GLD ~ Tab Tanking

[WingsofWar]

For those who are Gladiators, you might encounters problems with holding aggro/hate/enmity. You wonder, "WHY!?! I Flash, provoke all the time!".

Well if you read the Beginners Tanking Guide, you see that Gladiators and Marauders hold hate very different from each other, and that Flash and provoke skills can only do so much. So how do you ensure your properly supporting your party if you almost always lose aggro to Topaz, Titan, Healers or heavy hitting Pugilists? I'll share how I do it, and it may work for you. If not thats ok it may not be your play style!

At Level 15 (when you have access to your first dungeon) You have 3 skills that generate additional hate. Flash/ Savage Blade/Shield Lob. While attacking itself generates hate via STR, it doesn't give good values against party members like DPS or healers. To ensure that none of their attacks or skills over power my aggro tables, I do the following,

Before engaging any mobs I put a sign on each target to ensure my party can be on the same page. Its easy for your party members to think they can target their own enemies, but it causes discord and puts more strain on the healer which is not good for critical situations. So, I rush in and generate Flash, the reason why i do this is NOT because it generate enmity, but because I set my tab button to cycle through aggro-ed enemies only. Flash allows me to access all the enemies in the flash area. The left side of the screen shows the enemies I can cycle through. Every time I press tab, i must start with Savage Blade to bump my aggro values up, i spend 1 or 2 more attacks/combos before tabbing to the next enemy, then Savage Blade again. rinse and repeat.

At this point, your getting a beating making sure that mobs are targeting you, and you need to make sure that you can survive it even when your healer snoozes for a second. How? Sometime in the beginning of a battle you must have Rampart on, and place all your additional bonus points on Vitality early on. This keeps your Damage Mitigation up which is your secondary focus as a Tank roll.

As you progress into the game, pick up MRD skills Skull Sunder and Foresight. Foresight and Rampart should be used one after another to keep your mitigation up and limit the amount down time you suffer from cool downs. I found that Skull Sunder is good skill to have in your arsenal if you find that spamming savage blade is too boring. Both cost 60TP so you will likely never run out of TP if your building your aggro tables against a mob up to 10 enemies.

If by chance you lose aggro on an enemy, use Shield Lob to bring it back. Shield Lob is much more effective than Provoke in most cases. If you have just joined in a fight or find that a enemy is fighting one of your party members outside your attack zone then use provoke. Only use Sheild Lob as a kite or return skill, spamming it bad economics as it costs 120TP and you will quickly lose TP and your tanking abilities become crippled.

Skill Speed attributes help speed up tabbing, how? It doesn't change the global cooldown of your skills rather speeds up the duration of the skill in play. Essentially your attacks will get faster and faster regardless of GC. This is very helpful with long skills like Rage of Halone, especially if you want to tab spam for a rotation.

My experience with this method.
So far I haven't lost aggro against a CNJ who healed me, a Topaz Carbuncle, or a Titan. Up until my current dungeon (Thousand Maw). and it was easier at most times to steal aggro from Topaz and Titan. I can keep danger away from my party members so they can focus on doing their rolls. I hardly ever use flash unless its spawned adds, in which id use flash at most 2 times in a fight.

The challenge in tanking is never letting your party get damaged. The challenge to take up the roll of a tank is to survive tanking. This becomes easier with gear, focused on STR/DEX/DEF/BLOCK/PARRY/VITALITY/DETERMINATION/ACCURACY/SKILL SPEED as it helps you survive and mitigate damage so you can protect your party.

If this helped you in anyway, your welcome. Any comments and suggestions and criticisms are welcomed.

[Rajah]

Simple. Shield lob a target (#1),

engage,

flash the group (#1, 2, and 3),

fast blade #2,
savage #3,
halone #1 (DPS will have already engaged #1)

If #2 attacks healer, quickly lob it.

[WingsofWar]

Simple. Shield lob a target (#1),

engage,

flash the group (#1, 2, and 3),

fast blade #2,
savage #3,
halone #1 (DPS will have already engaged #1)

If #2 attacks healer, quickly lob it.

I have 1 issue with starting with shield lob is that its a ranged attack, and your likely to pull enemies towards your party if you get sloppy. Id rather have my party stay away and support/attack from a distance (unless your a melee DPS). Taking the fight to them ensures that i'm the center of attention. Using Fast blade or riot blade too early does nothing for me IMO when im building an aggro table. If i spam just Savage Blade on all 3 enemies in the beginning after flashing, im dead locked on aggro, and no amount of healing or DPS tanking can steal them from me. Unless I just outrite stop attacking for 2 turns. At least this is what iv found anyway.