Badgers Guide to Tanking

A while back I wrote a post on tanking for those new to playing a tank class and some stuff on handling multiple mobs, it was very rough though and needed an overhaul, so here it is.

Aggro and its mechanics

The tank's number one aim is to

A) Get the aggro (aka mob hitting him) and

B) Keep the aggro.

Aggro is affected in the following ways: Any offensive action against the mob. Any healing given to anyone taking offensive action against the mob. Proximity. Your faction status on factioning mobs

To add to this the whole combat is considered on who draws the aggro ie: Tank hits mob 4 times for 30 damage a shot. Proximity and damage dealt raise the tank high on the aggro chart with the 120 damage remembered, if a mage suddenly heals the tank for 250 points there is a VERY good chance the mob will break off the tank and head for the healer. If the healer is stood a good distance away and uses lower heals over a period of time however the tank will effortlessly hold the aggro

This is where the 'over time' casters excell. A mentalist can cast a heal over time and a Damage over time both of which do dam/heals every 5 or 6 seconds and help influence the combat decisively whilst keeping the chance of them drawing aggro very low.

Types of luring or pulling and mob grouping

Solo Mobs:

The easiest to deal with by far. If its an orange conn mob or less anyone can pull the mob to the group aslong as they don't use an extreme form of pulling that deals huge damage. A single 'taunt on' style should guarantee the mob turns to you. If its a red conn or purp you need to be the puller either with a bow, going close to it or as a champ using a debuff. If its red or higher it could well takedown your puller before you can hit it due to the miss ratio on high conn mobs, so pull the mob yourself.

Mob Groups:

Mobs which group provide massively more xp and loot than solo mobs, but require some forms of crowd control. The most effective crowd controllers in Hibernia are bards specialised in mesmerising. A good bard is invaluable to every group (all credit to the bard I usually group with here 'Banny' who is a great example of the trade) and in addition to 'mezzing' skills can provide stamina and mana songs to keep downtime to a minimum. Mentalists can also be a great help where no bard is available if they are highly specced in the appropriate line albeit shorter duration mezzes.

When you are forced to pull a mob and know others will 'add' in to the pull then your mezzer needs to be fully aware of which mob you are pulling and you need to be targetting the highest conn mob to make the chance of a succesful mezz on the adds all the more likely.

There will be times even then when more than one has to be dealt with due to unexpected adds, one resisting too much etc etc. It is your job as the tank to get the aggro off that mob also. Once you have it 'taunted on' to you, immediately concentrate on the lowest conn mob that is hitting you and get it taken out asap. The whole group needs to be aware of this procedure to ensure they don't start hitting or blasting the other mob and drag the aggro off elsewhere

Crowd control requires a lot of judgement calls and starting your group out on blue to yellow groups is a good way to refine your tactics before eventually leading to the red+red+purple groups

Tank abilities

Guard

When you have more than one tank present, guard is a godsend. Its a shield specialisation and requires a shield equipped to use. *although i've read rumours it works for 30 seconds after disarming shield i'm not convinced on this* Guard allows you a chance to block attacks against the person you are guarding aslong as they remain in shield reach, basically meaning if they are a shield user too then they get a second block chance from your guard ability - in some combats with Quarricle (one of our other high tanks) i've seen him block 3 - 4 times a hit aimed for me which on mobs hitting for 80 minimum means a lot of damage negated. Two shield using tanks with guard set on each other can comfortably take orange conns and survive low red conns without a healer using their taunt styles (obviously this is only if they are both actually speccing shield).

Protect

Protect skill is gained by Hero's at 12th I think and is basically a way to reduce the aggro a healer gains by healing a tank. It is also good for any high damage dealing mage to be on for the same reasons. Main tank should always be assigned to protect main healer/damage dealing mage and step down appropriately through the healers/mages and secondary tanks. I don't have figures on how effective protect is but it does reduce the number of times the mages draw aggro significantly.

Intercept

Gained by all tanks but I'm onsure on at which level. Intercept skill does just that. Eg: add breaks free from tank group or mezz and heads straight for caster. Caster is going down if this thing hits him twice and its red conn to the tank nearest meaning he may not be able to draw aggro in time before the caster starts a dirtnap.

Intercept will have one of three results:

A) Mob misses altogether.

B) Mob hits intercepter for 1 damage

c) Mob hits intercepter for full damage as if he was wearing no armour at all....

Once set the intercept skill lasts for 30 seconds before needing refreshing. Tank must be in shield range of caster to use this.

Engage

Seen this best used by a tank in Spragg Den when he was 2 levels higher than rest of tanks and the only one who could possibly tank a nix that spawned. The nix's always have adds almost without exception so we tried: He hit Engage and tanked the nix, the adds came and were ganked by the rest of the group and then we all joined in on the nix. Worked like a dream. It is a shield skill from level 7 shield, it blocks 95% of all attacks off the mob and deals no damage at all to the mob (or player in RvR).

Why use it? well when its a high con mob with possible adds it leaves 90% of the group free to hammer the adds while the main tank takes almost zero damage - its a crowd control type skill in PvM.

In RvR its the archers demise... You're hit by an arrow whilst hunting on the frontier.. You turn to face the archer and see him knocking another arrow... you target him and hit your engage hotkey running for his position. If he tries to stay and fight he will not hit you (ok 5%) and he'll quickly have an angry tank to melee.

It also allows you to try and tank high conn enemy tanks while your group piles in the damage.

Weapon specialisation

Choices

Due to the number of points you receive as hero it is very possible to specialise 1 line 100% and two others also very high. If you specialise 1 line 100% you will average 100 - 125% of your max damage consistently. The choices you can make as hero are basically 3 lines with your remaining points in a 4th skill. Some known working templates include:

LW CS Parry -- LW 1h Shld Parry -- CS Parry -- LW Parry -- 1h Shld Parry -- CS 1h Shld Parry

The choices are very varied and i'd suggest reading the Vault Network boards for Hibernia Guardian Classes before making your final choice.

Badger's own planned end specc is approximately CS 44 / 1h blunt 42 / Shld 42 / Parry 15 although items which raise levels hould result in a 50 specc on CS and somewhat higher on all others. Basically just decide if you want to be primarily a damage sponge type soaking up the hits or primarily a damage dealer with lower defence relying on his healers more heavily.

Equipment

The importance of kit appropriate to your level is massive. The difference between a piece of green and a piece of yellow armour for example can be 30+ less damage even in the mid 20 levels. As a 'main tank' you'll want to do all armour and weapon quests really aswell as fight mobs that drop armour.

Some good mobs for scale and reinforced are:

Muire tomb: Murkmen, men at arms, suitor spirits, all the named mobs and the ladies in waiting.

- Af 28 scale Spraggon den: all the spraggon types with the entry ones actually dropping more than all other areas. The rock & earth sprites also drop good armour and weapons whilst the worms drop items which give bonus hp.

- Af 40 scale - Af 48 reinforced Treibh Caillte: The thralls and ursines drop some excellent armour as you head into the 30+ levels. - Af 66 Thralls - Af 74 Ursines (both reinforced and scale drops, orange and red level kit at 30).

Check out the quest archives at daoc.warcry.com for good info on specific item quests.

Despite all this I still now find myself spending every penny earnt on new armour and in 2 levels will need yet another set of weapons and shield :/ Btw if you have to make a choice of weapons over armour at any stage then get the weapons before the armour. A good support and healing team will manage the demands on your hp but you always need to deal the damage that holds the aggro.