Gladiator Help

I have done one instance so far (Sastasha) and no matter how hard I tried an Archer kept pulling aggro from me. I was using Flash regularly and the basic Gladiator combo (forget what the two skills are called). Is this a common issue at low levels or might I be doing something wrong?

Hey it could be a few things, like them being way over geared and you maybe a bit under geared. Being that it is satasha your gear was fine I am sure. From what you said it sounds like y

You are doing fine. The normal way to start is shield lob the flash twice when the mob gathers ( three if there is a lot of aoe) then begin your combo. Make sure you are attacking the same target as the dps, you can mark if you like. If you have sufficient hate then begin using the combo on the other mobs. (Sorry about the double post, phone.. >.>)

Don't worry, its going to happen. I'm a mere iLvl85 and will get it pulled off me. Tanking is a game of watching meters. Most of the time I don't see the monster I'm fighting. Too busy watching aggro and monster health bars. If you are with very high iLvl players there really isn't much you can do about it. They could help you by watching their meter, but alot of players just don't care anymore, they just do what they want. Roll with it and just keep pressing onward.

It's common at low levels for a variety of reasons.
On your end, it could be a lack of gear. You especially want to keep your weapon up to date, but just in general your ability to generate threat for a long time is going to notably rely on your gear. Also, don't just flash - use your 1-2 combo that generates aggro as well on anything the DPS are focusing! Flash might be good at generating aggro but a determined DPS can still outpace that if that's all you're using.

On their end, the most likely candidate for stealing aggro is just refusing to target the same thing you are. At high levels there's other issues that can arise from burst damage, but that's not likely at low levels.

Also important as tank be it gld or mrd u get the full aggro combo only at higher levels (gld lvl 26/mrd lvl 30) when i leveled those there was a point at level 20-40 you have the groove how to tank lowlevel dungeons then you start the highlevel ones and once you are level 50 and did 3 weeks only highlevel content you loose it again. I usually dont care if i help lowlevels out and loose aggro (even happens to me if I played pally for a bit i start being noobish on war in endgame).

To make your aggro management easier markers 1/2/3 might help you though so you simply combo target 1 keep others with flash and just switch every 2nd or so combo quickly to the other mobs to generate more hate that aoes or heals dont pull off you. This switching target is VERY important try to not forget ^^

Also don't forget that Flash has a very small radius. Watch for the "Blind" effect text that will show up next to each enemy. If it doesn't show up, it means they were outside Flash radius.

Also you must upgrade your weapons! A general rule of thumb is that if you are using anything that is 5 levels lower than your character level, then you should not expect to adequately maintain enough enmity in a dungeon. For example using the Lv.10 weapon in Sastasha, you're almost guaranteed to not be able to hold aggro.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

Also don't forget that Flash has a very small radius. Watch for the "Blind" effect text that will show up next to each enemy. If it doesn't show up, it means they were outside Flash radius.

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The Blind effect is a trait though that adds only at lvl20

I would also say that an archer may stop attacking for a few seconds to let the tank build aggro again. When I am playing a damage-dealing class, I watch the color of enemies' enmity indicators, and if everything is fine, I continue attacking until it is orange (or even red, if the mob is dying quickly). But if I am going to get killed by a monster, I'd stop attacking when its enmity indicator is yellow. However, when I am tanking in Sastasha (I am a newbie tank too) it happens quite often that DDs are getting aggro. The only thing you can do is to get aggro back by your combos. If no one has died after that, there is nothing to worry about. But if DD has died becuase you were not able to aggro back (and he/she could not tank), then tell this DD about enmity, about ceasing attacks if enmity light is orange.

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Originally Posted by snowbu

I would also say that an archer may stop attacking for a few seconds to let the tank build aggro again. When I am playing a damage-dealing class, I watch the color of enemies' enmity indicators, and if everything is fine, I continue attacking until it is orange (or even red, if the mob is dying quickly). But if I am going to get killed by a monster, I'd stop attacking when its enmity indicator is yellow. However, when I am tanking in Sastasha (I am a newbie tank too) it happens quite often that DDs are getting aggro. The only thing you can do is to get aggro back by your combos. If no one has died after that, there is nothing to worry about. But if DD has died becuase you were not able to aggro back (and he/she could not tank), then tell this DD about enmity, about ceasing attacks if enmity light is orange.

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/thumbsup and agreed

Quote:

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Originally Posted by snowbu

an archer may stop attacking for a few seconds to let the tank build aggro again. When I am playing a damage-dealing class, I watch the color of enemies' enmity indicators, and if everything is fine, I continue attacking until it is orange (or even red, if the mob is dying quickly). But if I am going to get killed by a monster, I'd stop attacking when its enmity indicator is yellow.

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The archer failing to do this and ignoring the aggro he was generating could be due to either of two different reasons: Either he simply wasn't very good and didn't understand the damage dealers' role in controlling aggro, so was going all-out too soon and to the wrong targets. Or he was over-leveled and over-geared enough that he simply didn't care whether he got aggro away from the tank (which leads to acting much the same as those who don't know any better).

In low-level dungeons, damage dealers may not want the attention of the final boss, but most of the trash mobs along the way they'd be able to take out just as they could while soloing open world mobs. Many get lazy about aggro control during runs they regard as easy, not caring about letting the tank establish hate first. And that's just because the aggro they take isn't likely to turn into enough incoming damage to really matter to them. It's not a good practice to treat dungeon trash mobs as soloable and ignore the basic tactics of role based group cooperation, but it's a rather common one, especially in low-level dungeons.

The problem with ignoring normal group dynamics during "easy" content is two-fold. For one, it establishes bad habits that have an unfortunate tendency to creep into other, harder runs where the mobs are much more dangerous. And for another, different players regard different content as easy or challenging. For instance, in the run the OP describes, the archer may well have regarded it as a simple low-level run, but to the gladiator, it was the first ever dungeon in the game and he was trying to learn how to tank properly. Whenever one player is ignoring group dynamics, it makes it much harder if not impossible for anyone else in the run to work on establishing proper group dynamics.

So I advocate treating every dungeon run, even the easy low-level Roulette ones, as an opportunity to practice your best group dynamics strategies. It reinforces good habits for yourself, helps to teach good habits to the other players you're with, (and in the meantime makes the run more interesting, as there are more things to pay attention to than when facerolling your way through it).

[thread hijack]
Is high level gear (e.g. blue) that has been sync'd down better than the current level green gear when running Sastasha or Copper Mine?
[/thread hijack]

Iirc is downscaled blue/green/pink or normal gear is worse than the right gear on the ilvl but compared to a lower ilvl/gearlvl than the dungeon superior.
Though srsly who has the best gear while lvling for each dungeon? XD