Threat management

[Bodha]

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.

[Kellenvadros]

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.

[elderlygamer]

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?

[JeanCarlo]

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

[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.

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.

[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.

[Bodha]

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

[Berund]

Great post, Bodha.

[Whispen]

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~

[kyphros]

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

[Maug]

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.

[Tadloth]

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.

[midrys]

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???

[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.

[Voxin]

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.