My build and AA are in my sig. I've worked hard to get my hate maxed, along with mitigation and HP and everything else that seems important to a Paladin for a MT role in Heroic groups. It seems to me there's this perception that since we have Amends, aggro is /facepalm easy. So either I'm doing something wrong, or some of my groups are. I feel like a noob; but I want to get better, so posting here in hope for help. I'm open to all critique and suggestiong. Here's the deal: sometimes in PUG's, I have absolutely no trouble holding aggro on mobs. Other times, it's a major job. I actually want to learn and get better; I am open to criticism and critique and want to be one of the elite tanks on AB. I'm not an idiot (I'm actually a member of Mensa, so there isn't much I cannot learn). Yesterday I did a couple groups in the Dino zones, and except for a wipe on the final named mobs we had no issues (we wiped once due to our group not having the ACT trigger for the parasite on the T-Rex, which we corrected next attempt, and we wiped once on the other end-zone named because we didn't pull it out of the lava at 8 or 9 counters on its spell, which we, again, corrected on second attempt). Anyway, long story short, these were fairly easy runs and I was happy to be tank in a PUG that thought I did well. Also, I had no issues with aggro in either of these groups. Today, I grouped with four members from a certain guild on AB (I won't mention names, because I don't want to skew the focus of this post). and I had a helluva a rough time maintaining aggro. We had a dirge, ranger, necro and beastlord for DPS, and it didn't seem to matter who I put Amends on, I was fighting for aggro all day. So I want to know what other Paladins are doing to maintain aggro. Note: I could only *listen* on voice chat, since I do not yet have a headset, but from what I heard, these folks basically thought I was the worst Paladin ever, and that because I had Amends, I should have never had issues maintaining aggro. Eventually, after about the 3rd wipe in zone (not even to final named mob yet) I got the blame and they booted me. That was depressing enough, but listening to some of their condescending commentary was really almost enough to make me leave on my own. We're all people. Humans. I actually want to learn and get better. I work hard to learn this game and be good at my role. 10 years ago, in EQ1, I was a premiere tank on my server. Eight years ago, before I left EQ2, I was a raid leader for my guild on Luclin (now defunct), and I worked hard to know every strategy of every mob, and do my role to perfection. Yeah, I've had 8 years of layoff; but I'm back, and dedicated to learning how to do this right. So it really irked me to have these people diss on me so hard. Anyway.. I want to know what other Paladins are doing, and if anyone ever has issues maintaining aggro. For starters, I have Hate capped at 100%. I have 100% Reuse as well, so I've been careful not to waste spots in AA on reuse speed. When I pull, I tend start with Decree. Because it's long casting and can be cast on the move and it's encounter only. I usually pre-cast Stonewall to try and make things easier for the healer. Immediately after Decree lands, I cast Righteousness, which is fast casting group encounter only aggro, and I have it AA spec'ed to do 25% more threat. I do that because (a) it's encounter-only (which matters in places like HCK) and it's threat to every mob. In a group where I don't have aggro issues, those two openers are enough to control the entire fight. After that I typically start bashing individual taunts, but recently I finished my AA line for AoM, so I've been using Vital Trigger, which increases my threat by 30% of my maximum health (which is around 1.2 million HP when buffed in a group). And yet, in groups like I was in today, this wasn't enough. If I had Amends on the Dirge, the Ranger was aggroed. If I had the Ranger on Amends, the Beastlord took it (only on certain mobs). If I had it on the Beastlord, the Dirge was getting aggro. It seemed like a no-win scenario. Occasionally, Holy Ground could snap it back for me, but even that didn't seem fail-safe. So... what do folks recommend for starting an encounter, and working through it, when you have four DPS classes that all parse pretty close together? (I had ACT up, and analyzed it after this group kicked me, and everyone was pretty close in DPS, but the Ranger was tops on most mobs, however, not by much). Do I need to pre-cast Sigil on every pull? Do I need to be using Ancient Wrath more in the opening (especially in zones like Dino where you can safely use AE)? Or does my group just need to give me 2-3 seconds before going hog-wild? I dunno. I know that some PUG's, I don't have this issue. In groups where I have a high DPS necro, or assassin, I never have problems. I put Amends on them and go. I open with Decree, follow with and Righteousness, and I'm good to go the whole fight, and I never need to use Holy Ground or Sigil unless there's adds. I really want to kick *** at my job. I love being a Paladin. I don't like condescending jerks though. I want to shut these people up. I can get better at this. Help me. Thanks community. EQ2 still is the best game and community out there.
You need at least 200 haste, 116.5 multiattack, and as close to 600 DPS mod as possible. Also, casting speed should be closer to 100%, like Jrel mentioned. Hate mod is secondary to all of these stats, especially since you have amends. Also, it depends on what you're tanking, but part of your difficulty getting aggro comes from having 0% strikethrough. These stat changes will help you out immensely.
Cavalier's shout is usually high on the threat parse of my paladin, it's a free taunt. Take gallantry (clairon is very good), Also use sigil a lot, the only reason not to use it is if you think you may need it later but reuse is not that high.
I don't main a paladin - in fact I haven't played one in a couple expansions now, so take my advice with a grain of salt. If a more knowledgeable paladin comes and says I'm wrong they're probably right But just a few things I'd change (aa's): In the crusader tree, next to bottom line, take the 8 points out of Avenging Hatred and put them into Cavalier's Shout. Now that hate mod affects taunts properly those proced threat increases can build up a solid amount of hate for you. That and I really don't like recovery speed, I think it's useless In the dragon tree, far right line, second ability down Ancient Advance. I know it looks like a dps ability, and it is, but if you think about it you're casting your taunts as much as possible anyway because they're great threat. Put 10 points into that and you're getting not only the base taunt's threat, but the threat from a reasonable sized damage hit as well. I really don't know if paladins get more use from this than most, but personally I would take the points you need to buy Ancient Advance from Last Stand (second from the left, third ability down). I've never gotten a good use from that ability, it's just too limited. Taking those points unfortunately also means losing Draconic Shout, so it's up to you if that's acceptable. I personally don't take it (though as I said, I'm not a paladin), but I figure you have a lot of heals already, plus whatever healer is with you. /shrug. If you don't want to lose Shout I'd still try and find some points to put into adding damage to your taunts. In the new tree, Prestige (Paladin)... this is another one that people will probably object to, but how much benefit do you really get from Diamond Flesh? Can you honestly say those 3 seconds of DR have made a difference? I ask because if you were ok with dropping that, you could see a nice potency boost without losing much else. The way I have that tree laid out is 1 point at the top (obviously), 8 points in Enhanced Vigor, 5 points each in Imbued Sight (cb) and Undeniable Power (pot). Then I take the two abilities beneath those, Accuracy from Strength and Power from the Soul. And that leaves you with just enough to buy Vital Trigger as well. Why? Well first off, the ability below Enhanced Vigor, the aoe auto immunity, is junk. You're already the focus of the attacks, so you're not gonna get the immunity anyway. And Power from the Soul is going to net you a nice chunk of potency while you're fighting. Just going off of your eq2u profile, with 6170 strength, you'd be getting just under 50 potency. Keep in mind your strength is going to go up, from group buffs, procs, and as your gear gets better, so that potency is gonna go even higher. Potency adds to your taunts, your nukes, and ultimately more threat. I think those three changes could potentially add a lot of threat without sacrificing much. The only other advice I'd give is dependent on whether you have reforging on your account or not (nothing is reforged on your profile, at least not right now, so I don't know if it's an option). Whether or not you do, you could consider taking one piece of mit gear and swapping it for a piece of dps gear (gasp, sacrilege!). It'd at least boost up your dps and ma (that's the choice I'd suggest you take, if it's even available, I dunno). Oh, casting order, no really specific advice there but I noticed you didn't mention Faithful Cry. I always liked that as an opener
I may not know much about Paladins , But here is my 2 cents. It is not just your job to control the DPS agro. If their is a high dps class with no transfer and he/she knows how to play class that is the one I will amends. The way I look at it is this, Once you look at the parse (if available) you see who parsing highest and amends them. Let the group know who has Amends, this is effectively a warning to the others that you will provide them with Your pally Res if they don't know how to de-agro. You really should not have more that 50% hate. The stats mentioned by Ketu is important but should not be a focus. As a Paladin because they are hard to come by. For a Paladin, Focus on your survival first, you can always revive a dirge or healer and let them revive the rest. Looking at your gear and adorns I can see you are just getting started, however I will say you need to change your War-Runes, this is a good time to start working on the new one (Bolstered Endurance and Bolstered Attribute) are two must have. The health Purple adorns are not providing the Bonus because they not the new one. If you cannot afford the New one then look on Broker for old Crit Bonus Rune for cheap. Also look at one of the High end Paladins to get an Idea of gear and Adornment and use that as a guide bearing in mind that their gear allow them some reforging options that you may not have at this time. Last but not least, The fact you are hear trying to learn and grow means you are heading in the right direction.
Makes sense! Changed. I had forgotten about Ancient Advance. Changed. I still have Draconic Shout; I moved some things around. When I was looking at Diamond Flesh, the one thing I was disappointed with was the duration... with our other saves I can totally agree to give it up. Makes sense. I had not thought about the immunity to AE basically being worthless for us. I have switched to your recommendation. Seems logical to me. Oh yeah, I have reforging. I had just reset all my reforged gear last night, after reading this post, to see where my base gear was at, and what I could reforge again into a different set of stats that might be more beneficial. As of this morning, with some different adorns and reforges, my DPS is 300, and several other stats have improved. Faithful Cry always parsed highest for me as a single-target damage. Of course, now, Vital Trigger out parses everything, including my AutoAttack. But yeah, Faithful is the bomb. I'm thinking one thing I really want to try and is getting my AE autoattack up, so that in multi-mob encounters, when one mob dies and we switch to the next, I've built up some dps hate on the surrounding mobs. Obviously AE taunt and the encounter AE help with that, and I try and trigger those as fast as they pop, but some AE AutoAttack seems like a good idea as well. Appreciate the help! I'll take all I can get.
Yep, I saw the new purple health adorns in AoM, and I want them, but I don't have the Ferrins yet to get them. Working on it. Thanks! Trying...
Aggro has been a real pain this expansion. I went from 0% hate gain to 9.9% just to compensate! Ok jokes aside, it really has been bad. Personally all I did was focus up on my threat rotations, and being more aware of certain spells. Timewarps, Soulburns, Lifeburns, ROs, even Temporal Mimicry can now be a threat-jumper on the ladder. After some conscious effort I was able to overcome (and also giving myself a few more % of hate gain which I'm not convinced still even helps).
In my opinion (fwiw) I would leave AE auto as one of the last auto-attack stats to boost as a paladin. The reason I say this is you already have a huge number of blue AEs at your disposal. I'd work on getting that dps mod/MA/haste higher first before I'd then turn my attention to AE. Just my opinion though. Lot of other good advice here so far too.
Sometimes when grouping with certain members of certain guild I accept the fact that I am never going to be a good enough tank for them while the group prior thought I was awesome. One thing that helps when I get these folks in a pug is to chain pull everything as fast as I can and let the uber folks worry abou8t their own agro. Other times if the healer can not keep me alive for that I will just ignore them and do the best I can , being sure to focus hard on one mob at a time spamming my AOE's as much as possible and if I get booted so be it.
Holy Ground OR Sigil of Heroism. I alternate through them. One on one pull, one on the other. Check out this link: http://www.grenricks.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9977462&gid=60718
I think what shook me the most was simply how rude one of the members of that guild was in voice chat. I was just shocked. It was that snarky, sarcastic, you-totally-suck attitude. I have no idea if the person was a teenager or simply a twenty-something, but it was the rudest experience I've had in a voice chat during a game. And it wasn't just me; the person blasted two other players on two different occasions (and doing the math, that means at least one of those toons had to be a guildmate as well; I certainly wouldn't guild with someone who treated others like that). I just found it really disappointing. There's just no call for people to be act that way.
I've had some time to respec my AA and try this out, and I have to say, this is probably the best piece of advice here. Once I put 10 points into Ancient Advance, I noticed that the damage amount added to my taunts greatly exceeds the damage of most of my single-target CA's and spells at the moment. So when you factor in the hate from the taunt plus some of the best damage I can produce (outside of AutoAttack), this is definitely the way to go. And with Reuse and Casting speeds improve,d the taunts repop fast. I'm basically hammering only a few buttons now: Clarion, Righteousness, Vital Trigger, Faithful Cry, the the occasional Refusal of Atonement. Soloing, mobs are going down way faster. And in groups it's ideal because the taunts are a primary weapon. Now, I have Master's from the previous tier on most of my stuff, but no upgraded Masters for 95-100 (since the 95-100 Experts don't beat old Masters, no reason to spend the coin, and if you're going to buy a master, make a Grandmaster). I do not know what the damage will be like when I finally get upgraded to Grandmaster on a lot of these CA's and spells, but I'm not sure it will matter; from what I'm seeing, the damage of Ancient Advance is significant and taunts should now be your primary button mashing, along with Vital Trigger. The rest of what I'm seeing is: a) Precast Sigil or Holy Ground every pull. I prefer to use Sigil if I can and save Holy Ground as snap for adds. b) Use ACT to check DPS and ensure you're getting Amends on the best damage. Players like to lie about their DPS... So far... changes have helped. I'm still getting used to everything else a tank does and needs to do, but getting there I think. Thanks for help so far everyone.
Hey there bud! I know this thread has been quiet a while now but I wanted to check in and see how you are doing? I do not play pally alltho I have one on 95 since ToV i know what they are about. I do however play other tanks. Monk, guard and zerk and I usually make deepsers who by far outgear me work very hard before they take my precious aggro away from me. This I do by balancing the character a bit more. As a tank its easy to blindly focus on those +mit pieces and that is where it all goes south! DMG=Hategain! as you can see, putting dmg in ur taunts was a good move, they now give more hate, a bit more dps and they also trigger procs. As a result of having all tank gear your other stats are suffering, making you generate very little dmg. Switch your chest piece into a DPS piece, or even potency/casting speed. Switch cloak and belt into flurry OR, as you are a pally maybe even doublecast? Loads of ur stuff can double cast, even the dmg on ur taunts! Sometimes the best defense is offense! And when u try to protect the people around u you'll have to be a lill agressive Also do not be afraid to switch a jewelry part with mit/block for a piece with a high dmg proc! Those can help u a lot!
Aside from all the advice you are getting, this expansion is not agro friendly to tanks, there is not one tank in this game that I have seen that is perfect at agro control. But it's not their fault, your fault, anyone's fault. Day one of AOM saw agro all over the place. Day 30 of AOM sees a lot better control as gear has come out to help hold it or lose it. Just remember that when you place Amends on someone, The entire group/raid needs to know it. If you have your high dps amends, and someone has their deaggro on them, your washing it out. Not only is it a good idea to know how to play the Paladin class well, but this is one class that it's a good idea to know what other classes have agro control buffs, whether it's to increase it, or decrease it. Everyone's advice above is very solid, pretty impressed with some answers, but here is what I would add. I just grouped with a Necro who was complaining about agro, and he was ripping consistently, bragging about it. I couldn't see how, the zerker tank was really good and I was on my Illy. He wasn't doing that great of dps, but... how does a necro have 39% hate gain. I'll tell you how, after inspecting him on eq2u, he had 3 hate gain adornments on, just to screw around with the tank. Pretty uncalled for, but just use this comment as a reminder that it's not always you that has issues I would suggest that until you get your dps up, you are wearing and equipping hate gain procs even though the gear may not be as suited to you, just until you can hit some good numbers with your abilities. Good luck and Have fun!
Actually, I'm really happy with the build now. Hate hasn't been an issue at all. Yeah, I've been focusing heavy on the mitigation pieces, but it's been worth it. The survivability is excellent. Putting 10 points in Ancient Advance has made a big difference, not only in hate generation, but in the buttons I am pressing during attack. Now I can focus on smashing taunts instead of CA's, My taunts actually do more damage than a lot of my CA's, and with the added hate from the taunt directly, they are my first line of offense along with Vital Trigger, Faithful Cry, Heroic Dash and Refusal of Atonement. I usually open with Decree and followup with Righteousness (since it's cast time is basically zero, and it's encounter taunt, it's a great instant-followup). That's my one-two punch to open an encounter and with everything else I have going on, I don't have hate issues unless I do something wrong. Another thing that's made a big difference is some gear. Two rings in particular: Renewing Ring of Anarchy Virulent Band of Interception Both of those have hate procs (massive hate and/or positional increment +1). With these two rings, hate really isn't an issue in the xpac. On top of that, just a couple other things, like pre-casting Sigil on a big pull, and using ACT to ensure I have Amends on the highest DPS. Actually, the latter there, making sure I have Amends on the best DPS, makes a huge difference. About the only time I lose aggro now is if the highest DPS takes a dirt-nap and I forget to immediately put Amends back on them when they are rezzed. That's the only time I struggle (and that's just forgetfulness on my part). I generally save Holy Ground as a snap, since a lot of AoM zones allow for AoE and have adds come flying out of the air and such. It's a nice thing to have handy during certain named encounters, or ring events. And it's easier than trying to target/tab the add and use a single-target taunt like Rescue. Just flick Holy Ground and bam - everything nearby is on me. So yeah, the advice here was great, and helped a ton. I'm going to stick with the mitigation gear, however, until I see a problem, because the HP/Mitigation gear has been really nice, and I'm finding I'm really, really survivable. And as a tank, I like that. I go over my ACT parses after some zones, just to check. My outgoing hate is great. The only time I ever had a problem was in a guild group, and it was a funny story, because I just could not keep hate of a Shadowknight guildmate. And after the zone I kept thinking, "I know Shadowknights are great for hate, but that was ridiculous." So I checked ACT. Sure enough, he had the same two rings I had on, and he was getting +1 on the hate list every proc, leapfrogging me. I'd hit Rescue or Holy Ground or some such, and his ring would proc, and we were battling for hate all night. We laughed it off later, and now know - if either of us finds ourselves in the off-tank role, take off those rings...
You'll always run into bumps when it comes to holding aggro in PUGs. Some people that DPS very well can be slow on the pull, while others are quite quick to fire off their cannons. You'll have to compensate for that at times, even with amends running. DPS love to pull aggro and they'll do it whenever they can. Like you, I start with the decree/righteousness combo (in fact I just have them macro'd together) and I prefer to save Holy Ground if I know adds will be coming or if there is some chance of losing one or 2 mobs in a big pull. I'm still pretty squishy this xpac so I don't do many big pulls in zones yet. Also, the damage from Holy Ground is okay so I like to fire it off as often as I can in AoE situations.
My 2c for Paladins (which I don't play), is that Amends only helps for one person. If you have 1 person in the group much higher dps, then all is good. But in your group with a ranger, necro and beastlord all going gung ho to try and beat each other on the parse, then you're going to struggle as you'll only easily be able to keep aggro off the one with amends on. So the others are relying on your dps. So as others have said, make sure your dps stats are reasonable.
My tip is only worry about the agro during named fights, if the dps wants to rip agro on trash let them. The rest of the info in here is pretty much gold, have fun playing your Paladin. And I wish you the best in your further adventures!
