I'm a level 67 paladin... Who does not know how to tank.

[Super_Bee_Brian]

It's not so much that I don't know how to tank. It's more like, I don't understand it.

Seriously... In dungeons, 40% of the time people are neutral about me, 30% they love me, and 30% think I'm garbage. For example, these past few days I've spammed that Shisui of the Violet Tides dungeon about a dozen times. The first 11 times I got a bunch of commendations. And the last one, one of the players said the following...

You... (dramatic pause) ... are garbage.

Here's my basic formula for drawing aggro...

Move forward. Once the monsters are close, I use flash twice, and then fight.

Here's my formula if it's a boss...

Move forward. Once the boss is close, I use that ability, whatever its called (the one that supposedly puts you on top of its enmity list or something), and then use flash twice.

90% of the time I draw aggro successfully. But for some reason, the rare times I fail, I get scolded severely by the other players.

I don't understand. Why the inconsistency in people's view of me as a tank? If I suck, I should suck all the time. But no. Whenever I get complimented, I get insulted as well. It's really bugging me.

I never use that ranged shield attack and I never use that weak-butt rotation that increases enmity. I've gone this far without them and I prefer to keep it that way.

What are your thoughts about my confusion?

Thanks.

[Super_Bee_Brian]

Oh also, I should add... Meriz Goober is my main. He's a monk. My tank is my alt. I just thought I should say that.

[Paladinleeds]

For tanking, adapt to the situation... if you're losing aggro, focus on getting it back. Watch your enmity list too. If any stops being a red square, immediately focus on pulling it back. Also, when you have an enemy targeted (especially useful for bosses), there's bars underneath each job in the party list. The fuller this bar is, the more aggro they have in comparison to the one with the most. The one with an "A" next to their bar has the mob targeting them due to aggro. Hope this helps.

[Vidu]

The ability you're talking off is "Provoke" and it doesnt work the way you think it does. You cant use it to build aggro, you can only use it to get aggro back. It "puts you on top of the aggro-list" in the sense that it takes the highste aggro someone has on the mob and adds +1 to that.
At the start of a fight there is no aggro, so Provoke does basically nothing.

...in regards to the rest of your post I'm not sure if you're just trolling - it almost reads like that.
You cant be serious about not using shield lob to pull a boss or Rage of Halone-combo to build basic aggro... Generally speaking you want to pull a boss by throwing your shield in their face, then build enough aggro to not lose the boss throughout the fight - one or two Halone-combos normally do the trick for me, depending on how good the dps is (gear- and skillwise) - and then drop out of tankstance for the rest of the encounter.

Rotating cooldowns, keeping your dots up and making use of Requiescat+Holy Spirit should be a given.

[Super_Bee_Brian]

The ability you're talking off is "Provoke" and it doesnt work the way you think it does. You cant use it to build aggro, you can only use it to get aggro back. It "puts you on top of the aggro-list" in the sense that it takes the highste aggro someone has on the mob and adds +1 to that.
At the start of a fight there is no aggro, so Provoke does basically nothing.

...in regards to the rest of your post I'm not sure if you're just trolling - it almost reads like that.
You cant be serious about not using shield lob to pull a boss or Rage of Halone-combo to build basic aggro... Generally speaking you want to pull a boss by throwing your shield in their face, then build enough aggro to not lose the boss throughout the fight - one or two Halone-combos normally do the trick for me, depending on how good the dps is (gear- and skillwise) - and then drop out of tankstance for the rest of the encounter.

Rotating cooldowns, keeping your dots up and making use of Requiescat+Holy Spirit should be a given.

Good lord...

I'm not trying to troll. But anyway, thanks.

I'm serious about not using shield lob. There was a time in a dungeon when a player asked me to use shield lob, and I simply said "No... Flash is enough. Trust me. I've done this multiple times without shield lob." And then he/she accepted it and we finished the dungeon just fine. So that's that.

[YukinoAmidala]

Good lord...

I'm not trying to troll. But anyway, thanks.

I'm serious about not using shield lob. There was a time in a dungeon when a player asked me to use shield lob, and I simply said "No... Flash is enough. Trust me. I've done this multiple times without shield lob." And then he/she accepted it and we finished the dungeon just fine. So that's that.

Shield lob is literally designed for pulling. You should ALWAYS use this to pull a boss. As others have said as well, make sure you are watching the agro list by swapping targets and checking where the other party members stand. If someone is close to taking agro, use a skill with increased emnity generation to prevent losing agro on the mob.

[Melichoir]

It's not so much that I don't know how to tank. It's more like, I don't understand it.

Seriously... In dungeons, 40% of the time people are neutral about me, 30% they love me, and 30% think I'm garbage. For example, these past few days I've spammed that Shisui of the Violet Tides dungeon about a dozen times. The first 11 times I got a bunch of commendations. And the last one, one of the players said the following...

You... (dramatic pause) ... are garbage.

Here's my basic formula for drawing aggro...

Move forward. Once the monsters are close, I use flash twice, and then fight.

Here's my formula if it's a boss...

Move forward. Once the boss is close, I use that ability, whatever its called (the one that supposedly puts you on top of its enmity list or something), and then use flash twice.

90% of the time I draw aggro successfully. But for some reason, the rare times I fail, I get scolded severely by the other players.

I don't understand. Why the inconsistency in people's view of me as a tank? If I suck, I should suck all the time. But no. Whenever I get complimented, I get insulted as well. It's really bugging me.

I never use that ranged shield attack and I never use that weak-butt rotation that increases enmity. I've gone this far without them and I prefer to keep it that way.

What are your thoughts about my confusion?

Thanks.

First and foremost, go get discord and join the discord server "The Balance", theyll be able to help clear up tanking stuff.

But for right this moment, heres probably whats happening

Most players are neutral to you because you keep aggro and theyre like "Aiite, thats cool. GJ

Those that love you are probably either nice people and you have a charming personality, or theyre....'ok' at the game.

Those that hate you are either elitists or people who can see youre not a great tank.

If you can keep aggro, youre average. Keeping aggro as a tank isnt all that difficult typically, particularly if you have Shield Oath up. Now, time for the breakdown. Based on what you posted here, JUST HERE, you are a subpar tank who doesnt understand his class and skills. I am not saying that to be mean, nor am I saying it to be rude. Im just telling you what is the objective truth here. Based on your own account, you dont understand the skills you have in your toolkit, and its severely hampering youre ability as a tank. You are probably holding aggro decently (and this is a guess) because youre in Shield Oath 100% of the time and are not in lvl 70 dungeons. When you start getting into dungeons with serious gear disparity as well as players who have their full kits and know what to do, youre going to start seeing yourself having a greater difficulty keeping aggro.

As I said, go to the discord server I recommended. Lots of helpful and good info there. But in the mean while, heres a few things:

1) Your Rage of Halone combo is not 'weaksauce'. It is your enmity builder. Youre not supposed to use it all the time, granted, but when engaging a single target (like a boss) it is not a terrible idea to use the combo once, maybe twice to gain initial aggro, then swap to doing DPS combos like goring blade and Royal Authority.
2) When engaging single targets, using Shield Lob is also recommended in gaining initial threat at the very beginning.
3) Provoke and Ultimatem put you at top Threat + 1. Using it when you initiate is meaning less because the top threat at the get go is 0. This means whne you provoke out the gate, all you are getting is 1 enmity on the target. Your autoattacks can generate more enmity than that. Virtually anyones can. Using it when youre at top threat also only means you get a +1 enmity, making it meaningless. You use provoke when you are tank swapping or when you are really behind in threat and need to have it right then and there.
4) Enemies are generally tagged to one another. That means when you pull one, the others nearby will also come with you, and generally focus on you if youre the person who pulled. Shield lobbing to pull one enemy then rotating into flash spam (2-3 is fine), then using Total Eclipse is not a bad idea. If you are having trouble maintaining aggro on a particular mob because your DPS is blowing them up, then use single target, while using flash every so often to make sure you maintain hate on the other mobs.

There are advanced tricks and tips for tanking properly (like dropping out of Tank stance into DPS stance) among other things, but these are some of the immediate basics that come up.

Also in regards to something you said a little ways down:

I'm serious about not using shield lob. There was a time in a dungeon when a player asked me to use shield lob, and I simply said "No... Flash is enough. Trust me. I've done this multiple times without shield lob." And then he/she accepted it and we finished the dungeon just fine. So that's that.

Again, not to sound mean, but you are wrong here. You are literally gimping your ability to tank in favor of some misplaced idea about what skills should do what. If you dont believe me, go ask people who do the highest tier of content. They will tell you the same thing. Shield lob is a thing, and you should be using it. Youre main priority to be a tank. Stay a live, hold aggro. The better and more efficiently you do that, the easier and better it is for your party. So saying you dont use RoH and Shield Lob cause 'reasons', is like saying youre not going to ever use Rampart 'cause youve gotten along fine without it all this time.

You dont want people to be mad and call you garbage, then really, give a lot of thought about what youre being told here. You are asking others for their PoV, so please take it with serious consideration when we say "Hey, these things you should be doing."

[Super_Bee_Brian]

(What Melichoir said...)

This is a great post. Honest and respectful at the same time. Thanks.

[Melichoir]

This is a great post. Honest and respectful at the same time. Thanks.

A quick follow up to something about your initial post that I overlooked.

When pulling a single target (like a boss), your RoH combo will generate much much more enmity faster than double flash. So when initiating on a single target, a decent opener would be:

-Shield Lob
-Fight or Flight
-Circle of Scorn
-Fast Blade
-Spirits Within
-Savage Blade
-Rage of Halone
-Drop Tank Stance, go into Sword Oath
-Fast Blade
-Riot Blade
-Goring Blade

etc etc.

This isnt the optimal Paladin opener, btw. But since youre tanking in dungeons, its not a bad opener. Im positive, however, that better paladin mains have better openers, but this kind of opener will pretty much ensure youll have threat almost 100% of the time. Youll only run into issues if your DPS is really good and/or really geared. In the event that your dps is great and are having a hard time, start using RoH again to maintain aggro. Remember, your #1 job is to be the tank and keep aggro, so do whatever you have to do to make sure that stays the case. If that means lowering your dps to maintain threat, then thats what it means.

This also, just as a point, is more damage output overall than double flash. Flash is perfect for aoe aggro management, but not so much for single target.

[Vidu]

Good lord...

I'm not trying to troll. But anyway, thanks.

I'm serious about not using shield lob. There was a time in a dungeon when a player asked me to use shield lob, and I simply said "No... Flash is enough. Trust me. I've done this multiple times without shield lob." And then he/she accepted it and we finished the dungeon just fine. So that's that.

Because that player couldnt be botehred to argue with you over something no one needs to argue about - shield lob is your best/fundamental skill to pull; Rage of Halone is your best/fundamental way to build up the significant aggro-lead, so you can safely drop into Sword Oath and focus on DPSing.

Asking for advice and even saying "Well, I know I lack fundamental skills, but I dont wanna use them", sounds very much like trolling to me. You say you know better already, yet refuse to do so?

Also: People dont call you out all the time, because they cant be bothered. They want to get their dungeon done and over with. That people are actually bothering to critisizes you on multiple occassions should clearly tell you that you do infact should use your fundamental toolset. There is no reason not to.