Tanking - Needing advice (GLD)

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Originally Posted by Scotchio

I have a question regarding the early dungeon boss fights.
I have only tried Sastasha and Tam Tara.

When tanking on the bosses at the end and the extra mobs start to spawn, are tanks expected to run around and gather enmity on the adds or concentrate on the boss and let the DD's sort the adds out?

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You should swap to everything to help deal damage. The only time you wouldn't do this is if the mob you were tanking had an un-telegraphed frontal AoE, which I don't believe happens in the early levels.

If the mobs are something that last more than a few seconds, you should probably do a flash or two and maybe some single target enmity generation, just so your healer doesn't get smacked around.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scotchio

When tanking on the bosses at the end and the extra mobs start to spawn, are tanks expected to run around and gather enmity on the adds or concentrate on the boss and let the DD's sort the adds out?

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You'll have to use your judgment. Managing the fight is a tank's job. Collect the adds if they pose a threat to your healer, leave them to the DDs if they're squishy. If grabbing 3 of them puts you at risk, don't do it. Some adds will kill you if put on the tank. The first miniboss in Brayflox was like that in Phase 3, with the adds and miniboss taking out a tank in 6 seconds or so if the tank didn't burn a CD. Meanwhile, DPS had no trouble at all flattening them due to their tiny HP pools. Don't take on an add if it's going to get you killed, because if the tank or healer go down, your party's chances plummet. That also means that when a DPS aggros an extra group, don't be a hero. If you can't take the hits, you're going down with him. Even good tanks will occasionally make this mistake.

As a general rule, protect the healer first, yourself second, and DPS third.

Wow, that's a lot of help, my friends!

I've been trying out what you've told me. I even found out things on my own, that later you guys wrote here. At lower levels, even though I don't have hate control skills, I cast "Fight or Flight" to boost my damage and increase my threat. Flash and Fast Blade in combination with Savage Blade is all I got. Low level dungeons don't require a full fledge tank, since they are there just for the porpuse of teaching every class role.

At higher levels, it became pretty easy with all my new skills. For groups, I did somethiing similar than SomeFatGalka strategy. I focus to unleash a full charge of hate to my main target (Shield Lob + Flash + Blade combos) and then split the sucesive combos on the other targets: Fast Blade (A), Savage Blade (B), Rage of Halone (C) (Tabbing monsters to checking their hate-mater constantly). I noticed that SB and RoH increases the threat sepparetly, so I use them like that. If a monster gets away, I use provoke (As I read, it puts the aggro-meter just 1 point above the previous threat) and then I use Shield Lob to get his hate again. On single oponnents I don't have trouble holding my aggro. I overpassed the Topaz Carbuncle in a lot of instances. The key is the comunication with your party. Tanks are somewhat the leader of the group, since they can't advance until you move. I started marking my targets (I created macros for it) and it's great. It helped me to split the attacks of my DPS to the main mob and not stealing aggro from others. I've been practicing in dungeons over and over to master my tank skills. I also noticed that at higher levels, both MP and TP are not a problem anymore.

-Use of buffs: If there's a tough monster or a big group of monsters (3+/4+, normally) Convalescence and Rampart are a must. You help your healer because he/she's not healing you constantly, and he/she can save her/his precious MP.
-Use of other skills: Shield Bash helps me interrupt the monster's cast. If they proyect a threat area that I can't escape... that skill saves my life.
-Use of common sense: If you see the monster uses cone/straight AoE attacks, don't let the monster face your party. Go behind them so the evil dude is showing his back to your party members. Also, you help Puglists and Lancers to increase their overall DPS.
-Use of foods: Skill speed bonus + Vitality are a must for me. The global cooldown sometimes is a pain.

But then I discovered a new challenge. I fought in a Duty in which you have to fight a Malboro. DPS weren't doing a thing to kill the sphere-adds, so then a lot of green fellas spawned killing the whole party (That was the first and last time my party wipes in a group). So, how do I face adds? There're a lot and they appear from everywhere. I have to focus constantly on the whole scenario searching for adds.

At first, is pretty stressing being a tank with all the things I've to check while I face monsters, but I'm sure I will get over it.

I've been reading the forum and there's a lot of hate for tanks that don't make their job right. Well, instead of bashing them, they should guide them. Being a tank is not for everybody, I suspect that a lot of people will quit the class someday. I blame WoW for that, paladins in there are quite OP and they can do everything. In this game, that's not the case. Paladins are tanks and that's what they do. It's a lot of responsability and you must assume it, learn it or quit.


PD: I would have prefered Shield Oath to be my first paladin skill. :(

Yeah, it seems really odd, and very much annoying that MRD gets their tanking stance at 30, and we get our's at 40.
Ideally, we should get both stances at 30. Or at least make Shield Oath be available at 30, wherein we are taught about being a free paladin... and defending people...
Then make Sword Oath come in at 35, where we have to slaughter a mass of monkeys.
Cover at 40, Spirits at 45, Hallowed at 50.

I recently ran Sunken Temple as a 36 PLD, and given that almost every single pull was 3 mobs, sometimes 3 mobs that ALL throw ground aoes forcing me to joust half the time and putting them out of range of Flash, my aoe hate generation felt very lacking. I imagine it would not be as much of a problem with Shield Oath... but as it stands, PLD just looks bad compared to WAR from 30 till 40.

Can warrior use Flash. Because in my case I was in a dungeon and flash was not working for me??!

Is this a bug I should report?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scotchio

I have a question regarding the early dungeon boss fights.
I have only tried Sastasha and Tam Tara.

When tanking on the bosses at the end and the extra mobs start to spawn, are tanks expected to run around and gather enmity on the adds or concentrate on the boss and let the DD's sort the adds out?

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Going by memory (as an ARC): The Sastasha boss adds are weak enough that a DD should be able to solo them. Same with the Tam-Tara Imps. For the Skeletons and Mitelings in Tam-Tara, feel free to tank them.

For those rightly saying that ARC has crazy aggro: I'm sorry, we don't get Quelling Strikes until 34. :(

Another quick question about Flash.

Is it a frontal cone AoE or an all around circle AoE?
I wondered if I should be facing the whole group of mobs or if it will work if I'm amongst them with one or two just behind me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scotchio

Another quick question about Flash.

Is it a frontal cone AoE or an all around circle AoE?
I wondered if I should be facing the whole group of mobs or if it will work if I'm amongst them with one or two just behind me.

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Circle AoE.