Which tank generates more hate/aggro?

[Krylo]

I'd guess War would spike out to the top early, Dark would pull off War after awhile, and Pld would just kinda go sit in the corner and be sad.

[Gamer3427]

Depends on the length of the fight as well as certain variables. While I would say that DRK would hold aggro the best for the majority, as others have said, WAR would have the best burst generation, so in a shorter fight it would be superior. Also, does the DRK have full MP and Grit and Darkside active before the fight begins, or do they have to activate them when the fight starts, which drains a hefty chunk of MP? For DRK, MP maintenance is particularly necessary to maintain aggro, which can lead to downtime on generation. Ultimately the result would probably amount to the WAR having the starting advantage, with the DRK pulling in a mid length run, followed by WAR and DRK switching between the two back and forth as WAR's burst capabilities come back and the DRK has to do MP maintenance, only for them to return to the previous after the DRK's MP is back up and the WAR's burst is over.....

I can only really speak in regards to these two as I have personally only played Tank a little, and most of that as a DRK. I've also seen very few PLD in post 50 content, so I can't speak greatly on their capabilities in terms of aggro control. It also doesn't help that the most recent PLD I saw was in a Garuda EX DF run, and he didn't even know what Shield Oath was, so I haven't had too many chances to run with particularly good ones.....

While we are talking purely on aggro generation here, I would like to point out that out of the three tank classes, I personally consider the WAR to be the weakest actual "tank" of the three. I've healed all three in higher level content, and I've never once had issues keeping PLDs and DRKs alive in big pulls or long fights, but WARs tend to have defenses akin to paper since most players prioritize pure STR builds to maximize their DPS with WAR. This is fine if you have a perfect group, but if you can't just AoE heal whatever damage the rest of the party takes, it can be a risk at times to stop healing a WAR to keep someone else alive. Just a side thought on the matter, and off topic I know......

[Adire]

While we are talking purely on aggro generation here, I would like to point out that out of the three tank classes, I personally consider the WAR to be the weakest actual "tank" of the three. I've healed all three in higher level content, and I've never once had issues keeping PLDs and DRKs alive in big pulls or long fights, but WARs tend to have defenses akin to paper since most players prioritize pure STR builds to maximize their DPS with WAR.

WARs do have fewer on demand defensive cooldowns, but the most consistent mitigation skill (inner beast) that WAR's have is easy to save and/or work in if extra mitigation is needed. I say most consistent because as long as you have 5 stacks in Defiance, you can use it whenever you want or need to, no cooldown timer is on it. And if push comes to shove, you can extend it to effectively 10 seconds on demand with Infuriate. Inner Beast is also a hefty self heal, especially if STR specced.

Defiance's HP boost and healing received boost make its passive (indirect) mitigation technically on par with the others though. Add Storm's Path onto that, and you get extra, direct mitigation. If it's needed, WARs can put it up. It's particularly effective on bosses.

A STR specced Warrior will actually suffer less than the other tanks too, due to WAR's inherent higher HP. More STR also means bigger self heals for WAR, which is really better than just having more HP alone.

The only time WARs are super squishy is when they're in Deliverance, which typically isn't for long, and if a WAR can afford to do so, is when one or more cds should be popped.

WAR's don't have less mitigation, their passive mitigation is just indirect and their cooldowns are just more important to use correctly. WAR's just can't sit back and do nothing defense wise as easily as a PLD can. But their potential mitigation is on par, and as I said, their passive mitigation is just indirect and not as noticeable for a healer. It's just easier to get nervous faster with a WAR due to their health dropping faster. But the 20% healing boost is there.

I actually get more nervous healing DRKs than I do WARs.

[Gamer3427]

I actually get more nervous healing DRKs than I do WARs.

That seems to be the case for some people, but I've never had any issues with DRKs. Meanwhile, post 50, every WAR I play with is particularly difficult to keep alive. I guess it's just bad luck in regards to players of that class on my datacenter?

[ShaneDawn]

All of them will pull enough enmity, but WAR will do the highest dps.

[RyuRoots]

That seems to be the case for some people, but I've never had any issues with DRKs. Meanwhile, post 50, every WAR I play with is particularly difficult to keep alive. I guess it's just bad luck in regards to players of that class on my datacenter?

It's not just you. I could put in single digits the number of Warriors I've healed that didn't feel like they were made of wet tissue paper.

All of them will pull enough enmity, but WAR will do the highest dps.

Which is the only concern 99% of Warriors seem to have, even in single tank content.

[Adire]

That seems to be the case for some people, but I've never had any issues with DRKs. Meanwhile, post 50, every WAR I play with is particularly difficult to keep alive. I guess it's just bad luck in regards to players of that class on my datacenter?

That's possible. Healing a WAR in Deliverance can be particularly dicey, especially if they switch at a bad time.

The thing with WAR is, it's all about balancing DPS and mitigation. The only "free" cooldowns WAR has are Convalescence, Foresight (which sucks), Vengeance, Thrill of Battle, Awareness (if said WAR takes that, and it's really good to have with Raw Intuition for trash since you'll likely take crits without it), and Raw Intuition. Edit: Forgot Bloodbath

The rest of WAR's mitigation all comes from trading damage (or TP in Equilibrium's case) off for it. I.e. keeping up Storm's Path instead of Storm's Eye, using Inner Beast instead of Fel Cleave, etc.

A perfectly played WAR will maximize damage when the damage they're taking is at a minimum, and maximize mitigation when damage being taken is high.

The good thing is, it doesn't take a WAR long to dish out huge damage before they can switch back to Defiance. And stance dancing doesn't break combos or use a GCD.. So if a WAR does choose to stance dance to dish out that damage, they can do it quickly without being super squishy for long. Me for example, I pop at least one "free" cooldown (usually Bloodbath or more, like Vengeance) while I'm in Deliverance, so that reduces the squishiness problem a bit.

That's probably another reason you see Paladins being noticeably easier to heal. Most don't bother stance dancing since it's so clunky and they can't do good long term damage without staying in sword oath.

So most end up staying in Shield Oath, which will obviously make them easier to heal than a stance dancing Warrior, especially if the Warrior doesn't do it correctly. But done correctly, the time they're in Deliverance won't be long or cause too much stress. And the extra damage will be nice!

[Kyros]

If all you cared was Enmity, then you can set up some retarded combo setup for WAR that'd make it near-impossible for anyone to take hate. It is NOT optimal, it takes a bit to go off, and is way overkill. But it can be done and I've used it to take hate on Hunts from every other tank.

Basically, set up Maim+SE, a Heavy Swing, and then Unchained+Berserk 3 Butchers and a Steel Cyclone. Like I said, incredibly sub-optimal for damage since Maim and SE will wear off at some point, but it cement hates like there's no tomorrow. After that you can do a SE+BBx2 Rotation to further cement hate, even if you lose on even more damage due to SE not lasting the whole rotation.

AOE is a little more interesting tho. In particularly big pulls a WARs Overpower may be unable to hit all the enemies.

I don't know what kind of game you are playing, but the only way you can get a "Big enough pull" that Overpower is not hitting all enemies is getting 16+ enemies; at that point Flash, Unleash and Overpower are all hitting the maximun 16 enemies per skill.

Besides, WAR can also use flash. And as a fun fact, a WAR's flash is actually stronger than a PLD's because it is affected by Maim (Whereas PLD's is not). I mean they'll obviously run dry before a PLD, but I really don't think there's a situation in the game where you'd want a WAR flashing until dry.

[SuddenStorm8]

That seems to be the case for some people, but I've never had any issues with DRKs. Meanwhile, post 50, every WAR I play with is particularly difficult to keep alive. I guess it's just bad luck in regards to players of that class on my datacenter?

I get the WARs who pop Raw Intuition on trash pulls then dance around to dodge AOEs leading them to take an enormous number of CRITs from mobs or who are constantly swapping to Deliverance fluctuating their max HP.
I know Fell Cleave is stupidly op but I prefer if WARs use inner beast so I can DPS myself rather than having to heal the tank who is constantly making himself squishy for periods of time and making me heal that chunk of his HP he is losing and gaining all the time

[Cherie]

I think it would be important to know if we are talking about burst threat, sustained threat or just, threat that has not much burst and just stays about the same all the time.

Here is my personal opinion/experience:
Burst threat: Dark Knight
Sustained threat: Warrior
Threat that stays about the same all the time: Paladin

Mostly I have tanked on my paladin with the other tanks. Warriors can rack up a ton of threat over time it seems(omnom fel cleave). Dark Knights can nab a bunch of threat up front (dark arts rawr). Paladin is the odd one out, but their resources are easy to manage a fair level of threat most likely to encourage them to use all their defense cooldowns (including cover which is nice).

That's probably a over simplification though. Oh, and I didn't talk about group threat...oops.