9 mobs 'visible' limitation, and a couple questions.

[cgbspender]

Hi,

I'll be reaching 50 as a War by the end of the day, and I'm feeling a bit concerned about at least 2 things.

One, I realized that only the first 9 mobs one pulled appear on my enmity list (on PS3). And while I'm pretty certain I can handle those 9, what happens to everything else ? I mean, for larger pulls, when there are 15+ mobs, how can I be sure I hold aggro on the remaining 6 if I can't see them on my enmity list ? Hitting in the dark and hoping for the best doesn't sound very reliable...


Also, I read many times that some tanks would fight for enmity (WoD for example). I have no problem with letting them do at all. But still, I'd like to keep a constant aggro to keep my #2 or #3 seat in the enmity list. You know, just in case I need to provoke if the MT dies. How am I supposed to stay #2, generating just enough aggro to not override another tank's ? I'm a bit worried about "letting it go", as in the meantime, any Damage Dealers could potentially steal my seat, especially if I've been busy with adds.

And a last question, is there a particular cycle to "steal" aggro from scratch ? If a fight requieres much offtanking and I need to MT uddenly for whatever reason, halfway through the fight, while every dps have been hitting the boss for a few minutes, how can I do ?
Even with an usual "aggro-generating" cycle, I'm not sure I could be able to retrieve the enmity back on myself in time to avoid the death of plenty of dps.

Thank you !

[JimboTCB]

If you're off tanking with Defiance off, you should still have a comfortable threat lead over everyone except the main tank. Otherwise, that's what Provoke is for. If you haven't already got gladiator to 22 and picked it up as a cross class skill, do it now before you start doing any endgame stuff, it's pretty much essential.

[aerolol]

Provoke is the easy way.

The "real Warrior way" would be: (1) make sure you are 2nd in aggro at all times. (2) before you are supposed to swap, with Maim and Storm's Eye up, Defiance (if it was not on already), Infuriate, Unchained, Berserk. Do a couple of aggro combos. You should have more aggro than anyone, including main tank, assuming you have gear of similar level of other people in your party.
Granted, this is not always feasible. So it will eventually come down to Provoke+Tomahawk, or Provoke + overpower, or Provoke + charged Skull sunder (or charged Butcher's Block).

If you don't want to steal aggro, avoid using skull sunder + butcher's block combo. Use the storm's path/eye combos, put up a Fracture, and only use Skull Sunder/Butcher's Block every once a while.

[SpookyGhost]

One, I realized that only the first 9 mobs one pulled appear on my enmity list (on PS3). And while I'm pretty certain I can handle those 9, what happens to everything else ? I mean, for larger pulls, when there are 15+ mobs, how can I be sure I hold aggro on the remaining 6 if I can't see them on my enmity list ? Hitting in the dark and hoping for the best doesn't sound very reliable...

Overpower/Steel Cyclone is your friend. If you're pulling 9+ mobs, it means the DPS are using AOE skills and you should be keeping AOE threat, so needing to check each individual mob's enmity shouldn't be a thing you'll need to do.

Also, I read many times that some tanks would fight for enmity (WoD for example). I have no problem with letting them do at all. But still, I'd like to keep a constant aggro to keep my #2 or #3 seat in the enmity list. You know, just in case I need to provoke if the MT dies. How am I supposed to stay #2, generating just enough aggro to not override another tank's ? I'm a bit worried about "letting it go", as in the meantime, any Damage Dealers could potentially steal my seat, especially if I've been busy with adds.

You don't need to be #2 on the enmity list to Provoke off the MT. As OT you want to have Defiance off and rotate either Storm's Eye -> Storm's Path or (if Path isn't needed) Storm's Eye -> Butcher's Block. At low gear levels you won't need to worry about pulling threat from the MT with Butcher's Block out of Defiance, but the more gear you get the more you'll want to lean toward Eye -> Path. If the MT does happen to die, turn on Defiance -> Provoke -> Overpower. This is the quickest, largest amount of threat you can generate in a GCD. If you already are at Heavy Swing in your combo, then you can use a combo'd Skull Sunder into Butcher's Block instead after a Provoke. Provoke sets you to the highest enmity on the target +1, so following up with a skill is mandatory to keep threat and then proceed to build more of it.

And a last question, is there a particular cycle to "steal" aggro from scratch ? If a fight requieres much offtanking and I need to MT uddenly for whatever reason, halfway through the fight, while every dps have been hitting the boss for a few minutes, how can I do ?

Provoke, again. In tank swap fights you want to finish whatever combo you're on, then turn on Defiance -> HS -> Provoke -> SS -> BB. If Unchained is available, use Infuriate -> Unchained before you HS - this will give you much higher threat, especially combined with Internal Release + Berserk.

Xeno's guide still holds water to this day, so I'd recommend checking it out and it might answer any other questions you've got: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkUuBQ7VPug

If not - the tank forums are here to help.

[JimboTCB]

I think the point about maintaining #2 aggro is that if the MT does get creamed by back-to-back crits or something, you shouldn't even need to provoke, the boss will go straight to you. You can tell quite easily from the threat indicator - if it's yellow you're at high threat , if it's orange, you're on the verge of pulling aggro, which is usually bad, but probably where you want to be aiming for as a backup tank.

[SpookyGhost]

In a perfect world, you're #2, but with low gear it's pretty rough to reach that position against geared DPS. You could do the Unchained opener as OT (Unchained -> HS -> BS -> Maim -> IR + Berserk -> SE -> HS -> Maim -> SP -> Fracture -> HS -> IB -> Maim -> SE), but I usually don't recommend that in PUGs unless it's T11. Then again, if the MT is more geared than you then it would probably fine anyway, but it does require you to either never be tanking or not tank swapping for 120s since Unchained would be more useful if it's sub 120. You could also stay in Defiance but... uh... don't do that.

Anyway, there are also times in certain fights where DPS will be hitting the boss and you won't be which also leads to an aggro discrepancy blah blah blah. Basically just try to default to needing to Provoke if that happens unless aggro default falls to you.

[cgbspender]

I ran WoD with all your advice in mind last night.

Angrya, another party went MT. I used a couple of enmity skills just to stack my enmity to the right limit. Then toggled it off, and handled adds. It went pretty well, escept the MT himself kept turning the Boss, until I spoke up in the /a chat. He eventually died, and I had to MT, toggling Defiance ON, 'voking him and then cycling my enmity rotation. It went perfectly well.


5- headed dragon. Probably the easiest as an OT. Just made sure I stood on the jelly, and dps'ing the few adds, helping people out with soaking damages (purple targets/dragonfire). And Dps'ed the boss in between.

Cerb : gave me a bit of trouble. A few of our party mates hadn't their shield/stoneskin ON, so I was writing for it in the party chat, when someone in a rush started the fight. I was in C team, expected to MT. I had SO MUCH trouble getting the aggro back that I ended up marking the other tank with the "don't touch" marker, to make him understand I wasn't able to take the aggro back, he immediatly released aggro, and everything went fine.

CoD : As an OT, really easy. Dealt with meteors. I MT'ed the last minute of the fight due to the MT dying. No big deal.