aggro off crazy hunters such as myself

Originally Posted by EvAmy

So Engage? [...] It copies the highest value aggro from any player in your FS, thereby bringing you on par with that player.

This is not accurate. Engage will copy the highest raw threat value of all the players in combat with a mob. It is not limited to any particular fellowship of players. It's also important to note that while it will bring you on-par with that player in terms of raw threat, raw threat is not how aggro is determined.

I rarely play with Block stance anymore in raids. Enabling the increased raid-wide DPS is far more useful than the extra chance to block. If early threat building is an issue the Laingarth ToO Guardian set procs a 15 second ToT on a Shield-blow (extremely valuable). Other tricks listed above (Pledge, Ignore the Pain, etc) are also useful.

The rest of the raid/fellowship also needs to assist in threat management to further enable high group-wide DPS. Having DPS hold off or go easy for a few seconds is a small price to pay (even for the DPS races in this game, like ToO Acid T2C zerg) for aggro stability. The DPS needs to realize if they outpace tank threat generation early in the fight they can easily cause a wipe (definitely not worth the extra few hundred DPS before everything became a moot point).

One more note on Engage... it's not useful if you're using it to regain aggro and you're not also using Perceived Threat to your advantage. DPSers in this game are able to outpace threat generation of tanks. Using Engage without stacking your PT modifier means you'll have aggro for maybe a second or so until the DPSers land their next few hits. At this point you just lost aggro again but now Engage is on cooldown as well.

While many of you think you understand the mechanics of threat stance and believe that an extra 5% block comes nowhere near what threat stance can bring I would ask you to look at the actual aggro mechanics of block responses. Their are several threads that explain the threat generated by these skills. The threat generated by 5% more blocks can, in many cases, far exceed the 28% allowed from threat stance. Getting 5% more reactives that apply 4X-10x more threat than a dps choice over a long fight will far and away out do 28% more threat. If your choice is an attack that does damage or a threat response from a block event that applies 4000 threat over a long fight 5% more blocks more than make up for 28% percieved threat because of how low a guards dps is. As was stated above, using pledge at the right times to up your block responses early and guards ward up at all times will keep aggro in most cases. Hunters can and will steal aggro because their dps is so much higher than ours and threat stance alone still may not be enough to make the difference either way. A hunter with 2500 agi and a first age is murder to deal with and will very easily make up the 28% lead you have if you are not spamming your block responses. One thing to mention, is that a second age belt with threat up maxed is a must have any more for end game raids. I do not want anyone to think this is a "learn to play" post. I choose to make sure my might is as high as I can get it and still maintain capped mits with buffs. For me, I honestly think threat stance is only something I use in a pug where I would be afraid of dps classes who did not understand aggro and threat mechanics for a guard.
I would suggest you look on this forum and read about the mechanics and numbers of our threat generating skills opened by block and then make an informed decision based on this rather than posts by others on this thread. (myself included) You know your play style better than any of us do and this information will be as helpful or more helpful to you than what has been posted here to date. (Again I include my own post.)

Djasi

I mostly use block stance, because a) you take less dmg and b) you get more reactions which as has been stated generate far more aggro than the 28% of Threat Stance, so any fight I have at least a few seconds to grab aggro, Block Stance is the way to go.
In ToO there are however encounters where the DPS classes need to blast away right from the start (Bukot CM, Acid CM, Fire & Frost), in those cases I use Threat Stance, usually assisted by a minny helping me with Call to Guardians, burgs provoking a lot at the beginning and Champ(s) using Ebbing Ire, I start these encounters with challenge and some with Pledge, so I definitely get enough reactions at the beginning to get aggro.
Another matter of course are fights where two tanks have to switch aggro (Kalbak T2, Durins Bane in OD), there we usually use Threat Stance to switch, the Guard that is supposed to be tanking atm has Threat Stance activated, the other one switches to Block Stance for that time...

Originally Posted by Sir_Thorblod

I mostly use block stance, because a) you take less dmg and b) you get more reactions which as has been stated generate far more aggro than the 28% of Threat Stance, so any fight I have at least a few seconds to grab aggro, Block Stance is the way to go.
In ToO there are however encounters where the DPS classes need to blast away right from the start (Bukot CM, Acid CM, Fire & Frost), in those cases I use Threat Stance, usually assisted by a minny helping me with Call to Guardians, burgs provoking a lot at the beginning and Champ(s) using Ebbing Ire, I start these encounters with challenge and some with Pledge, so I definitely get enough reactions at the beginning to get aggro.
Another matter of course are fights where two tanks have to switch aggro (Kalbak T2, Durins Bane in OD), there we usually use Threat Stance to switch, the Guard that is supposed to be tanking atm has Threat Stance activated, the other one switches to Block Stance for that time...

I generally agree with most of what's said here, however I must say that it's very doable to get your block up to 23-25% with ward up now. The difference between 23 and 28% block chance is marginal, and even with the reduced block chance in Threat Stance you'll most likely still get enough block responses to hit litany whenever it's off cooldown.

And on a sidenote, aggro switching in Kalbak T2?

Originally Posted by Djasi

While many of you think you understand the mechanics of threat stance and believe that an extra 5% block comes nowhere near what threat stance can bring I would ask you to look at the actual aggro mechanics of block responses.

Originally Posted by Djasi

Their are several threads that explain the threat generated by these skills. The threat generated by 5% more blocks can, in many cases, far exceed the 28% allowed from threat stance. Getting 5% more reactives that apply 4X-10x more threat than a dps choice over a long fight will far and away out do 28% more threat.

A very odd claim that you're actually getting 5% more LODs/etc off because of 5% more block. This is not the case. In fact, even if your pre-existing block is 0% this would not be true.

In practice it's a far lower amount when 5% block is added on top of a pre-existing 20-24% block. For the most part your LOD should always be on CD in GT already (assuming you're getting hit once every 2 seconds at 20% block you've got about a 49% chance you'll get a block reactive within 6 seconds of LOD coming off CD, at 25% block it's about 58%); in GT you should be able to get about the same LODs/minute off (and that would be close to the maximum 3/min) plus you're still getting 80% or more of the block reactives for the rest of the chain that you get in Block stance anyway. Taking Block stance over GT is doing your raid no favors. I'd expect Block stance to benefit you a bit more during the opening of a fight but outside of that you need to more fully consider the benefits of perceived threat.

Out into a prolonged fight an Engage+GT is still going to give you way more threat than any Block stance benefits; it's going to give you the raw threat rate of the top DPSer +28-33%! A +5% block cannot touch that. Another way you can look at it is this: Engage+GT gives you a 28-33% "time into the fight" threat buffer. So if you've been fighting a boss for 3 minutes you've just given yourself about 1 minute of threat buffer over the top DPSers even if you stop doing anything at all (not recommended)! A +5% block cannot hold off a high DPS, but about 3 minutes into a fight or more Engage+GT will all by itself. Engage has about a 1 minute cooldown so from that point on you can perpetually refresh your PT lead (which gets larger and larger as the fight progresses) before DPS overtakes it.

This is a very simplistic look at Engage+GT but it demonstrates the capability it can bring a raid and why it's certainly able to deliver much more raid-wide DPS than +5% block in a prolonged fight (which are usually the more tightly tuned ones anyway).

I have looked at the actual aggro mechanics of block responses and my experience has shown me that GT has been vastly superior for long-term aggro. Of course, test it out for yourself. If you find you are able to do better with Block stance then use it.

Originally Posted by Fyrexiel

I generally agree with most of what's said here, however I must say that it's very doable to get your block up to 23-25% with ward up now. The difference between 23 and 28% block chance is marginal, and even with the reduced block chance in Threat Stance you'll most likely still get enough block responses to hit litany whenever it's off cooldown.

I got 29,1% block solo in blocking stance, yellow traited, 30% with a cappy in my group (middle-earth buff), both including Guardians Ward obviously.

Originally Posted by Fyrexiel

And on a sidenote, aggro switching in Kalbak T2?

Obviously, unless you only take hunters and RKs as DPS this is the way to go...

Originally Posted by Gattsu_EU

1. Start in block stance.
2. Pledge (to get as many block responses as possible, as I know I won't need it later in the fight anyway)
3. Litany of Defiance, Improved Shield-blow (with 5set bonus), Shield-taunt, Shield-smash, Fray the Edge. (not always in that order but I try to get off as many agro skills as possible).
4. If I feel that my agro is good (no miss, bpe or resists) I will keep on with rotating agro skills and wait a bit with Challenge. If I feel it's bad I use Challenge with Engage at the end of it, then put up Threat stance and hope it will hold till adds comes.
5. But if everything is good I should still have agro at around 1.2-1.3M morale and put up Challenge and at the end of it I use Engage and put up Threat stance and that should hold till the boss is dead as long as I keep doing agro skills.

I just wanted to change a bit the starting sequence:

1. Start in block stance.
1b. Use traited Warrior's Fortitude to get a block reaction just before the boss activates
2. Litany of Defiance, Improved Shield-blow (with 5set bonus), Shield-taunt, Shield-smash, Fray the Edge. (not always in that order but I try to get off as many agro skills as possible).
3. Pledge when the block chain is about to get off cooldown.

Wrt threat stance and block stance, in many fights the group does not start with unloading all the DPS they can output on your targets (especially when there are secondary targets, or when the fight mechanics is on morale threshold, not timed). In those fights block stance is a bit better, and threat stance can always be used if something goes wrong. When everyone has to do their best right off the start, threat stance is the more reassuring option.

Edit: At first I also wanted to say that all you really need is to get a block reaction within 6 seconds of your skills getting off cooldown, but someone already mentioned it with reasonable numbers.

Originally Posted by Sir_Thorblod

Obviously, unless you only take hunters and RKs as DPS this is the way to go...

OT but instead of taking only RKs and hunters you can also have the tank and the melee DPS stand exactly at max. melee range (2.5m), no need to move at all (apart from shock).

Either stance works if you make the most of your skills.

If other players are building up high threat and you have problems maintaining it, then give whirling retaliation a spin.

If you find it hard to get a block response to open up your chain before trigger-happy hunters pull stuff away from you; start off with a Guardians Ward early on, or even push for Ignore the Pain to give you that crucial block.

If you have problems with many mobs running onto the healer -- let them kill him so you can steal his cookies.

Originally Posted by Maelendil

I just wanted to change a bit the starting sequence:

1b. Use traited Warrior's Fortitude to get a block reaction just before the boss activates

We usually have the Minstrels do Song of Aid right before boss fight but I guess Warrior's Fortitude could be used for 2% extra block and some extra morale

Ignore the pain works aswell as mentioned above, I usually use this if the first whack by the boss isn't blocked by my shield for a free litany. I pop Warriors Fortitude in threat stance right before the fight aswell, legacied and with the draigoch set switched on, to give me -2% inc damage from all sources and +1.6k max morale for the first two minutes. Best of both worlds! The -2% goes over cap too, together with the 3% inspire fellows buff from mincers (not 100% sure if this goes over cap?) and the occasional captain SB buff, so you end up with skyhigh mitigations.

Also, I know it's off-topic, but Kalbak T2 really doesn't need two tanks.. You can either both stand at max melee range (unconfirmed by myself but mentioned by someone else in the thread), or the tank runs away a bit when he's about to explode. Kalbak is a very, very slow mover, you have plenty of time to get back in there after you've popped the static shock without him ever moving.

Very good information here, I appreciate all the feedback.

I will try to take a couple of my main tanks out to the Isen trolls this week to work on different trait builds, stances, rotations and such and see if we can improve on our potential DPS numbers!

Originally Posted by Fyrexiel

Also, I know it's off-topic, but Kalbak T2 really doesn't need two tanks.. You can either both stand at max melee range (unconfirmed by myself but mentioned by someone else in the thread), or the tank runs away a bit when he's about to explode. Kalbak is a very, very slow mover, you have plenty of time to get back in there after you've popped the static shock without him ever moving.

you might not need 2, but it's much more relaxing with 2...
Also thanks to pledge, you usually only switch twice or max. 3 times, it's pretty simple and much less risky than having the tank accidently blowing up the group...

This thread was very helpful to me as well, as a former Warden who has made the switch fully to Guardian. For those of you running Threat stance frequently in raids, do you also use the legacy to add +parry/block in Threat stance (if I remember properly)? I assume you guys have the -Pledge cooldown on their weapon to support the tactic mentioned in this thread of popping Pledge early for a higher chance for a block response.

Originally Posted by Belaeren

This thread was very helpful to me as well, as a former Warden who has made the switch fully to Guardian. For those of you running Threat stance frequently in raids, do you also use the legacy to add +parry/block in Threat stance (if I remember properly)? I assume you guys have the -Pledge cooldown on their weapon to support the tactic mentioned in this thread of popping Pledge early for a higher chance for a block response.

I do run with +parry/block in Threat Stance but I don't have it maxed or anything. I don't use the tactic of popping Pledge just to get a reactive (so no, I don't have the legacy either); I save it for emergencies. Ignore the Pain would be something I'd use auto-proc a block event on the open, not that I do that either... I just haven't found the need. If you're really in need of reactives/more opening threat have the mini cast CtG and SoA before you start. You'll be all set with early block events, boosted threat generation, and still have all your cooldowns.

I've always kind of had this same though line for guards getting aggro initially, but I personally don't have a guard so I've not been able to test it per say (nor would I want to tell a guard how to play being as I don't have one). Though logically I would think that in the initial building aggro portion of a fight (where you DPS is holding back for a little bit) Block Stance would allow you to build more threat to make Threat Stance more useful when it is toggled on. My tanking experience is as a Warden, so that playstyle is completely different being as Wardens require doing a lot of non-threat related things to stay alive. Having said that I see a lot of interesting ideas from people here (things I doubt are commonplace) that make me think it is not worth it, like using pledge early to get extra responses etc.

One other thing I've always speculated and would love to see tested out by some Guards is building for more Might/Crit as a way to generate threat. Has anyone played around with this to see if it makes a difference? I'm actually starting to level a guard to have a second tank (also because I'd like to prove to myself that guards can hold aggro like my Warden can), so some insight would be nice to have.

You should already have a decently high might, but adding agility over vitality for crit would be a mistake. The threat you gain from reactives due to high block will outway the small amount of DPS you would get from extra crit with sword & board. I do however use the 4-5% crit spikes all the time.

You'll get widely differing views on threat from Guardians depending on how good the DPSers (in particular Hunters as they have no threat management skills like Champs and Burgs do) that they play with are. In my experience even with 28% threat stance and near perfect gear you still wouldn't be able to hold aggro from DPSers that go all out, certainly not with any kind of consistency (tanking is all about standard deviations after all), by just building threat normally.

Having said that Block Stance should always be preferred over Threat Stance in raids when its use is permitted.

Which stance you should use is determined by two things:

1. If you get a decent lead on tanking some mobs before they start being DPSed, there is no reason you shouldn't be in Block Stance.
2. Otherwise your choice of stance comes down to what is more difficult to achieve. Keeping the tank alive or killing the boss in a certain amount of time.

OT actually has a lot of bosses that need to be zerged from the start. It is totally possible to hold aggro while your DPSers (even trigger happy Hunters who start with Burn Hot on from range before you even get to the mob and with OBs up) go all out by being smart about when to give yourself a threat lead:

1. Fray (not necessary but in most cases you may as well)
2. Challenge
3. Move the boss exactly where you want him (if necessary)
4. Shield Blow (for the ToT), Ward, and Salt the Wound via ret (for the DoT) if possible
5. Engage a couple of seconds before Challenge expires (tell the Champions to ebb to you soon after this)
6. WR/LoD/Bash/Smash (hopefully your reactives are open from Song of Aid, otherwise use Ignore the Pain)
7. Use traited Warrior's Heart to get access to reactives and repeat WR/SS/Bash/Smash
8. Keep spamming WR/LoD/Bash/Smash as much as possible with SB/VB/Fray in between
9. Use pledge proactively for more reactives
10. Be prepared to use CtD quickly when you next lose aggro.
11. Use Engage as soon as it comes off cd again, and every time until the fight ends

After the 2nd use of Engage you should, with a bit of luck, be able to hold aggro until the 3rd use (tell the Champions to ebb to you at some point after one minute) and after that you won't lose aggro unless you fall asleep (you'll have an up to 34% threat lead more than 3m into the fight).

Doing the above basically sets you up to have the best possible chance of holding aggro. You still have to keep spamming threat generating skills as much as possible in between. If you get a resist, you have to think smartly. In most fights, people won't be DPSing the boss the whole time so it can be worthwhile letting the boss go for 10s if you must. If the worst comes to worst, you might have to tell the Hunters to hold back for a bit/ask for extra ebbs ... but resists on Engage seem to be incredibly rare.



The extra blocks you get from being in Block stance will have negligible impact on your threat generation compared to what you get from Threat stance, as already described: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...85#post6088885 (which doesn't even mention that Warrior's Heart/Ignore the Pain/Pledge are all usable for additional reactives regardless of your stance).



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

The main thing to take from this post is that:

• If your DPSers can't/won't hold back for even a few seconds, you must use Engage proactively very early in the fight (~10s in) after setting yourself up with a ToT, etc, if you want to hold aggro from the get go.
• ALWAYS use Engage proactively during a fight. If you increase your threat lead every time possible, you minimize your chances of ever losing aggro.
• It's better to receive Ebbs (25% of a Champion's threat) right after using Engage (receiving them just before an Engage later in the fight could easily end up being totally redundant).
• Make sure you have CtD as a backup to use if/when you do lose threat since Engage will always be on cooldown.

Engage rarely misses in my experience. It definitely has a lower resist chance than other skills, and I'm pretty confident it has a lower miss chance too. That said it can miss sometimes, but that is just all the more reason to use it proactively imo.

Originally Posted by Balagast

One other thing I've always speculated and would love to see tested out by some Guards is building for more Might/Crit as a way to generate threat. Has anyone played around with this to see if it makes a difference? I'm actually starting to level a guard to have a second tank (also because I'd like to prove to myself that guards can hold aggro like my Warden can), so some insight would be nice to have.

Building a Guard for offense/crit for threat gen would be a mistake.

You gain only a small amount of additional threat gen from stats (offense doesn't effect how much threat is generated from taunts). On the other hand, you can increase your survivability drastically.


Of course defensive and offensive stats are the same most of the time, and once a Guard has their tact mit capped (and some inc healing items) they should be focusing on might/agi (at roughly equal levels) for more avoidance anyway.

Originally Posted by Evendale

Building a Guard for offense/crit for threat gen would be a mistake.

You gain only a small amount of additional threat gen from stats (offense doesn't effect how much threat is generated from taunts). On the other hand, you can increase your survivability drastically.


Of course defensive and offensive stats are the same most of the time, and once a Guard has their tact mit capped (and some inc healing items) they should be focusing on might/agi (at roughly equal levels) for more avoidance anyway.

I agree with you on the might-part.

The crit however, if you're not traiting litany master in DPS races, you're missing out on a whole lot of aggro. I've found that I don't ever need the added survivability from traiting yellows so I've been traited 5b/2y for a while now. Works like a charm. When raidbuffed, I run with 6k crit while maintaining capped tact mit and over 20k morale. Seeing 3-4 stacked litanies on bosses is sweet, allows me to shout at the DPS in our raid to go harder the entire fight

For the rest, your last 2 posts are awesome. +rep.

Well I can never bring myself to trait 5B. Perhaps its just a lingering state of mind from pre-Isen when OP was so powerful that it made ever traiting blue a waste.

Even though Litany Master is fairly nice, adding another 1% or so of crit still won't make much difference to your total threat gen, plus threat via crits is highly luck based anyway (high std dev) which has serious disadvantages.

So I got bored and made a graph of the suggested rotation.

In this graph the Hunter & Champ are generating threat twice as fast* as the Guardian (2.3x as fast in the first 10s when they blow cooldowns), and yet the Guardian is able to hold aggro throughout the entire fight by proactive use of Engage and a one time catch up with CtD:

*ie: the slope of the Hunter/Champion threat lines are twice as steep as the slope of the Guardian's threat line after the first 10s



NB: This is assuming a 31% PT bonus (28 from threat stance + ~3 from belt)















And, why its bad to ebb before engage:

If you depend on mobs to give you block responses you'll probably be disappointed (and lose threat to good dps). I'd strongly suggest traiting for WF reactions, or ToD reactions... Or both.

While technically you could start off with block stance at the beginning... And cross your fingers for a block response.. it's only a 5% better chance. I'd rather just generate one. The beginning of the fight is generally when need them the most... And if dps opens up with a lucky string of crits you'll wish you had the extra 30% threat from threat stance.

Frankly the only time i use block stance these days is when i'm tanking against poor dps and not taking it very seriously. If anyone pulls you simply switch to threat stance and you'll have the mob back, ujst hope they didn't get one-shotted.

Originally Posted by Evendale

Well I can never bring myself to trait 5B. Perhaps its just a lingering state of mind from pre-Isen when OP was so powerful that it made ever traiting blue a waste.

Even though Litany Master is fairly nice, adding another 1% or so of crit still won't make much difference to your total threat gen, plus threat via crits is highly luck based anyway (high std dev) which has serious disadvantages.

When we were raiding in OD and BG I started going 5y/2b because the bosses seemed to hit so much harder and have so much more higher spikes. Since the revamp with Vit and huge morale pools, I switched 4y/3b for a bit more survivability and defense and that worked well also while still holding agro. Come ToO I went back to 2y/5b with the Litany thrown in as well and run GT the whole time. What I've found is that its really not any harder to keep me alive and my ability to keep agro from the crazy DPS is much better. Especially now everyone in our raid group, IE DPSers, have FA weapons and its super important for me to have as much of an edge in agro as possible.

I only use Block stance really any more when I'm running easy content where a few more blocks means a little less healing (maybe) and i don't care as much about agro, but important stuff gets GT. As far as Engage goes, its the single best skill we have to ensure we keep all agro. I want my DPSers to be able to go balls to the wall from the get go, so I start single boss pulls with let fly, FtE, challenge (get the boss where i want him in this time if I need to) and then spam every agro skill I have only throwing in GW to keep the parry/block up higher. Often in some fights I'm reduced to 4 or so skills (with the block chain in there) in order to keep up the agro over the high dpsers in my group who often will crit for 10-15k on regular basis. i've found that block just wont keep up with this. And this scenario has caused me to reslot CtD (stupid skill with its 10m cd) and drop TTK for the extra 'engage' if the DPSers really hit a good string of crits and engage in still on CD.

And yes on my LI I use the GT +parry/block and don't bother with the GW +block/parry as you get more bang for you buck with the first.

Most often my Block responses are on CD anyway, so the block stance doesn't help for 'agro' management. It could help slightly with not taking as much damage but the difference is pretty minimal and so far my healers haven't really noticed any difference in my survivability but EVERYONE is much happier that the DPSers almost never pull agro anymore.

Wow! What a wealth of information!

I don't think I have ever actually wanted to run a guard at end-game, but you guys make it sound not only simple, but fun!

Thanks again for all the info! I feel like I could pick up a capped geared guard and hold aggro from Gandolf himself! LOL

Noob guard question: how do you know Engage copies raw threat and not perceived threat?

Originally Posted by Thorcar

Noob guard question: how do you know Engage copies raw threat and not perceived threat?

Have a guard in threat stance tanking, then have a second with less perceived threat use engage. Have the first one not use any more skills after engage and see how long it takes for the second one to get aggro. If it copied perceived threat, then aggro would swap immediately to the other guardian as they took the first's raw + perceived and then multiplied it by their own perceived threat. If it copied raw threat, then the first guardian might still be ahead and thus keep aggro, especially if the second one only has perceived threat from their belt. The former does not happen, but the latter does.

It's extremely obvious in practice.

Originally Posted by Tapkoh

Have a guard in threat stance tanking, then have a second with less perceived threat use engage. Have the first one not use any more skills after engage and see how long it takes for the second one to get aggro. If it copied perceived threat, then aggro would swap immediately to the other guardian as they took the first's raw + perceived and then multiplied it by their own perceived threat. If it copied raw threat, then the first guardian might still be ahead and thus keep aggro, especially if the second one only has perceived threat from their belt. The former does not happen, but the latter does.

Originally Posted by Evendale

It's extremely obvious in practice.

and FYI, thank you for the suggestion Tapkoh, we tried that on several trolls in the Limlight and our main tank was thoroughly convinced... took us a while to finally convince him to switch to threat stance, and a bit longer to use engage in a normal rotation, but he is smart and sees the difference and I can't wait to start opening up more on my Hunter

And yes Evendale, it was pretty obvious with the testing. I would engage off him, and just a simple stance swap on his end would pull or release the mob onto me.

________________________

So I got my little tanker to 75 and now I am working on going back and getting his virtues and epic done so I can start doing some skraids and get some shineys

I tanked some skraids for the first time last night with a friends kin (raiding kin probably #3 on the server) and in the Pony skirm, I was able to pick everything up and hold it as long as a trigger happy hunter didn't start the pull (karma maybe? lol). If only the LM knew that they had pass power and stun immunity skills, it would have been a lot easier, plus I have a feeling the minnie was in war speech the whole time, but I was pleasantly surprised by my AoE tanking nonetheless...

We aslo did the assult mirk skirm and I F'd up on the boss b/c they told me like 10s into the pull that I was tanking (been just dpsing the whole time with their main guard/warden tanking) and i never held aggro longer than my challenge forced them on me. Immediately afterwards I knew I should have swapped to the +28% threat stance and engaged but being my first tanking situation without knowing, and still only at level cap for about a few weeks, I paniced, but I feel confident that it won't happen again

ANYWAY (sorry for the rant)

I have a question about the rotations people were talking about with single target bosses...

You guys mention using Shield-Taunt over Shield Swipe on single target bosses, and I am wondering why. I would have thought that Shield-Taunt was for AoE situations and that Shield Swipe would do more damage + aggro than the Taunt on a single target, but this must not be the case, right?

Originally Posted by SCHawks73

thoroughly convinced... took us a while to finally convince him to switch to threat stance, and a bit longer to use engage in a normal rotation, but he is smart and sees the difference and I can't wait to start opening up more on my Hunter

There's really no working this into rotations. Using it when it's not necessary doesn't do anything, and with a 1 minute CD it's better to save it for when you know it will be effective.

Originally Posted by SCHawks73

I have a question about the rotations people were talking about with single target bosses...

You guys mention using Shield-Taunt over Shield Swipe on single target bosses, and I am wondering why. I would have thought that Shield-Taunt was for AoE situations and that Shield Swipe would do more damage + aggro than the Taunt on a single target, but this must not be the case, right?

For single target I use Swipe->Bash->Smash or LoD->Bash->Smash. The reason for LoS is because it's a ToT skill so it will continue to generate threat while you're using other skills. That's just my opinion though, and I've never had too much trouble holding aggro.

Running the numbers...

Originally Posted by SCHawks73

You guys mention using Shield-Taunt over Shield Swipe on single target bosses, and I am wondering why. I would have thought that Shield-Taunt was for AoE situations and that Shield Swipe would do more damage + aggro than the Taunt on a single target, but this must not be the case, right?

Taunt: 3450
Swipe: 750 + Damage

Originally Posted by jhwort

For single target I use Swipe->Bash->Smash or LoD->Bash->Smash. The reason for LoS is because it's a ToT skill so it will continue to generate threat while you're using other skills. That's just my opinion though, and I've never had too much trouble holding aggro.

750 + 1450 + 2200 + damage from each = 4425 + damage

or

4000 + 1450 + 2200 + damage from latter two = 7650 + damage



"Sometimes survival comes down to not being hit. Actually, most times." -the chicken skill, Bob and Weave

Ugh, I got confused on the skills. (still a newbie)

What I was asking was NOT:
LoD vs. Shield Swipe - Because I figured the ToT would have more of an effect than a single dps hit
Shield Swipe vs. Shield Taunt - Because they are not on the same "tier"(?) as swipe is a pre-req of the taunt teir

But instead, what I meant to ask was, the difference between BASH and SHIELD TAUNT.

Bash is a single target attack of the shield with threat built into it, while shield taunt is just banging on your shield so it's 100% threat but no damage.

is Bash more effective over Shield Taunt in a ST boss fight?

Sorry for the confusion and thank you for your replies

Sure, use it when it's up. One adds more threat, one has more damage. It's not a matter of which one is better, you'll have plenty of opportunity to use both of them thoughout any fight.