Trouble with keeping agro during dungeons.

[Laerune]

Hello my fellow tanks,

I have just started playing GLD and MRD and I have noticed that I have trouble keeping agro when I am tanking three or more monsters. I have read tips and advices on this forum and other gaming forums, but still I see no change with my tanking. Right now both my GLD and MRD are around level 20-21.

This is my rotation:
1. Shield Lob on mob.
2. Flash x2 or 3
3. Fast Blade + Savage Blade on monsters, I rotate the monsters everytime.
4. Fast Blade + Riot Blade (when I have agro on all the mobs.

I dont have any issues keeping agro on one or two monsters, but more then these two and I tend to start losing them.

Can you guys please help me?

[Sarynth]

At that level gladiator/marauder don't have their trademark tanking abilities (shield oath/defiance) so naturally holding hate on multiple mobs especially with an archer in the party is trying on newer tanks. You rotation is sound though, keep up the good work there. I'd say keep the flashes coming between the sword combos and use markings to keep damage focused on one mob (requires dd to work with you). Also keep in mind if its an i90+ dd in low level roulette don't worry too much if they rip hate because at that level they can take a few hits.

[Bixby]

1) Mark your primary target. DPS won't always pay attention to it, but when they do, it makes things much easier.
2) Flash/Overpower more. The more targets there are, the more efficient flash & overpower are both from a threat per second perspective and a threat per resource perspective. Overkill early on gives you a bit more breathing room to start on single-target moves.
3) Make sure your gear is up to date, especially your weapon. Level synced players with level synced gear will wipe the floor with your threat multipliers if you're too far behind on upgrades.
4) Prioritize. Regardless of marks & whether they're being followed, cycle targets and look at the threat level on each. Know which ones you're about to lose threat on first. Note that if you're using a gamepad, you need to fully switch targets to get the party threat meter display; sub-targeting without fully switching makes it blink like it's switching, but you're still seeing your current hard-target's thread meters.

[dramamine]

I wouldn't worry too much about using riot blade to increase your DPS, even if you don't have Halone yet, unless you're down to a single target. Like Bixby says, marking can help here and you should definitely give it a shot if you haven't tried yet. I always find I have more trouble keeping hate when I mark (probably because of a combination of "I don't need to be as aggressive about maintaining aggro since I'm marking" and forgetting how quickly some classes DOTs or a healer's overheals can stack up enmity), but I do see how much of a difference it makes when I run a DPS or healer class.

All of Bixby's recommendations are actually really good. If you're still having a lot of trouble keeping enmity after incorporating them, consider tweaking your UI. http://i.imgur.com/hQz1DuR.jpg this is how mine looks right now (although I was BRDing it up when I took it, the main motivation for the layout is tanking/healing). Moving the party list and the enmity list closer to wherever your focus is while playing (like your character or your hot/cross bars) can make it easier to cycle through enemies and see what needs to be topped off.

Each attack in the enmity combo has a much larger multiplier than the one below it, so a good strategy for maintaining enmity on larger groups (especially once you get halone) is to use the weaker attacks on the thing the party is focused on once you've established enmity, and then throw halones onto other enemies to make sure you stay ahead of the healer and any DoTs. Added bonus is that the halone debuff on all of the enemies reduces the damage you take a bit.

[Grimercy]

As stated before, tanking in the early dungeons (before Provoke, Rage of Halone, and Shield Oath) can be tough.

To critique your rotation, I would tell you not to use Riot Blade unless you must. You're better off getting a surplus of enmity, so you don't have any surprises down the road. About the only time I Riot Blade is when the last enemy is almost dead, or if I REALLY need MP, which doesn't really ever happen.

In the lower-level dungeons, I would recommend using Flash about every third action. Shield Lob, Flash, Fast Blade, Savage Blade, Flash, etc. Once you've got a decent lead on the focus target, start cycling through targets and checking them out. Hit them with Fast Blade + Savage Blade if you have a good lead on the focus.

Ultimately, remember that, in the early game, the classes are rather homogenized. Pretty much all of them can take several hits, so it's not such a big deal that you tank perfectly.

[Laerune]

I would like to thank you all for giving me these tips. I have tried them on my GLD and its working, I am keeping agro now.

Thanks for helping me.

If any tanks who have experience with GLD/PLD or MRD/WAR have any tips, please share them with me. This thread might be helpfull for other new tanks.

[hours]

Another thing to add is that you don't need to always use Fast Blade and Savage Blade together as a combo to get the benefits of increased enmity from SB. I found that in some cases, I could not generate enmity faster than some party members while adding in FB's GCD so I just smacked the mob with SB a few times - and it worked. Note that you'll have to try it out in many different situations to get the "feel" for it as there's no perfect tanking formula that works for every situation.

[Synestr]

One thing to consider as well is when switching targets to place your threat combos is, don't just start a fresh combo on a mob. What I mean is your "main target" is the once you start your fresh target on, 1-2-3, hit it again with 1, then switch to target 2 and hit it with 2-3, flash / overpower, go back to first target or target you see loosing the most health as that's the dps' target(hopefully it's your main target) then 1-2 it, move to third target and give it the 3.

1-2-3 combo is your threat combo, Fast - Savage - RoH(when you get it) for PLD, or Heavy - Skull - Butchers(when you get it) for WAR.

I found rotating this way helps a lot. Using flash or overpower in between combos help ensure you get a bit more seal on the threat.

Sounds like you have found your way to maintaining threat and that is great news.

Keep it up,

Syn

[albertopin]

First of all you must learn how enmity works, and get a grip of how healer and DPS build enmity in a target. That way you can react, but if a dps sticks with a target you have to attack de same target and spam flash eventually to avoid the healer being attacked.

Its simple, but it works for me.