Thread: Aggro Management

So our kin attempted ToO Acid T2 yesterday. The trash pulls went fine, and we managed to reach the boss. We tried to use 2 Guardians to tank: one tanking the boss, and another tanking the adds. We opted for the full-burn method. However, regardless of what our tank tried, they kept losing aggro on the boss after a few seconds. We had 3 Champions dumping aggro constantly at him, and 2 Burglars who kept spamming provoke.

So we decided to retry a few times, and as the aggro issues persisted, we swapped the Guard with a Warden. The aggro issues disappeared with a Warden tanking. May I ask how other Guardians tanked this boss? What rotations do you all use? Our group had mostly FAs, and all of them hit hard. With Warden tanking, we managed to get the boss to 650K until the acid rises. We know it was doable with Warden tanking, but we don't have many Wardens in our kin and we don't want to rely too heavily on one tank class for the fight. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

I tanked Acid T2 yesterday, first time. At the beginning i have the same problem. But then it seem better with some advices from kinmate. Trait selfless defence and put it on the hunter with biggest bow. Pop pledge, run in, pop ignore the pain, challenge the boss, roll on block chain: shield swipe - bash - shield smash, with shield blow, fray the edge... now and then. Challenge again as soon as it cooldown. We got the boss to 9.5k before the acid rose (yeah dammit 9.5k, just 1 more hit). I still lost aggro in unfortunate case when i couldnt get block even (i have a lame 2'nd belt with only 1% threat). Seem like it's about luck for guard tanking this boss. If you're lucky and have many block, you can spam block chain and keep aggro, if you dont, you fail. Warden tank this easier because they dont need block to active they skill, and their transfer threat skill not only increase threat for themself, but decrease other fellows threat. Turbine need to increase threat for guard.

Not entirely true : http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Selfless_Defence

The above trait does not work, they way it Hiritier explained it.

For it to work, the person with the highest dps/threat output has to be in range and more importantly under attack. The moment the enemy(boss, mob) switches back to the guardian or in a worst case sceneario to the #2 highest dps in the raid.. the benefit of the trait/protec. skill is not in effect anymore.

Your Protection will now add also an effect to the protected target that will transfer an amount of threat from the protected target to the Guardian when the protected target is attacked.

Originally Posted by entername

Not entirely true : http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Selfless_Defence

The above trait does not work, they way it Hiritier explained it.

For it to work, the person with the highest dps/threat output has to be in range and more importantly under attack. The moment the enemy(boss, mob) switches back to the guardian or in a worst case sceneario to the #2 highest dps in the raid.. the benefit of the trait/protec. skill is not in effect anymore.

Even without the transfer threat effect, -10% perceived threat still worth to use.

So... I tanked in 4b 3y (not the only way to do it)
GT, challenge the darkness, and shield smash.

open with fray the edge to grab the mob, then challenge (normal, not CtD). We had one captain use OB during the challenge so dps is doing as much as possible. I hit engage when challenge is about to end. After engage the champions ebb ire to the tank (we have 1-2 champs).

After engage you'll want to build threat as fast as possible for basically 15s until challenge is off cd. If you lose threat during this portion it probably means that engage missed, or your champs didn't ebb ire. Or you're a bad guardian and need to learn how to hold threat! (sorry it's true!)

When challenge is off CD... use it, that should get you to about the 50s mark (I use CtD here because I DONT want to pull the adds that come, and they come at 50s), where you need to use Challenge the Darkness for another threat copy. That should hold you until the 1:10 mark where engage will be off cooldown again, and you can use a 3rd threat copy... although it doesn't really matter after CtD, I was usually able to hold threat regardless of what i did after that.

the first engage missing was the biggest problem.
I traited selfless-defense just because i had a spot for more yellows, i don't think it's required, but hey why not?

Originally Posted by DuneBug

So... I tanked in 4b 3y (not the only way to do it)
GT, challenge the darkness, and shield smash.

... Or you're a bad guardian and need to learn how to hold threat! (sorry it's true!)

pulling a boss with Challenge the Darkness and calling other Guardians bad... seriously, do you know how CtD works?
It's like Engage (as aoe) and Challenge combined, it's THE "oh sh**" button, you don't use it for pulls, you use it if Engage misses or you need to take over aggro of more than one mob instantly...

Originally Posted by Sir_Thorblod

pulling a boss with Challenge the Darkness and calling other Guardians bad... seriously, do you know how CtD works?
It's like Engage (as aoe) and Challenge combined, it's THE "oh sh**" button, you don't use it for pulls, you use it if Engage misses or you need to take over aggro of more than one mob instantly...

He said start with Challenge, not CtD. Failure of reading comprehension there I think. What he said is basically what you should do.




I've started to trait selfless defense since its actually better than 4B if you only have one good Hunter in the raid (the person who is gonna be easily more than 10% above anyone else on the threat list), and allows you to trait 5Y very comfortably.

I think the Acid boss is a level higher than most of the other bosses in OT, because I seem to get far more misses on him than anything else which can be a real pain (any missed Engages/CtDs can screw you over).

Originally Posted by Hiritier

If you're lucky and have many block, you can spam block chain and keep aggro, if you dont, you fail.

uh no.

26s (well, 36s with CtD) of the fight the guard will have forced aggro followed by engage = no block responses needed to maintain aggro.

30s of the fight pledge will be up = easy way to get block responses.

the remaining 30-40s the guard has 5 ways to open a block response (2 warrior's fortitudes, 2 thrill of dangers, ignore the pain). Easy peasy to get block responses when needed to keep aggo.

Run in, use fray the edge to grab initial aggro and pop a pledge. Watch the block responses roll in and build as much aggro as you can as fast as you can for roughly 15 seconds, THEN tell the dps they are allowed to come in. Anytime you get a parry response remember to use whirling retaliation as it's a AOE aggro leech from anyone in melee.

Trait 5b 2y and use CtD / Litany Master / Shield Smash as legendaries.

I just love when Yellow traited Guardians can't hold aggro and don't know why. Litany Master is the dogs gonads for aggro generation. Lear to use it, love it, treat it like your wife/gf/husband/bf/hand (delete as applicable).

What most groups also don't do is actually allow tanks in general, not just Guardians, to build aggro for a period of time before coming in and doing stupid dps... we may not need this time but it's a good safetly net to have given how in some situations, losing aggro for 2 seconds can = Party wipe.

The only problem with telling DPS to wait, is that on this boss fight, you can't. You have to go balls to the wall from the get go, so challenge, etc to make sure you get and then keep agro. This fight lasts about 1m30s, so that's really all you need to worry about.

Originally Posted by Tainted_Black

Run in, use fray the edge to grab initial aggro and pop a pledge. Watch the block responses roll in and build as much aggro as you can as fast as you can for roughly 15 seconds, THEN tell the dps they are allowed to come in. Anytime you get a parry response remember to use whirling retaliation as it's a AOE aggro leech from anyone in melee.

Trait 5b 2y and use CtD / Litany Master / Shield Smash as legendaries.

I just love when Yellow traited Guardians can't hold aggro and don't know why. Litany Master is the dogs gonads for aggro generation. Lear to use it, love it, treat it like your wife/gf/husband/bf/hand (delete as applicable).

What most groups also don't do is actually allow tanks in general, not just Guardians, to build aggro for a period of time before coming in and doing stupid dps... we may not need this time but it's a good safetly net to have given how in some situations, losing aggro for 2 seconds can = Party wipe.

Your theory would work fine in any normal boss fight where time is not against you, however i think you completely missed the whole point of the topic. They went for the full burn out method to have the least amount of waves as possible. Using that method you dont have 15 seconds for the dpsers in the group to stand around looking pretty, its full nuke from the get go.

I know you don't want to rely on one certain tank class and all, but since you have a warden in your kin, you could also consider using him/her for threat management rather then tanking (I can't believe I suggest that ).

In Assailment stance (the ranged one), the WRD has some skills which reduce the threat generated by damage and healing for 10 seconds. With conviction (the group heal), it is -99% threat generated by dmg/heal for 10 seconds. You could have him/her play that gambit twice in the beginning and threat should be no trouble at all. After that, the WRD could stance dance into melee stance and the same gambit has, besides the group heal, a +3000 phys mastery for 10 seconds for the whole group.

You might lose out on some damage from the WRD itself, but you also have one group which doesn't have to care about threat at all, which gets 3000 phys mastery after approx. 12 seconds into the fight, and a properly traited WRD has a good chance of applying 5% crit damage to the target. Apart from the threat reduction the perks are not major, but they might just give the fight a nice twist.

Just wanted to throw that in, most people don't know that stuff, yet.

Originally Posted by Evendale

He said start with Challenge, not CtD. Failure of reading comprehension there I think. What he said is basically what you should do.

sorry, you're right, it was late yesterday (at least over here it was ) and I was in a bad mood kinda... totally misread that, my apologies, DuneBug, I actually have the same traits for that boss fight, Litany Master is useless imao, sorry Tainted_Black, but good Guardians are able to hold aggro without it, in fact I think good Guards generate more aggro with the 4b/3y trait line, because yellow helps you with your blocking and such... I usually trait 5y/2b with the Heart of Fire legendary EXCEPT for boss fights like this one and F&F and skirms (in those yellow is not very effective, I admit, but I hate skirms anyways)... if you know what you're doing, tanking in Block Stance and yellow trait line is the best way to go imao...

All the advice here is great for generating initial aggro, but here's a tip for holding it throughout the fight: hit 'Engage' whenever it's up (I usually work it into my rotation about one minute in). Combined with Guardian's Threat (as well as belt perceived threat bonuses and possibly the +8% for going 4 deep in the blue line), hitting 'Engage' will automatically give you a 20% - 34% lead on whoever has the most aggro, apart from you. If you're at the top, it won't do anything, but if your DPS is slowly gaining on you, this will pop you back onto the top of the list. Consider it to be an insurance policy on maintaining threat.

Best of all, since everyone's threat is increasing over time, the bonus you gain increases as well. So by the late stages of a DPS race, you can tell everyone to ignore threat and drop their big hits with very little fear that you'll lose aggro.

Yellow line doesn't really do much to get you extra blocks. The only trait that helps with that is Defensive Expertise, and it's benefit is minimal if your block and common mits are capped or nearly so. Yellow line gets less useful the closer you get to caps and frankly most of the entire line seems pretty pathetic for raids/6-mans. Let me take a closer look:

Guardian's Ward: Essentially useless if your common mit is capped.
Selfless Defense: Situationally useful for the -10% on one person, but pretty meh IMHO.
Defensive Expertise: Mostly useless if block is capped, but not entirely.
Deflected Blows: This one isn't bad. The +2.5% Partial Block mit is decent. In most raids/6-mans we don't have to worry about power.
Controlled Breathing: CaB is just a waste of a good block response most of the time.
Brave Heart: This is the first really tempting trait. WF is a decent long-lasting buff and the heal isn't terrible. Free block/parry is good to. This is especially nice if you've got the full Draigoch set or the ToO set which reduces the cooldown.
Stoic: A solid option. More Vit is always welcome and most of us aren't quite capped on tact mit.
Final Straw: Unimpressive. This one would be considerably improved if it also reduced cooldown on FtE.

The only things I like for raids about going more than 2Y is the extra crit defense for 3Y and 4Y. The rest of it isn't very exciting. I do go yellow if I'm trying to solo harder content, but I don't think it brings much to the table for grouping. The Blue Line traits are all far more useful and it doesn't matter in the least if anything is capped. The only blue trait I don't like when grouping is Reactive Block.

If you need more blocks Yellow line doesn't do much. If you need more blocks just go into Block Stance. Contrary to popular belief there's no law against traiting 5B and using block stance.

Originally Posted by DavadaOT

All the advice here is great for generating initial aggro, but here's a tip for holding it throughout the fight: hit 'Engage' whenever it's up

so when you really need it, because one of your dps classes has a bit of crit luck, you have it on cd? Not a good idea...

Originally Posted by Valiant_Turtle

Yellow line doesn't really do much to get you extra blocks. The only trait that helps with that is Defensive Expertise, and it's benefit is minimal if your block and common mits are capped or nearly so. Yellow line gets less useful the closer you get to caps and frankly most of the entire line seems pretty pathetic for raids/6-mans. Let me take a closer look:

Guardian's Ward: Essentially useless if your common mit is capped.
Selfless Defense: Situationally useful for the -10% on one person, but pretty meh IMHO.
Defensive Expertise: Mostly useless if block is capped, but not entirely.
Deflected Blows: This one isn't bad. The +2.5% Partial Block mit is decent. In most raids/6-mans we don't have to worry about power.
Controlled Breathing: CaB is just a waste of a good block response most of the time.
Brave Heart: This is the first really tempting trait. WF is a decent long-lasting buff and the heal isn't terrible. Free block/parry is good to. This is especially nice if you've got the full Draigoch set or the ToO set which reduces the cooldown.
Stoic: A solid option. More Vit is always welcome and most of us aren't quite capped on tact mit.
Final Straw: Unimpressive. This one would be considerably improved if it also reduced cooldown on FtE.

The only things I like for raids about going more than 2Y is the extra crit defense for 3Y and 4Y. The rest of it isn't very exciting. I do go yellow if I'm trying to solo harder content, but I don't think it brings much to the table for grouping. The Blue Line traits are all far more useful and it doesn't matter in the least if anything is capped. The only blue trait I don't like when grouping is Reactive Block.

If you need more blocks Yellow line doesn't do much. If you need more blocks just go into Block Stance. Contrary to popular belief there's no law against traiting 5B and using block stance.

blue traits are far less useful... the only ones that are really that good are Threatening Presence and Shield of Fire, I always have those traited, the rest are pretty useless...
Also Improved Guardians Ward increases your block and parry rating from Guardians Ward, Defensive Expertise an Deflected Blows help you get more blocks and the Warriors Heart trait gives you the option to force a block event with that skill, I always trait that, even when I go 4 or 5 blue. Plust Stoic is a must have trait for any trait line, be it blue, yellow, or Moors traiting, why would any Guard NOT trait it? Its basically a gift, of Vita and Tactical mitigation, take it!
So what does the blue line have to offer? Reduced cooldown of Challenge? Don't need it. Reduced cooldown of Stamp? Don't need it either. Blue traits are useless (except for TP and SoF) and only worth it if you need to be in GT for a boss fight light Acid or F&F (then go 4b,3y) or if you absolutely need the extra Litany targets from Litany Master like in a skirm (then obviously you have to go 5b,2y), but the traits themselves are mostly useless, I can't even decide which ones to pick really when I trait for a damage race boss fight, since they're all useless for that... usually I even go with Reactive Block, because I don't need the others anyway...

We do this the "normal" way so no nukie nukie tactic.

I guess if you do the full nuke tactic AND you have 2 guardians it should be easy.
When the boss activates tell the group to go nuts after you have popped (traited) challenge. Just before the challenge ends let the other tank challenge which gives your DPS-ers about 25s to do their thing. Just before the second challenge is gone pop engage and then threat stance. You will now have a 28% lead on the highest DPSer in the group and basically it doesn't really matter how much threat you generated yourself. Let the champs dump aggro after this and let the burgs throw in a provoke here and there and you should be fine. When your challenge is off cooldown again pop it, switch to block stance, hit challenge the darkness and hit threat stance again. This should last until you can pop challenge again and do the same trick with engage which will now be off cd again. So in short... the challenge - engage - threat stance trick should be enough.

I didn't realize there was a +Block/Parry on the Guardian's Ward trait. That does make it a bit better. I'll have to see what the numbers on that are. Does Turbine have some kind of policy mandating terrible documentation?

I'll give my Blue-line run-down for comparison and * the ones I usually use:

Grim Challenge: Not exceptional, but good for places where the add-waves come in quick. When combined with Litany of Challenge it's a solid increase to your AOE threat and helps significantly for those horrid times you have to kite-tank. There are occasions when I swap this in and wouldn't mind slotting it if there was a reason to go 6B.
*Harasser: Just plain awesome. More damage & threat, more often. It's right up there with Stoic (which I agree is awesome) as a must-have trait. I only un-trait this in the rare occasions when AOE is a no-no (I think it was the 16th Hall boss fight).
Reactive Block: Fun for solo-ing, pretty useless for grouping.
*Threatening Pressence: Increases all shield threat so it's a must for tanking.
Heat of Battle: Good for the free blocks. The cooldown is still too long for multiple uses in most fights. I'd rather trait Brave Heart if I need to force blocks. This would be more important if big bosses didn't reset cooldowns.
*Litany of Challenge: 3 nice little bonuses that all help. I think the additional targets are the most important. The +threat has been measured at around 500, which isn't a lot, but it certainly helps.
*Shield of Fire: More threat and 1 more target for Shield Taunt is definitely worth it.
*Quick of Foot: This is a bit of a strategic decision. My kin prefers to have the guards handle boss inductions and just call for an extra interrupt when we need it. We are somewhat light on champs and burgs which probably influences this approach. I don't think our burgs usually have 5sec addle either.

I think a big part of going 5B for me is that I don't particularly like CtD and I do like 5sec Stamp. I never really seem to need CtD and the cooldown is horrid, so I don't really have anything else I want for my 3rd legendary slot other than Litany Master. I do plan on slotting it next time I fight Saruman though. My kin can get to stage 5 just fine but we haven't successfully gotten the stage 5 clones properly divided up and I expect CtD might help with that.

One setup I occasionally use is 5B (the above), 1Y (Stoic) and 1R (Quickness). I'm quite comfortable with my block rating and overall durability, but could generally use more parries. Quickness is the best trait for those without actually using our poor neglected parry stance.

It's pretty easy to hold agro for 1:30. You have two copy skills available, and with challenge CD traited you don't need to be the best at skill rotation to keep agro. Start with Fray then challenge, when challenge is almost up, engage and then hit pledge and start the block responses (no reason to use pledge for threat gen before you engage).That should buy enough time for challenge to come back up. Challenge again and once that's almost finished hit CtD, reset pledge and go until challenge is off CD, challenge again and engage. At that point you should have a large enough lead to tank normally for the rest of the fight. Selfless defense can definitely help on a hunter and champs can also help by ebbing after your threat copies.

The difference between a guard tanking and a warden tanking is that a guard relies on not getting a miss/resist. Threat leeches are, and have always been, the most powerful aggro tool in the game.

Just curious but does anyone bother with Whirling Retaliation thrown in there to suck some aggro?

Originally Posted by ChromiteSwiftpaw

Just curious but does anyone bother with Whirling Retaliation thrown in there to suck some aggro?

I always use WR when tanking. There's no reason to use the other (unless WR is on CD or you don't want to break cc) as they both open the t2 parry chain. However, the transfer is a fixed number per group member in range and is less effective than a % threat transfer, but it's still a skill that should be used as much as possible.

Originally Posted by jhwort

I always use WR when tanking. There's no reason to use the other (unless WR is on CD or you don't want to break cc) as they both open the t2 parry chain. However, the transfer is a fixed number per group member in range and is less effective than a % threat transfer, but it's still a skill that should be used as much as possible.

Oh, I know this.. but I was just talking about Acid specifically hehe. Everyone is usually bunched up around the Acid boss.

Did either of the Guardian's try Guardian Threat Stance? This will give the Guardian +28% Perceived Threat. The longer the fight goes on the easier it will become for the Guardian to hold aggro when in Threat Stance. ie; let's say near the beginning the highest dps'r has 50k damage threat, with Engage to match their threat this means the Guardian will have 64k threat, a 14k difference which a hard hitting dps class can potentially beat very quickly.. but as the fight draws on let's say the dps'r has 200k damage threat, with Engage to match threat the Guardian will have 256k threat, a difference of 56k threat which is much more difficult to beat via damage alone.

Additionally the Guardian can put Selfless Defence (-10% Perceived Threat) on the biggest dps'r in the raid. Using the numbers above as the same example... near the beginning the dps'r will have 50k damage threat but only 45k perceived threat while the Guardian will still have 64k perceived threat. Near the mid/end the dps'r has 200k damage threat but only 180k perceived threat while the Guardian still has 256k perceived threat. Near the mid/end instead of the difference being 64k threat it is now 84k threat, a substantial amount of threat for a dps'r to overcome.

Before the Champions do an aggro dump have the Guardian do an Engage first, otherwise the Champions' aggro dumps are being wasted.

I'm not going to get into the whole debate regarding Agility and Finesse, but I will suggest that it may be something worth looking into as well.

Many Guardians have their preference of how many blue and yellow they like to run. Do what you like but I highly recommend equipping Threatening Presence.

As long as the raid is able to handle the trash each round then this boss fight is not a dps race. If your tank is still having aggro issues don't use debuffs such as Improved Counter Defence (could use Disable instead) and/or ask the dps to hold back a little bit.

If you have a decent belt and good rotation, Threat stance is not needed... ever.

Originally Posted by Tainted_Black

If you have a decent belt and good rotation, Threat stance is not needed... ever.

Judging from the OP's post the Guardians' were having trouble holding aggro. Seeing as how you cannot teach someone how to hold aggro over night, the quickest and easiest way for them to gain an aggro boost is through Threat Stance. The other hidden factor of aggro management is that it is actually a group effort and not the sole responsibility of the tank.

Originally Posted by Tainted_Black

If you have a decent belt and good rotation, Threat stance is not needed... ever.

I feel the opposite. I use threat stance because I am not weak and squishy enough to need block or parry stance.

See what I did there?

Originally Posted by Sir_Thorblod

so when you really need it, because one of your dps classes has a bit of crit luck, you have it on cd? Not a good idea...

I disagree. Unless I missed with Engage (which would be a problem in any case, especially if I left it on cooldown), using Engage in the mid-fight (after 1 minute or so, and coupled with GT and belt passives) means I have such a massive advantage in aggro that even a hunter Burning Hot in Strength is going to take a lot of sustained DPS to pull aggro off me. By that time I can hit Engage again, and once again I have a big lead. The point is, using this strategy I'll never 'really need it' since I'm maintaining such a solid lead.

The idea is to prevent that mob from ever going off of you. I'd rather be proactive and use Engage to hold the lead than wait for a hunter to grab aggro and need it (with many T2 raid bosses, losing aggro for even a few seconds could mean a wipe).

---

Originally Posted by DavadaOT

I disagree. Unless I missed with Engage (which would be a problem in any case, especially if I left it on cooldown), using Engage in the mid-fight (after 1 minute or so, and coupled with GT and belt passives) means I have such a massive advantage in aggro that even a hunter Burning Hot in Strength is going to take a lot of sustained DPS to pull aggro off me. By that time I can hit Engage again, and once again I have a big lead. The point is, using this strategy I'll never 'really need it' since I'm maintaining such a solid lead.

The idea is to prevent that mob from ever going off of you. I'd rather be proactive and use Engage to hold the lead than wait for a hunter to grab aggro and need it (with many T2 raid bosses, losing aggro for even a few seconds could mean a wipe).

I kind of have to agree with Davada here. I don't like to risk waiting for a dps class to pull aggro off of me, so I like to be proactive in my aggro lead.

However, in case of emergencies I trait Challenge the Darkness and keep Guardian's Challenge ready to use.

The only thing with Engage is that I don't start using it right away as the chance of the boss flipping early on is much higher than towards the mid/end of the fight, which is the same that Devada does. So once I get past the early phase that's when I'll start proactively using Engage. If you're being proactive about using Engage you can then actually call it out so that after you do your Engage you can get Champions to aggro dump onto you if you like, although quite honestly you shouldn't need them to.

Originally Posted by Tainted_Black

If you have a decent belt and good rotation, Threat stance is not needed... ever.

This arguement again. If your DPS folks aren't pulling aggro when you're in block stance in a DPS race situation like Acid T2, then either their DPS is too low overall or they're spending an unnecessary amount of time managing aggro just so you can stay in block stance. The best guard skill rotation ever won't beat a well played DPS class on single target threat gen. If you have beaten T2 acid using the 1:30 method in block stance, please post a video because I would honestly love to see it.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but the block stance vs. GT stance debate is a tired one and it was worn out long ago.

Can the guardians on the forum please share their experiences as to the threshold dps against which they can and cannot hold aggro? Somewhere between 2 and 4k, but where? 2.5k? 3k?

Please describe your raid setup, if possible. Assume aggro-augmenting buffs such as provoke, ebbing ire, and call to greatness, but not the assailment warden's conviction.

Typically, with 5 dps, my group does 14k-15k raidwide dps*, and aggro loss is not uncommon. I suppose that tanks elsewhere lose aggro too (engage missed? check), but how often? When?

*We don't zerg Acid with 5 dps. I'm trying to get a more general picture.

Difficult to say for me I guess. In terms of raid dps and tank aggro I have just caved into the mentality that it's better to be safe than sorry. ie; I don't want to risk the chance of the boss flipping because I was in Guardian's Defense stance, as such I have been always running in Threat stance as of late. For every Guardian that says this you'll get several others that'll say it's unnecessary and to instead run Defence stance.. some Guardians such as myself just don't like to take the chance of a really decked out trigger-happy dps class pulling aggro and causing multiple deaths due to a boss's frontal AoE.

My brother runs his Champ with over 2.3k Might and over 19% crit chance unbuffed with a First Age. That sort of build is becoming more common and if in Defense stance you slack off just a little bit, get stunned or the dps class has a lucky chain of crits/devs then there's a good possiblity that you may lose aggro and have the boss flip. Also, with a decked out dps class like that and with a nice devastate it's not uncommon for them to post numbers in the range of 10-25k depending on active buffs and debuffs... Sure aggro management is a group effort, but many times it doesn't feel that way.

As for the numbers that you requested... I have no idea.

Originally Posted by Tityla

Can the guardians on the forum please share their experiences as to the threshold dps against which they can and cannot hold aggro? Somewhere between 2 and 4k, but where? 2.5k? 3k?

Please describe your raid setup, if possible. Assume aggro-augmenting buffs such as provoke, ebbing ire, and call to greatness, but not the assailment warden's conviction.

Typically, with 5 dps, my group does 14k-15k raidwide dps*, and aggro loss is not uncommon. I suppose that tanks elsewhere lose aggro too (engage missed? check), but how often? When?

*We don't zerg Acid with 5 dps. I'm trying to get a more general picture.

Honestly there is almost no conceivable limit if you use the correct strategy.

Provoke is an utter waste imo. It costs Burglars a lot of DPS to use it, and doesn't give you much benefit.

I know I've not lost aggro with DPSers doing around 4k+, and suspect aggro could still be held if the DPSers were doing 6k DPS+ (if you went 4 blue), as long as:

• They do especially high burst damage in the first ~13s of combat (while challenge is up)
• At least one champ is ebbing at ~15s (and if necessary again at ~75s) - you would need at least 2 ebbs if DPS was really approaching 6k
• Selfless Defense is on your best Hunter (and you don't have more than one really good Hunter in the raid)
• You don't get unlucky and miss on Challenge/Engage/CtD (which is only really an issue on the Acid boss because he seems to be quite high level and so you can miss quite a bit) - if you do get any resists you just have to tell them to hold back a little/get an extra ebb etc.
• You use the suggested rotation (below)

As you can see below, even with Hunters/Champs generating 3x (!) as much aggro as you, and you not being 4 blue traited (just 20% Threat Stance + 6% PT belt), you still won't lose aggro with only a single ebb at the start.



Configurable File:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/12s1t3...id/Threat.xlsx
.xls version:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/ulddcu...jcz/Threat.xls

Originally Posted by Evendale

*info
*chart
*files

Quick question.

It looks as though on the right of the graph you have the champ dishing out 3.5x DPS for the first 10s while the blue line champ and green line hunter are doing 3.0x DPS. If this is correct, and the blue line is going up at 3.5x for the first 10s and afterwards going up 3x, then why is the blue line increasing at a quicker rate and at times, crossing over the green line if they are both increasing at 3x?

Originally Posted by SCHawks73

Quick question.

It looks as though on the right of the graph you have the champ dishing out 3.5x DPS for the first 10s while the blue line champ and green line hunter are doing 3.0x DPS. If this is correct, and the blue line is going up at 3.5x for the first 10s and afterwards going up 3x, then why is the blue line increasing at a quicker rate and at times, crossing over the green line if they are both increasing at 3x?

In the chart the Champion's threat does not actually ever surpass the Hunter's threat. What you are seeing is the effect of the Guardian's Selfless Defence (-10% Perceived Threat) on the Hunter. The green dotted line represents the Hunter's threat, while the green solid line represents his perceived threat. The more threat a target has the larger the chunk of perceived threat can be formulated for it.

So if a Guardian has +6% Perceived Threat on their belt, traited four blue (I think) to give their Threat Stance +28% Perceived Threat, that right there is +34% Perceived Threat for the Guardian.

If they apply Selfless defence on the biggest dps'er then they will produce 10% less perceived threat.

Likewise, if a Captain puts Song-Brother (-5% Perceived Threat) on a Minstrel, and the Minstrel has Lute Strings (-12% Perceived Threat), Anthem of Compassion (-40% Perceived Threat).. even without the Guardian's Selfless Defence that means the Minstrel already has -57% Perceived Threat. Also note that this is not factoring in against the Guradian's Threat Stance and his belt, so even without putting Selfless Defence on the Minstrel the Minstrel should never get aggro unless a new ad spawns, which a quick Song of Soothing can deal with.

Aggro management IS NOT a tank only concern. It is, nad has been for a while now, a collaborative effort. Everyone in the group or raid must know that pulling a Boss off the tank is not a good idea. They should take measure to ensure, as much as possible, that the Boss stays on the tank while the tank is generating just as much threat as is possible.

In Improved Guardian's Defence stance, I grab Boss with Engage and reinforce it with Challenge and Fray. Follow with Pledge, bash, vex and then my block reactives. Then ward will always be up after this initial line of threat and I flip flop between block reactives and parry reactives, I use Whirling as much as possible,

I usually only have to use Pledge once to get my reactives going, after that Ward handles that for me. Of course champs dumping aggro on me and burgs using provoke helps but mostly I do it myself. I don't use CtD, don't even trait it.

Basically I use the more traditional approach to threat generation. It helps that my DPSers know how to control DPS and not yank the offending critter off me. When they get the big slobberknocker crit, which is pretty much inevitable, I have Challenge in the bank. "Git yer goat smellin' butt back here Big Boy" If Challenge fails to achieve the desired results, Engage does. I almost never use Challenge and Engage after the initial pull. I save those for the 'uh-oh' moments.

This may just be my view of tanking but I've come to the conclusion that tanking a Boss in a T2 instance and even more so in a raid is a collaborative effort. It takes just about everbody in the raid to make sure the Boss stays in the desired location with desired facing and beating on the desired person. DPS now is such that even well into a fight a big hit can pull a Boss off a tank, whether that tank be a Guardian or a Warden. Long gone are the days when DPSers could just go ape poopy wild on their DPS and seldom would the Boss leave the tank. Now, with LIs, DPS classes can hit incredibly hard and can generate a ton of threat quick, fast and in a hurry.

Just as successfully completing an instance or raid is a group effort so too is aggro management. The successful groups understand this concept. Those that routinely fail do not.

Originally Posted by Kwinn

Aggro management IS NOT a tank only concern. It is, nad has been for a while now, a collaborative effort. Everyone in the group or raid must know that pulling a Boss off the tank is not a good idea. They should take measure to ensure, as much as possible, that the Boss stays on the tank while the tank is generating just as much threat as is possible.

You had my attention with this paragraph. Playing a class with virtually ZERO aggro managerment skills, besides a 10s "HiPS" of my PERCEIVED threat, and simplay doing less damage, I know all too well that aggro management is done by both sides. I have pulled the boss many a time and that is why I leveled my gaurd from 50 to 75 as fast as possible, it is why I post on the guardian forums when I haven't played my guard in years, and it is why I ask a ton of questions, do a lot of research and try to play my 75 guard as much as possible so I know the limits of these tanks. From all this effort I have helped our main guards better themselves which means my main (hunter) 1. does Moar damage, and 2. doesn't pull nearly as much...

but...

Originally Posted by Kwinn

In Improved Guardian's Defence stance, I grab Boss with Engage and reinforce it with Challenge and Fray.

I did not read beyond this point. From my (albeit very little) experience, and all my research, this is the most rediculous way to start off a fight, and IMO, you can't do it anymore wrong... though again, I could be completely wrong.

1. You are in "block stance": unless your main and big DPSers are cranking out a whopping 1k DPS, you will be chasing the mob if you have any decent DPS player(s) in your group.

2. You Grab the boss with Engage: I don't know what else to say but you might want to spend 5-10 minutes and re-read the tooltips on your skills...

3. You reinforce engage with Challenge: How does a force taunt reinforce engage? Again... reading the tooltips again might be beneficial to you and your group.


Sorry if it feels I was bashing you, and if I am completely wrong then I am sorry in advance, but I want to make sure that those that are trying to learn the class (like I was a few short weeks ago) don't get confused and end up losing aggro to a decent hunter that is spamming Quick Shot in Endurance Stance.

Originally Posted by SCHawks73

You had my attention with this paragraph. Playing a class with virtually ZERO aggro managerment skills, besides a 10s "HiPS" of my PERCEIVED threat, and simplay doing less damage, I know all too well that aggro management is done by both sides. I have pulled the boss many a time and that is why I leveled my gaurd from 50 to 75 as fast as possible, it is why I post on the guardian forums when I haven't played my guard in years, and it is why I ask a ton of questions, do a lot of research and try to play my 75 guard as much as possible so I know the limits of these tanks. From all this effort I have helped our main guards better themselves which means my main (hunter) 1. does Moar damage, and 2. doesn't pull nearly as much...

but...



I did not read beyond this point. From my (albeit very little) experience, and all my research, this is the most rediculous way to start off a fight, and IMO, you can't do it anymore wrong... though again, I could be completely wrong.

1. You are in "block stance": unless your main and big DPSers are cranking out a whopping 1k DPS, you will be chasing the mob if you have any decent DPS player(s) in your group.

2. You Grab the boss with Engage: I don't know what else to say but you might want to spend 5-10 minutes and re-read the tooltips on your skills...

3. You reinforce engage with Challenge: How does a force taunt reinforce engage? Again... reading the tooltips again might be beneficial to you and your group.


Sorry if it feels I was bashing you, and if I am completely wrong then I am sorry in advance, but I want to make sure that those that are trying to learn the class (like I was a few short weeks ago) don't get confused and end up losing aggro to a decent hunter that is spamming Quick Shot in Endurance Stance.

Engage makes me most threatening target in the fight...temporarily. Gets his attention for sure. Challenge is the force taunt yes. And challenge makes mob attack me for 10 seconds. Which generates more threat? I vote for Engage and my vote comes because of personal experience playing the game.

I can generate an awful lot of threat in 10 seconds when Pledge pretty much guarantees a block. Follow pledge with bash and vex, then block reactives...litany, shield taunt etc. By then bash and vex are up again, bash, ward, vex, block reactives, whirling when I get a parry, ward, rinse and repeat.

I have a pretty good belt that helps a lot with threatgen. And as I said, those I run with understand the collaborative aspect of aggro management. hell, they even give me a few seconds to generate some threat BEFORE they start anything. 10 seconds, maybe 15 is about all I need before I sing out "ok ya'll, light his butt up". And they do, and I seldom lose aggro except to a slobberknocker crit.

Maybe some won't agree with how I do it, or might think I'm full of it. But it works, works in 6 mans, works in 3 mans, works in DPS races, works in ToO wings and works on Saruman fights, works in everything I've done in LoTRO and I've done em all, more than once, more than twice... About the only place it doesn't work is on mobs with no aggro table or mobs with threat dumps. Get the right gear, right damage type, right group or raid behind you can a guard or warden can tank anything offered in LoTRO. And the Guard can yank anything off the Warden anytime he wants to and keep it(offered that just to piss off the Wardens )

Originally Posted by Kwinn

Engage makes me most threatening target in the fight...temporarily. Gets his attention for sure. Challenge is the force taunt yes. And challenge makes mob attack me for 10 seconds. Which generates more threat? I vote for Engage and my vote comes because of personal experience playing the game.

Yes, that is what the Engage tooltip says. But what does that mean? It means that it copies the highest raw threat value of your fellowship (raid). So if I have 11,000 damage worth of threat, and you have 10,000 + 20% from threat stance (12,000 threat total), if you engage, you will now have 11,000 threat (raw threat copied from me with Engage) + 20% which is 13,200 threat.

BUT, the point I am trying to make with starting off a fight with engage, is that you have ZERO threat at the start, the minnie has ZERO threat, DPS has ZERO threat and everyone else (sorry guiz) has ZERO threat. So if you start off with Engage, your 0 threat will now be 0 threat from the copy, and in block stance (disregarding the belt+% perceived threat), ONE hit/heal will be enough to pull him off you even if you just hit engage...

I think it might be better to start off with a bash (if in melee) or Fray (from range) to grab his initial aggro... both will generate worlds more threat then starting off with Engage...

And to answer your question on which generates more threat, Engage or Challenge... technically the answer is neither as they both produce zero threat if it is used as an initial hit on a mob, you are only gaining threat from what you do AFTER you use engage/challenge... (though anytime during the fight anyone surpasses the raw threat of the guard, engage will generate more threat).

Originally Posted by Kwinn

I can generate an awful lot of threat in 10 seconds when Pledge pretty much guarantees a block. Follow pledge with bash and vex, then block reactives...litany, shield taunt etc. By then bash and vex are up again, bash, ward, vex, block reactives, whirling when I get a parry, ward, rinse and repeat.

This is a brilliant rotation. If you start off with a Challenge (without the initial engage) you will generate a ton of threat during the first 10s while Challenge is running. I actually use a nearly identical rotation.

Originally Posted by Kwinn

I have a pretty good belt that helps a lot with threatgen. And as I said, those I run with understand the collaborative aspect of aggro management. hell, they even give me a few seconds to generate some threat BEFORE they start anything. 10 seconds, maybe 15 is about all I need before I sing out "ok ya'll, light his butt up". And they do, and I seldom lose aggro except to a slobberknocker crit.

Maybe some won't agree with how I do it, or might think I'm full of it. But it works, works in 6 mans, works in 3 mans, works in DPS races, works in ToO wings and works on Saruman fights, works in everything I've done in LoTRO and I've done em all, more than once, more than twice... About the only place it doesn't work is on mobs with no aggro table or mobs with threat dumps. Get the right gear, right damage type, right group or raid behind you can a guard or warden can tank anything offered in LoTRO. And the Guard can yank anything off the Warden anytime he wants to and keep it(offered that just to piss off the Wardens )

If this works for you and your group, then by all means, continue doing it, all I am saying is that if you have a group of DPSers that crank out 2-3k+ DPS on DPS race-type bosses in T2 Orthanc, starting off with Engage as the inital hit, and running in Block stance will make a long night for everyone involved... trust me, I have been there, I have pulled aggro on one of my tanks doing T2 Fire/Frost only doing 1200 DPS and that is after waiting nearly 15-20s for him to build aggro. After he switched to threat stance, waited a bit before using Engage and then using it proactively every minute, not only did we cut our wait time in the beginning in half, but I upped my DPS 50%.

Engage is best followed AFTER challenge imo. When I think DPS is about to catch up I can hit challenge. That way dps can actually be highest on threat table but still not have aggro. Once I engage right at the end of challenge I copy the highest dps threat then have my +perceived threat creating a huge threat lead.

If the first skill is engage you create a 0 threat lead (waste of the skill). If you use engage while on top of the threat table (raw threat, not perceived) you also don't benefit from the skill.

And herein lies the rub...ya'll want to quote numbers from gawd knows what source? Is Turbine the source? I rather doubt it. Some second hand, second rate program I suspect. What I do has been proven in PRACTICE over countless instances and raids and through countless variations in order of skills usage. What I use and the order in which I use it has been proven to my satisfaction through practical use.

Now if am backed up by a herd of mindless, uncontrolled and uncontrollable DPSers all bets are off and after a few wipes I usually tell em to find themselves a different tank. I dont need the aggravation. I much prefer the well through out and deliberate approach with a group of folks fully capable of thinking on their feet, modifying Plan A on the fly and not prone to panic at the first sign of trouble.

BTW...a little etymology for ya'll...aggro is a word used the South Pacific...New Guinea, New Georgia, Solomon Islands etc. It comes from a language that combines English, Australian slang and Pidgin...aggro = aggravate. So, for our purposes I guess the word can be used to describe the process of aggravating a mob into giving you its undivided attention...Orrrrr... Wanting to smack some idiot hunter that is in the raid. You know...the goof that wants to smack some 500k morale mob with an attack that does around 7-10k damage right from the start.