Early lvl tank questions

Hi, I'm trying to help a newbie out, and offered to post questions on the forum.

1) how does the enmity bar in the party list help tank?

2) how does a tank use this to prevent loosing enmity?

3) if a tank is about to loose enmity, what do they do?

The reason the new player is asking was a dialog on reddit. She is learning how to tank, but didn't feel the enmity bar on the party list was helpful. She thought this because you only see it on the mob u are targeting, and tanks at low level don't have a large skill set for enmity. The dialog came about the novice hall and another poster saying it was info that should have been put in the novice hall

So the bars are filled relatively to the numbered 1 (or A). 1 is always filled and a half-filled bar means that this person generated half the enmity person #1 did.
1. I am not sure to understand beside telling you where the other dps and healers stand on the enmity list for the mob. So it helps the tank by telling him if he is way ahead or not.
2. If a mob has an almost filled bar numbered #2, then the tank can focus is enmity combo (1-2-3) on it. This should reduce the bar #2 (and all the other ones as well).
For a pack, I would suggest to use AoE and then to do the hate combo (1-2 or 1-2-3 depending on the level) on all the mobs if dps are AoEing. For instance, do 1-2 on the first mob, then 3 on the second mob, etc. One has to pay attention not to always do the 3rd WS on the same mob so that hate is evenly distributed.
3. The tank need to focus his hate combo on the mob. If it is the case for multiple mobs, the tank can spam 2 or 3 AoE.

1. If the bar is completely full and everyone else's isn't, you have enmity. It is a more incremental visual of where you are in relation to everyone else.

2. If you're tanking multiple mobs, you can cycle through them to see where you're standing enmity-wise. Otherwise, if it's a boss, you can see where everyone is relative to you and then judge how much more threat you need to not get the boss ripped from you (less options early on, more as you get higher lvl).

3. If you're about to lose enmity then you need to focus on enmity generation, rather than things like DoTs/debuffs/etc. So, as an example, MRD early on has 2 options: Heavy Swing -> Maim (Increases damage dealt) or Heavy Swing -> Skull Sunder (increases enmity). In a situation where you're about to lose enmity, you want to use your SS combo, and then once you've established a lead you want to get up Maim as enmity is tied to your damage dealt (as well as "increased enmity" multipliers). If you're about to lose threat on multiple mobs, you want to use your AOE skill (Overpower/Flash/Unleash/Abyssal Drain) until your lead is established again, or cycle your hate combo through multiple mobs if you have access to the third part of it (Butcher's Block/Rage of Halone/Power Slash). If you've lost threat on the mob entirely, you want to use Provoke (lvl 22 GLD crossclass) and then something that generates enmity (your AOE, your ranged attack, or a combo'd part of your hate combo (Heavy Swing -> Provoke -> Skull Sunder, as an example)).

After going through the Novice Hall myself twice now on a tank, I can say that it doesn't cover everything you'll want to know but I think it doesn't necessarily need to. You can find out most things through either going in the dungeon (Sastasha is literally doable without a tank, for better or for worse) or by asking on Reddit/OF/linkshell/FC.

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Originally Posted by BigRed5392

She thought this because you only see it on the mob u are targeting, and tanks at low level don't have a large skill set for enmity. The dialog came about the novice hall and another poster saying it was info that should have been put in the novice hall

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There is a second enmity gauge via your enemy list. Next to each mob there is a colored circle to the left of their names. When you have safe aggro on all mobs they should all glow orange. If you see any flash between orange and yellow it means you are about to lose threat on that mob and should switch to it. If any is colored green then you don't have threat on those mobs at all.

Use this in conjunction with the the enmity meters on the party list.

For a bit more on point one:
Even though it only shows one mob, you can quickly cycle through mobs using "tab" on a PC, not sure what the controller version is.

At low levels I'll range pull ( Shield lob/ tomahawk, unmend), aoe twice, and then start hate combo, tabbing between targets. As you get a feel for how different groups of single target versus aoe dps types with together, you can start to see when to weave in the dps/dot/buff/debuff options

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Originally Posted by Sailysium

There is a second enmity gauge via your enemy list. Next to each mob there is a colored circle to the left of their names. When you have safe aggro on all mobs they should all glow orange. If you see any flash between orange and yellow it means you are about to lose threat on that mob and should switch to it. If any is colored green then you don't have threat on those mobs at all.

Use this in conjunction with the the enmity meters on the party list.

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There are also shapes. Red / orange square means you are their target. Red / orange triangle is an indication that they're going to start jumping around. The shapes don't provide enough early warning though.

thanks for the tips guys. ^^

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Originally Posted by Sailysium

When you have safe aggro on all mobs they should all glow orange red. If you see any flash between orange and yellow it means you are about to lose threat on that mob and should switch to it.

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All red is all good.
If anything is not red (square, for protanopic players), you've already lost that mob's attention, and you have until the end of its current action before it turns around to attack someone else.


In regards to the hate meters in the party list, the correlations are as follows:

• Your bar is full, there's an A next to your name, and the mob's enmity gem is a red square: the mob is focused on you.
• Your bar is full, there's a 1 next to your name, and the gem is a red square: the mob is focused on someone else. If that person's meter is not anywhere near full, this is a non-tanking event that you can't do anything about; wait it out or kill the mob.
• Your bar is full-ish, there's a 2 next to your name, and the gem is an orange down triangle: the mob is focused on someone else, but a couple AoEs or an enmity combo in tank stance should take it back.
• Your bar is not anywhere near full, and the mob's enmity gem is a yellow up triangle or green circle: the mob doesn't even realize you're hitting it. You should prolly do a 1-2-Provoke-3 hate combo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BigRed5392

She is learning how to tank, but didn't feel the enmity bar on the party list was helpful. She thought this because you only see it on the mob u are targeting, and tanks at low level don't have a large skill set for enmity.

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There's been some good advice on this above, but one important thing I haven't seen mentioned yet (maybe I missed it) was that watching the enemies HP in the enemy list will show you if something's being attacked (I.e if something's losing heath rapidly, then DPS are building aggro on it). Use this coupled with the enmity bars to determine where enmity needs to be built, and how much. When you're not in a panic to keep up, THEN cycle through targets to see aggro on each one.

This is once you've done your opener which should include Flash, Overpower, or Unleashed to get some initial aggro on all targets to ensure the healer doesn't pull.