Thread: New 75 Guardian looking for tank advice!

I am a veteran chimp at heart. But, ive gotten a guardian to level 75 and love the tanking role, but its more complicated than it looks!

My biggest question, is when ive been on champ, I have a few friend guardians that can hold my aggro, even when ive gone all out, be it AoE or bezerker. Then there have been some pug guardians that could not hold my aggro.

Now, I am on the other side of the fence. I have a guardian, and I am looking for the best possible advice on getting aggro and holding it from:

single mobs
multiple mobs

My current setup whcih is shakey at best:

trait 5x blue traits 2 yellow - all for threat generation. Yellow traits are for block and vitality.

Generally i run with the defence (shield) stance.

Now with Pugs, I can hold aggro no problem. When with friends, I really struggle to hold everything if its multiple mobs.

I have focused most of my attributes in vitality (currently at 1,450), with might being second at 700ish.
My tactical and physical mitigations sit around 10k each.

Currently if engaging a single mob (boss), I will start with Challenge and then get teh ward up, cycling all 3x shield attack skills whenever i can, or if none available the basic shield attack and vexing blow. 90% of the time I can hold the aggro no problem. Sometimes I throw a litany and taunt into the mix for the aggro over time element. But is there a better way of doing this?

If I engage multiple mobs, I generally try to ball them all up and use challenge (8 targets), followed by litany and taunt as much as I can. I try to focus on the Rats target, bashing that with the shield when the aoe threat skills are on cooldown. But very often, if with a good group I will lose a few mobs, and I can not figure out why.

So.. any advice welcomed!!

Oh weapon and belt legacies, I have the threat up maxed and a few other focused tanky things rather than dps things...

Cheers!

~a wannabe gud guardian!

Originally Posted by Khandaris

Now with Pugs, I can hold aggro no problem. When with friends, I really struggle to hold everything if its multiple mobs.

I would say this is more of a friend problem than a tanking problem, i reckon those friends of yours are probably wearing top end raid gear, have over 2k main stat, high crit rating and around 30k physical or tactical mastery, also probably 1st agers and no doubt going all out from the start just to test you. If they spank it, then let them tank it! If you see the LM pull with ents or champ run in before you make out you went afk and watch him die :P

They probably dont even follow rat and just try and aoe blend everything down, RK fire aoe, improved sticky gourd, sching sching.... only the healer will be your true friend (must be saved at all costs) and maybe the captain.

*goes off the spec healing* Remember healer... true friend! *whistles innocently*

don't forget to use also whirling retaliation in mob groups as it does dmg to all ( = aggro) but also grabs some aggro from other players.

Well I'm not a lvl 75 guard (yet) however one thing I have found to be very helpful in holding agro on mutli mob pulls is the proper use of protection while having the trait traited that transfers threat from the person you have the protection buff on(I don't remember the name of the trait atm). I like to have it on the healer if I need a lot of threat generated since the healer's heals generate threat on all the mobs Or the champ in the party as I increase the # of blocks I'll get that way and if the champ is aoeing then I'm also transferring threat from most if not all the mobs back to me. I have also used this technique to hold agro off of a lvl 75 healer or hunter in the party.

Again I'm not a lvl 75 Guard but I typically don't lose mobs during pulls ... and as one guy above states haha protect your mini ... thats your life blood though you probably know that already.

That all sounds pretty good Khand. When grouping with AOE damage dealers those group pulls will be your biggest problem. Essy is totally right. Some people cannot resist hitting their biggest damage skills right away. I often group with an LM who prides himself on pulling mobs at the start, and off the tank. He dies alot, which I don't care about, but he knows what he did and takes it all in good fun.

But you are doing the right things from my point of view. Our raid tank, who has made his guard (his only toon), as topped out as is possible will still occasionally lose aggro to our hunters or champs (since they are also top end). The dpser's just have to use their minus-aggro skills (ebb, beneath notice, etc.); that's what they are for!

Just remember, losing aggro isn't always your fault.

Belt: Get your Shield Use and Threat Generation up as high as practical (ie as high as you can without nerfing other legacies).

Stance: I usually run in Guardian's Threat Stance for multiple mobs or super DPS races, go Block for survivability against single target, low DPS fights, eg Dargnakh challenge or Draigoch's Head. Some would argue that the extra block % from Block stance is better at generating threat. I would invite you to experiment with toggling Guardian's Threat on/off mid fight and see the true power of this skill. Toggling stance is often used for "tank swapping", eg Turtle, ToO Lightning.

Traits: I usually trait 5B so i can get my stamp down to 5s CD but also so I can trait Litany Master. I don't know if it is all that effective (give our low Crit Rating), but its the best of the rest for Threat Generation.
- Grim Challenge - very nice being able to spam Challenge
- Harasser - Vexing Blow becomes an AoE, ie good for trash pulls
- Litany of Challenge - gives you a bit longer at the start of the fight to build threat
- Quick of Foot - not threat related but some bosses can cause wipes if not frequently interrupted (eg 2nd boss in Forges of Khazad Dum)
- Shield of Fire - spam Shield Taunt

Challenge the Darkness has a CD far too long to make it useful for me. To The King... my Crit Rating is laughably low, unless I hot swap some OP jewelery and sacrifice mitigation, so I usually trait Guardian's Threat, Litany Master and Shield Smash for tanking.

Skills:
I usually jump into trash fights with Challenge. It lets the DPS open up straight away and hopefully wipe some of those mobs out before it wears off. You should get enough block responses to build threat in that time. Be aware that if you just run in to start the fight, and an RK has HoT's running or a Mini is buffing then even though you trigger the fight you will most likely not be top of the threat list. Watch hopelessly as the mobs run right past you. It is very difficult to get threat back if you are not being attacked to generate block/parry responses.

Spam Shield Taunt, Vexing Blow, Litany of Defiance and Whirling Retaliation and you should be able to hold many mobs. For a single target you can trade Shield Bash for Shield Taunt.

Keep Guardian's Ward up as much as you can for extra block chance and mitigation, but spamming threat skills is your first priority (the healer is there to keep you alive).

I normally save Engage for emergencies. Someone, sometime *is* going to pull threat from you and you want to get it right back. Use Fray the Edge (ranged) while chasing the mob and use Engage when you catch up. A DPS/healer pulling a single target is manageable. LM's opening with high DPS AOE's *will* cause you grief as they peel of multiple mobs simultaneously.

Some tanks use Guardians Pledge at the start of a fight to increase block chance and generate threat. I save it for emergencies, ie when the Healer has run out of power or is running around on fire because they have the eye in Foundry. Similarly, with 5 pieces of Draigoch the 3k heal from Warriors Heart/Fortitude is too good to waste by popping it at the start of a fight for an extra 1k max morale.

If you know the fight and know that another wave of adds is coming then save your Challenge after the initial use, eg when the Shamans come in RoF 1st boss fight.

Running a DPS assist is useful so the group can focus fire while you focus on your priorities (keeping that troll turned away, interrupting the boss's inductions, etc) but if all else is manageable it may pay to generate extra threat on the DPS target occasionally (Shield Blow, Shield Smash, Fray the Edge).

Once you get your threat rotation down you should be able to do it without thinking. Then you can cast your view wider. A good tank is constantly scanning the battlefield, being aware if his/her surroundings:
- Has someone pulled a mob that needs extra aggro?
- Are additional mobs incoming (and heading straight for the healer)?
- Is the healer taking damage from a ranged mob that is outside your threat range?
- Has someone broken a mez?
- Is another wave of mobs incoming?
- Have you just moved out of range / LoS of the healer or DPSs?

The tank is the anchor point of the fight; there is no point kiting all over the place if the champs are constantly trailing behind you. Moving mobs out of LoS of classes with long inductions (LM's, Hunters, fire RK's) will also not be appreciated. Reliability and predictability are key.

And don't forget, have fun, (oh and thank your healer frequently)

Since U6, i lose aggro easier in block stance, prob cause bunchs of upgrade gears, so i run threat stance now for tanking. A geared guard can reach 25% block in threat stance, fair enough to open block chain. But sometime i still lose aggro, because a massive crit, or other reasons. Engage and try to spam threat if it's single target, or challenge if multi. Usually the dps got aggro will slow down a bit if he dont want to die, or will burst damage if he believe the mob will die before himself.

All this advice is excellent!

Some things I didnt pick up on, the Whirling retaliation - didnt know this had a threat component to it as well
Protection - lowering the recipients threat / transfering it to the guardian

I will re-spec my sword to include the +aoe targets legacy

As for the rest of the advice, its opened my eyes a bit to the secret world of tanking. The tanking bible seems to have only one phrase..

1) Love thy healer!

As for the rest of it, I will be practicing new rotations from what you have all said. I know Threat stance is available, particularly for trash mobs and Im sure it works very well(!) I want to try though, to see if its viable in block stance as Im certain ive seen other good tanks doing this.

As for the shield up on the belt.. I can appreciate this would add to the shield direct DPS / threat, but would it add threat to the Sheild taunts and litanies that you get off block responses?

Thanks very much for all the advice!

Originally Posted by Twokimli

Well I'm not a lvl 75 guard (yet) however one thing I have found to be very helpful in holding agro on mutli mob pulls is the proper use of protection while having the trait traited that transfers threat from the person you have the protection buff on(I don't remember the name of the trait atm). I like to have it on the healer if I need a lot of threat generated since the healer's heals generate threat on all the mobs Or the champ in the party as I increase the # of blocks I'll get that way and if the champ is aoeing then I'm also transferring threat from most if not all the mobs back to me. I have also used this technique to hold agro off of a lvl 75 healer or hunter in the party.

You're slightly mis-understanding that trait (It's called Selfless Protection). It only transfers threat when they are attacked by a mob, so it's not all that great at generating threat for you. However, it does give your target -10% perceived aggro, which can be very helpful for them.

For the OP, take a look at this post and put it somewhere you can reference it. It has the approximate threat generation numbers for all our skills: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...76#post5963276

There is a thread still on the front page which is extremely informative: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...gage-questions. The explanation of how to use engage pro-actively is impressive, although that's still pretty hard to get right.

Originally Posted by Khandaris

I know Threat stance is available, particularly for trash mobs and Im sure it works very well(!) I want to try though, to see if its viable in block stance as Im certain ive seen other good tanks doing this.

The question isn't if others were in block stance, the question is why they were. If you don't understand that, and don't have an understanding of perceived threat, then it's a fruitless attempt.

(Since there's been little to no mention of perceived threat, and only a mention of wanting to use block stance, I'm guessing this is an issue.)



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

The best way to keep threat is to keep the DPS a little off balance. Rush in and start tanking while they're still chatting about their last big crit. For most things, you can even leave your healer behind and use your survival skills while they get their collective heads out of their rears.

And for the love of all that is good and holy, never pull with a ranged skill unless entirely necessary. Get in there and shove a shield in their face. Pulling from range is a good way to get mobs chasing healers and RK stones instead of all bunched up into a manageable pile.

Not sure if this is relevant advice for you, but advice for any new tank.

Originally Posted by Frisco

The best way to keep threat is to keep the DPS a little off balance. Rush in and start tanking while they're still chatting about their last big crit. For most things, you can even leave your healer behind and use your survival skills while they get their collective heads out of their rears.

This is very good advice. YOU are in charge of this mission. Control the flow of the pulls and learn to recognize when people are 'ready enough' to go. Keep the pulls flowing enough so that people don't have a chance to let their mind drift off or start yapping in GLFF.

Originally Posted by Khandaris

I am a veteran chimp at heart.

Hehe chimp... That cracked me up lol. Sorry nothing to contribute to the topic though.

Something that no one has mentioned is the block chain priority for agro. If you're looking to maximize agro, it is important that you use litany and shield taunt whenever they are off cd. While slightly counter-intuitive, they generate far more agro, even against a single target then the other two options. Look at the post that Valiant_Turtle referred you to, it should be tremendously helpful in determining your agro rotation. Also, like others have mentioned, whirling retaliation should be used a lot, but I don't usually go further into the parry chain when I'm looking for agro.

Well, with all the advice written here and re-speccing stuff last night (adding Aoe+3 to weapon etc), juggling traits around. Challenge now affects 8, WR now affects 8.

I have also ditched using fray the edge for a pull (!) and opted to get stuck in with Challenge wherever I can.

Tanking seems so much easier with just some subtle adjustments that people have mentioned (and a big thanks to Essy for chatting to me last night), and using Threat stance for trash stuff.

It is quite clear that Threat is required when people are endgame spec'd and go all out at the start. In Threat, for some reason I feel REALLY squishy, but flipside is if you want a fast run, the stance has to be used.. so keeps the beloved healer on their toes

I KNOW some people have mentioned to allow a precious second or so for the tank to get aggro before the DPS starts, but at end of day. We all want to burn through it right? From a champ perspective, the faster something dies, the less damage the group will take. So I am adapting to tank with the dps considerations in mind, and of course firing off litany and taunt whenever they are off cooldown! If a party member gets the aggro before i do, well they best tank it until i can fire off challenge

Think I got all the basics down now, its just learning what works best in the instances and refining rotations.

Thanks again for everyone that has contributed and provided the resources and advice!!

Guardian threat stance helps....I ALWAYS use whirling retaliation when it's up. Cycle shield taunts, and always use fray the edge THEN engage together and in that order. Tanking rocks! Have fun....CHIMP....the old days of champ/guard teams working together seems long gone....too bad.

Want to tank end game? Then it's 5y/2b.

Leave the interupping the the chimps/burgs.

I'll leave it to you to workout your skill rotations.

(I will just add that you should level all your legacies as far as they will go and then level your shield rank on your belt, those points are far better spent elsewhere)

I would like to disagree with previous post - blu traits are srsly more useful then yello, even in t2.

There might be reasoning to use 4 yellos (block,cb,heart,stoic), but then u miss out on 8% percieved. Thus I've always opted for 4b/3y setup .. mostly : grim litany harr threatening/stomp stoic heart block/cb

also - legacies on belt? we lack our LPs on weapons far more then on belts .. and why the hell would u level the tiny difference in cry resist and threat bpe before shield use?

On topic - tanking is 90% about skill, and skill comes from experience. You will pick up a lot of things as you go along.

Fray the edge is actually a veery nice skill. You just have to understand where to use it. That's our most reliable single-target ranged pickup. And also a nice way to keep aggro on distant targets.

I also like Darkness. Yes, the 10m cd is stupid, but that's not the point. This isnt meant to be a skill for frequent use, but it can turn out to be your best friend in certain situations - grabbing a huge incoming wave, distant spawns, or keeping forced aggro for longer. Darkness has both - a bigger range and longer "forced" timer. For example - challenge > darkness > challenge = 1 minute of forced aggro on 10 targets .. or insta aggro 6 Sarumans on p5.

Playing tank isn't actually that straight forward, there's a lot going on, and various aproaches to situations. You just have to find what works best for you

Originally Posted by Evelline

I would like to disagree with previous post - blu traits are srsly more useful then yello, even in t2.

No they arnt.

Originally Posted by Evelline

There might be reasoning to use 4 yellos (block,cb,heart,stoic), but then u miss out on 8% percieved.

If you need 8% extra percieved threat, you're doing something wrong.

Originally Posted by Evelline

also - legacies on belt? we lack our LPs on weapons far more then on belts .. and why the hell would u level the tiny difference in cry resist and threat bpe before shield use?

Because all of those are what makes a tank effective. Levelling shiled use still leaves you with low dps. News Flash, you ARNT a dps class.

Originally Posted by Evelline

On topic - tanking is 90% about skill, and skill comes from experience.

Sound like you need both, I'd go gain some if I were you.

I'm not about to waste trait slots on yellows for a measly 1% crit defense.

Another tip, don't trust anyone who tries to tell you there's only 1 way to do something.

This is a very controversial thread, with so many conflicting opinions.

I've found myself addicted to 5 yellows and 2 blues(harasser and threatening presence) with the yellow capstone, threat stance and shield smash. It's a really good sweet spot for defence, threat and power management. I use it for everything but the most insane dps races and moors.

As well as traits, LI legacies, particularly guardian's belts are commonly argued about. I put priority into shield use rank, threat gen up rating and the two shield damage legacies, shield damage and shield-smash damage. If my belt had a 4th major, I would have included cry resist chance but for me, a 15 second catch a breath is too good to lose.

For a 1 hander, put priority into your legacies, not base damage, the utility style 1-hander is so much better for tanking than the dps 1-hander. Go for things like AoE targets, Targeted melee skills range, guardian's ward duration, pledge cd, bash damage, warriors fortitude duration.

My reasoning for taking the three shield damage legacies and maxing out shield use rank as well as combined with the yellow traits. Well because they are all threat skills, in fact, they are the best threat generating skills you have, all on very short cd's, so you want them to be as effective as possible. Oh and buy some damn shield spikes, westernesse vendor ones will do!

A few tanking tips:

When starting a boss fight, don't start off with a challenge, It's not a good idea. Save it for when you lose aggro. Instead, initiate with an Improved shield-blow, followed by a Fray the edge. You'll be in melee range to start with, so take advantage of it. If you start with fray the edge and it resists, your left chasing the boss.

When you lose aggro, challenge immediately while he's still in range, he should turn back around. Drop threat stance and go into block stance, lowering your aggro even further. Now use engage, doing so will raise your aggro just above the person you lost it to earlier. Now put threat stance back on and you will have 20% more threat than him. The longer the fight goes on, the easier it will be told hold threat doing that trick. This same trick can also be used with Challenge the darkness, instead of engage, as it does the same thing, only it's AoE. However there's only a few situations I see the need to trait this, Acid Challenge the dps way comes to mind.

For ToO fights, make sure your popping your cd's before you start the fight, so warriors heart and pledge just before you all run in (as long as you've reset the fight once and saruman has left) because as soon as you start the fight, all class skill cd's reset.

For multiple mob pulls, like foundry for example where the tank can progressively keep pulling more and more mobs. Just use your melee skills to tank. You make the initial pull, establish solid aggro using melee skills and run near the next pull. Wait till you get a block event, then run into the new mobs with your litany and shield taunt. Dont use them again, establish solid aggro with melee skills and move them near the next pull, get a block event, run in with the same taunts. Every new pull be aware of ones that run to the healer, it will happen and select with mouse and fray the edge, chase any others. Tabbing through 20 targets to get the right one just isn't feasible. Only do this if your very sturdy and trust your healer AND you have some good AoE or its pretty pointless.

For pulls like the two sets of orc trash in RoF, I enjoy running in with a warriors fortitude/ignore the pain, litnay and shield taunt.

Same goes for Saruman, we use two tanks and I'm tasked with picking 2-4 saruman up at the beginning of each phase. I just sit pretty with a warriors fortitude ready, then litany and shield taunt. It picks them up everytime!

Hope this helps, good luck fellow guardian!

Originally Posted by nalsop705

always use fray the edge THEN engage together and in that order

I don't understand why you would use them in that order, surely the other way around would be better? Fray adds threat, engage bumps you to the top of the threat table, so why wouldn't you engage first to get to the top of the table and then fray to give you a lead on the next lowest threat?

Originally Posted by Tennent

If you need 8% extra percieved threat, you're doing something wrong.

Disagreed completely. IMO if you DON'T need the extra 8% then you're group is doing something wrong. In most non-raid situations I'd agree that you could probably suffice with 5y/2b if you'd like, but for raiding ToO t2 with a highly geared group, the 28% perceived is pretty much needed. You aren't going to have an issue with survivability as long as you're halfway decently geared and know what you're doing. Tilting your traits to generate more agro so that you're group can go full out dps from the start is never a bad idea.

Originally Posted by Frisco

I'm not about to waste trait slots on yellows for a measly 1% crit defense.

Another tip, don't trust anyone who tries to tell you there's only 1 way to do something.

5 yellows vs 3 yellows gives you 900 rating which can be up to 3% crit defense. It still doesn't sound like much but when the mob only has 3% crit chance left after debuffs, it makes a potentially very significant difference.

When traited for maximum crit defense and a mob is debuffed with see all ends, I get virtually zero crits from even the Shadow boss.

Originally Posted by KingGsterUK

When you lose aggro, challenge immediately while he's still in range, he should turn back around. Drop threat stance and go into block stance, lowering your aggro even further. Now use engage, doing so will raise your aggro just above the person you lost it to earlier. Now put threat stance back on and you will have 20% more threat than him. The longer the fight goes on, the easier it will be told hold threat doing that trick. This same trick can also be used with Challenge the darkness, instead of engage, as it does the same thing, only it's AoE. However there's only a few situations I see the need to trait this, Acid Challenge the dps way comes to mind.

a) If your Hunters want to go Burn Hot crazy DPS from the get go, your expected time to lose aggro will be about 2s. There is no way you can not begin with challenge and hold aggro for any amount of time to make it worthwhile not having started with Challenge within a second or two (unless you want your DPSers to hold back).

b) If a Hunter pulls aggro, there is no guarantee you won't be mid animation and thus it will be impossible to hit Challenge before the boss moves out of range, drastically lowering the groups DPS.

c) There is absolutely no need to drop to Block stance before using Engage (and lots of reason not to). Engage will always copy the highest RAW threat value regardless of whatever Perceived Threat bonuses are currently active.








!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...32#post6179732

I posted a bit about this sort of thing in this other thread, but I'll repeat a lot of stuff I said in it.

I like 5Y2B for tanking the vast majority of endgame content. Could be my playstyle, or my gear, but I like the resilience and power-restoration capabilities going 5 deep yellow brings.

Guards Ward,
Stoic,
Defensive Expertise,
Deflected Blows,
Controlled Breathing

Harasser,
Threatening Presence

For Legendaries, I go with the Yellow Capstone, TTK, and CTD. I don't use Threat stance much at all.

Guards have an anemic power pool. Between cycling Take to Heart, CAB and power pots, I generally don't run out of power, regardless of whether I have a pocket LM. CTD makes for a very nice last ditch emergency taunt. TTK is nice for FMs, when it crits.

For Belts, nothing less than 4 majors is at all suitable for tanking. The four belt legs I feel are compulsory are Threat Gen rating up, Guard's Ward Block bonus up, Cry Resist down and Challenge targets up. If you're lucky enough for a fifth, I'd go with GW Parry Bonus up. Minor legacies depend on your particular trait set. I like power restore on reactions, since I trait for it, and maybe guard's ward B/P bonus, although I don't tend to use it except in certain situations (mostly when I have to swap tank, ie. ToO Lightning wing boss.). Some people swear by Reactive Block damage, but even with the DPS a capped legacy provides, I don't think it's all that great.

One-handed Tanking blades/axes/cudgels, the only real necessary one is Guard AE melee targets up, mainly to turn harasser-traited vexing blow into your bread-and-butter taunt, but the love it gives to whirly retal and sweeping cut helps hold threat against a lot more mobs too. Ward duration is nice, vexing blow damage is another one I like, same with whirly retal and sweeping cut damage.

Challenge is less than ideal for an opening aoe-pull. Consider Ignore the Pain instead, as it gives a block event, setting up your block-line AOE taunts. This is how a lot of the guards in my kin open up phases in the saruman fight.

And then there's gems... I go with Exceptional relics. Any T7s or better I get I simply turn into shards, and accumulate shards by making crafted relics whenever I can. I just think the returns on investment just diminish too much past T6. It all comes down to personal preference, but relics are one of only a couple ways to improve your crit defense, so I would personally suggest using the one relic that does. Besides that, go for block and/or incoming heal rating.