I acknowledge that everyone has to mash buttons to be on top of their game. That being so which tank has to mash less button to hang on to hate? The intent is for a heroic tank to do casual things. Right not I have a sk but it seems that my heroic monk can steal hate which is annoying. Right now I am running a heroic monk, bard, and sk. Thank you in advance.
Are you using FD to manage agro with the Monk? Might be easier to just let the mercs tank, particularly for more difficult content. The 86+ J5 mercs are leaps and bounds better than an 85 SK with level 80 gear and no augs.
I prefer to do this with a live tank. Obviously some of that will contradict a "casual" group for fun, but meh. Off time pursuits and all that.
It depends how much input you want to use with the tank. If it's your tank box that you will be tabbed away from more often than not, I'd opt for the warrior as they don't play nearly as much of an active part in their survival. Abilities are instant with generally long cool downs. The good discs usually last a while so you can tab out. A well played knight is a sight to behold, but what they bring to the table takes a bit more active involvement. Stuns, taps, self heals, etc. they make much better tanks for most content these days, but to reach that potential you have to spend more time actively paying attention to them. A warrior though, the good abilities are on long cooldowns, abilities are instant generally - therefore more friendly to boxing as you get to spend less time actively intervening with your tank and more time getting stuff dead with your dps.
Warriors are what you're after. Phantom Aggressor (one minute Cooldown, Level 100) immediately snaps and hold agro above an entire raid with that button alone. Pop a Blast of Anger (AA, One Minute Cooldown) if you want a little extra spike before the phantom. At that point, you can auto-attack into oblivion. I don't know how you can get easier than a single button. Warriors have zero agro issues. The actual skill comes into effectively cycling discs and survivability -- I've never given a single thought into holding agro. There isn't a need - we don't have agro issues.
I have a 100 warrior that is a part of my regular set and yes he is awesome, group geared and all. Right now though I'm not motivated enough to finish CotF 1B so I have been messing around with these heroic characters. I might just make another warrior for giggles. I don't really have anything else to spend SC on.
At level 85 a warrior is probably not what you are after.... you say you have a 100 warrior, so maybe you remember how terrible our aggro is at that level. Of course I don't know much at all about pallies or SKs at 85 either.
I remember that my group geared SK rarely had agro issues @ 85. I could keep agro by casting a couple of terrors + Charge for Power + spear in each fight. Also used Rend + Jade of the Ether (got a Jumping Axe/Spirit Sword of the Slain when HoT came out) for the Rune procs.
Make sure you have a good hate focus. I know that's generally an obvious thing, but I occasionally see tanks without them at lower levels.
I've noticed a lot of shadow knights don't use voice of thule and instead only use their newer aggro-mod buffs, but doesn't voice of thule stack with those? Is there any reason to not continue to use voice of thule?
With Voice rank 2 it is a higher agro buff than the lifetap/hp/agro spell, I believe rank 1 of the AA is still lower or the same though.
