At least from a lancer POV, aggro is really easy to maintain even with large groups. Even if all you do is gather up groups of enemies and use block inbetween abilities like taunting whenever its up, stuns, menacing wave you should never lose aggro. The only time I've lost aggro to heals is when they start using heals on DPS when I'm still gathering mobs - and that's only because I haven't built any aggro yet. I'm a fan of chain pulling so it's quite annoying when people start building threat before I even gathered them all.

Tank here. I'll explain the lancer:

If they are attacking me, I have aggro.
If they are not attacking me, I do not have aggro.

now for the TL;DR:

Glyph and crystal in aggro gains. Then use glyph skills.
Your biggest aggro attacks are:
Shield Barrage
Shield Counter
Challenging Shout.

Now for the wall of text:

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

A lancers duty in life is to be the biggest masochist he can be. He pulls everything and makes sure no one else takes the damage, because that would mean he isn't getting hurt, and that makes the lancer sad.

So how do you do that?

Simple, Keep aggro on the monsters. But that's all cool, but there's gata be a trick to it. Well, there slightly is. Let me break it down for you.

There are 3 moves that generate the biggest amount of threat:
Shield Barrage
Shield Counter
Challenging shout

When the listed skills are off CD, use them as much as possible.

Here is a pro top: All threat stacks, even if you use Challenging shout. All threat stacks

So those skills will generate the highest aggro. But we are not done yet. Once you hit 20, you obtain 10 glyph points you can throw around. But what are some glyphs to get?

Why not more threat? The aforementioned skills each have their own glyphs that ultimately increase their threat generation. So why NOT boot the best threat gains with MORE THREAT!

Here are the following glyphs you should grab ASAP:

Glyph of Threat
Provides 100% additional aggro.
Glyph of Threat[/b]
Provides 20% additional aggro.
Glyph of the Pump
Chance to increase strength by 15% for 10 seconds on a successful block.

Wait? Glyph of the pump? Why so? That dose not give additional aggro! Well, you are both right, and wrong.

Glyph of the pump dose not give aggro, in its raw form, it gives additional threat through higher damage. The more damage you do, the more threat you generate. Same as healing, the more you heal, the more you generate threat.

So now we have effectively doubled if not tripled our threat production. But we are not done yet, oh no. There is more.

If you want to get into the min/max of things, you can get your weapon to have a +X enchant that grants additional aggro (to prone monsters, or increase damage to highest threat, and more).

(~(Part 2 )~)

Or you can get this lovely crystal:

Threatening Crystal
Increases the aggression of monsters by X%*.
* - Percentage is dependent on crystal level

Also, the game itself is your threat meter. There are a number of symbols that pop on top of a monsters head. They all mean different things, but knowing what they mean can help you determine if you are having aggro issues or not.



So. How do I keep aggro? I min/max my character to be a tanking god.

Love,
~Zenatsu

+12% aggro from Threatening Hexage.
+13.5% from Dreadspike.
+20% for taunt and +100% for counter.

95% of the time you just round em up, taunt and put up your shield. By the time DPS can do enough damage to take aggro the mobs are all dead.

5% of the time you're against a boss, taunt and counter off cooldown, keep 3 stacks of Debilitate on at all times to augment your DPS.

I literally lost aggro once cause of a 30k crit fireblast that happened 2 seconds before my taunt cooled down.

As a warrior, I just use Torrent of Blows when necessary.

If a healer has to heal a little more for any reason, just increasing the amount of times I use Torrent of Blows easily puts me on top of the mob's 'People I should attempt to mutilate now' list.

The crystal has different levels

The highest is 15%, unless there is a level 60 one.

That was solely about threat generation. So Debilitate is moot to what I was explaining. We are not worried about other DPS, we are worried about you and your threat.

Very nice breakdown Zenatsu, thanks for laying it all out for everybody so cleanly.

RHoRHo, that's the rotation I use as well, although I didn't bother to pick up a dreadspike in OBT.

I also roll Lancer, a good lancer should manage aggro for your party, and so it should be a non issue for the squishies in your party.

That said, please keep this in mind when working with a competent tank:

Tanks should be using self healer when they are at 75% or so, to keep healer form over healing and losing aggro.

my one piece of advice goes to healers:

Healers, don't direct heal as often, I find that back to back lock on heals with mystic for example, is instant aggro. As a Tank, you are always balls deep in the primary threat, sometimes I can't even see the indicator saying the aggro has shifted, and even then, a lot of the mobs are more mobile than the tank, which means if you run too far in the other direction to evade, the tank has a damn hard time catching you, and if the shout misses, you've got at least ten seconds of trying not to get one or two shot in a dungeon or BAM. so try and swing back around your tank if the situation affords it.

Not that all this is a huge issue if you're comfortable with it as a lancer, but just something to consider if you're partied with a lancer. Also, if you're partied with a lancer that isn't shouting right out of the gate to lock mobs in on him, let him know that they should be. Anything less, and any other DPS or heals will pretty much insta-pull the mob off the tank.

I'm sorry I must have read this all wrong, Are you really asking this question?!

1) Thanks bro.

2) I love leash. If its just 1 mob running out of your control group. you can easily leash him back to you and throw a taunt or shield barrage to make him love you again.

Now, This is generally how a mystic should operate:

Drop mana/health balls for the DPS to self heal. If they die and you cant be bothered to save them, its their fault. I will defend you in that logic.

They need to Lock on heal (LOH) the tank at all times. If the tank can, he should pick up the health.mana balls, since they are a support thing for him as well. Defiantly makes a mystics job easier.


Also, I pull like a pro.

Face pull ~ 5-6 groups, shout, let DPS go at it.

I always tell my DPS "Do not attack until you see me taunt" That way I know i can safely pull all the mobs I want and they 'should' not attack until I drop my taunt and start building aggro from the face pull.

If no one abides by that rule. I'll let them tank. And they will learn.

but that is a personal thing.

Quote: Suroh on 04/24/2012, 04:34 PM - view

some people are just not as pro as me. I know. But fret not, I will teach the ways of being badass.