Holding aggro as a vanguard

[MommaShorty]

Hello all! I'm a lady tank and up until yesterday had not a lot of problems holding aggro on baddies while doing flashpoints, heroics, etc.

 

I'm recently level 33 and have noticed on the last couple of FP I played (particularly Taral V) I've been having a REALLY hard time holding aggro. Sometimes it seems with just certain particular baddies but I will be unloading jolt, and harpoon if I'm far enough away, and unleashing all of my elemental attacks with ion cell active. I heard that elemental attacks increase threat and am 99% that's true but if it's not, please fill me in.

 

Does anyone have any advice about holding aggro as a vanguard? Certain stats to boost, abilities to use or any upcoming abilities that I may get as a vanguard to make the job a bit easier?

 

Also, I always make sure to use guardian typically on the healer for they are my main concern when taking aggro off of someone.

 

Any advice would be awesome

 

This is mostly due to me being a good tank and partially due to the fact that I had my first negative encounter with a party member yelling at me for not holding aggro perfectly. Always blame the tank

[Shizophim]

I recommend you put your guard on the melee dps in your proxemity.

 

Healers generate less threat then DD

 

Start the Fight with Harpoon. Its the Only Skill that generates additional Threat, according to the tooltip. Afterwards Storm in, pop your crit'cd, Ionpulse, Shockstrike, HiB is a good way to generate aggro.

 

Tell your Company to wait a bit before they join in the fight.

 

Often DD's use their damage Cooldown an the start of fight, thats why you cant hold aggro, dont argue on that, just taunt back and you should be fine.

 

Give your DD something to do, let them first focus on weak or Strong NPC's meanwhile you tank Elite and Higher.

Edited February 4, 2012 by Shizophim

[MommaShorty]

Thanks for the advice! Is it always good to be the first person to attack a group of enemies? Usually my team mates are good but sometimes they get antsy and just start attacking before I do. Usually just half a second before I do. How important is it to get that first shot off?

 

Also, is there a stat that helps with building threat?

 

I've learned what alacrity, critical rating, presence etc are but is there anything else that actually increases your threat level?

Edited February 5, 2012 by MommaShorty

[SirWai]

If your talking about Taral V i believe those two lizard thingies with the boss in the middle do not keep aggro, they keep jumping, your best bet is to pull when one of ur buddies is getting to half hp or lower. and hopefully you have a competent team to steamroll the middle guy 1st then deal with the two lizards.

[Daross]

In case of stats..

Its simple rule, the more damage, the more threat.

You might invested to much into endurance/def/absob, or ignoring any uppgrades which didnt increse your def stats.

50aim, 40endurance, 40 power is better than 20aim, 30 end, 10 def ... some people easly fall into trap of picking only gear with defensive stats.

 

Other than that .. do you have problems with general threat (for example tank and spank boss) or on trash where people randomply rip single mobs of you ?

[Mayol]

Accuracy and Aim are really the only ways to increase your threat generation. Don't go hunting for accuracy though, the level 50 purples will give you all you need once you get there.

 

When you're fighting a group of normals/strongs, start with some aoe... Mortar Volley, storm in, Pulse Cannon, Sticky Grenade, then Explosive Surge if you have it. ES is oretty expensive at 3 ammo, but it applies a damage debuff to 5 targets around you. If you're gonna get hit hard, follow up Neural Surge (later level) and Smoke Grenade.

 

I wouldn't start with harpoon, as it's got a long cooldown and it's handy to keep up your sleeve. Holding aggro with geared DPS at level 50 is VERY difficult, you WILL be using both taunts on cooldown in some fights, and having harpoon as a fallback is a very good idea. Opening with harpoon also splits up your targets negating your aoe. I've also used harpoon many times to pull a mob out of the path of incoming patrols, preventing adds from being aggroed. Very useful.

 

It's alot harder to hold aggro in this than wow - make sure dps you're with understand that. Don't bother trying to hold normal mobs unless you're bored... grab the Strongs and Elites, and make sure the DPS burn down the normals while you build threat on the big guys.

Edited February 5, 2012 by Mayol

[ururururu]

Accuracy and Aim are really the only ways to increase your threat generation.

well.. no

 

first, get a purple or blue aim barrel every odd level. by far the most critical increase to aggro possible! keep your barrel up to date!

 

increasing aim/crit/surge/power will also help your aggro. staying alive is half the battle of a tank. doing as much damage as possible is the other half. don't be afraid to gear for more dps. aggro is critical. check with your healer how easy you are to keep up and switch to more dps gear.

 

also, don't be afraid to let that idiot dps that attacks first die. you should take it as a compliment to you & your healers that they are confident in your ablities.. but don't let them get away with being dumb consistently. especially if you are worried about aggro. getting the first hit is a nice aggro boost IMO. (e.g. as mentioned mortar volley / storm / sticky / pulse cannon).

 

last, what is your spec? something like this would be fine.

 

as for elemental vs kinetic vs white damage abilities.. the one that do the most damage hold the most threat. so e.g. spec stockstrike is best, push that button as fast as you can.

Edited February 5, 2012 by ururururu

[pahbi]

Your dps in the group should always have a kill order. Preferably, weak adds first, then strong then finally the elites. If they do that it shouldn't be to big a problem.

 

The dps can pretty much tank weak adds with just a bit of healing even if they get agro and by the time they get to the strong / elites you will have lots and lots of threat on them.

 

- P

[MommaShorty]

If your talking about Taral V i believe those two lizard thingies with the boss in the middle do not keep aggro, they keep jumping, your best bet is to pull when one of ur buddies is getting to half hp or lower. and hopefully you have a competent team to steamroll the middle guy 1st then deal with the two lizards.

 

That's EXACTLY what I was talking about. The healer kept yelling at me and I was pretty much like, " I don't know what to tell you guy, this is weird."

 

Got through the FP though Kind of wanted to slap the healer at the end. One of those guys that kept saying "YOU GUYS blankity blank" as if he was Jesus and did nothing wrong

 

Thanks for all the advice. I think I feel a little more confident in my ability.

 

What I have learned: take all the yelling from the healer and transfer it to yell at the DPS

[Dustinrockwell]

What I have learned: take all the yelling from the healer and transfer it to yell at the DPS

 

Mitigation at its finest!

[THorsblood]

i was going to make a vanguard was all prepped for it too didn't want to be a common commando...but then i realized...there isn't many competent healers out there(ok there may be on your sever or hell i may just be plain wrong but its just my honest opinion)..so i decieded i may as well help out, cuz if i do say so myself i do a damn good job..at least that's what i was told ^___^ so now 3/5 of my charrs are healers and maybe 4/5 i haven't made up my mind on my only imp charr ehehh.

 

If you need a healer and are

A) Republic player

B) On the Krath Sever

C) Not a... cant find a nice word eheeheheh

D) A nice person * don't read to much into C i'm actually pretty nice lol.

 

Then hit me up

Jen- Sage. GREAT healer horrid DPS. Current LvL at post 37

Jenny- Scoundrel. Not enough data. C.L.A.P~14

Jennifer- Commando. Not enough data. C.L.A.P~0 yea i still have to re-roll havent got to it so hold off till this post is at least a week old

Jenn- Guardian. I'm aware that isn't a healer but hey i felt like showing off alts C.L.A.P~12

ALSO i do PvP warzones daily so if you want to Que up i'm all for it unless of course i'm off healing some one cuz they asked 1st lol

 

P.S tanking can be hard with the average player wanting to face-roll any thing that moves... just ask them to wait a sec so you can mark targets, its slow yes but if done correctly with the team it makes most fights LOL I WIN... for example Vanguard, Sage, Gunslinger, Sentinel = 2 droids out of the fight until your ready for them and 1 organic out of the fight until your ready *provided A) no one hits them and takes them out of CC and B) people pay attention to there singed mark

 

P.S.S. sorry for the long post i get bored looking though the forums and seem to have an urge to post...wich leads to longer posting like what im doing this very second.

 

P.S.S.S feal free to correct my grammer and spelling it will still be wrong and be higher up then your post:jawa_angel:

 

P.S.S.S.S C.L.A.P= Current lvl at post jeez...

[Itchy_Bum]

On Taral V there are a few bosses and mobs that do things that may be mistaken as losing threat.

 

Boss 1 - the lizards just charge random people every 20 seconds or so

 

Boss 2 - the big lizard man guy has a fairly good aggro table, sometimes the man does seem to occasionally jump aggro

 

Boss 3 - the scientist guy with adds, normal aggro table

 

Boss 4 - bonus boss, normal aggro table, but he will randomly cast lightning attack on RANDOM person not necessarily number 1 on aggro

 

Boss 5 - robot boss, he will do a missile salvo that he hits every 1 at least once, actually even though you have not lost aggro not a bad idea to taunt here to reduce damage done to team mates

 

Boss 6 - hail of bolts seems to hit random people not always no. 1 on threat...

 

To be honest with many bosses and mobs have some aoe type dps or cleaves, I find having taunt in the rotation can help minimize some damage and keep the aoe heals better, it also helps keeping aggro if the DPS is doing a good job of pulling it:)

[BanthaRaider]

Tell your Teammates: U are the Tank. U decide when to attack, whos target and maybe who gets CC!

 

If they charge in before u even start id let them die 2 or 3 times to make sure they learn.

 

We did all dailys yesterday as the DPS decided to start before tank was even rdy to type wich target first.. Thanks to awesome healpower everyone survived but it was close.

 

A few words to everyone and the tank got his time to grab the aggro. DPS on the weak ones, then silver finally elite. No aggro problem.

 

This was lvl50, it should work for 1-49 aswell!

[Mayol]

That's EXACTLY what I was talking about. The healer kept yelling at me and I was pretty much like, " I don't know what to tell you guy, this is weird."

 

Got through the FP though Kind of wanted to slap the healer at the end. One of those guys that kept saying "YOU GUYS blankity blank" as if he was Jesus and did nothing wrong

 

Thanks for all the advice. I think I feel a little more confident in my ability.

 

What I have learned: take all the yelling from the healer and transfer it to yell at the DPS

 

There's plenty more of those in HMs... almost every boss has abilities that they cast at a random member, but when it's a melee boss suddenly it looks like you're losing the mob.

 

BTW those 2 cats in Taral V, taunts do work on them (temporarily)... cooldown is too long to keep both of them on you, but you can generally cycle between sonic and jolt to keep them off the healer.

 

Really, though, they don't do much damage, dunno what the healer's problem was.

[va_wanderer]

Between mobs that can shuffle aggro (as noted above) and ones that will fire off abilites regardless of aggro (almost as if they're responding to something, I think...)...sometimes, no matter how stuck a mob is to the tank, it will snap at someone else.

 

Long as people aren't dying when the mob goes over to hump their leg, it's all good. The healer's probably not used to SWTOR's occasional aggro burps.

[Aeryl]

That's EXACTLY what I was talking about. The healer kept yelling at me and I was pretty much like, " I don't know what to tell you guy, this is weird."

 

Got through the FP though Kind of wanted to slap the healer at the end. One of those guys that kept saying "YOU GUYS blankity blank" as if he was Jesus and did nothing wrong

 

Thanks for all the advice. I think I feel a little more confident in my ability.

 

What I have learned: take all the yelling from the healer and transfer it to yell at the DPS

 

Handler Gattan has a targeted spell called Escape, which removes any kind of CC and presumably wipes the threat list. There's no animation or notification but that's why they'll just start hitting other people. Kill him first and then you can CC one while you kill the other.

 

Another part of being a good tank is knowing encounters before you do them. We're the de facto leader in a PUG since we should be the ones making the pulls. Look up bosses and understand the fight so you can tell your party what to do.

Edited February 6, 2012 by Aeryl

[MommaShorty]

I felt like I was really good at being a leader from level 20-30 and now since I'm level 33 everyone and their mom is "better at this game" than I am lol. I'll pull myself together and be the fearless leader I was meant to be!

[Mashien]

Find a balance between your mitigation and damage. I run 4 peice super commando, implants, ear, wrist. Rest is DPS gear. Due to diminishing returns its really easy to hit the bar where useful stats become useless. Work out what you need and swap in some damage where you can.

 

Get your rotation working well. It is really important to get your DPS rotation reliable. I have seen a few tanks, charge in worrying too much about holding aggro dumping all their ammo and spending the rest of the fight with hammer shot on spam.

 

I am assuming you went 31 points in SS tree so you will be mostly throwing, Stockstrike, High Impact bolt, Energy blast, Ion Pulse rinse repeat etc. Pulse canon and Explosive surge are fantastic for applying the 4% damage debuff to multiple mobs.

 

Save your taunts for when you lose aggro rather than opening with them, and tell your party members to give you the first 3 seconds of each fight without them doing any damage (not entirely neccessary but if you are worried you dont have the deeps to hold aggro a head start helps).

 

CC something. CC in this game is so easy, full 1 minute duration? easymode! use it, most are instant casts, last for days, and can be reapplied or rotated to another player. Find out what you have in your group at the start and tell them for example, you are the lightning mark anything with the lightning cc.

 

Lastly at the end of the day remember YOU are the tank, and they need you a lot more than you need them. You are the boss, you don't have to be a d*ck about it but you don't have to take sh*t from anyone either. Just remember while you are tanking there are 30 people in general calling you by your formal title "Tank".

[Dannicus]

If it's bosses, either you aren't hitting hard enough or you aren't using a smart rotation.

 

If it's trash mobs, it's because you're not employing your AoE intelligently and not prioritizing the correct mobs to spread your damage to and which to focus.

 

Mortar Volley should basically always be your first attack, especially against groups. You should herd as best you can for Ion Cannon next. From here, Sticky Grenade a mob you couldn't reach or one of the mobs you aren't going to focus on. Now, rotate as normally to keep your ammo up and damage output optimal. Obviously, you need to make sure, as the tank, that DPS follows your lead. If they don't you can't help it if they're stupid and ignore priority or instructions. Excepting boss fights, just about the only time a healer should need to target anyone else is if the tank is bad or the DPS is stupid or no one noticed the patrol.

[Falgern]

Hello all! I'm a lady tank and up until yesterday had not a lot of problems holding aggro on baddies while doing flashpoints, heroics, etc.

 

I'm recently level 33 and have noticed on the last couple of FP I played (particularly Taral V) I've been having a REALLY hard time holding aggro. Sometimes it seems with just certain particular baddies but I will be unloading jolt, and harpoon if I'm far enough away, and unleashing all of my elemental attacks with ion cell active. I heard that elemental attacks increase threat and am 99% that's true but if it's not, please fill me in.

 

Does anyone have any advice about holding aggro as a vanguard? Certain stats to boost, abilities to use or any upcoming abilities that I may get as a vanguard to make the job a bit easier?

 

Also, I always make sure to use guardian typically on the healer for they are my main concern when taking aggro off of someone.

 

Any advice would be awesome

 

This is mostly due to me being a good tank and partially due to the fact that I had my first negative encounter with a party member yelling at me for not holding aggro perfectly. Always blame the tank

 

Not a proper way to start a thread, your gender has nothing to do with the question.

 

 

You do want in general want to keep your hard hitting abilities, Stockstrike & High impact bolt on cooldown and just use ion pulse if you have any spare ammo left to use. Jolt is an emergency tool and should not be used constantly.

Pulse cannon is very good if you can stay still for the full channel as it does roughly the same damage as three ion pulse but uses less ammo.

[MommaShorty]

Thank for for all the advice!

 

And me being a lady has everything to do with this

 

Taunts for emergency, fight first, don't waste all your ammo at the beginning of the fight. I think I got this

[Falgern]

Thank for for all the advice!

 

And me being a lady has everything to do with this

 

Taunts for emergency, fight first, don't waste all your ammo at the beginning of the fight. I think I got this

 

On boss fights you generally want to blow all your ammo and then recharge it with "Recharge Cells" that will give you a nice threat to start off from

[Mashien]

On boss fights you generally want to blow all your ammo and then recharge it with "Recharge Cells" that will give you a nice threat to start off from

 

Ugh, I totally disagree, the fight is longer than a regular fight why would you want to limit your ammo? You build enough threat with a good dps rotation, throwing away your ammo just interrupts your rotation. It's really not a good idea.

[goonerforlife]

dont taunt at start imo , attack using your rotation then let everyone else attack if you are losing aggro then taunt. If you blow your taunts early you will struggle . if a idiot dps starts the fight as i have found they like to tell them to tank it:p

[Mozivicus]

dont taunt at start imo , attack using your rotation then let everyone else attack if you are losing aggro then taunt. If you blow your taunts early you will struggle . if a idiot dps starts the fight as i have found they like to tell them to tank it:p

 

LOL, why for did u dies so fast DPSer???