Thread: Threat generation when off-tanking

So I am a little confused about what skills we use to off-tank. (noob champ who hasn't really tanked much)

Several skills, at least when viewed at the bard, indicate they "draw the enemy's attention to you", but the actual skill tooltip makes no indication of it increasing threat.

Example: Ferocious Strikes.

Do we actually have skills that increase threat, besides direct DPS? Even our challenge tooltip doesn't indicate a threat build, just a temporary attention grabber.

What is your usual tactic when tanking, besides just using your normal dps rotation and asking everyone else to hold off for a few?

Thanks!

Some skills only generate additional threat when in Glory.

^^ this

raging blade and ferocious strike only give you extra threat in glory and it doesnt show up on the tooltip. blade-wall and wild attack also give threat if traited right. those 4 are my main threatgen as far as actually using skills. you also get threat from just being in glory with reprisal. last i checked this doesnt show in the trait tooltip but in addition to making glorious exchange permanent in glory stance it adds a threat reflect component - every time you're hit you generate threat against the attacker. the other skills i use regularly while tanking are hedge and bracing attack which are just for mitigations and to help the healers out

Originally Posted by tongra

Do we actually have skills that increase threat, besides direct DPS?

when using call of the wind trait wild attack generates more threat
Aggressive Exchange make blade wall to generate threat
Reprisal: it make exchance of blows being always activate in glory and will generate threat

Originally Posted by tongra

What is your usual tactic when tanking, besides just using your normal dps rotation and asking everyone else to hold off for a few?

use rising ire if someone else is getting agroo

Thanks for the input. I forgot about Rising Ire.

I did notice that the majority of the recommendations require retraiting for tanking. Is that what people do when they "off tank"? I am thinking about tanking Pen in Foundry or random trash in tower or even big mobs in LL. I assumed you keep a standard dps trait set for those scenarios and use stances and skills to generate threat.

Also, how are you supposed to know that some of these skills only generate threat in Glory? My main is hunter, and as I recall the hunter skill tooltips are fairly accurate about their effects (bugs aside, that is). They don't leave out significant elements of what the skill does (i.e. threat generation). Has everyone just been living with incomplete info, or am I not looking in the right place?

Thanks!

If im not mistaken, raging blade and ferocious (im actually just finding out ferocious helps with aggro) are the only ones that generate aggro and are not correctly tooltipped. The rest are (GE, WA, BW, RI).
As someone said, rising ire is KEY to main tanking, spam it hard.
As regards off tanking, like you said in foundry, you can just fervour tank it with bubbles. Just keep some morale gear on your bags and build aggro with your dps, you don't need to really trait for that since you'll get a nice head start because the rest of the group will be dpsing something else. You can also pop glory, rise, and then back to fervour. Might help some times.

Just for completeness´ sake, True Heroics in Glory gives you a big AoE one-time threat-up as well.

Originally Posted by tongra

Thanks for the input. I forgot about Rising Ire.

I did notice that the majority of the recommendations require retraiting for tanking. Is that what people do when they "off tank"? I am thinking about tanking Pen in Foundry or random trash in tower or even big mobs in LL. I assumed you keep a standard dps trait set for those scenarios and use stances and skills to generate threat.

Also, how are you supposed to know that some of these skills only generate threat in Glory? My main is hunter, and as I recall the hunter skill tooltips are fairly accurate about their effects (bugs aside, that is). They don't leave out significant elements of what the skill does (i.e. threat generation). Has everyone just been living with incomplete info, or am I not looking in the right place?

Thanks!

For Penrith you don't need to retrait so long as you have a cappy in your group...have the cap put revealing mark on Penrith and go Fervour stance then heal via DPS (15 or 20% return depending on your cappy). This will be true in a lot of "off-tank" situations...just have the captain put up revealing mark and stay in Fervour.

You only need to trait for tanking when you are going to honest-to-god TANK...and then you should be 4 or 5 deep in blue at a minimum.

The one thing you can do for off-tanking situations is get a tank-focused set of jewelry/armor/etc that you can swap on to give yourself extra morale. As a for example I keep a complete DPS set of armor/jewelry and a complete tanking set...if I'm going to off-tank with uncertain heals I don't retrait (stick with 5R/2Y) but I do swap on my tanking armor/jewelry and go from ~6k morale to ~10k morale. Now I lose ~10% Melee Offense in the process but its there to provide a morale buffer when I'm worried about heals. (It also nets me ~11.5k morale and some nice defense when I go full tank traited).

My champ is an alt (sort of) and has been for quite some time, though he is more a secondary main realistically. He gets played more often than not due to needs of kin. The reason I preface that is because I wanted to indicate that I am in no way exceptional on my champ, and my skill rotations in Glory are more than likely not that great.

That said, I've found if I want threat I simply Fervour DPS and don't use Ebbing. More often than not if I want the agro it's mine. Of course I'm excluding any extra survivability Glory will give you. But for Foundry/RoF and other instances, with a competent group you should be fine Fervour tanking with 6R/1Y or 5R/2Y or any 4R + any combo.

If you're only worried about off tanking mobs that get away from the main tank then you need do nothing other than dps that mob, champs are usually top of the dps heap so unless there is a hunter also dpsing before you get close, you'll usually have no trouble holding aggro. Not pulling aggro off a tank is usually the problem, not the other way about ;-)

If you want to tank more serious mobs, then you need to carry a second set of jewelery at least and preferably armour too. This will give you more mitigations and vitality/morale as a buffer for the bigger hits the bigger mobs land, but as you stack vit you will generally lose might and crit so your dps will drop and fervour tanking may get harder. Switching to glory, using rising ire and challenge and then switching back to fervour will help. Most skills only have an extra aggro component in glory and some only when you trait for it.

You should only need to trait blue if you're going as main tank.

Originally Posted by Vandervahn

Just for completeness´ sake, True Heroics in Glory gives you a big AoE one-time threat-up as well.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone tested the effects of this skill?

I've come to the conclusion it's a threat leech or copy, as we've had glory champs use it at the beginning of a fight and they lose threat shortly after that.

Seems to me its just a generic threat up of value X. As in doing X amount of virtual damage. The point is, it has a huge number of targets and can be used without fervor at all (as well as allowing healers to delay their healing a bit because of the big bubble).

Originally Posted by DuneBug

Just out of curiosity, has anyone tested the effects of this skill?

I've come to the conclusion it's a threat leech or copy, as we've had glory champs use it at the beginning of a fight and they lose threat shortly after that.

When I've used it to start a fight I've never lost aggro unless someone uses a force-taunt. Now some of that is you can't use it and then forget to hit additional +threat skills because you'r DPS as a Glory champ won't be enough to keep a threat lead by itself. Throw in some WA and RB (and BW if you trait for it) and Reprisal plus DPS and the occasional Rising should keep you well in the lead. If your glory champs hit TH and then lost threat lead then they probably went in to some non threat generating skills (Hedge, SS, 2nd Wind, etc) while the DPS classes immediately went all out.

most crucial part about a champ in a fight is the beginning, especially with waves of adds cause u cant just gain a headstart by challenge skill... i think best way to open a fight is run in with raging blades, use blade wall (traited for more threat) and if things are still loose challenge them (if one) or hit true heroics. if they are still away... then u best have to start praying

p.s. most helpful thing when a champ is tanking is another champ spammin ire.

Glory + Aggressive Exchange trait = Good aggro

it surely is a good aggro but it needs some time to be really effective, at the start of the fight stray adds can be common.. its mostly useful to lock the targets (and thats if people follow rat throughout the fight)