Light party Gladiator, best way to pick up adds without running the boss everywhere?

Hello! Sprout here, with some questions about Gladiator tanking in 4-man dungeons. The conventional wisdom of "turn the boss away" and such is pretty simple, and I've got a decent grasp on tanking so far. My issue is specifically adds that spawn in on a boss.

I've tried Shield Lob, but it never grabs everyone, and often not even the one I hit. Provoke works, but only on one target. The only thing I can think is to run over and spam Flash, but that pulls the boss all over the room. That can't be right, can it? Is there something I'm missing? Last time I tanked in an MMO, I had a ranged AoE threat gen for situations like this, but I'm not sure what the correct move is without that. :/

Any advice for a new tank?

in this instance I would normally shield lob, move to a spot almost inside the boss your tanking and spam flash a few times, unless dps are attacking flash should aggro them fine

As your profile shows a level 27 Gladiator, I'm going to assume you're talking about Lady Amandine in Haukke Manor. The answer here is that she doesn't have a frontal cleave and so it doesn't matter if you turn her occasionally in order to grab the adds.

In other situations, the DPS will either handle the adds without you needing to tank them, or you should be able to grab them with provoke+shield lob. If you aren't close enough to hit things with Shield Lob, then DPS/healers need to bring things to you.

like alot of things and situations as a tank, its a judgement call.

you never want to risk cleaving anyone, so keeping the boss turned away is a preeeetty good thing to have checked off- especially if youre new. you dont know what can/will cleave your party apart.

as for the specific question, theres a whole bunch of decisions you have to make. are your DPS melee? they dont like having to move around and chase a boss. bad latency can actually stop them from doing damage completely. is there a ranged DPS like a caster? they dont need to worry about a moving target or facing of the target, so you have alot more freedom to move around with double ranged.

are there specific mechanics that require interacting with multiple objects? there are a whole slew of boss fights with this type of mechanic. interacting with X object to avoid some bit of damage. to deal with this with minimal movement, pull the boss where this mechanic will happen. you wont need to move, and if the boss can be stunned, stun them so you dont get interrupted and interact with the thing. if the buss is immune to stuns, pull the boss over by the object in question so your melee dont have to move. Actually a great example of this mechanic is in the first dungeon, Sastasha. the last boss. while most parties ignore the mechanic, you can still pull the boss to one of the grates and your melee DPS might just click on it because its there. or you can stun the boss and do it yourself.

Adds are a tricky thing in this though- some adds are designed to not need to be tanked. whether they just dont have enough HP to bother with as a tank, or they flat out ignore the emnity list. you probably wont know what adds can/should/need to be tanked though. i would say as a new tank, if you have 2 ranged DPS (archers, mages, and the like) it doesnt hurt to gather up all the mobs with Flash and such. they dont lose damage on a moving target and you can help ball them up.

This gets trickier with melee though. in this case, try marking them to show that adds are around and should be killed- if your melee stop hitting the boss and dont instantly die to their damage, pick out whats alive and provoke+ranged emnity generator (shield lob/tomahawk/unmend). if there's mutliple of these hardier adds, then yes, round them up. its generally worse to have several adds running around doing damage to everyone rather than some DPS doing less damage chasing a boss theyre not attacking

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Originally Posted by Paikis

As your profile shows a level 27 Gladiator, I'm going to assume you're talking about Lady Amandine in Haukke Manor. The answer here is that she doesn't have a frontal cleave and so it doesn't matter if you turn her occasionally in order to grab the adds.

In other situations, the DPS will either handle the adds without you needing to tank them, or you should be able to grab them with provoke+shield lob. If you aren't close enough to hit things with Shield Lob, then DPS/healers need to bring things to you.

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Haukke Manor is level 28. GG scruuuuuub.

This is a situational thing. In most cases, shield lob should be enough to at least get the add's attention (especially once you get shield oath at lvl 40). Pld enmity is weak, though, so you have to make sure to follow it up with another enmity strike of some kind (savage blade, rage of halone, flash, etc) to make sure the enmity sticks. Keep in mind that you can also use provoke (once you get it) to snag an add as well.This is especially useful if you use shield lob but a gun happy dps grabs the add off of you before it makes it to you for the follow up. The fact that it's a oGCD makes it pretty speedy as well. Just keep in mind that it only puts you +1 over the top enmity person in your party, so you still absolutely need that follow up hit.

Other times, if there's no risk to the party, you can just run out, grab the adds with flash, then re-position.

Another possible scenario is when you don't need to grab adds at all. In some cases, the adds die too fast to be worth the extra Tp or Mp you waste to get them. If they're just gonna die 1 or 2 seconds after you get them, then screw getting them in the first place. They won't be alive long enough to be a threat, so it's no big deal to let them run free. That kind of a judgement call is a case by case basis, though, and it highly depends on how many adds there are, how strong your dps team is, and how much hp the add has.

One last thing to remember is that some adds cannot be pulled. In later fights in the game, some adds don't have an enmity table, so it's up to the dps to take care of them quickly. You won't have to worry about that until later, though, and, again, it's a case by case basis for specific fights only.

Try droping some Defensive CD once they appear. they will usually move toward you. but f the healer did catch their attention, wait till the adds are near to the healer, then move toward your healer and start spamming flash to gain the enmity, make sure your timing is good or your healer will die.

Also a heads up, you don't need to pick up every adds that spawn. Sometimes it's enough for DPS to handle them.

What adds not sure but you'll get the idea of what adds to grab,

Ones that die quickly don't bother where as ones that take a while to kill you should try to get them.
Also if your aggro doesn't seem to be getting them try gearing up abit more in terms of VIT/STR.

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Originally Posted by verandal

Haukke Manor is level 28. GG scruuuuuub.

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Can confirm, leveling up absolutely cannot happen.

Tell the healer to stand near the boss, then just pull the adds off the healer.

It's easier to solve an add related problem when you've done the dungeon once before, since you'll know when and where they spawn so you won't have to do any on-the-fly stuff.

A thing people don't know bout last boss in Haukke Manor is that when she's casting Fire II (III?) you can just go behind her and it cancels the cast same goes for her adds that cast the same abilities as well as spells like Paralyze if you go behind the enemy it doesn't go off at all.

Just pointing this out as she doesn't cleave it'll save the healer MP and you can just dance around the boss and adds while you maintain threat/dmg it's information a lot of players don't throw around. Learning how to gauge a healer such as adds tell em to sit on you till you get threat n presto you got it if they don't like it just say "well my Flash has only so much range.." maybe they'll get the hint.

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Originally Posted by SpookyGhost

Tell the healer to stand near the boss, then just pull the adds off the healer.

It's easier to solve an add related problem when you've done the dungeon once before, since you'll know when and where they spawn so you won't have to do any on-the-fly stuff.

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this is good, logical mid-level advice. it sounds "lazy" to "blame" the rest of your party, but tbh everyone standing within aoe aggro range if they think theyre going to pull aggro is best for everyone, even if the same sort of dps that don't believe in quelling strikes or use single target max dps rotations when you're pulling multiple mobs don't like to listen. One of the biggest problems with clean, efficient dungeon runs in this game is dps believing aggro is strictly the tanks responsibility and that they don't have any responsibility in burning adds or choosing logical targets.

ironically, as a low level player in low level dungeons(and even at 60 if you run with randoms) you will never make everyone happy with your style of tanking no matter what you do. So just do your best, be vocal about being new and learning the ropes, and try to mark targets so the single target herpaderps at least cant rage about you messing with their l337 single target deeps.

ps: try to grow a thick skin, and I really hope you aren't discouraged. I so often hear dps praise my healer for "keeping that crazy tank alive". but the few, few, few and far between situations where the healer is humble enough to admit that they're barely healing because the tank is using their CD's spot-on make it all worth it.

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Originally Posted by Awful

A thing people don't know bout last boss in Haukke Manor is that when she's casting Fire II (III?) you can just go behind her and it cancels the cast same goes for her adds that cast the same abilities as well as spells like Paralyze if you go behind the enemy it doesn't go off at all.

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Void Thunder III. This tends to be a property of 2.0 dungeons, but doesn't work for 2.1 dungeons and up (i.e. it works for HM and AK, but not for HM HM.) There's a Void Fire III as well, but I think it targets a party member.