How do you "Tank"

[Tenlanni]

Seriously, I cannot for the life of me figure it out other than raw damage. In every other MMO I've played there is a method to keep agro off the squishies. Spamming a select button, or buttons, executing "high threat" moves, etc etc. But so far in DDO all I can do is hope I'm topping damage and try to trip em when I'm not.. :confused: and hits would be appreciated.

[DemonMage]

Intimidate is your taunt button. But it's rarely that great to have a tank.

[Harbinder]

You dish out damage, draw most if not all enemies' attention, and take the brunt of your opponents attacks for the group. Your AC is high, your hit points are top-notch, and you have weapons of destruction at your disposal. A good Intimidate score always helps too.

[cforce]

You're correct that it's much more difficult to reliably gather aggro in DDO than in many other MMO's, and there's no "lock down aggro control"; any tanking strategy in DDO is going to have holes in it where aggro slips out to others in the party.

I'd echo what's already been said, and also add a few pieces of 'icing' once you're already doing the basics of damage + intimidate.

An 'approach vector' like this will do well to maximize how much aggro you can gather with a tank build:
1. On approach, try to take the lead by a fair amount; make sure you're the first hostile that the mobs see.
2. Try *very* hard to be the first person to *damage* any mob. This may involve a heart-to-heart chat with any ranged members of your party. Try to encourage them not to start firing until *after* you've closed to melee and taken a swing.
3. Everyone else starts attacking. *Some* of the aggro will stay on you, but it's unlikely that all of it stays there.
4. Move from your initial attack point to wherever the most mobs that you 'lost' ran to (perhaps a Sorc in back)? When you get there, hit Intimidate. The guys that you *kept* aggro on will have been following you, and cooperate by positioning themselves nicely behind you in intimidate range.
5. During your 6-second intimidate window, spread the love -- try to damage as many targets as possible *among the mobs who weren't aggroed on you before the intimidate*. Your goal here is not to try and outdamage someone who's single-target focused, but to get the "one and only hit so far" on as many previously undamaged folks as possible.
6. Your initimdate breaks. You'll keep part of the crowd, and lose another part. Go to step 4.

Of course, things rarely go completely according to plan. Overall, just try to keep the following in mind:
- First person a mob catches sight of plays an important factor in aggro *until* someone does damage to any of the mobs in a crowd.
- First person who does damage to any of the mobs in a crowd plays an important factor in aggro for each mob *until* someone damages that mob.
- Doing damage to mobs who are already aggroed on you is wasted damage; always try to focus on mobs that *aren't* seeking you out
- Don't try to get aggro back from a DPS'er. There's a certain amount of "trust and smart play" involved in this, but the DPS'ers/squishies know (much better than you do) when they're able to handle aggro from a mob currently aggroed on you that they've decided to start attacking. Make their lives easy by gathering up all the aggro from the mobs they haven't attacked yet. This puts them in a position to dictate when they start taking damage from a mob, and do it on their terms, when they're ready for it. Of course, a certain percentage of DPS'ers are 'whirling ball of chaos' type players, and will just swing wildly and chaotically at anything in their vicinity. There's only so much you can do for them ;).

Some subtle things to make it easier:
- Plan your build to have an intimidate at least in the high 30's by 14. 40+ is ideal, but high 30's is still quite worthwhile.
- Look at hate-increasing enhancements if you are a Pally or WF
- You're proficient in *some* ranged weapon -- use it! Get the drop on other squishy ranged builds who might be jumping the gun by leading with ranged fire to get initial aggro on you before charging.
- Don't over-turtle. While some of the elite content seems to have to-hit bonuses up around +40, a lot of the content (even some lvl 14 elite quests) is way below that. Start out liberal (I never start out a quest with CE on, for example), and only make offense/defense tradeoffs if you feel like you're being hit too much. If you're putting up more defense than you need at the expense of cutting your offensive output, you're losing a damage component that makes it more difficult to keep aggro between intimidates.

Finally, expect your contributions to go unnoticed, even by the cleric. In fact, there's a decent chance the cleric will come away thinking *you're* the squishiest one in the group, since you're hopefully taking 60%+ of the attacks, and no-one else in the group is shouldering more than 10%! Since folks who plan for a 35-45 intimidate are rare, most of the time your party won't recognize what's going on. You really have to be able to take satisfaction in finishing a quest with fewer party deaths and a fuller cleric spell point bar or less cleric wand usage, and leave it at that.

[MrWizard]

Seriously, I cannot for the life of me figure it out other than raw damage. In every other MMO I've played there is a method to keep agro off the squishies. Spamming a select button, or buttons, executing "high threat" moves, etc etc. But so far in DDO all I can do is hope I'm topping damage and try to trip em when I'm not.. :confused: and hits would be appreciated.

I find that getting aggro is easy and I start out with a two handed weapon (such as in the marut room in POP...A nice two hander first swing and everything is on me...which kinda is a bummer really....lol

I try to get lots of items so I do not need buffs, never ask for nor need haste (who needs a +1 to anything at 14th level?), and will take most other buffs from non arcanes and clerics. To me, this leaves the casters and clerics with the ability to fend off something that gets through the fighters instead of wasting mana on needless and lame buffing.

My suggestion is to get house P or J buffs, carry pots of heroism, remove paralyze, remove fear, remove curse, poison neut, shield of faith, barkskin, haste, etc...anything you feel you will need for a battle (many you will not need or want, these are examples)...most potions will last the length of the battle if not much longer.

Fully buffed you are able to manage more mobs, take less damage and just get lots of aggro.

If you caster gets aggro first because he spiffed off a spell too early, I imagine he is an idiot or knows what he is doing, either way, he will be on his own as the party fights to survive...lol

Trip is okay, as is stun and such....you will find a much better experience if your cleric and caster use some form of crowd control. IF they do not, then it is a more battle centric group and there will be aggro issues.

It really is up to the caster, not you, if he is gonna get aggro....many want it, some do not....just beat the heck out of anything you can and let the cleric raise the casters.....

Zerging ahead will usually help get aggro too......a lot.

[Strakeln]

Finally, expect your contributions to go unnoticed, even by the cleric. In fact, there's a decent chance the cleric will come away thinking *you're* the squishiest one in the group, since you're hopefully taking 60%+ of the attacks, and no-one else in the group is shouldering more than 10%! Since folks who plan for a 35-45 intimidate are rare, most of the time your party won't recognize what's going on. You really have to be able to take satisfaction in finishing a quest with fewer party deaths and a fuller cleric spell point bar or less cleric wand usage, and leave it at that.QFT. So few people use intimidate that even nowadays, in elite level 14 content, I will run into people who ask what "that orange thing above the mobs' heads" is.

I shared this story elsewhere, but it seems appropriate to add here:

I was in a madstone elite run once with a few "paper tanks" - you know, high DPS, low HP (typically these are rogues or someone's first ranger). So I switched my barb to defensive mode, dusted off his shield, and started intimidating everything in sight. It was working extremely well... stuff was dying fast since the rogues were sneak attacking everything, and the ranger could TWF all he wanted.

Well, the cleric started complaining about how I was taking tons of damage while no one else was, how I had very few kills, then started asking what the heck was wrong with me/my build/etc. I tried to explain what I was doing, but to no avail. So I stopped, put the shield away, and went to town.

As one would expect, the paper tanks started dropping like flies. They all died, multiple times. Pretty soon the cleric was suggesting that maybe I should go back to my previous strategy, which I did with a bigole smile on my face. See, I was sitting there with a much bigger HP bar, decent AC, and tons of DR... this makes for easy healing on the part of the cleric.

Although, I must say that my favorite use of initimidate is when some stupid troll or ogre is about 1 swing away from creaming your party's squishy caster/cleric... just as they're closing their eyes in anticipation of the final blow, an orange icon shines above the bad guy's head. You can sometimes hear the sigh of relief through the mic. :D

[TommyBoy]

if your looking for just the aggro grabbing part you could always roll a WF. They have a hate grabbing enhancement line. couple that and two handed weapon and you'ld catch lots.

[Dariun]

Fireball is a great way to get and hold aggro :p.

[Strakeln]

Fireball is a great way to get and hold aggro :p.A great little side benefit for those WF warriors with a splash of sorc or wiz!

[binnsr]

QFT. So few people use intimidate that even nowadays, in elite level 14 content, I will run into people who ask what "that orange thing above the mobs' heads" is.

..

Although, I must say that my favorite use of initimidate is when some stupid troll or ogre is about 1 swing away from creaming your party's squishy caster/cleric... just as they're closing their eyes in anticipation of the final blow, an orange icon shines above the bad guy's head. You can sometimes hear the sigh of relief through the mic. :D

My favorite use of intimidate so far is split between watching the beholder in Prison of the Planes do a 180 and then get flesh-to-stoned immediately (again, there's that sigh of relief from the caster he *was* glaring at) and being able to pull the Reaver out of the mess of squishies without even hitting him.. I typically run with the same crowd of folks from a couple of guilds and they all know that the big-orange face over the mob means they can fire for effect. When I first started using it, however, there was a lot of that 'what is that thing?' going on too..

back on topic though, I think cforce pretty much summed up things. The only exception I have to his rule is that I run with CE pretty much 24/7 and haven't had any issues with losing agro in the gianthold.

[Ghoste]

Charm. Be on your way.

Works great if you dont need to kill every thing to advance quest. Gets difficult when grouping with melee focus characters who want to rush in there, grab all the agro, kill everything they can, and suck up a lot of the cleric's resources. Oh well, to each their own.

[cforce]

Fireball is a great way to get and hold aggro :p.

In earlier iterations of my WF Tank build, I actually planned on making liberal use of Fireball wands (with UMD) to generate aggro. The catch is: using a fireball wand turns off CE, so you have to be a much more active CE toggler to use this method regularly!

[binnsr]

Charm. Be on your way.

Works great if you dont need to kill every thing to advance quest. Gets difficult when grouping with melee focus characters who want to rush in there, grab all the agro, kill everything they can, and suck up a lot of the cleric's resources. Oh well, to each their own.
The OP had a question about tanking, not how to play an arcane caster, but thanks for your input anyway.

[Ghoste]

The OP had a question about tanking, not how to play an arcane caster, but thanks for your input anyway.Actually his point was about keeping the aggro off the squishies. My point was leaving it up to the squishies themselves can actually work better.
In every other MMO I've played there is a method to keep agro off the squishies.
But thanks for your response to my post anyway.

[binnsr]

you're very welcome.

btw, I do see the value of charming the whole dungeon -- it is one of the better resource savers that I've seen. Up until the caster runs out of juice, that is. :D

[cforce]

My favorite use of intimidate so far is split between watching the beholder in Prison of the Planes do a 180 and then get flesh-to-stoned immediately ...

Silly fleshies! Beholder-tanking is for Warforged! This starts to go off on a tangent (but not as far as some other posts here, so I think I'm still in bounds), but one of my favorite bits about playing a WF Tank is having no worries firing off an intimidate in the middle of a triplet of beholders! Ennervate? Energy drain immunity! Flesh-to-Stone? I'm not made of flesh! Other than a failed disintegrate save (which will crop up every once in a while, of course) about the worst they can do is give me a good fling with Telekinesis. (Wheeeeee!)

</shameless self-promotion>

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I've been considering walking backwards and trying to stay right on top of the caster.........seems like it would work well most of the time. :)

Also firing a ranged weopon from the back of the party and then switching to tank mode has promise as well.

Other than that, block doorways as much as possible.

[Averroes]

Trip is okay, as is stun and such....you will find a much better experience if your cleric and caster use some form of crowd control. IF they do not, then it is a more battle centric group and there will be aggro issues.


A good intimi-tank *is* crowd control.

Properly built and buffed, you're only getting hit by melee attacks when monsters roll 20s. You're only taking spell damage from failed saves, which are few and far between.

With an intimitank in the group, casters should almost never use crowd control. That defeats the purpose of the tank. Casters should be killing things, rogues should be dealing damage, and so forth.


The intimitank should be able to take well over 60% of the agro in most circumstances, and provide the rest of the group with +2 attack (from flanking) and sneak attack damage at least 60% of the time.

If you're dealing with things that you can't kill during the 6-second intimidate agro-lock, the party should be peeling them off of the tank one at a time, and they shouldn't live long enough to swing more than once at anyone other than the tank.

Careful positioning will often mean that monsters will only be able to turn around during the 4-second intimidate cooldown -- and then before they get in range of their new target, intimidate has fired off again.



As an aside, it is possible to have 100% agro lock in DDO -- bring 2 intimitanks along and get them to coordinate intimidates. That's fun stuff.

[skraus1]

A good intimi-tank *is* crowd control.


Or to put it the other way around, get a CC caster and you don't need an intimi-tank. The melee can then focus on damage.

This is one of the reasons why many clerics start using CC at higher levels. It saves them mana and it's more fun for them

[Ghoste]

Why would you charm the whole dungeon? One or two per group does the trick to keep their attention off of the party. Add maybe a hypnotism andthey're guaranteed to leave you alone long enough for you to get well past agro range. It amounts to fewer spell points than most casters spend in the usual fight anyways. Better agro management, more sp left for bosses, much faster quest completion. If you find this approach difficult to blend with tanks who love to kill everything, let them stay behind and waste everyone's time while you work on actually completing the quest.

And as far as crowd control defeatingthe purpose of a good intimitank...sure, I guess it kinda does if the intimitank wants the whole group attacking him at once as opposed to one attacking him while the rest stand there drooling at the pretty colors. It's not like they're going to be attacking me anyways, I'll be off controlling the next group and the next group on my way to completing the quest while you're still busy holding the agro of that first group instead of just letting them kill each other.

[narizue]

My favorite use of intimidate so far is split between watching the beholder in Prison of the Planes do a 180 and then get flesh-to-stoned immediately (again, there's that sigh of relief from the caster he *was* glaring at) and being able to pull the Reaver out of the mess of squishies without even hitting him...

Thanks Eld... Xan really appreciates that intim. :D

I think that once you have the build down; the AC, the weapons, enhancements, feats, skills; it really comes down to one thing. Awareness. The best tanks that I play with are aware of the battles around them, and act accordingly. Listen to your party members and watch what is going on around you. If you see the judgement impaired sorc toss off a fireball at a group of mobs its time to spam your intimidate, hit your cleave or whirlwind attack and then turtle down and take them one at a time.

Good tanks pay attention. Bad ones ride in my clerics backpack. :D

[Tulmeel]

I've found your posts very instructive. Quite to my personal suprise, I've found Barbarians and Fighters to be more successful for me than my casters.
I just starting to learn how to use all the skills available in these classes.

One thing that puzzles me is the zerg ahead habit of some casters.
Yesterday, one wiz kept opening doors before the rest of the group caught up. Don't mind standing in a door way and trying to hold back the tide but there are always some that get by when you have to turn your attention to a shaman that is trying to fry your gibblets. You do need to have someone to catch your back.

What do you do 1) slow down and let the wiz fend for him self?
or 2) Stand in the door and take it while the party catches up.

Alternative 2 causes some healer aggro.

[Strakeln]

I've found your posts very instructive. Quite to my personal suprise, I've found Barbarians and Fighters to be more successful for me than my casters.
I just starting to learn how to use all the skills available in these classes.

One thing that puzzles me is the zerg ahead habit of some casters.
Yesterday, one wiz kept opening doors before the rest of the group caught up. Don't mind standing in a door way and trying to hold back the tide but there are always some that get by when you have to turn your attention to a shaman that is trying to fry your gibblets. You do need to have someone to catch your back.

What do you do 1) slow down and let the wiz fend for him self?
or 2) Stand in the door and take it while the party catches up.

Alternative 2 causes some healer aggro.Typically, if an arcane is zerging ahead, you don't need to worry. Just follow the trail of bodies.

That said, idiots come in all classes.

[binnsr]

Typically, if an arcane is zerging ahead, you don't need to worry. Just follow the trail of bodies.

That said, idiots come in all classes.
At the high-end, the first statement is true .. at lower levels, before casters get their 'good' spells, you'll find the soulstone at the end of the trail..

The second statement applies through-out the levels :D

[Raithe]

Glad you asked the question. I think many, many people are thoroughly confused about Dungeons & Dragons - it doesn't really include the concept of tanks. This isn't a superhero contest, it's about real humans and demi-humans that are completely vulnerable living in a world of magic, fantasy, and mystery. The differences in character class don't really make as big a difference in survivability as attribute and feat choices do. Most so-called "tanks" (fighter-types) in DDO aren't even remotely worthy of the name - they could be taken out extremely easily with a DC 30 will save spell.

Intimidate is clutsy, and as an AoE usually attracts more attention than anyone would really want to take on by themselves. It's a misguided implementation of a D&D skill to try and correlate DDO combat with other MMO designs. I personally ignore it for the most part (once in a great while it becomes semi-useful when a troll is chasing a sp-deficient caster around).

As people have already mentioned, tanking is difficult to manage (especially in Gianthold), clutsy in it's application, and a good crowd control caster can make it completely unnecessary.

[xberto]

Most so-called "tanks" (fighter-types) in DDO aren't even remotely worthy of the name - they could be taken out extremely easily with a DC 30 will save spell.

I would define "tanking" in DDO as an ability to take heavy physical aggression without actually taking heavy damage. Of course a good tank would benifit from immunity to spells but we all know thats not always going to be possible. Every character will have a weakness somewhere. I'll agree though that "tank" is a label thrown around casually.



Intimidate is clutsy,.... I personally ignore it for the most part (once in a great while it becomes semi-useful when a troll is chasing a sp-deficient caster around).

Intimidate isn't effective crowd control like some of the casters spells but it certainly has it's advantages. Intimidate doesn't require mana, for one. When your squishy is a nuker, as so many of them are, intimidate may be your only crowd control! And I'll tell you what, my greataxe -swinging barb LOVES a good intimidator in the party!! It's so nice to get some good swings on a mob tightly clustered around an intimidator. I've got to disagree with most of your post, Raithe, because intimidate can be a very valuable skill and can be a key to being a good tank.

[Ghoste]

The second statement applies through-out the levels :D
Absolutely.

Caster zerging is still quite possible at low levels too though, although usually best with at least 2, if not more casters doing it together.Being able to self heal makes a big difference too.

[ErgonomicCat]

I would define "tanking" in DDO as an ability to take heavy physical aggression without actually taking heavy damage. Of course a good tank would benifit from immunity to spells but we all know thats not always going to be possible. Every character will have a weakness somewhere. I'll agree though that "tank" is a label thrown around casually.


I find the lack of true tanking to be extremely gratifying.

I play a Tank in City of Heroes. I enjoy it, and find it a challenge. But really, when all I have to do is leap in the middle of a group, turn on granite and mud pots, and start spamming taunt, what's the point?

DDO chose to forgo the "tank" role for the most part. Intimidate is a token concession, and one that's probably useful. But overall, it's up to the party as a whole to manage aggro, not one guy. And I love that.

[Eladiun]

...with my pants off.

[Anastasios]

DDO chose to forgo the "tank" role for the most part. Intimidate is a token concession, and one that's probably useful. But overall, it's up to the party as a whole to manage aggro, not one guy. And I love that.


Very true, I myself have found a few different tactics to incorporate. I'm sure there has been analysis in regards to crits in this matter, but I've noticed two tank types using two different weapons can flip flop the aggro quite easily. My fav is of course the Scim tank grouped with the Greataxe tank (both with imp crit slash of course), back and forth with just the weapons being swung, it's quite funny at times especially with mulitple mobs, which turn back and forth so many times that they just don't even bother swinging.

Just a question though, anyone ever touch base on whether or not they think the crit might have something to do with how much aggro you get. I mean we all say it's the amount of damage, ever wonder if the amount of crits you score in a long battle (Marilith pre-raid and raid, Velah, Sorjek, etc...) vs the number of crits another tank may score. As a scim Pally, which hits for about 30base with PA and about 60base on a crit vs a Barb with a GA swinging for about 50base and 140 crit, I've noticed the aggro will pull after a crit run even halfway through a 1 min fight, which in numbers should mean that the Barb has an avg of almost 600 per 10 swings vs 375 per 10 on the scim, which means I already am down 225 which is 8 norm swings norm or 4 crits. Even if the barb doesn't crit I am still down 125 2 crits, or 4 norm. Which means the only way I can keep up is 7 crits out of 10, which is next to impossible to maintain, all this w/out a smite evil, I have been able to grab aggro. Let me know what you all may think and keep in mind this pertains to the longer battles.

[Strakeln]

At the high-end, the first statement is true .. at lower levels, before casters get their 'good' spells, you'll find the soulstone at the end of the trail..

The second statement applies through-out the levels :DYeah, I forgot about lowbie casters until a couple of days ago, when I started a lowbie cleric. DANG those casters are squishy and ineffective at low levels! Juuuuust enough power to grab all agro, but not enough to kill anything except themselves :D

[cforce]

I would define "tanking" in DDO as an ability to take heavy physical aggression without actually taking heavy damage. Of course a good tank would benifit from immunity to spells but we all know thats not always going to be possible. Every character will have a weakness somewhere. I'll agree though that "tank" is a label thrown around casually.


I'll also agree with the statement that the label is thrown around way too casually -- in fact, I've seen people refer to DPS builds as "tanks"! Let me put some softer criteria around it. If you're running with a party, and there's one character who, if you had your druthers, would be the target of every enemy attack, that's the party's tank.

In my mind, that includes spells as well -- one of the reasons I favor the WF/Pally combo, for the extensive list of immunities. The only Will save I consistently have trouble with are the flayers' blasts (against which, I don't even try to tank).

But, I think everyone agrees that there's no "classic tank tactic" in DDO - they've implemented the ability to hold aggro as a much tougher challenge than a lot of MMO's, and it makes tanking (for me, at least) a lot more fun.

[ErgonomicCat]

Very true, I myself have found a few different tactics to incorporate. I'm sure there has been analysis in regards to crits in this matter, but I've noticed two tank types using two different weapons can flip flop the aggro quite easily. My fav is of course the Scim tank grouped with the Greataxe tank (both with imp crit slash of course), back and forth with just the weapons being swung, it's quite funny at times especially with mulitple mobs, which turn back and forth so many times that they just don't even bother swinging.

Just a question though, anyone ever touch base on whether or not they think the crit might have someting to do with how much aggro you get. I mean we all say it's the amount of damage, ever wonder if the amount of crits you score in a long battle (Marilith pre-raid and raid, Velah, Sorjek, etc...) vs the number of crits another tank may score. As a scim Pally, which hits for about 30base with PA and about 60base on a crit vs a Barb with a GA swinging for about 50base and 140 crit, I've noticed the aggro will pull after a crit run even halfway through a 1 min fight, which in numbers should mean that the Barb has an avg of almost 600 per 10 swings vs 375 per 10 on the scim, which means I already am down 225 which is 8 norm swings norm or 4 crits. Even if the barb doesn't crit I am still down 125 2 crits, or 4 norm. Which means the only way I can keep up is 7 crits out of 10, which is next to impossible to maintain, although w/out a Holy Smite, I have been able to grab aggro. Let me know what you all may think and keep in mind this pertains to the longer battles.

I would bet that aggro decays, and that recent hits have a multiplier over older hits.

So if you did 100, and the barb did 300, but then you do 200 while the barb does 100, you may well grab aggro.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

You're correct that it's much more difficult to reliably gather aggro in DDO than in many other MMO's, and there's no "lock down aggro control"; any tanking strategy in DDO is going to have holes in it where aggro slips out to others in the party.

[snip more good stuff]

Finally, expect your contributions to go unnoticed, even by the cleric. In fact, there's a decent chance the cleric will come away thinking *you're* the squishiest one in the group, since you're hopefully taking 60%+ of the attacks, and no-one else in the group is shouldering more than 10%! Since folks who plan for a 35-45 intimidate are rare, most of the time your party won't recognize what's going on. You really have to be able to take satisfaction in finishing a quest with fewer party deaths and a fuller cleric spell point bar or less cleric wand usage, and leave it at that.

Excellent post cforce.

Garth

[Inkblack]

Two intimitanks alternating their intimidates about 5 seconds apart... Almost as much fun for a rogue as mass hold.

Ink

[Dkmafia]

Seriously, I cannot for the life of me figure it out other than raw damage. In every other MMO I've played there is a method to keep agro off the squishies. Spamming a select button, or buttons, executing "high threat" moves, etc etc. But so far in DDO all I can do is hope I'm topping damage and try to trip em when I'm not.. :confused: and hits would be appreciated.

Actually a lot of it is timing. You do have intimidation thats lasts 6 seconds of every 10. I usually run in and hit my special abilities trip/stunning etc. taking some out of combat, I allow a few to pass so any initial damage by squishies is on them then I hit intimidate and try to match the damage on the mobs.

I never take a mob past half unless the others are CC'd and/or it's the last mob.

[Dkmafia]

You're correct that it's much more difficult to reliably gather aggro in DDO than in many other MMO's, and there's no "lock down aggro control"; any tanking strategy in DDO is going to have holes in it where aggro slips out to others in the party.

I'd echo what's already been said, and also add a few pieces of 'icing' once you're already doing the basics of damage + intimidate.

An 'approach vector' like this will do well to maximize how much aggro you can gather with a tank build:
1. On approach, try to take the lead by a fair amount; make sure you're the first hostile that the mobs see.
2. Try *very* hard to be the first person to *damage* any mob. This may involve a heart-to-heart chat with any ranged members of your party. Try to encourage them not to start firing until *after* you've closed to melee and taken a swing.
3. Everyone else starts attacking. *Some* of the aggro will stay on you, but it's unlikely that all of it stays there.
4. Move from your initial attack point to wherever the most mobs that you 'lost' ran to (perhaps a Sorc in back)? When you get there, hit Intimidate. The guys that you *kept* aggro on will have been following you, and cooperate by positioning themselves nicely behind you in intimidate range.
5. During your 6-second intimidate window, spread the love -- try to damage as many targets as possible *among the mobs who weren't aggroed on you before the intimidate*. Your goal here is not to try and outdamage someone who's single-target focused, but to get the "one and only hit so far" on as many previously undamaged folks as possible.
6. Your initimdate breaks. You'll keep part of the crowd, and lose another part. Go to step 4.

Of course, things rarely go completely according to plan. Overall, just try to keep the following in mind:
- First person a mob catches sight of plays an important factor in aggro *until* someone does damage to any of the mobs in a crowd.
- First person who does damage to any of the mobs in a crowd plays an important factor in aggro for each mob *until* someone damages that mob.
- Doing damage to mobs who are already aggroed on you is wasted damage; always try to focus on mobs that *aren't* seeking you out
- Don't try to get aggro back from a DPS'er. There's a certain amount of "trust and smart play" involved in this, but the DPS'ers/squishies know (much better than you do) when they're able to handle aggro from a mob currently aggroed on you that they've decided to start attacking. Make their lives easy by gathering up all the aggro from the mobs they haven't attacked yet. This puts them in a position to dictate when they start taking damage from a mob, and do it on their terms, when they're ready for it. Of course, a certain percentage of DPS'ers are 'whirling ball of chaos' type players, and will just swing wildly and chaotically at anything in their vicinity. There's only so much you can do for them ;).

Some subtle things to make it easier:
- Plan your build to have an intimidate at least in the high 30's by 14. 40+ is ideal, but high 30's is still quite worthwhile.
- Look at hate-increasing enhancements if you are a Pally or WF
- You're proficient in *some* ranged weapon -- use it! Get the drop on other squishy ranged builds who might be jumping the gun by leading with ranged fire to get initial aggro on you before charging.
- Don't over-turtle. While some of the elite content seems to have to-hit bonuses up around +40, a lot of the content (even some lvl 14 elite quests) is way below that. Start out liberal (I never start out a quest with CE on, for example), and only make offense/defense tradeoffs if you feel like you're being hit too much. If you're putting up more defense than you need at the expense of cutting your offensive output, you're losing a damage component that makes it more difficult to keep aggro between intimidates.

Finally, expect your contributions to go unnoticed, even by the cleric. In fact, there's a decent chance the cleric will come away thinking *you're* the squishiest one in the group, since you're hopefully taking 60%+ of the attacks, and no-one else in the group is shouldering more than 10%! Since folks who plan for a 35-45 intimidate are rare, most of the time your party won't recognize what's going on. You really have to be able to take satisfaction in finishing a quest with fewer party deaths and a fuller cleric spell point bar or less cleric wand usage, and leave it at that.

Excellent post - screw my post, what he said *points*

[Tenlanni]

Wow 2 pages! Thanks for all the info, tips, and opinions! Very helpfull!

[Velorn]

You're correct that it's much more difficult to reliably gather aggro in DDO than in many other MMO's, and there's no "lock down aggro control"; any tanking strategy in DDO is going to have holes in it where aggro slips out to others in the party.

I'd echo what's already been said, and also add a few pieces of 'icing' once you're already doing the basics of damage + intimidate.

An 'approach vector' like this will do well to maximize how much aggro you can gather with a tank build:
1. On approach, try to take the lead by a fair amount; make sure you're the first hostile that the mobs see.
2. Try *very* hard to be the first person to *damage* any mob. This may involve a heart-to-heart chat with any ranged members of your party. Try to encourage them not to start firing until *after* you've closed to melee and taken a swing.
3. Everyone else starts attacking. *Some* of the aggro will stay on you, but it's unlikely that all of it stays there.
4. Move from your initial attack point to wherever the most mobs that you 'lost' ran to (perhaps a Sorc in back)? When you get there, hit Intimidate. The guys that you *kept* aggro on will have been following you, and cooperate by positioning themselves nicely behind you in intimidate range.
5. During your 6-second intimidate window, spread the love -- try to damage as many targets as possible *among the mobs who weren't aggroed on you before the intimidate*. Your goal here is not to try and outdamage someone who's single-target focused, but to get the "one and only hit so far" on as many previously undamaged folks as possible.
6. Your initimdate breaks. You'll keep part of the crowd, and lose another part. Go to step 4.

Of course, things rarely go completely according to plan. Overall, just try to keep the following in mind:
- First person a mob catches sight of plays an important factor in aggro *until* someone does damage to any of the mobs in a crowd.
- First person who does damage to any of the mobs in a crowd plays an important factor in aggro for each mob *until* someone damages that mob.
- Doing damage to mobs who are already aggroed on you is wasted damage; always try to focus on mobs that *aren't* seeking you out
- Don't try to get aggro back from a DPS'er. There's a certain amount of "trust and smart play" involved in this, but the DPS'ers/squishies know (much better than you do) when they're able to handle aggro from a mob currently aggroed on you that they've decided to start attacking. Make their lives easy by gathering up all the aggro from the mobs they haven't attacked yet. This puts them in a position to dictate when they start taking damage from a mob, and do it on their terms, when they're ready for it. Of course, a certain percentage of DPS'ers are 'whirling ball of chaos' type players, and will just swing wildly and chaotically at anything in their vicinity. There's only so much you can do for them ;).

Some subtle things to make it easier:
- Plan your build to have an intimidate at least in the high 30's by 14. 40+ is ideal, but high 30's is still quite worthwhile.
- Look at hate-increasing enhancements if you are a Pally or WF
- You're proficient in *some* ranged weapon -- use it! Get the drop on other squishy ranged builds who might be jumping the gun by leading with ranged fire to get initial aggro on you before charging.
- Don't over-turtle. While some of the elite content seems to have to-hit bonuses up around +40, a lot of the content (even some lvl 14 elite quests) is way below that. Start out liberal (I never start out a quest with CE on, for example), and only make offense/defense tradeoffs if you feel like you're being hit too much. If you're putting up more defense than you need at the expense of cutting your offensive output, you're losing a damage component that makes it more difficult to keep aggro between intimidates.

Finally, expect your contributions to go unnoticed, even by the cleric. In fact, there's a decent chance the cleric will come away thinking *you're* the squishiest one in the group, since you're hopefully taking 60%+ of the attacks, and no-one else in the group is shouldering more than 10%! Since folks who plan for a 35-45 intimidate are rare, most of the time your party won't recognize what's going on. You really have to be able to take satisfaction in finishing a quest with fewer party deaths and a fuller cleric spell point bar or less cleric wand usage, and leave it at that.

Thanks for the excellent post Bro. I read this yesterday and last night in a guildie stormreaver raid the members in the party chose me "to be the hero". Now I get what they were talking about. I was to pull the stormreavers' aggro.

Since it was my second time in the quest I figured they just wanted me to run up and start wacking away. What a n00b...sheesh. As I'm wacking away, someone in the group said (not exact quote but you get the idea) "You can stop hitting him (He was halfway down in HP) and just shield block". I figured OK, and did. As I was doing this...something clicked in my head. OMG, I was being asked to "tank". I don't recall if I was taking a lot of damage (I was constantly trying to keep in front of him) and the "blue" icon above my head was indicating that I was deflecting quite a few swings. But I definitely need some practice and an intim item cause I figured that was the reason he always seemed to back away from me. I wasn't actually holding anything while "tanking". Thanks again

[TriplettJ]

My favorite method is to jump into the middle of the mobs with a 2H weapon and use "whirlwind attack" and actually hit all of the mobs at once.

[twix]

I ahave an intimitank.They are really fun to play and often save a party member or two.Hes level 12 with a 52 ac with barks so doesnt get hit very often except on elite gh stuff.I also have whirlwind to grab agro from everthing right off the bat and then spam intimidate where its needed every 6 seconds. Its also fun to run in a mob that everyones fighting and intmidate it all to yourself and run across the room and watch as everyone chases it :)

[Varis]

meh I tank all day without intimidate and NEVER loose aggro. Those guys insist on sticking to me if it's the last thing they do.

I scoff at combat expertise, 43 AC blocking is plenty, 172 hp's are enough too, I have heavy fort after all and displacement.

I get no appreciation though.... the clerics yells at me, the DPSers yell at me... then there is the whines that I stay ahead of the party (zerg) to make sure I control aggro just like someone suggested...

I feel like I'm doing everything right :(

No appreciation for sorcerers these days, I tell ya....

[Strakeln]

meh I tank all day without intimidate and NEVER loose aggro. Those guys insist on sticking to me if it's the last thing they do.

I scoff at combat expertise, 43 AC blocking is plenty, 172 hp's are enough too, I have heavy fort after all and displacement.

I get no appreciation though.... the clerics yells at me, the DPSers yell at me... then there is the whines that I stay ahead of the party (zerg) to make sure I control aggro just like someone suggested...

I feel like I'm doing everything right :(

No appreciation for sorcerers these days, I tell ya....Heh... I'm glad I kept reading until the last line. Hook, line, sinker.

[Maldini]

Damage is good, but Intimidate is better. When Intimidate is active, no amount of damage can tear the aggro away from you.

A good arcane can outdamage a melee anyday of the week, so trying to consistenly lock down aggro with pure melee damage isn't always the best way.

[Aeneas]

Slapping on your asbestos fire suit and standing in a wall of fire while intimidating is currently among the most efficient ways to kill a mob with minimal hp losses to yourself and the party.

[Blyte]

I use a high ac/save/intimidate build, with whirlwind attack and greater bane weapons.

Always try to be the frontman in a dungeon as well.. unless you don't know the dungeon and then I suggest following the rogue =)

Typically, I will run past the first 1-2 stragglers, tapping intimidate when I am behind them heading towards the mob of monsters. When I reach the mob I will tap whirlwind attack.. I use weapons like axiomatic greater orc bane 1handers so it's basically like dropping a fireball on them when I whirlwind.

It's fundamental that you can survive the attention, and I suggest HIGH saves/ac and evasion as well from a few rogue levels.. no one wants a tank who isn't a good damage sink for aggro. You want the monsters whiffing and their spells not sticking.

My current tank is 8ftr, 3pal, 3rog projected... 53 selfbuffed ac, and 25+ in all saves. My fighter uses combat expertise, so he doesn't hit as often as he could, but the greaterbanes help make up for that reaching +5 to +8 against the creature type.


anyhow to recap:
1-high intimidate
2-high ac (combat expertise or tower shield, but I don't suggest both)
3-high saves (drow SR helps too!) (luck of heroes & iron will help alot as well)
4-lead in your pencil (IE greaterbane weapons)

If you have all these things, you have the tools to keep aggro off your group.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

What do you do 1) slow down and let the wiz fend for him self?
or 2) Stand in the door and take it while the party catches up.

I must admit that in some dungeons that are "caster friendly" (ie must stuff tends to fall quickly for our death spells) I do sometimes zerg ahead when I'm in the mood. I can be a lot of fun to just run ahead and wipe out all resistance.

However, such strategies can go wrong...and eventually will. If I get my butt kicked because I zerged a little too far ahead and took on more than I could quickly CC or insta kill...well, that's my fault, and that will be the first words out of my mouth.

So, if you are trailing me and you can keep me alive, great. But don't get yourself killed over it. If I die, I'll just wait patiently for the rest of you to find my stone and tease me for being so squishy :D

(Same rule BTW applies to zerging Barbarians)