Dear Sony- Shadowknight Tank struggling to hold threat, Any Suggestions?

I play a shadowknight tank, and struggle to hold threat in DoV instances... Any suggestions?

Firstly, I am going to assume you are doing proper shadowknight dps, as this is very important to holding aggro on a shadowknight, obviously. Speccing properly and playing right and all that - no brainer
If hate is an issue, try stacking your groups with classes that make it easier to hold hate - Coercers, Troubadors, and Dirges. Also a good swashbuckler can take a lot of the hard work out of it.
A couple of tricks I've found with my SK -
It doesn't hurt sometimes when you're in your combat art/single target spell spamming phase to pause briefly to ensure your autoattacks land - pretend you're a melee dps scout for a bit and time those autos!
On inc - what I do is combat leadership, unholy blessing, and hateful respite myself - then when in range of the mob - cast zealous smite, while it's casting, turn on your ranged autoattack, and immediately deathtouch. If everything goes properly, all three will land at the exact same time, giving you a fantastic head start on aggro control.
Lastly, and this is more for if you plan on finding yourself in groups without ideal hate management conditions (I have my SK set up this way for off-tanking on raids from the mage group), is to reforge ALL of your dps mod into hate mod. It lowers your autoattack dps a little bit, but let me tell you, walking around with ~60 hate mod solo is a beautiful thing.

I hope this helps - but if your problem is trying to hold hate from veteran dps'ers with much better gear than you - you have no hope. Bring lesser dpsers until you get better gear.

1. Grind that aa. Without aa at about 200 at minimum, you dont really have a chance.
2. Don't give up! It will be frusterating.
3. one of those most annoying things you'll hear is running up to mobs and hearing that lovely .. schoonngg sound. That's a resist. One of you biggest problems will be landing hits. Melee and spell. You can adorn for +weapon skills for melee hit rates and + disruption for spells.
4. A STUNNED MOB CANT RUN AWAY- as simple as that.. use your kick that has a stun and your shield bash that also has a stun. It will help you land extra hits, before it tries to run off after that pesky beastlord.
5. If you have to proxy pull, you can always snare it and still get the ranged attack in. Ranged attacks hit fairly hard and reliably.
6. Heals count as AGRO! the endline in the shadowknight tree is a ward. Which you can cast before combat and when they hit you, you get extra agro.
7. + hate modifier is the biggest hate boost you can get. +100 hate is the cap
8. double bard groups are amazing for hate. All your stuff will actually hit the mobs.
9. These are tips just off the top of my head.. try em some might work some might not. Don't give up, your playing the most difficult tank class at the moment. (UNGEARED AND NOT MAX AA - DONT TROLL PLEASE)

The previous two posts have lots of good advice. I'll throw a few more things that might help.

• Install ACT and use it religously. You need to know what kind of DPS you are putting out compared to the other members of your group. If you SK is putting on 10,000 DPS and another group member is doing 100,000 DPS you are going to have trouble. FYI - My SK regularly does 30-50K DPS in DOV heroic instances and DPS is where your hate comes from.
• Use +Hate adornments. You can use three +Hate white adornments - wrist x2 and hands.
  
• Make sure the DPS you are grouping with lets you turn the mob before attackings - asking nicely and often helps
• Know which of your spells/abilities you can use while moving to turn a mob - off the top of my head
  • Auto attack
  • Both green taunts
  • Kick, Shield bash and the AOE knockdown from AA tree
  • Doom Judgement and one other Blue AOE
  • Death March
  • a few more I can't remember right now
• Run instances with people who have similar gear and AAs so you are totally out matched by the DPS in your group.

The gear differences have become so ridiculous that if you are not well equiped (as example you have rygor ...) you won't be able to keep the agro over raid geared dps.
As a healer and a tank (playing a paladin so agro holding is way easier than with a sk, simple he never loose agro ) .
I consider that when a well geared dps take agro over a less geared tank , the dps is faulty. Most of the agro issues are generated by poor dps gameplay, generally coming from people playing only dps classes.
If your build is hate oriented, if you use a 1 shield and the defensive position, if you used your best taunt on pull etc ...eayh yeah you did as the people advised you abobe in the thread ... and you do have hate gain adorns .... yeah yeah ....
IF you still loose agro you can be sure that it's the dps fault, now that they have an agrometer they have no excuse.

Thank you for this Uthel. It has made me SK much better at tanking and more fun to play

Gorock@Storms wrote:

Blame dps all you want, but when you have a substantial gap in gear between the dps and the tank, it can be extremely difficult for the tank to hold aggro. About the only thing some dps classes can do at that point is just not attack. I've had tanks who were unable to hold aggro from my ranger's auto attack alone, even after I waited til 80%, and my ranger was not raid geared by any means.
You want to fix aggro mechanics you don't just lay the blame on the dps classes, honestly more blame lies on the ineffectiveness of the deaggro tools available. Evade, stalk, ignorant bliss, just don't really do much for deaggro when you consider how hard auto attacks and CAs are hitting. The only effective deaggros out there are the ones with a hate position decrease. This was an issue during SF, and it has only gotten worse in DoV as the dps gaps increased.

"You want to fix aggro mechanics you don't just lay the blame on the dps classes, honestly more blame lies on the ineffectiveness of the deaggro tools available". Absolutely correct.
Another issue is that fighter taunts still are not even close to powerful enough. It is insulting really. If true dps classes damage keeps increasing as it does fighers will never have a chance.

Fighter ability to hold hate without a stacked group is pretty dismal right now. A tank without raid gear doesn't stand much of a chance unless your a class that can put a hate siphon on whoever is the highest dps class in your group. We all ahve a few tools that help some, but nothing is really up to where it should be right now. All classes should work to maximize their DPS, including tanks. However, a tanks DPS should NOT be their primary means of holding aggro and right now, thats how it is.

It is nothing short od silliness to think that a Tank w/o raid gear could hold aggro on a mob against DPS with raid gear. Of course they cannot. It is not designed that way and it doesn't work that way. Beyond that when not in optimial group setups ensured hate gain thru adornments and AA selection will go along way, hopefully the DPS will do the same to one degree or another, within reason.
I find a lot of Tanks fail to generate initial aggro when pulling and when adding in eager DPS it is an equation for an aggro mess. SK's can certainly generate all the aggro in the world when they desire to stack it up and when equally geared SK Tanks and DPS group w/o Bards or Chanters they can handle aggro just fine, as long as they understand and focus on it.

Nrgy wrote:

That.. That is the important part. Now tell me why. Why do they fail to generate initial agro?

I'm not trolling i'm seriously asking you to look at it and tell me why. With the assumption that x tank pushed their "agro" buttons.

Rageincarnate@Unrest wrote:

Becasue Body pulls and Arrows don't cause a great deal of threat and DPS can't not push the button that goes Boom! (double negative)
Cases where body pulls are necessary at times and most expereinced players know where they are required and hold off a few seconds. Case where you charge in is no place for arrows, leave those for the Ranjas. SK's have plenty of big Boomers to establist their initial threat. Their biggest problem in mid fight, where they have to "work" for it.

ok, your talking about shadowknights.
The big booms. I'm going to assume you are talking about deathtouch. With a base reuse of 5 mins?
ok, lets take a random ungeared sk. He just dinged 90 hes all excited to tank his first zone. How much is that deathtouch going to hit for?
Now, take that same scenario. Lets assume epic and about 275aa
Now tell me the average hits for these classes with the same gear.
ranger
conj
necro
beastlord
wizzy
warlock
brig
Im serious.. I'd love to see your input

other tanks

The problem is that SKs, and Zerkers as well, are a much more DPS reliant class for Agro. Its always been that way.
DoV though they did not stay where they were before in relation to raid wide, or group wide DPS.
For starters they need to seriously rework the SK epic buff. It is "supposed" to be a monster Agro generating tool and yet it doesn't with how heals work in this game. The healers whole goal is to keep you green so you actually get minimal healing, hence minimal Agro generation, from them. Furthermore in a situation where you might be able to lifetap yourself some they have not balanced Lifetaps to where they should be in relation to HP pool after they nerfed heal crits.
Rework the SK epic buff to the monster hate generating tool it is supposed to be and we will be back on trach and balanced to the Fighters that have a lot more reactive hate and siphons.

Bruener wrote:

I don't care about sk's in general. I care about tanking in general. I was merely trying to point out that tank abilities didn't scale correctly along with everyone else coupled with the fact that only half of those abilites land on the mob.

Rageincarnate@Unrest wrote:

First off, I don't consider a fighter to be a Tank unless they have 277+ AA. Nor do I consider a fighter with any CA/Spell under Expert to be a Tank. And for that matter in any gear less that a full set of Thurgadin gear and the quested Ry'Gorr chest piece and the jewelerys that comes from quests AFTER Icy Fingers.
Harmtouch at A3 will hit for well over 50K and later on when better geared and mastered it will hit for well over 100K. Add in Zelous Smite as your 1-2 punch and a SK has established plenty of aggro to get into their threat cycle. In the minimum gear to be considered a Tank (see above) a SK will parse easily in the high 30's and low 40's in any heroic around. When the gear gets better so does the DPS and higher heroic or raid geared SK's are easily able to hit high 60's and even peak into the 80's as far as DPS goes for ZW parses. Add in hate modifiers and hate transfers there is plenty of threat being generated to hold aggro off of the pure DPS classes (except maybe the obscenity called Beastlords)
Threat in general, since DOV, is certainly a horrible problem due to the failure of SOE to scale the threat values of the fighters CAs, there is no denying that. However, in a raid situation Dirges and Coercers make all these issues go away, not to mention Assassins and Swashbucklers. In heroics one or the other is plenty to overcome the threat generation shortfalls due to gear/AA/CA/Spell/Knowledge/Experience. Crusaders in particular have AA for more Hate Gain and adornments will make a large positive impact to threat as well. Self buffed Hate Gain should be as high as it can be for the situation the fighter is trying to Tank for. Raiding SK's need support from Dirges and Coercers, but normally have both. In Heroics the adornments and AA will usually get the job done if the Tank is even close to being in a paired group (gear score).
All that being said, there is NO WAY a undergeared, under-adorned, under-AA'ed and under CA/Spelled fighter will be able to hold aggro off of a geared DPS class. That does NOT mean that they can't Tank, but it means they should actually try and be ready to Tank. If a fighter doesn't have the gear, the AA or the CA/Spell quality all upgraded as high as they can afford to get it, then they simply are not TANKS, they are DPS fighters. Is there really ANY exceuse not to have all Expert or better spells or have the minimum gear available for FREE or have the proper adornments for what they are trying to do or try and call themselves a Tank when many of the tools they need to do the job actually come from higher levels of AA. I have no tolerance for lazy fighters, but will work with fighters that actually try for be TANKS.
In Summary: Fighters with less than 277 AA, Expert CA/Spell, Thurgadin carfter / Ry'Gorr quests chest / second tier quest jewelery and No or wrong adornments are not TANKS...

so you agree. Threat scaling for tanking does not match dps potential. Thank you.
I don't agree with some of your other points, but it's not important. (I will be more clear about the meaning of ungeared to prevent future tangents)
One thing that bothers me that you didn't mention at all was melee hit rates.
Hate mod/procs/threat/self buffs do nothing on a miss. So all of those amazing things.. are squat unless you actually hit the mob. I was hoping you would go there.

Here are the basics:

1. AA’s: (277 min on any of the classes)
2. Gear: (Thurg or better with full white and yellow adorns) with at least thurg/ry’gor faction jewels. See eq2wire adorn calculator for guidance.
3. TIME YOUR AUTOATTACKS: This is more than just a ship passing in the night. For any of the fighter classes autoattack accounts for at least 40% of overall dps. And thus accounts for 40% of your overall hate generation (at a min). Do not disregard damage: Remember 1 damage = 1 hate (FACT). For math and science behind this search eq2flames.
4. Complete the ER quest (no really this is so basic I shouldn’t even have to mention it).
5. Taunts are not your primary source of agro generation, and unless you have a coercer in the group you should never prioritize a taunt over a damaging ability. The exception to this is an AoE taunt on pull.
6. Communicate with your group. If you are having trouble holding agro at the beginning tell them to back the eff off until you have the mob properly positioned and set. If you are losing agro in the middle or end of the fight or to AoE classes communicate that with the group asking for alternatives etc. Tanks who communicate keep the group happy.
7. If you can’t or are not willing to (at a minimum) do the above things, then just stop…pick a new class in which you will be more successful tanking really is not for everyone.

Melee hit rates are huge. When you are not hitting your are not holding agro.

Crit rates are huge (see above)

One of the most important concepts people (especially tanks because they cannot get away with it as much as other classes) forget is that they consistently get into zones in which their gear does not allow them to be successful. Eq2 is so gear centric and even if there are no gear checks for instances anymore, knowing what your stats are and what the minimums are for each zone and not overextending yourself is probably the single most effective thing you can do as any class to be successful (I am talking in DoV).

Rosss@Everfrost wrote:

That is a funny thing you brought up .. and one that I have maybe taken for granted for year and years. Tanks much over gear zones where healers and ranged DPS can easily undergear zones. It is such an age old and basic concept. Tanks must be fully aware of their gear and what gear the zone requires. This does not mean that tank must have the gear from the zone before they can do the zone, so don't anyone get all up in arms. It means that Tanks much use progression gearing while healer and ranged DPS can easily skip gear tiers and survive just fine.

Rageincarnate@Unrest wrote:

Of course I agree, this effects my Necro (pet) equally as much as it effect my SK and my Brusier. When SF was release and the T9 CA/Spells were released it was fine. Now with the over inflated stats and the utter and complete failure on SOE's part to not go back and scale those is beyond contempt. I will immediately say that as the fighter tank gears up it becomes much less of a problem, but when first starting out it is far from easy. When those 2010 SF T9 threat CA's were added they carried the exact same threat modifiers as they do now. But now the DPS has tripled and the threat generation has remained constant. There are serveral (dozen) threads discussing this under the other forum topics, although I have to admit I haven't seen one talking about this for quite some time.
Hit rates is also a topic found more recently in quite a few threads. Some claiming a hit rate as low as 40% while other claim 80% or more. You're right, of course, without "hitting" the mob you are not directly generating Hate. Beyond that the Accuracy stat seems to help here, but beyond reforging and a very few specific items it is a very hard stat to stack.
I am just commenting on the "New undergeared tank that just dinged 90" and saying that there is NO exceuse for not being prepared if, and thats a big IF, they want to call themselves a tank. I am saying that even with the non-scaling values, on 2+ year old designed threat tools that have sorely been neglected and have fallen in effectiveness by more than 50%, a tank will still be able to do a good job TANKING if they prepare themselves. Failing to properly gear, gain "enough" AA or skipping the adornment process is not the fault of old thread values. If a "new undergeared tank that just dinged 90" had their threat values doubled or tripled, would they now be a TANK, just becasue they would be able to hold aggro better... hardly. It is a package deal ... IMO .. you either are or are not a TANK.