Thaum/BLM and hate

So I just did my first dungeon as a Thaum tonight. I was just in level 15 Acolyte gear with a few similar leveled acc. So I got Tam-Tara and either Thaum needs extra care with aggro or I had a bad tank and I'm not sure which. What it comes down to was that it was a GLD and I was pulling single target aggro from them on the bosses without hitting raging strikes. Just want to know if I'm going to have to be extra careful as I level this class or if it was a bad tank.

If you're attacking too fast after the pull: It's your fault. You need to give the tank time to establish hate.
If you've given the tank plenty of time but he's still not keeping hate: It's likely the tank's fault.

If the tank's gear (especially his weapon) is much worse than yours, then the tank may have trouble keeping aggro. It'd be both of your fault. His fault for having bad gear and your fault for not holding back.

Part of a dps' responsibility is not pulling hate. You have to do your best not to. But if it's bad tank then it's a bad tank.

Thaum is a burst class. You deal damage very quickly in small bursts. You can't go balls to the wall right at the start or else the tank doesn't have a chance of keeping aggro.

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Originally Posted by Kerberon

So I just did my first dungeon as a Thaum tonight. I was just in level 15 Acolyte gear with a few similar leveled acc. So I got Tam-Tara and either Thaum needs extra care with aggro or I had a bad tank and I'm not sure which. What it comes down to was that it was a GLD and I was pulling single target aggro from them on the bosses without hitting raging strikes. Just want to know if I'm going to have to be extra careful as I level this class or if it was a bad tank.

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I usually wait 3-5 seconds (depending on the tank) before I start hurling spells. As the person above said, BLM does dmg in bursts, so it's not going to kill the party if you wait a few seconds before piling on the damage. If you're still pulling Aggro after doing that, then you have a bad tank lol

Realistically you should be hitting the mobs right after the tank attacks them.

Sounds like a poor tank to me. (likely skill wise, but could be gears)

The problem you were likely experiencing (though don't quote me on this) is that you might have had a new Tank who had very little group experience. Gladiators in particular are troublesome at low levels in dungeons because they don't really learn how to manage hate until they run their first few dungeons. This is because their primary hate management tool at low levels (Flash) is completely useless while soloing, so they really have never had to use that ability until they hit level 15. So unless someone has had the displeasure of needing to tell a given Tank to "Use flash!!!" then the Tank might not know what to do.

This of course assumes the Tank is a new Tank, and that you didn't get saddled with a high level Tank that was just being a douche and not using Flash in general. That said, I am also a Thaumaturge on Jenova, and just got done running Tam-Tara Deepcroft, and not once did I pull hate from my Tank. Of course my Tank was a member of my FC, and we were going through the dungeon slowly with me sleeping the adds while we took out the enemies one at a time. But that is just how we were rolling the dungeon. Not efficient, but more relaxed.

Low level dungeons can be more volatile with the hate because of gear and skill differences. Also GLD don't have many hate management tools at that level. He may have been terrible, or terribly geared, but it's not really any indication of your future experiences with THM/ BLM. In general you might pull hate in dungeons, but more often when aoe'ing than single targets. Occasionally you'll encounter a very bad tank that can't hold hate even if you resort to blizzard spam, but that's rare enough and almost requires that they do little more than auto-attack.

Yeah I'm familar with aoe aggro, this wasn't aoe though, aoe packs I was sleeping and single targeting. The part that got me was that even single target on bosses I'd give them a few seconds and start my rotation and still pull the boss when that was the only thing up at the time (no adds) unless I frequently stopped dps.

I have SCH and WAR so blowing stuff up with BLM is a nice change of pace for me. Im having the same issue as OP tho. Even if I give the tank a couple secs to gather aggro Im still pulling it off him. Sometimes I even pull it off the mob marked "1". Is there a way to manage aggro without having to step off the gas pedal? I know I can get quelling strikes but my ARC is only 15.
I was doing normal brayflox yesterday, I let the tank hit Aitar for a good 5 secs before unloading. Swiftcast - Raging Strikes - Thunder II - Fire III - Fire 1 Spam -Convert - Fire I - Fire I - Transpose. Next thing I know Im running around the room trying to dodge his column attack. Im only level 34 so Im still learning how to play BLM

It's probably just skill.. Worked on low levels yesterday, building up monk. Running Halatali, the GLD didn't use flash once, I'm pretty sure he didn't combo anything either, wiped the party 3 times before first boss. Long story short, I cross-classed Flash, Convalescence, Keen Flurry and Foresight, and with Fists of Earth I tanked the last 2/3 of the dungeon on pugilist xD

Low level tanks can have a hard time building hate. That plus disparity in gear can cause these problems. I usually count to 3 and then cast my highest thunder spell, no swiftcast, definitely no raging strikes... Once I can tell how well the tank is managing hate I step it up.

You should always monitor the aggro meter. Once you see you're close to stealing hate you should ease off the throttle or attack something else.

I personally set all my attacks to macros. The macros have the attacks targeting both <t> & <tt>. This way I can just highlight the tank and go through my rotation so if he changes targets and I'll automatically be attacking whoever he's attacking.

I used to feel the same way as OP but after leveling GLD > PLD to 50, I have to say that playing GLD pre rage of halone is tough. Even once you get provoke, well geared dps (i'm looking at you, low lvl rouletters for myth) will yank hate off of you extremely fast. Just make peace with it. Even the best low level tanks will have trouble with this from time to time. Just rest assured that nothing really hits hard at that level, and sometimes your blm or brd is gonna tank a bit.

I've been there, when i was a noob tank i spammed flash, if u see that the tank just use one flash, tell him that he should spam some more, as a blm, when i was doing dungeons i used to see the aggro numbers, if i see that im almost taking the hate, i stop dps or just use blizzard, and tank should always number targets, u can make that sugestion to the tank, that way, the healer won't struggle with the fight, some time when i used to heal low level dungeons i had to number the targets, cause everyone attacks what they want and its hard to heal 3 targets taking damage, just watch tje numbers on the aggro list and be carefull

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Originally Posted by LanceValiant

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I love your signature...

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/went to read 8-Bit Theater once again...