Thread: [Guide] Paladin Tanking Compendium 2.0

Originally Posted by Traek

Mmm.. I totally disagree with this. In co-tanking and hate swapping I never gain on threat in similar stances as my co-tank. The only reason for it would be gear disparity (we are pretty close), weapon disparity (we are both same relic level), or Sword Oath/Dropped defiance + DPS balls to the walls. Its pretty easy to see on ADS, since you are swapping constantly. All I have to wait for is my co-tank to get off Halone combo, and then I can Halone combo right behind without worry of pulling hate. I do this usually with my own Riot combo, then move to Halone, just to be sure I don't get a few crits to offset the balance.

I have observed this for quite some time and done some looking into it. My sepcific theory is that the tank with lower enmity earns a bonus based on the disparity between their threat and the lead tanks, thus the closer the two enmity points the less that bonus (potentially down to no bonus at all).

I think turn 2 is a poor example because hate is never very heavily separated owing to the constnat switching. More over, turn 2 would just seem to confirm my statements about it apparently being based on the threat difference. You are always close to them on turn 2, so it should recive little/no bonus. Unfortunately, this example does not offer evidence either way to my specific theory. (Namely that when one tank's threat is substantially different than the others, a bonus seems to be applied to the lower tank based on the % of difference).

For reference, my cotank and I are very close in gear, both with +1 curtana. We are also both the same race. Regardless of which one of us starts with the hate lead, the other is able to chase them down, more it can be done with both of us in shield oath, or just one of us in shield and one in sword. For example, on the final dread in turn 4, a mob which I engage for a very short time, I consistently get to 80-90%% or more hate by the time it dies. Even if i was critting 100% of the time and he 0%, I should still not chase it down quite that quickly (as it has been alive for quite some time at this point, long enough to finish off dread 2, kill all associated adds in the final wave, and then for me to run acccross the room to get there). I really doubt it is just crit rates. Since we can both catch up to the other, I highly doubt it is owing to any skill difference between us (if one of us really was that much better at comboing, the other wouldn't be able to catch up). Similarly, this rules out any gear difference (again, we are quite close, within 1 piece of each other). Also, since our gear is so close, our crit rate is nearly the same as well, so even if it was crits, it shouldn't happen every time. We should, over time, balance out, yet I observe this every time. Be it me chasing him, or him chasing me.

CD's should not be a factor. Using a cd between combo steps does not delay your combo unless you are stacking several, but there are few/if any situations where this is needed and I already accounted for that in trials against Twin. More, in the phase of twin I am discussing, there is no call for the tank use cool downs anyway. Also, we should both be maintaining maximum uptime on FoF, so it should be the same bonus for both of us.

Thank you very much for taking the time to create something so detailed. This guide is EXTREMELY helpful and sexy...I have shared it on my FC forum board.

Originally Posted by PiedPiper

I have observed this for quite some time and done some looking into it. My sepcific theory is that the tank with lower enmity earns a bonus based on the disparity between their threat and the lead tanks, thus the closer the two enmity points the less that bonus (potentially down to no bonus at all).

Well it is certainly possible, I'd be interested in any tests to show it. Will be hard to prove without a proper threat meter though, IMO. Even on methods like yours described, I don't see it happening on my end. We use the kite method on Caduceus for instance (I usually MT boss, and switch to kited split upon mine dying), and I never catch up to my co-tank the whole time kited-till death. I didn't think to note my exact threat upon its death this week though, something I'll try to remember next week.

Would be such a silly thing to implement if you ask me. I guess it'd be a sort of similar fashion of decaying threat.

@Traek and @PiedPiper, judging by the mechanics I want to say there are 2 enmity tables one that is everyone and one that only includes tanks. This would allow for encounters to not have an aggro reset and have more "team play". Of course this is all coming from a programming standpoint, I do not have any evidence to back this up other than I have not seen an encounter that has a true aggro reset.

I would just like to say how immensely helpful this guide was. I rolled my first tank toon, ever, a few days ago and was a bit nervous about running as a tank. Then I found this guide and my whole perspective changed. I still have some personal kinks to work out but I feel this guide helped improve my overall tanking ability and skill that otherwise would surely have been lacking just figuring it out on my own. I have received several compliments on my tanking and I would like to give credit to those who deserve it. Thanks again for the guide and to those who have contributed.

Originally Posted by Traek

Well it is certainly possible, I'd be interested in any tests to show it. Will be hard to prove without a proper threat meter though, IMO. Even on methods like yours described, I don't see it happening on my end. We use the kite method on Caduceus for instance (I usually MT boss, and switch to kited split upon mine dying), and I never catch up to my co-tank the whole time kited-till death. I didn't think to note my exact threat upon its death this week though, something I'll try to remember next week.

Would be such a silly thing to implement if you ask me. I guess it'd be a sort of similar fashion of decaying threat.

That's sort of why I brought it here, I can't really puzzle out a concrete way to test it. Not to continue hounding you, but I would think the kite method on cad woudl still be a poor place to test it just because its not two tanks standing still firing through the rotation with a clear 10-20 gcd head start for one of them. Unfortunately SE has a hard on for maint during our raid time, so our time on turn 5 (probably the easeist place to see this) has been hamstringed.

@ Pixel: I've kind of been wondering if that's whats at play. It just seems so bizarre. Even tanks who I know can't matchme for threat generation (for example, doing turn 2 together, if they pull first the dds always catch up quickly, if I pull they never catch up) are able to chase down on long engagements in turn 4 / 5. Hell, In turn 1 i have been able to stand off the boss, wait for the first spawn, dps it, kite it to the boss, and then pull cad off the first tank before split. Granted I had a pretty large gear lead, but tha'ts only 4-5 combos to catch up.

The thing that gets me is i don't see a value in this system. They already gave us provoke, and to use it for controleld hate passes you'd have to slow down total hate generation so much to let the other person cleanly pass.... it just seems odd. If anything, its only real purpose seems to be to limit the off tank's dps since the OT can't indefinitely stand and deliver on a mob without risking hate pulls.