Thread: Threat management

Just thought people should know that the guardian community has several good posts on threat management in case people want a few tips on making their group experience better.

Here are a few of the more common tips/concepts:

1. If you pull aggro from the tank run to him.

2. Let the tank build up a little aggro by getting through his attack chain before dps starts. Why? because thats the padding to prevent you from getting the aggro. Please not tanks will lose aggro even with that padding if they miss several times or get stunned and you keep building up threat on the mob. My personal attack chain is sweeping cut, vexing blow, shield bash/blow, and then guardians ward. I think if most tanks used this attack chain it would let the rest of the fellowship know when to attack. Its easy, watch for when your guardian attacks with his shield. At that point he should have made 3 attacks which all generated a decent amount of threat. If the guardian misses with the first couple of attacks he can forego the shield attack until he is ready. Thus people don't have to watch a chat window.

3. This isnt WoW. The guardian class has no taunt that will instantly get aggro back unlike WoW. This is very important to remember for WoW players. Tanks here generate better aggro over time but b/c of the lack of an instant aggro taunt peels are very difficult to get back.

4. Peels. Peels are mobs which are no longer attack the tank. Typically they run over to the healer or the hunter. If you have a champ in the group and he is doing his aoe melee dps ask him to be the peel chaser. He can simply turn and use his taunting shout to get the mob to come back over. Guardian can then get the mob back.

5. Unless you have a good reason (such as being rooted), stand up close to the melee types but behind the mobs or just outside of melee range. This may sound dumb, but if you take the few moments to this you won't notice the time waiting on the guardian to build aggro and if peels happen the chase is much shorter.

6. Once your guardian is out of power he is out of threat generating ability. That means that hopefully your champ can take over the late fight tanking duties if there are peels. No matter what though don't expect a guardian w/o power to regain aggro. He can't use skills, so its a no go on the taunting.

7. Take the time to read your class skills. Threat appears to be generated on a point to point basis for every point of damage and healing. The exception is when you have things which specifically enhance or reduce your threat generated by skills, auto-attack hits, or heals. Healing generates hate on all nearby mobs. I'm not certain, but I think stunned mobs if near the healer or healed will build hate on your healer. So try to stun mobs fairly far away from where you will fight. This way when they come out of the stun they don't have a bunch of hate for your healer.


CLASS/ROLE SPECIFIC COMMENTS:
HEALERS.. please note that AOE heals generate lots of hate. If you AOE heal would heal 100pts per party member and you have 6 members you will generate 600pts of hate on each nearby mob. Thats a lot. Avoid AOE heals whenever possible. Also please note that the guardians usually don't notice if a ranged mob adds. If that happens usually it goes for you. Please let us know ASAP. Also ask the champion to watch your health b/c they can usually get the add off of you quicker than the guardian. Last thing. If you are trying to heal multiple people, stop. You need to focus on keeping your main tank up and possibly your champ if he is doing some off tanking. Do not make it a habit of healing loremasters or hunters. Tell them kindly that you know that they get hit but if you let the tank(s) drop the group will wipe. If you are in a good group the tank(s) will get the mobs off the hunters, loremasters, or you before anyone gets seriously hurt or defeated.

Hunters, you guys get a bad rap sometimes b/c of your auto attack and stances. Some of this is the rest of us don't understand your class and some of if is b/c many hunters solo and don't take the time to learn threat management techniques. If you could please don't pull or if so use one normal shot and no more. Please stay out of stances which increase your threat. I know there are discussions about this on your forum so please read up and know that when grouping you have a preferred stance that will save power and reduce hate. This will let you live, make the rest of the party like you, and hopefully make you a person they look for when they want a hunter in a group.

Captains. I'm not well versed on your skills or threat issues, so if someone else could post tips here for them I would appreciate it.

Burglars, you guys don't seem to have problems with threat. Keep that up and please don't spam your conjunctions. Save them for when they are needed and you will be much loved. If anyone has any tips for the burglars please share b/c I barely know anything about what they can do beyond stealth and create conjunctions.

Loremasters, let someone else pull and you do a mezz on one of the mobs after they start reacting. Its typically best if you mezz a ranged mob, but if none are present get something else. This is particularly effective in keeping your mezzed mob out of the AOE fest that champs, hunters, and guardians love. If your group is really good and the pull involves 2 ranged mobs, suggest the guardian pull, you mezz a melee and the the group go melee the ranged mobs. This is a little more complicated so be sure to communicate clearly. One more thing. Watch the minstrel and the guardian burn through power. Figure out which will need it and try to anticipate that need before they have to ask. You will be loved for it. I have seen loremasters save a group by the simple fact that they gave the minstrel enough power to keep the heals going. I ran out of power but when the champ started tanking the last mob the minstrel has the heals to keep him up. One last thing keep the bird out when fighting the undead. Many of them do some shadow damage and that bird will save the healer a lot of power healing the tank.

Champions. Guardians love you guys b/c we know we can't survive big pulls for long w/o you killing some of the mobs very quickly. You excel at that and we like you for it. However, please let us get aggro and build up threat before your AOE begins so that the healer doesnt get mad at both of us. Also please realize you are much better than us at getting a peel b/c you have that ranged taunting shout. Use it if something peels out of the melee to go for the healer. Use it if the guardian is about to die. Use it if an add gets on the healer. You are an off tank and need to remember that. I know that when fervour is turned off your dps goes way down and power regen goes way down. That sucks but if you have to tank late in a fight do it. Also consider it a blessing in disguise that your are doing less dps. Usually after a moments rest the guardian will have the power to take aggro back from you. Then you can go back to fervour and dps the mob down. Something else to consider is that guardian keeps you alive, minstrel keeps guardian alive, and you can keep adds off the minstrel. Believe it or not your ability to tank a single mob is practically as good as the guardians and can potentially be better. The guardian is better than you at mitigating damage but it only really shows when he has multiple mobs going for him. Let him keep the mobs and you will both be happy. That said, take the time to learn the skill animations of the guardians. If you learn them you will quickly be able to see how many skills he has used before you begin dps. That will let you be that much better at your task.

Hopefully no one who read this will jump on me, but I'm sure someone will say I got something wrong here. Please note that this is all my opinion from my own experience playing the game and as such is not all inclusive or perfect. I tried to refrain from adding any info where I don't have experience to show what works. I know there are people who group w/o a guardian etc. and because I play a guardian I really don't know what its like to do an instance w/o a guardian.

If people have tips they would like to add to this please do so and thanks in advance for any advice you have that helps people be successful in managing their threat. Please refrain from saying I'm telling people how they must play their class. I'm simply pointing out things which can cause problems when trying to manage threat. If you find a better way to manage your threat while maximizing your contribution to the group effort please post b/c I for one love to know alternate ways to do things. You never know when you might have a situation calling for a complete change in what each part member will do.

Originally Posted by Bodha

3. This isnt WoW. The guardian class has no taunt that will instantly get aggro back unlike WoW. This is very important to remember for WoW players. Tanks here generate better aggro over time but b/c of the lack of an instant aggro taunt peels are very difficult to get back.

Well, you got half of that right. This isn't WoW. But the Guardian has 2 Taunts, I don't remember their names but both are AoE, one is a shout, and the other is a reactive from the Block chain.

I'm not done reading that post, but I wanted to take the time now to thank you for providing that info. That is one of the most helpful posts I have read here, and I am very grateful for the detailed information. The suggestions that have been provided will help me become a better healer in group situations. It also helps to see how each class complements the other in group situations... healers keep guardians alive, guardians keep champions alive, etc.

Thanks!!

I have never played a guardian as I didn't have an interest in it due to the high costs. I'm a fluffball and don't want to be hit. But at the same time I should know how the guardian class works. I am very willing to roll a new char on a different server (already got my 5) and try out guardian to try to start understanding the class. How far do you think I should take that guardian to get a grasp on the moves?

I expect my main toon will always be a minstrel, but I would like to have deeper knowledge of the guardian just so I know what to look for. Are the moves drastically different at level 30, for example, then at level 10? Or would getting to level 10 or 15 on a guardian be sufficient for a decent understanding from a minstrel's perspective?

Originally Posted by Kellenvadros

Well, you got half of that right. This isn't WoW. But the Guardian has 2 Taunts, I don't remember their names but both are AoE, one is a shout, and the other is a reactive from the Block chain.

Challenge
Shield Taunt

Neither work like WoWs taunt which would instantly allow a tank to regain and keep aggro. The difference may not seem big but the difference can be huge when combined with the aggro threshold WoW has. Here the taunts you refer to does something very different. The challenge lets a guardian get aggro and keep it for 10s. It does not instantly put him at the highest on the threat list. That means that when the 10s is up the mob goes right back to whoever has the highest amount of threat. In WoW the taunt put you at the top of the hate list and got the mob on you. For someone to take it back from you they had to get a significant amount of hate more than you. Here they only have to have 1 more point of threat.

This difference means tanking was easier in WoW when the mob was tauntable (which not all endgame bosses were). Also b/c people could get more threat and not take aggro from the tank meant that dpsers didnt have to worry so much about pulling aggro. All the tank had to do was sunders and spam his taunt when it came up. Here if someone gets past the tank they get aggro immediately. The tank must then use his skills to try to regain aggro. He does have challenge to give him the hate for 10s but if the other players don't stop building hate on that mob the tank will not keep the mob's attention when challenge wears off.

Shield taunt works very much like WoW's taunt but since WoW has that threshold thing its not a guarantee you will keep aggro for long. Also shield taunt requires a block and the guardians runs out of power over time. A prot warrior in WoW used rage/fury and would actually gain more as the fight went on. Because of that fights could almost go on indefinitely with the warrior spamming sunder and taunt

So will this make things harder? Not necessarily, it will make things different though. A good tank will keep aggro but if he loses it might have a hard time getting it back unless people work with him on this. It does however mean that if a tank is being pummeled badly an off tank can take aggro quickly. It also means that in raids a really tough mob could be potentially passed back and forth between several guardians who would take a hit or two each before some other tank grabs the aggro.

Excellent aggro management summary...so important in good groups.

One quick note, please change the word "stun" to "mezz" when you are discussing the Loremaster, etc. Stunning is fine at any time and nothing will break it, but when you mean mezzing, AoE is notorious from messing up the LM's mezz abilities, so good communication is key.

Originally Posted by Surlek2112

Excellent aggro management summary...so important in good groups.

One quick note, please change the word "stun" to "mezz" when you are discussing the Loremaster, etc. Stunning is fine at any time and nothing will break it, but when you mean mezzing, AoE is notorious from messing up the LM's mezz abilities, so good communication is key.

I fixed it

Great post, Bodha.

I'd like to mini-hijack this and throw in a comment for something I call Cross Healing.

A wounded Minstrel should avoid healing themselves if at all possible. You're getting nailed because you have agro and healing yourself will create more agro which results in agro/heal death spiral.

The minstrel can be easily spared this fate by being healed by someone else (when possible). I'm a huge fan of having a Captain or 2nd Minstrel in a group for this reason. If the Minstrels heal the other minstrel instead of themselves they make threat management much easier on the main tank.

~Whispen the Minstrel~

Nice writeup, thanks. As someone who has only played games with very simplistic aggro (GW for example, once you get aggro you have to work pretty hard to lose it, no healing aggro, etc. making tanking very easy), trying to figure out how it all works in this game has been tough.

As for Captains, other than damage/healing aggro, Halberds have a mod on them that increases threat during combat, so I've found it's sometimes easy to pull aggro off of the Guardian. I don't know what percentage increased it is, but it's enough to get monsters angry at me sometimes

Originally Posted by JeanCarlo

Challenge
Shield Taunt

And yet this is only the very tiny tip-top of the iceberg. Guardians also get Vexing Blow which with the right trait strike up to 3 targets for major threat in a single blow. Add to that the many traits they get that increase the threat generated with all special attacks and suddenly even their main AoE attack is a bigtime threat generator.

Throw down Protection upon the most likely non-tank to get aggro, and the Guardian can even intercept attacks made on the fool who took aggro away from the tank. With the Protection trait equipped, the protected player also has every bit of threat they generate lowered. Guardians, especially post 20 have a lot of tools to manage aggro on a party. Yet of course, they still need cooperation from the other party members in order to be successful. Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork.

Great post, and a great idea to take it out of the guard forums. A couple of comments:
1) As Bodha pointed out, Shield Taunt is a part of the block chain. In fact, a number of guard skills are in the block or parry chains. This means that if the guard is not getting hit, it is that much harder for her to get aggro back. This is an especially big problem when fighting solo bosses - a hunter that starts the fight with their nuke special attack is bound to get the guard and the minstrel in big trouble.

2) Captains. Captains can be decent single target off-tanks, but because we have no on-demand AoE attacks at all, we have a really hard time peeling multiple mobs.
a) taunt: captains have a single target taunt, but it is not particularly effective. It works if somebody accidentally peels a target on which we already have decent ammount of hate, but can not match hunter's skilled/crit dps.
b) halberds: the halberd generates additional threat in combat. I have not seen actual numbers, but I suspect its closer to 10% extra then to 50% extra - once again, it helps a little but not a lot.
c) burst dps - the captain class dps comes in bursts from the shout+devastating blow skill combo, which we can use every 15 seconds or so. The combo can generate decent ammount of threat,but once used, we are down to auto-attacks and only 2 other mediocre skilled attacks.
d) We can heal if needed, and in fact can spam ~200 morale heals every 3 seconds if nothing is hitting us. Therefore, if the minstrel has to stop healing for a while, we can take over and keep the tank alive for abit.
e) heavy armor and shield - captains can wear heavy and use normal (but not heavy) shields. Many captains are also built for might, which gives us 15-20% block chance. This means that once we succesfully peel, we can off-tank reasonably well for a while. However, to be able to use a shield, we give up the halberd and therefore both our dps goes down, and we lose the threat bonus => if you keep hitting our target once we switch to a shield, you will peel it again.

The combination of the above means that we can put out a decent ammount of threat immediately to deal with an accidental single peel, and then maintain it if no one else is building up significant hate on our target. However, there are several problems with captain tanking:
1) multiple mobs: since our burst dps is on a ~15sec cooldown timer, there is no way we can match an AoE heal or rain of arrows that pulls multiple adds. A champ can use AoEs to get all those adds, we can only get one of them. So if you don't have a champ in your group, AoEs on new adds/before guard had a chance to use his AoE skills a few times are the best way to get yourself wiped quickly.

2) hitting our target: if we are off-tanking, do not help us by hitting our target and hoping to kill it faster. If you do, we have to keep using the hally to maintain aggro, which means we are getting hit more, which means mistrel has to heal us, which means minstrel will peel, which is bad... If a captain is off-tanking, make sure you assist the guard... (this is a pretty general rule to assist the MA/tank rather then the off-tank, and maybe obvious) To drive the point home: Even with a halberd, taunts, and throwing heals in between skilled attacks, a captain will not be able to pull aggro of a hunter that is 2-3 levels LOWER if that hunter uses his dps stance and skilled attacks from the beginning of the fight.

3) healing us: in a pinch, we can use the last stand skill which gives us a ~30 second invulnerability once we hit 1hp. From lvl 36 onwards, we can combine this with a 15 second skill that has us taking all of group's damage. Therefore, when things look bleak for the entire group and AoE heals or healing the off-tanking captain are likely to get the minstrel killed, ask for the in-harms combo. In general, if you have a higher level captain in your group, its a good idea to talk to him about when will he use in harms and how to go about healing him: you dont want to waste powerful, threat generating heals on the captain while in harms+last stand is up.

Awesome Guide.

Thought I would throw in my two cents and help out by telling the Champs side of threat management. Champs have quite a few threat generating moves at our disposal now. When in a pinch and no Guard is around or has died we can half-fill there role. Be careful though and respect there limits:

1. We get a ranged taunt on a 30 second CD that makes a single mob attack us, it can miss and will miss, so it is not 100% (60%-80% IME). If it misses, it will be 30 seconds before we can try again, usually too long to stop the mob from making mince meat out of the minstrel/hunter/LM. It also does not last very long, it may force the mob to attack us for a second or two, but if whoever we peeled it off of is still spamming DPS/Heals it will forget us and run right back for you.

2. We mostly keep threat on us and thus tank through DPS, if you can spike more DPS than us (hunters I'm looking in your direction) be extra careful when you have a Champ tanking.

3. Glory (which we get at later levels) gives increased threat and helps with tanking alot, but by the time we get it most champs are not too familiar with tanking. It also significantly lowers our DPS, which means we may have a harder time keeping agro.

4. Our class is designed around using fervor, it's just the way it is. When Fervor is turned off we have really horrible power issues. This means if we are tanking we either need to keep fervor on (ouch, no E/P/B), or need some other power regen. This means always always always go for blue conjunctions and LMs help us out.

5. We can and will do allot of AOE, this means when a Guard is tanking, we may every now and then pull multiple mobs on us if we are trying to get a peel through AOE. Most champs worth there Fellowship slot will work with the guard to help them regain it.

6. If we have Multiple Mobs attacking us while Fervor is on, we lose health quickly. We can do alright with one-on-one tanking.

7. We have Threat transfer skills that go both ways. It transfers threat based on a percentage (not sure the exact percentage). This helps us get a peel and transfer it to a guard.

8. In groups the Champ is usually the best Main Assist. We are up there in the fray of combat, can see what’s going one and assess the situation. We can also free the Guard up to toggle through the mobs to make sure he can keep agro on them all. If the primary target attacks us (because we over DPS as happens ><) we can take enough hits and possibly transfer the treat right back onto the Guard. In order to do this best we pick one target have everyone not CCing, Healing or Tanking assist us. Try not to use pass-through assist as we will switch targets right before it dies to get ready for the next target and provide a seamless transition from one mob to the next.

Originally Posted by Bodha

1. If you pull aggro from the tank run to him.

Doubly true if the champ is tanking late in the fight or off tanking/peeling control. We can use AOE to regain Aggro, but only if your close, If we have to run to you or chase you in circles (grrr nothing makes me more frustrated), we are next to useless as we can not use any skills while running.

4. Peels. Peels are mobs which are no longer attack the tank. Typically they run over to the healer or the hunter. If you have a champ in the group and he is doing his aoe melee dps ask him to be the peel chaser. He can simply turn and use his taunting shout to get the mob to come back over. Guardian can then get the mob back.

This is often what a Champ can do, but remember the limitations on the taunt (may miss) and AOEs (can’t do it while running and not long range).

6. Once your guardian is out of power he is out of threat generating ability. That means that hopefully your champ can take over the late fight tanking duties if there are peels. No matter what though don't expect a guardian w/o power to regain aggro. He can't use skills, so its a no go on the taunting.

Same with a Champ, once power is gone so is threat generation. If Fervor is off Power gets burned very fast on a Champ.



As for the Captains, I love captains. They can tank or pretty much lock-down a single mob indefinitely, add that with there buffs and they make any parties survivability sky-rocket. At 22nd level Me and a captain tanked the Great Barrows with a party of 5, no Minstrel. Can anyone say Ping-Pong???

Running is a viable options if your party has the correct classes. Plus classes use the correct skills. For example, a mob turns on the minstrel. The minstrel is by themselves away from guard and champ. A hunter in strength stance can use quickshot to slow the critter then stack a barbed arrow.

The minstrel can now break melee contact while running. The hunter can happily shoot it to pieces while the critter vainly tries to catch the minstrel. Or zig over to the champ and let the champ chase and beat on it. It is possible with some planning to melee a slowed critter.

Several classes like hunters and champions have a melee skill that can slow a critter.

This an standard hunter trick. It is called kiting. It works very nicely when you have one opponent and two hunters.

Not really mentioned/stressed, but, if you draw aggro, one of the most important things to remember is the old joke:

Patient: "Doctor, Doctor, it hurts when I do this."
Doctor: "Then don't do that."

If you draw aggro, stop hitting the mob or stop healing (if you are a healer). Moving the mob to the tank is sound advice, but if you peeled the mob from the tank when it was next to him, just running the mob back to the tank does not help if you continue to out pace the tank's ability to build aggro. It seems counter-intuitive, but if doing what you were doing (damage/healing) drew aggro in the first place, stop doing it until the tank can regain aggro (and build a bit of a buffer so you don't get it back).

The other thing is that people seem to forget is that you don't have to hit the mob with everything you got every second of the fight. That is, peak efficiency is not everyone dumping everything into the mob all at once and continuing at full burn until the fight ends. If you do this and draw aggro, everyone's efficiency drops. The tank has to work harder to regain aggro from you, healers have to heal you instead of the tank, and though there may need to be some studies to prove this, I am pretty sure your DPS drops off significantly once you die.

Peak efficiency is maintaining that line where you do just enough damage to keep from taking aggro from the tank. But it is still better to do less damage than that point than to do more and draw aggro. Fights should be contolled chaos, not just chaos.

Finally, remember that aggro reduction skills are not just "oh, shoot" buttons. It is better to use aggro reduction skills/tools/strategies before you draw aggro than after. That is, throwing in that "Reduces Aggro" skill every chance you get even if it does not do a lot of DPS on its own will result in far less loss of DPS than waiting till you have to use it and have to stop fighting all together to give the tank a chance to get back aggro or because you are dead. If you have a good feel for how much aggro the tank can maintain, using it every chance may not be necessary, but better to do slightly less damage than optimal than slightly more.

guards are supposed to be getting a ranged single target taunt with bk12, so we wont have to rely on champs for that as much.



about burglars and threat:

burglars have two skill related to aggro.

one is called provoke and is supposed to increase the mobs aggro towards whoever it is currently attacking. i haven't messed around with this skill much but from what i understand it isn't really all that effective. cant hurt tho

the other is a trick called enrage. it will make the mob switch targets after every attack. it is helpful for dealing with peels or ranged mobs attacking a minstrel (the traited version even completely disables ranged attacks, forcing them into melee range where the guard can pick them up easily). you can see what the symbol looks like here http://lorebook.lotro.com/icon.php?t...&id=1879061016. if you are a tank or offtank and see this symbol on a mob, just realize you wont be keeping aggro until the burg takes it off or it wears off.

oh, and a burgs stealth opener can deal out huge damage in one hit. as with hunters, burgs should wait a few seconds before doing this so the guard can get some threat.


a couple of other notes about burgs which seem to fit in this thread:

burgs have a mezz like loremasters which works on intelligent mobs (including drakes and undead) but not beasts and the like. they cant keep them chain-mezzed like loremasters though.

burgs also have a legendary skill with a short cooldown which has a chance to land a conj (similar to guardians to the king legendary). so a burg may not be spamming their conj, you may just be getting lucky

and finally, one of burgs tricks (counter defense) will lower a mobs chance to block parry and evade. i know when i'm on my guard, nothing is more frustrating than seeing my shield attacks get avoided and the mob goes peeling after the hunter. so i love it when burgs put this on at the start of a fight.

Excellent guide overall. I would like to add a few comments, this applies to when a guardian is your MT, if another class is doing it you will have to modify these comments significantly.

1. I cannot emphasize enough point #1. IF YOU DRAW AGGRO, DO NOT RUN AWAY! As a guardian, currently in the game I have no ranged taunt skill with any significant range. (I think the farthest is 10' or something like that). If you get aggro, panic, and start running away like a chicken with your head cut off...I can't help you. Because I can't run faster than you, so no matter how much I run after you, I will likely never catch up, which means I can't use my threat-increasing attacks on the mob to get aggro back. Moral of the story: if you get aggro, let the tank know (voice chat, fellowship chat, whatever), and get yourself (or, more importantly, get the mob attacking you) within melee range of the guardian. And as someone else said, stop whatever you were doing that got you the aggro in the first place.

2. As a guardian, I can tell you, it is 10x easier (I swear) to get aggro initially and keep it, than it is to try to "steal back" aggro from someone else who has it. That means, in most situations, the guardian should be the one "pulling."

3. Related to #2, if high DPS classes just wait a few seconds at the start of every fight to let the guardian get in a couple of high-threat attacks...the battle will go much easier for everyone.

4. The bane of a tank is when he is tanking one (big) mob, or several mobs...and then a ranged attack mob also starts attacking him. All things being equal, if there is an off-tank in the group (likely a captain or champion), it helps me as the tank if you can run out and take care of that ranged mob, so that I can focus on the job at hand and not have to worry about trying to run out there and drag a whole train of mobs behind me. This is also true for any class (LM, burgs) who have a mez skill, or (as a last resort) for a LM pet.

5. Understanding taunts is important. As the game stands now, we get our first true taunt skill at lvl 22 (Shield Taunt). This is a reactive on the block chain (i.e. we can only use it after blocking an attack and executing a Shield Swipe attack). Currently, this skill does two things on an AoE basis: it forces mobs in the area to attack us, and it also raises us to the top of the mobs' threat list. This is being changed in Book 12, to simply being an AoE threat-buider. Our next taunt skill we get at 26, Challenge, which for 10 seconds forces all mobs in the area to attack us. However, during that 10 seconds if we do not do something to get ourselves at the top of the mobs' threat list, they will all go back to attacking other targets after the 10 seconds expires. This is typically our first "oh sh*t" skill, and is on a 1 minute cooldown (45 seconds with a class trait for it slotted). Finally, one of our legendary (lvl 45+) skills, Challenge the Darkness, works similar to my description for Shield Taunt (as it exists now); both forces mobs in an AoE radius to attack us, and puts us at the top of their threat list. This skill is a legendary, and is on a 10 minute timer. It is truly for emergencies only. When Book 12 is published we are going to get one additional forced-attack, top-of-the-threat-list skill (Charge), which will be single-target only. It is not yet clear what the cooldown timer will be.

6. Guardians losing aggro is a double loss. One, mobs are no longer attacking the character in the party who has the highest mitigation, highest total Block/Parry/Evade (BPE), and quite possibly the highest morale pool. In addition, since I would guess that 75% of a guardian's total DPS is based on reactive skills (skills we can ONLY activate after blocking or parrying an attack), whenever anyone other than the guardian has aggro, you have also lost now roughly 75% of the guardian's DPS. So in short, when guardian loses aggro, total fellowship DPS goes down by at least 10-15%, plus much more damage is being taken which further over-taxes the healer(s). If everybody works together to keep aggro on the guardian, then the fellowship as a whole is much more likely to be successful.

Wonderful thread. Some really good points here. One thing the hunters can do is barbed arrow or quick shot. Neither do much initial damage, but reduce the mob's movement speed significantly. I don't believe either attack draws much aggro.

Originally Posted by Yula_the_Mighty

Running is a viable options if your party has the correct classes. Plus classes use the correct skills. For example, a mob turns on the minstrel. The minstrel is by themselves away from guard and champ. A hunter in strength stance can use quickshot to slow the critter then stack a barbed arrow.

The minstrel can now break melee contact while running. The hunter can happily shoot it to pieces while the critter vainly tries to catch the minstrel. Or zig over to the champ and let the champ chase and beat on it. It is possible with some planning to melee a slowed critter.

Several classes like hunters and champions have a melee skill that can slow a critter.

This an standard hunter trick. It is called kiting. It works very nicely when you have one opponent and two hunters.

Yes you can melee a slowed critter, but it is much slower as you get far less attacks per min on a slowed mob than a non moving mob. Kiting is an excellent strategy while Soloing/Duoing/Trioing, in a large group it is usually not the best idea IMHO. I've seen more than a few party wipes from a "kiting" hunter running around and drawing another group of mobs down around the parties heads. In order to effectively kite any mob you need space to run, circles are not good because you need time to get that next shot off and hunters skills have long induction times. Lets use your example and break it down for a min here.

For example, a mob turns on the minstrel. The minstrel is by themselves away from guard and champ. A hunter in strength stance can use quickshot to slow the critter then stack a barbed arrow.

A hunter in strength stance also draws more threat to themselves, which can be a nightmare in and of it's self for the guard. If a Hunter hits a mob with quick shot followed by a barbed arrow she would have a good chance to possibly draw the mob onto them. Minstrel is saved, but now the hunter has aggro. So the hunter runs either backwards, where the group just was, risking possible respawns or forward past the group to unexplored territory. Either way they get separated from the group and the Guard can not hope to get agro back.

IMHO, the best outcome will still come from the minstrel running to the guard and allowing him or the champ to get the mob off of them. In an Emergency I understand the hunter dragging the mob off the minstrel, but then the hunter should get the mob to the guard ASAP.

First of all, I hate using the term "taunt" in this game. There are two types of skills that can be considered taunts and they work very differently. There are threat building skills, like the guardian's shield-blow, and then there are snap-aggro skills, like Challenge and Champion's Challenge. Threat building skills are intended to put you at the top of a mob's threat table and keep you there. Snap-aggro skills force a mob to attack you for a period of time and do not affect the mob's threat table. These skills are about giving the squishies a little breathing room while the tank works at building aggro.

When Champ or Guardian uses their snap-aggro skills the mob is forced to attack them, but once that effect wears off, the mob goes right back to whoever was at the top of their threat table unless a tank has been able to build enough threat to keep it.

Originally Posted by kyphros

....
As for Captains, other than damage/healing aggro, Halberds have a mod on them that increases threat during combat, so I've found it's sometimes easy to pull aggro off of the Guardian. I don't know what percentage increased it is, but it's enough to get monsters angry at me sometimes

I'm pretty sure the threat modifier is only +2%. I believe it was written into the weapon descriptions that way. But, because they are the hardest hitting weapons available, the final effect is somewhat greater. I don't know if the effect has been changed recently.

For those who don't know, Captains have one skill that crits for 3X max damage on a crit. When using a halberd, that can start pushing towards 1000 points of damage. Properly traited, we can use the skill about every 15 seconds. Fully buffed, my crit rate on this skill is about 23%. If I get lucky and hit a few of these in a row, I will pretty much keep aggro for the rest of the fight.

Originally Posted by Tadloth

...
2) Captains. Captains can be decent single target off-tanks, but because we have no on-demand AoE attacks at all, we have a really hard time peeling multiple mobs.
a) taunt: captains have a single target taunt, but it is not particularly effective. It works if somebody accidentally peels a target on which we already have decent ammount of hate, but can not match hunter's skilled/crit dps.
...

Just to clarify, Captains have 2 threat-building skills (apart from the halberd bonus). One of them is ranged, but it is not a snap-aggro skill like Champion's Challenge.

Originally Posted by midrys

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7. We have Threat transfer skills that go both ways. It transfers threat based on a percentage (not sure the exact percentage). This helps us get a peel and transfer it to a guard.
....

Rising Ire and Ebbing Ire are the two best threat management skills in the game.

There is an excellent explanation of how the Ire skills work here:
http://forums.lotro.com/showpost.php...5&postcount=59

With book 12, these will be changed to transfer an even greater percentage of threat.

Originally Posted by Bodha

Neither work like WoWs taunt which would instantly allow a tank to regain and keep aggro. The difference may not seem big but the difference can be huge when combined with the aggro threshold WoW has. Here the taunts you refer to does something very different. The challenge lets a guardian get aggro and keep it for 10s. It does not instantly put him at the highest on the threat list. That means that when the 10s is up the mob goes right back to whoever has the highest amount of threat. In WoW the taunt put you at the top of the hate list and got the mob on you. For someone to take it back from you they had to get a significant amount of hate more than you. Here they only have to have 1 more point of threat.
...

As I understand it, you have to exceed a mob's target by 20% on it's threat table in order to get and keep aggro. That is what I recall a dev posting on the matter. When Challenge wears off, the mob goes back to it's previous target because you never got yourself to the top of the threat table. It's not that they have one more point of threat, it's that you were never 20% ahead. Threat appears to be cumulative throughout a fight, so it is vital for the tank to not get behind.

First of all, great post and great thread. Everyone involved has given very useful information.

Couple more things I have found successful are;

If a burg is geared towards agility then it is beneficial for the burg to take a lone peel as the mob will not easily be able to hit them and they can always use there 50% evade buff to ensure prolonged management of the mob until the tank can pull it back. As long as the burg only has one mob aggroed on them they will not likely take a lot of damage.

This will allow for the real dps in the group to focus on the main mob and kill it instead of always trying to regain control of adds and peals while the tank racks up the damage and nothing is dying... except the tank.

Also, any intelligent adds (worms, orcs, men) should be the expressed duty of the burg. Loremasters, and minstrels can mez and stun the mob but may have to stop drawing power or other ability. A burg on the other hand can step out of combat with the main target, Riddle the add and get back into the main fight in two seconds. And when the mob wakes up it will be on the burg, which isn't a big deal.

This is not including the update that is coming up as I see it drastically changing the class, but this will still remain true with the current abilities. Let the burg roam a bit. He can be of greatest assistance ensuring the perimeter is secure while you do what you need to do.

And although this isn't tank specific... A burg can bring in a con whenever you need it. Sometimes a burg will get a random con and everyone will switch targets to try and use it and then the tank is off the main target and then the healer gets the aggo and then the con doesn't get off anyways and... and... and you are in a worse position. The con isn't always important. Those who are target assisting the tank continue to do so, if the tank switches, switch with him and use the con, otherwise remain with the tank. It doesn't help to get Wrath of the Righteous conned if you turn back to find your tank dead or your healer pulling all the aggro because of the big heal chain they had to end before joining the con.

So if a con pops up, relax, you got 5 or 6 seconds to be a part of it, see what the tank is doing. If it is an important one, the burg should have given you forewarning with a big "con commin'" in chat. No reason to break out the fine china and set the table for a con when the tank hasn't killed the bacon yet. There will be more cons where that came from.

SB

an update to this thread my be good since book 12 no?

I understand there was a lot of change to taunting and such...

Lil bump since I noticed a link in the Lorebook led over here.

Originally Posted by Kosidius

Lil bump since I noticed a link in the Lorebook led over here.

Quite a bit is outdated, especially with Moria.

This thread is magnificent at stating what, exactly, I need to know to learn/remember about tanking as a Guardian. Having come back from WoW and my paladin, I must say this was a big help to clear things up as to why my abilities weren't working as I thought/remembered they did. Thanks very much! I appreciate all the work you went through to bring this to we, the undereducated, barbaric masses.

This is out-of-date... The Guardian for example has Engage (I don't know if that was around when the initial post was made) that will put him instantly at the top of the threat list if it succeeds. Unfortunately it has a somewhat high cooldown so it's more for emergencies than anything else. We also have Fray the Edge which is a ranged single-target taunt (among other things), this may be the skill that was discussed as being available in Book 12. Much of the advice is still good however.

Originally Posted by nyaxx

about burglars and threat:

burglars have two skill related to aggro.

one is called provoke and is supposed to increase the mobs aggro towards whoever it is currently attacking. i haven't messed around with this skill much but from what i understand it isn't really all that effective. cant hurt tho

My main is a burglar and my first alt is a guardian. I thought the same as you until somewhere in my level 50s. Then when I needed it, I found I had a lot of provokes to do to get the trait to improve it.

Here is what you can do with Provoke - just two examples to give you an idea:

Scenario 1: You are in a fight where it is absolutely imperative that a boss stays on the main tank throughout the entire fight and maybe that he has to stay in a certain position (away from adds that proximity will allow him to heal for example). That being the case, the burglar positions himself between the tank and the main fight - probably about the same position as the healer who needs to reach both. Once the boss aggros on the tank, the burglar provokes the boss repeatedly to ensure that the guardian cannot lose aggro. Between times, he either debuffs the boss and attacks him or he assists the remaining fight - possibly including some crowd control say by chain mezzing one add out of the area.

Scenario 2: You are in a fight where you need to eliminate one add while the tank retains the boss aggro and the rest of the group do other tasks. A good example is one method of killing the final boss in FG - tank on boss, burglar on fang-caster. The burglar gets "first aggro" on the add (in the example the fang-caster) and then uses provoke to maintain aggro throughout the fight. That way he controls the position and attacks of the add effectively acting as an off-tank for a single add.

The second method even proves useful if you lose your tank - the burglar can often take a boss aggro using provoke for a short period and then easily hand it back once the tank is rezzed and gets bars back, using provoke to sic the boss back on the tank when the tank first gets a taunt to work.

Originally Posted by nyaxx

the other is a trick called enrage.

Just to add that if the burglar has equipped the trait Blind Fury (obtained by using enrage many times and whose icon is like an angry face) the enrage skill forces the enraged mob/mobs to forego any ranged attacks they have and come into melee. This stops tanks having to get near a ranged mob to get aggro when that may trigger aggro from other mobs. Note that when a ranged foe is first enraged with blind fury the mob often stands there in a strange position looking like he is trying to work out what to do - in that time, ranged classes can be burning him down without him doing any damage at all. He will then run up to someone, usually the burg who may hit him with startling twist which is an 8 second stun during which time the mob will usually be killed. If ST isn't available, the burglar can remove the enrage at any time by simply putting another trick on him which will debuff or cause other useful effect.

I recently started a Guardian character, my main being a Hunter. This thread has been invaluable to me as I work to learn the skills to be an effective Guardian in a fellowship. Thank you!

This is an awesome thread! It's really helped me. This is my first MMO, so I don't completely understand what is going on. This has really helped. I remember when I did Great Barrow, I kept on pulling mobs and dieing, and eventually, all my equipment broke, and teh guardian left the fellowship because he was irritated.

Originally Posted by onthursday963

Wonderful thread. Some really good points here. One thing the hunters can do is barbed arrow or quick shot. Neither do much initial damage, but reduce the mob's movement speed significantly. I don't believe either attack draws much aggro.

I would actually be careful about Barbed Arrow, because the dot could pull aggro onto you several seconds after you use it, especially if you continue to attack the mob. Quick shot, however isn't a big deal, especially when you are in endurance. Actually, when a hunter is in endurance stance he has a buff that decreases his power costs, and his aggro, I think both by 10%, unless traited, in which case both are increased. Supposedly, when in endurance, quick shot actually reduces aggro on the hunter, so that can be increadibly useful.

Not trying to ressurect a dead thread here, but I also thought this was a very useful primer. It's too bad there wasn't a specific way to tell which skills generate threat in some kind of quantitative sense. Its only listed as "a minor amount of threat" or "a moderate amount" etc.

As the previous poster mentioned, careful with the barbed arrows. An *un*lucky devestate on a barbed arrow, even if you are in endurance stance, will pretty much make you the tastiest thing on the enemy's menu untill the bleed has worn off. This can be pretty bad if you are traited for the +5 bleed pulses.

Essentially nothing will get that aggro off you on a boss like Igash who doesn't respond to the added threat skills. For example, my bow had a threat rating down 13 on it, I was in endurance stance, had the top of the line threat reduction book, loosed a few threat reducing quickshots, popped beneath notice, and then just canceled my autoattacks to stop attacking all together. He stayed on me for the full 20 seconds untill that bleed expired. The second it wore off he was back on the tank.

Seems kind of unfair to me considering a barbed arrow devestate doesn't actually cause a better bleed. I actually wonder if it is a bug. Perhaps each pulse of bleed damage also counts as a crit because the initial shot critted?

anyway I'm sure this pisses off the tanks to no end because they also have to chase him, but this is one of the few situations where I will attempt to kite around the room (otherwise I don't like seeing hunters running around) because standing still means a quick death for myself (if he does that rend armor thing while wound pots are on cooldown) and probabaly any other DPSer or Healer untill the tank can regain his attention.

Great guide for those who have questions about threat and aggro generation, but I thought that I would add a few things about Wardens, since they were added after the OP:

1) Warden's generate threat over time even more so than Guardians, so the OP's point #1 about giving the tank a few seconds to get going on the mob goes double if tanking with a Warden

2) Warden's are particulary good at grabbing large groups of critters, so try to squish everything together into range of our taunts.

3) A lot of Warden abilities are area-of-effect DoTs. If you are a CC class, try not to use your abilities on enemies the Warden is currently tanking, since the CC will just break on the next tick of damage. If there is a specific enemy you want to take out of the fight for awhile, call it out so the Warden knows to stay away from it.

4) Specific to healers and Minstrels especially: Do NOT panic if our health takes a big dip first thing into a fight. Our self-heals take a few seconds to pull off, so it will initially look like we are going to drop like a stone but our health will stabilize once our HoT kicks in. If you panic heal us, it will just be a waste of power for both players.

5) Also to healers, we like out health to sit a bit lower than most other classes, so don't feel the need to keep us at 100% all the time. This is because we have a self-power heal called The Dark Before Dawn that we can only use below 50% health. We are a pretty power-intensive class so this skill gets used pretty heavily in long fights where our power pots might be on cooldown. It might be handy to discuss with the Warden before hand at what point they would like a heal so they don't start building into the skill just to have you heal them before they can get it off.

One thing a lore-master can do is allow the tank to agro a group of mobs and cast a root when they are grouped close enough together. The tank can engage in melee the ones he wants with aoe damage and can taunt the others.

Generally the ones being meleed will not lose agro on the tank. If one out of combat does lose agro, they can't go after a minstral because of the root.

Target assist helps alot here so ranged know who to target but that is not always true for a tank's target assist. Often tanks will be changing targets to taunt, not to damage which breaks cc. Using skill target forwarding on the tank is not a good idea. Using auto attack next target is just as bad.

The idea of the taunts is to keep the mobs locked down on the tank if and when the cc gets broken or expires. Hopefully by the time a 30 second root expires the melee classes have moved on to the mobs that were left for last.

The above takes communication, which can be hard to come by. Usually what happens is the melee hit everything, break every kind of cc, hope for heals, and wipe in difficult situations lol. A lore-masters burden to bear, broken crowd control.

One thing I've never understood is why if a loose mob runs up and hits somebody, many players will attack back. That accomplishes nothing except to make the person's job, who is repsonsible for that mob, that much harder. Leave that mob alone and let whoever is supposed to be handling that mob take care of it. Run towards the tank only if the tank is supposed to have it and the tank is not taking alot of frontal aoe. There are alot of senarios, but going off solo on a mob who hits you is pretty much never the answer.

Originally Posted by Kaluu

One thing a lore-master can do is allow the tank to agro a group of mobs and cast a root when they are grouped close enough together. The tank can engage in melee the ones he wants with aoe damage and can taunt the others.

I'm not sure how well this will work with Wardens. Our big line of self-heal/tanking skills function as morale leeches on an enemies within a full 360 degree radius of our character. Since the mob takes damage every few seconds with the morale leech, it would likely break whatever root is on a mob. Some of these skills can go out a really long ways. Conviction, the creme-de-la-creme of our tanking skills (a morale-leech that heals the entire group and transfers group threat to the Warden) goes out 30 meters. Most will affect an area 6-10 meters in radius.

Originally Posted by cwinches

I'm not sure how well this will work with Wardens. Our big line of self-heal/tanking skills function as morale leeches on an enemies within a full 360 degree radius of our character. Since the mob takes damage every few seconds with the morale leech, it would likely break whatever root is on a mob. Some of these skills can go out a really long ways. Conviction, the creme-de-la-creme of our tanking skills (a morale-leech that heals the entire group and transfers group threat to the Warden) goes out 30 meters. Most will affect an area 6-10 meters in radius.

Yes, that wouldn't work well at all to break the roots unless it was on purpose, but the Warden will have agro from the initial pull and be generating some agro on unengaged mobs by engaging the others in dps.

The idea is that the mobs are close together so the root will apply to all or most and they will be in close proximity to the tank or melee.

The alternative is for either the tank to engage all the mobs in melee, which may not be wise, or for the lore-master or a hunter to engage the mobs separately before the encounter starts. As you mentioned the Warden will break the root when he applies his aoe threat skills so that is a waste. For a class not using a damaging aoe threat skill, the mobs will stay rooted but be spread out and make aoe dps worthless. Rather than root a half dozen or more mobs and pick them off one at a time, rooting them when they are closer together allows the aoe dps to pick off as many as they want at a time and keep the others close by. Aoe debuffing becomes possible.

Anyway, it's all situational. I just thought I would throw it in because this is a way to keep a character who is generating agro in close proximity to a group of mobs and proximity helps in several ways, many more than I can summarize here.

One key is for the aoe dps character to keep moving a little. There is nothing much funnier than a rooted mob meleeing a character who has his back turned while dps'ing another mob. After a follow up root the melee can step a few meters back and take only what they want. If it doesn't matter they won't. If one gets away he is close enough to get back before he finds the minstral.

Originally Posted by cwinches

I'm not sure how well this will work with Wardens. Our big line of self-heal/tanking skills function as morale leeches on an enemies within a full 360 degree radius of our character. Since the mob takes damage every few seconds with the morale leech, it would likely break whatever root is on a mob. Some of these skills can go out a really long ways. Conviction, the creme-de-la-creme of our tanking skills (a morale-leech that heals the entire group and transfers group threat to the Warden) goes out 30 meters. Most will affect an area 6-10 meters in radius.

Except that Convinction ISN'T a morale leach and can be executed outside of melee range with masteries. This would allow the LM to root and the warden to continuing building threat by taking it from the group. Conviction and DoW are both threat transfer skills, Convinction has the added bonus of a group-wide heal (which adds more threat for the warden).

Communication is the key to good groups.

I dont know how off topic this is, but as a Warden MT most of the time, I find that it is best to have the OT or champ of the group on target assist and have all DPS focus on that one target... I dont mind having 10 targets at me at once and you guys can peel them off one at a time, but what gets frustrating is when (in a 6 man) a champ pulls one target, 2 hunters each pull one, and a DPS RK pulls one...

I am a tank, and a good one, and I can hold aggro pretty well... but my AoE aggro ticking at 100 pts every few seconds is NOT going to be enough to hold a mob off any DPS class.

So again, if we face a heavy mob (50k) and 4 medium mobs (20k), have the OT/champ pick up a 20k mob and everyone target assist him and burn him down asap as I will select the 50k mob and use my AoE to hold the other 3 20k's. Then once the first pulled 20k goes down, pull 1 more, then 1 more, then the last 20k mob, then we all group up on the biggin...

Otherwise we have mobs beating on our squishys and half the time I get blamed, and the other half the healer does...

Other than that, good info (on wardens at least)

Originally Posted by SCHawks73

I dont know how off topic this is, but as a Warden MT most of the time, I find that it is best to have the OT or champ of the group on target assist and have all DPS focus on that one target... I dont mind having 10 targets at me at once and you guys can peel them off one at a time, but what gets frustrating is when (in a 6 man) a champ pulls one target, 2 hunters each pull one, and a DPS RK pulls one...

I am a tank, and a good one, and I can hold aggro pretty well... but my AoE aggro ticking at 100 pts every few seconds is NOT going to be enough to hold a mob off any DPS class.

So again, if we face a heavy mob (50k) and 4 medium mobs (20k), have the OT/champ pick up a 20k mob and everyone target assist him and burn him down asap as I will select the 50k mob and use my AoE to hold the other 3 20k's. Then once the first pulled 20k goes down, pull 1 more, then 1 more, then the last 20k mob, then we all group up on the biggin...

Otherwise we have mobs beating on our squishys and half the time I get blamed, and the other half the healer does...

Other than that, good info (on wardens at least)

I don't think it's a good idea to tell a champion not to use their aoe. That is what they live for.

Each player needs to know the agro capabilities of the tank and are responsible for their own agro.

The group you mention, who ignore target assist, ignore agro, and blame you have no idea what they are doing. In a good group, for example, if the rune-keeper or hunter pull agro and die, most of us find that very very amusing. Those who don't usually don't find any humor in wipes either, and simply consider the offenders idiots, which is fine. Each to their own. We all do something like that from time to time.

Hey.
Aggro controll is a group effort, therefore thanks for this great topicpost. . I have a guard myself and a burglar. Also i play a lot together with a champ. Didnt read all the comments but like to point out a champ has somthing as: Ebbing ire that way a champ can transfer agro to the tank. works great. Burglar has Enrage wich works the same. Iff for excample both champ and burg put this on the tank keeping agro becoms childsplay in the melleegroup. Add an hunter ho can controll his agro and its a walk in the park for the group.

Originally Posted by Breakkfast

Hey.
Aggro controll is a group effort, therefore thanks for this great topicpost. . I have a guard myself and a burglar. Also i play a lot together with a champ. Didnt read all the comments but like to point out a champ has somthing as: Ebbing ire that way a champ can transfer agro to the tank. works great. Burglar has Enrage wich works the same. Iff for excample both champ and burg put this on the tank keeping agro becoms childsplay in the melleegroup. Add an hunter ho can controll his agro and its a walk in the park for the group.

Hah, the last post in this thread was over 2 years old, but no matter

I only have a lvl 27 Burg, so I could be completely wrong, but if you put enrage on a mob that the tank is trying to hold, I think YOU might be his next target

Now, I believe the skill name is PROVOKE that gives the tank a bunch of love, now THAT will earn you some cookies baked fresh from Mrs. Tank

Sometimes it's not bad to necro a thread that's worth reading.

I just wanted to add my tuppence from what I've learned running as a DPS Champ. The importance of Ebbing Ire can never be understated. I have the legacy on my rune to bring the cooldown down to 60 secs and use it often during boss fights, especially earlier, to give the tank a nice aggro cushion so DPS can wind up to their hardest hitting rotations.

However, one important thing to remember - as well as losing 25% of your aggro the tank GAINS it. So if the boss suddenly starts running at the hunter or healer then use Ebbing immediately (well, maybe if it's a hunter after watching the prima donna squirm and run around a little while) onto the tank. This should be enough to snap the boss back on the tank and help keep everything on track.