So I'm back to playing my 105 Paladin and I'm having some issues with Aggro. Currently what I'm doing on incoming is: Tagging with Impose, then using a multi-bind of Force AA, Crush of Povar, Ardent Force, Brilliant Vind and Admonish. Never used to have much issue, but lately struggling some. Kind of at a loss on what to change up, if anyone has any suggestions.
Don't tag with impose. I actually rarely even have impose loaded anymore. Tag with a stun (not the AA) or crush. I usually keep 2 stuns and a crush (or 2 crushes and a stun) loaded and use them during the fight with the Force AA. You could possibly get away with 1 and 1 but with some of the agro from others, 2 and 1 is the better way to go. Vind and Admonish aren't really agro tools. The other thing to look at is do you have a hate mask and is the agro AA (I cant recall the name off the top on my head) enable or disabled?
The aggro aa Lubian is referring to is Bold Attacks. Make sure that is activated. Drop the Impose spell altogether. When doing content where you don't need or can't stun, use both crushes. It looks like you're missing Valiant Defense, use that VERY often in whatever spell lineup, one of our best aggro spells (just not to tag mob initially, no hate override on spell). Grab some hedgewizard brews and magic pots as well
We got very little help in the new expansion. Valiant Defense is very good and should be used everytime its up. The Improved stuns AA are going to help your sustained agro but do nothing to help your snap agro. I havent loaded a crush in a pretty long time. I see very little value to the line. If I want to do dps I load Consecration etc. Imposed is pretty bad. Load your 3 stuns, plus Dichotomic and hope for the best. Maybe next year we'll get some agro help.
12s reuse Crush is significantly higher aggro then its stun counterparts, almost 2x more aggro per cast. The 24s reuse Crush is same aggro as its stun counterpart, but has no push back and does a decent amount of Damage. 24s reuse is a really long time though, you can filler it with Valiant if Mana is fine or Ardent Force, if you need even more aggro. Crush -> FoD -> Crush is the highest aggro opener you can do for a 46k base hate in ~2 seconds. You can also use Marr's Salvation AA on the higher aggro DPS to -12% their aggro generation If you are in EoK you can also use Harmonious spell to give you a buff that auto casts a stun+hate+self heal combo, for direct heals you receive (not cast by yourself) >5k in value.
Ardent Force is kinda slow & not super impactful. It's something to use once you have a mob if the targets are susceptible to a stun chain, to reduce their damage. Admonish is actually minus agro. It's slick once agro is established to add both damage and healing, but doesn't help at all establish hold on a mob. Valiant Defense(neé Deflection) is the fast cast, fast refresh, high agro, includes healing, like, primary tool. Listen to Riou on Crushes, they're excellent. Imo "getting" to use stuns on stunnable guys feels almost like a trap these days. Definitely use Harmonious. Wonderful spell for sustained agro.
Ardent force isn't slow and is impactful in the grand scheme of Paladin aggro spells. Not sure if you're confusing that with Force of Ardency or something. If OP is still struggling with aggro after crushes and valiant is on cool down, he'd definitely want to be hitting ardent force inbetween times. Make sure to be using Beacon and Lodestar aa's consistently as well. The aggro dots on those two aa's don't stack so stagger them out
Don't start with Impose, i recall having read it was not going over the initial hate cap (same for Valiant) Stun and Crush are sure to go over the initial hate cap. As to people that don't use any crush and use stuns instead, i'm not surprised that they can face aggro problem. Crush is so much more hate than Stun.You want Crush oand Crush of the Darkened Sea. Always start with one crush or stun on the mob. Always use FoD each time it's up, and use a line with the 2 Crush, Valiant Defense and Ardent Force and repeat it. I see that Impose for Honor is not popular, but it remains a good first tick hate, 10 k + (5 k x 2) ?, and add some hate over time (5 k), and has a good recast time. It seems to land on most mobs too.
Disclaimer: I am not a Paladin main. I sometimes vacation inside a Gnome Paladin because it's a really, really fun class. And also SK's. Make sure you have a hate mask on. Significant impact with the hate focus imo. If you're having trouble with aggro definitely take crushes over stuns. Outside of the occasional molo romp, I roll exclusively with crushes. When grouping with high dps/high aggro classes stuns just don't seem to cut it (for me). I pull with FoD, then hit Crush of the Darkened Sea (less damage, less chance to trigger summon on mobs where that's relevant) followed by Povar on incoming. Valiant Defense (deflection in my case, no EOK on that account) as soon as I start getting hit, followed by Force of Ardency (not for the hate, but for the HoT. I usually don't have a healer merc in group but if I have a real healer I'll ditch Ardency as it becomes useless). Then I'll start Consecration / Vindication / Admonish weaves for self healing/dps. Rinse and repeat as needed. Don't think I've ever had aggro issues with that lineup, even on raids or against stupid-high aggro classes like Wizzies/Zerkers/Enchanters (or our charmed npc's omg ). Can use one or more of the Paladin hate AA's if needed. As a side note, both of my Paladin teachers swear by stuns on stunnable mobs. They are much, much better Paladins than I and have no issues with aggro.
Using force of ardency outside of molo in is bad practice. Run the math on the HP/second healing from any of the HOTT heals and compare. Don't use impose unless AFK tanking or summon tanking. Or the rare boss you need to spam self heals or splash or use aurora. Use crushes, use brilliant or glorious, use nukes, avoid stuns outside of rare times things need to be stun locked (so never). Use admonish and valiant to self heal, avoid burst heals use twin or triplet yellow heals. Use dicho force or splash to group heal combined with hand of piety or tunare if it's desperate. Rotate 1st, aoti, gaoti, epic Rotate mantle, guardian, armor. FOD vs disruptive depends on situation. If people are on the low green on,aggro meter use DP. (If mana is irrelevant) Stuns are a trap option like Brohg said. Your overall efficacy will be reduced for little gain.
Extremely bad advice to tell a Paladin who's gear level you don't know or knowledge of where they hunt to avoid stuns unless stun locking lol. I'm an end game Paladin that often rolls with zero stuns and even I realize that advice isn't so hot for everyone to be doing. Also, force of ardency and ardent force are not the same thing. They're are plenty of scenarios where OP "should" still be using Ardent Force even if keeping both crushes and valiant on consistent cool down. Rather that be to actually stun mobs that are stunnable, to have another spell on bar to easily tag with that has a hate override, a spell that is very low mana as group Paladins can begin bleeding mana depending on what they're doing, another option that won't eat a twin heal like valiant can because crushes are 12 and 24 seconds etc etc.
If you are getting rolled without stunning in,a group/box party you are already being inefficient by picking a poor spot to grind. How do you think a comparatively geared warrior or SK would do the content? Especially given heal throughput if the other steps are followed, I'd have a hard time believing any pro stun argument in modern content outside of moloing. But that's just me to each their own.
If you have troubles aggroing you need to use all the spells that are good enough at aggro generation (Impose for honor isn't but Ardent Force is for example). Here is my casting order: Crush of the Darkened Sea/Force of Disruption/Crush of Povar/Valiant Defense/Ardent Force Repeat if necessary. Crush of the Darkened Sea is the best opener for aggro but Crush of Povar is the 2nd best and not on any usefull spell timer (except on some rare events, the KB DD stun is useless), I see no reason not to use it, the goal is to generate as much aggro as possible asap so DPS don't have to wait and you can use your self heals if needed. Mobs don't live long enough nowaday for Impose for Honor to be usefull for aggro (the recourse will be useless). Force of Ardency / Dichotomic are cool toys (way less useless than Impose for example) but there are better spells to mem in your 12 spell slots. Of course if the problem is survivability then you won't see a big difference dropping Crush of the Darkened Sea for Force of the Darkened Sea on stunnable content.
The valiant deflection upgrade is better aggro than Povar, nearly even with Dark seas. There's 10k base hate + 7k hate mod on the heal.
Really has nothing to do with the OP's question its about best advice for agro, Not whats your gear / AA check and are you trying to kill things you probably should leave alone.
make sure bold attacks is on and maxed, valiant defense, crush of the darkened sea and force of disruption are the bread and butter aggro tools. If you are having aggro troubles you want to use them. If you aren't than you use DP instead of FoD and a stun, if the mob is stunnable or you are doing no damage aggro, to replace cotds. In 99% of situations you want to use valiant defense. People never mention it but divine call is 8k aggro and is instant cast. it might be a long cooldown but instant cast means you can just put it in a hot key with something else and not even worry about it, same with banestrike, really. since its unmodifiable the aggro it generates is equal to the damage it does so a pretty decent amount Harmonious blessing can be pretty awesome, its amazing in raids and its decent in groups. depends on how much healing you are receiving.
Warpeace- gear checks, aa counts etc. all matter when giving a Paladin optimal advice on aggro. The main conclusion to draw from his post is he's obviously having issues with aggro and to tell a group geared paladin to avoid using stuns altogether unless stun locking I deem bad advice. Until he gets comfortable with aggro he'd want to be using Ardent Force some still which is part of his max aggro spell set and very mana friendly on a group geared, low aa paladin (if he is). That's not even getting into using tower of rot instant click to get on hate list then tagging with valiant defense to open up if crush on cool down because he probably doesn't have tower click. I no where implied OP would be getting curb stomped for not using "a" stun =p. If that were the case I'd have recommended him using more than a single stun in line up or changing zones. I often go full nukes and tank multiples with two hander, I wouldn't be giving advice to a returning player, struggling with aggro, to be doing same till better feel, gear and aa though
Thanks for all the replies. Switched to opening with Crush of the Darkened Sea, then FoD, then Crush of Povar and follow that with Valiant Defense. Then just cycle those same ones but with DP instead of FoD. I also wasn't using harmonious blessing and began keeping that up all the time. Things seemed a whole lot better. Seems to work pretty well and quite pleased with it. Thanks.
The amount of stupid response is this post is hilarious. Max out Improved stuns AA. Run Force of Ardency, Ardent Force, and Force of the Darkened Seas. Use Dichotomic when necessary. Pull the 2hander out and demolish mobs. Get a ton of Blessing of the faithful procs and enjoy being a paladin. Or use sword and board and crushes, do terrible dps and struggle for agro. If you encounter mobs that you cant stun, use sword and board and crushes I guess. I tend to just spam cast admonish and valiant and heal myself more if I cant stun while using real dps spells like Consecration line. Botton line, if you pay too much attention to the people that post raw data numbers and have apparently no real life experience at playing the class, youre going to get bad results.
Also another pro-tip. When a mob is stunned, even if you dont have top agro on it, its not hurting anyone, and buys you time to catch up. There are really 2 paths you can take here. If you want slow and boring grouping that makes everyone fall into a coma, use sword and board and crushes. If you want to become elite and have songs sung about you by the other people in your group, use stuns the 2 hander and burn through group content like a hot knife through butter.
