Paladins and Summoners

Doing a couple full AK runs since the "speed run" patch has taught me something important.
*2 part post, 1 rant, 1 suggestion/solution*

As a Paladin.
I
HATE
SUMMONERS

The reason is simple. The way Summoner dps is designed creates a situation where they either do very subpar damage, OR, they do nonstop uncontrolled aoe. That is just how it is.
At 50, the vast majority of Summoners use the Garuda pet, which loves to aoe, and do that annoying knockback. Additionally, a Summoner's dps is based on putting up 3 dots, Miasma 2 is very weak and doesnt spread, and well, spreading them on all nearby targets, then throw in Thunder 1, and some of their own aoes, and the pet's... You get the idea.
By design, a Summoner has to dot up everything, all the time, and once the deed is done, if their dots outaggro the tank on any mob, well there is nothing they can do, cept run.

So why does this piss me off as a Paladin... Simply put, this is THE bane of Paladin's weak aoe aggro.
For example, a BLM can also spam aoes. However a "smart" BLM will watch the threat meters, and STOP using their aoes when they are orange to a mob. At that point, they can return to assisting the tank, since as a tank, you cannot easily see where everyone else's hate is relative to your own on every mob at the same time... but the dps can.
But again, a Summoner is akin to a BLM who cannot stop spamming his aoes, which does not work well with PLD's weak ass aoe hate generation.
Note: This is pertaining primarily to fights with 3+ mobs. 2 mobs means you flip between the 2 throwing Halone combos. 3 mobs means cycling through is less effective, more reliance on Flash, less overall aggro stability. 4+ is just Flash Flash Flash, since chopping up Halone across 4+ mobs just doesnt work.


*deep breath*

So I would like to suggest a few things that would um, help, Paladins with this problem. Mind you, I am in partial DL, the rest is AK greens, and Garuda's Gaze. I have repeatedly lost aggro to a Summoner with mostly greens, no blues, and Ifrit's Tome... so less geared than I am, and still pulling off-targets off of me, repeatedly.

1. The simplest solution is to take GLA's lvl 50 ability, Circle of Scorn, and give it a hate mod.
This is the last ability in a TANK CLASS, why does it not have a hate mod? Honestly the same argument can be made for Storm's Path in MRD. Lvl 50 ability in tank class, SHOULD have a hate mod.
Beyond that, it would be nice if in addition to the hate mod, maybe 3x, even 5x given the low potency, that the recast be lowered to 15 seconds, to match the duration. This way GLA/PLD has a somewhat reliable, decent aoe hate generator at endgame.

2. Flash and Riot Blade... Where to begin. Flash needs a longer range. It is a circle aoe, which is nice, but it is very short. Increase the range by 50% and we're good.
Next, MP cost and the Riot Blade combo. Unless you have a bard running Mage's Ballad, between 3 ticks of MP regen and 1 Riot Combo restoring 133 MP, one use of Flash STILL costs more that what you regain.
The simplest solution here would be to increase the MP regen of Riot Blade to around 150-160 MP to even things out.
But Flash comes with a different issue. If we need to hold multiple mobs, against Summoner dots for example, then we need to constantly Flash, and constantly use the Riot Combo for MP, which leaves our ST hate very very lacking, so melees will pull off our current target.
Another simple solution. Add a hate mod to Fast Blade and Riot Blade. Make it less hate than the Halone combo, but enough that we're not going to lose our main target while trying to keep all of the off targets.

Those are my thoughts for this morning. If someone has figured out an actual solution for this particular situation... Other than "get more gear, dont suck, and tell your dps not to suck", then please let me know.
From my experience, the only thing I have found that even remotely works is continuously cycling Flash - Fast - Riot -> Flash, while throwing Circle on cooldown... and having the dps throttle a bit. Even then, a large incoming damage spike followed by a large healing spike will pull something onto the healer... So, I am at a slight loss for the time being.

Well, I'm not level 50 but as someone who tanked through all of vanilla WoW where Warriors had no aoe threat, controlling threat is the job of the group as a whole. The dps have to be in control of their threat just as much as the tank. Not every situation will allow for aoe damage even if it does maximize dps.

I play a lot with two summoners and a paladin and haven't seen this issue. The randoms we get, on the other hand...

If they're popping Bane as soon as their DoTs are up, you're probably going to lose aggro, and they're idiots. Just let them die. After the first 3 or 4 deaths they'll figure it out.

I'm pretty much perma-grouped with a summoner and have not had problems. I know that's anecdotal but it's speaking from experience with me trusting that I'm doing the right thing and me trusting that she's also doing the right thing. I actually asked her about the dot spread when I realized that was what her class did, and she mentioned that she usually waits till about 10-12 seconds into the fight before spreading. That sounds about right as it takes 7+ seconds just to stack the dots to spread.

Quote:

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Note: This is pertaining primarily to fights with 3+ mobs. 2 mobs means you flip between the 2 throwing Halone combos. 3 mobs means cycling through is less effective, more reliance on Flash, less overall aggro stability. 4+ is just Flash Flash Flash, since chopping up Halone across 4+ mobs just doesnt work.

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I'm only 35 atm so I don't know how it is at 50, but I'm assuming this level stretch that I'm missing Shield Oath and x2 aggro mod is the roughest time I'm going to see. However I'm not having trouble with 3 mobs, that's an easy split. 4 mobs is a little more work, but I just mark 1 and 2 and it's not a problem.

3 mobs is usually:
Shield lob 1 on way in
Double flash
FB -> SB on 1
RH -> 2
FB -> SB on 3
RH -> 1

Make sure you split your combo between two mobs, a full combo on a single mob is overkill and will lead to mobs being drawn off early in the fight, especially with 4+ mobs. FB + SB is about equivalent to RH in aggro generation.

Once you've hit each mob with either SB or RH at least once, continue to FB->SB->RH combo cycling through the mobs during the 2.5s cooldown and landing RH on whichever mob has the highest aggro bar on someone else.

If you still have issues then mark up to 3 or 4 targets for a kill order. The aoe dot spread from Summoner is negligible though, and usually less than heal aggro(albeit before Saint enmity dump).

Now if you're doing all this and still having Summoners steal aggro, then you're dealing with a problem with the summoner. And on the note of Garuda doing AoE damage, great! Pet aggro is separate from the owners aggro so that doesn't matter at all.

It has nothing to do with SMN, the problem is people not playing their class correctly. A SMN that wants to play like a BLM(By trying to Nuke/AOE) will always cause problems, when i play i follow the tanks lead and switch from single focus to AOE spells depending on how he/she is holding aggro. All it takes is some practice and foresite, but alot of players don't get it...

Like what Ciana mentioned above I am a huge fan of the shield lob -> flash x2 as my initial threat in a situation like that. This gives me enough of a buffer to go around and solidify my threat through primary attacks.

You cant fix stupid players, you can only learn to overcome them.

A lot of agreement with the previous posters (only level like 37 at this point, so...). You don't need your mana pool to keep up with your flash costs, because you start with about 8 or 9 flashes banked at the beginning of a fight. I have done SL > Flash > Flash > Flash > Flash > FB> Flash > RB > Flash > Flash on 4-5 pulls on serious mobs. So I have enough mana for one more flash...that's fine, one of those should be getting close to dead, so if I lose aggro on it for 3 seconds before it does, I'm not concerned. You can then cycle through, etc.

If they made flash bigger by 50% and added hate mods onto Riot blade I'd quit playing because then PLDs would be gods. We are already superior single target tanks, and that would make use the best AoE tanks as well. I'm not trying to attack you and I understand your frustration, but if these games weren't challenging, and didn't encourage you to seek help and collaborate with your fellows, then it would just be a crappy single player game.

This thread is filled with a bunch of lower level Paladins. With all due respect, your experience is apples and oranges to what the OP is posting about. A PLD with half his kit trying to hold threat against a SMN with half his kit is just not a comparable situation.

Yeah, holding aggro versus a well geared SMN is a nightmare. People are going to need to realize that aggro in this game is a shared responsibility, and play accordingly. A lot of DPS players still have the "If I pull aggro, it's the tanks fault" mentality. This was true in other games, but not in this one.

I agree, SMNs are such a pain to keep aggro from. It's entirely possible to do so, but you really have to work at it.