A note to IntimaTanks

[MrWizard]

I tried this last night with Sulley in ToD... not two handed but was able to TWF in Stalwart Defense(235% Hate Gen) and also intimidate, worked out extremely well... will have to try Horath next...

watch it on horoth. I tried both ways on my intim and found outside of a medal here and there and one in ten runs a disintegrate, blocking/intimming rocked.

Fighting and intimming left me open to most medals and most spells and my 39 dr went to 6. Massive spell damage and it seems the shield does block many spell effects.
I also hear the 'hate' thing is broken for stalwarts.

good luck on the runs, its fun tanking em isn't it?

[MrWizard]

I wish Mrwizard from this thread can come and answer you
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=229182

I am still working on my tank for this raid...trying to be 62 intim and 600+ HP.
But based on my observation from last year when I used to do DQ raids, she seems more likely to stay on intimitank with more guards ( which hit not for much but often).
Vod back in time of lvl 16 was known for switching aggro if somebody use lighting II or manyshot from main tank. So not sure about PA...but quick damage in short time can take aggro from intimitank if he didn't get enough aggro yet. My guess intimidate generate hate aggro over time just like DPS. So if somebody hit him very soon for big damage he can switch. Often when tank is dps based ppl give him some time to get aggro...but when he intimitank nobody wait long enough.. think it can be difference..But nobody know how intimidate mechanism work exactly...don't remember any reply from Turbine about it.

I find facing can change if the mob is flanked such as encircled. This is very obvious in part 5 shroud (where everyone says he has random aggro).
I also find ranged weapons can cause strange aggro if they are not within the immediate area causing teleports or odd facings (again as evidenced in shroud 5).
Ranged weapons, from too far away, also seem to cause the beasts to do massive aoe spells they might otherwise not do as much (ala shroud part 5).

Even if you do lose the aggro from a 'mis' intim due to lag or glitch, it will catch the next time. Although many prefer a DPS tank to do it instead, next time watch how long you wait til the dps 'grabs' aggro and how many times he spins around (again everyone stopping their attacks). If he does not spin around on the DPS tank it is usually because...wait for it....everyone took off power attack and lowered their dps output.

An alternative, which is very doable, is to get a nice intim-barb with a high 80s AC in the raid (yes, it can be done) which would fulfill DPS, Intim, and both for aggro.

[vyvy3369]

My experience doesnt agre with this. Intim will override all agro for 6 seconds and only 6 seconds so long as others are currently damaging the mob. Sullys agro resets when she teleports, so new agro needs to be established at that point. The only time sully used to bug agro was when someone was ranging her, she used to tele all over the place and into walls etc, but so long as said ranger was right up on her back it was fine. Lit II had nothing to do with making her agro buggy, its just that someone did more damage if a lit strike went off and possibly stole agro. My dps or intim tanks didnt have issues with either of the issues you have mentioned in vod. ( of course if I had 2 swings on sully, and a lit strike went off of course someone stole agro from my min II khops. But i think that is WAI)

From what I've seen, teleporting does NOT reset her aggro. It's just that typically if she teleports, it takes longer than the remaining intimidate to get over to wherever she is. However, if you get out where she can see you and/or you still have intimidate time remaining, she'll charge right at you again.

There are only a few things that I've seen that cause weirdness in regards to Intimidate aggro. The big one is lag - if you're experiencing a lot of lag, sometimes intimidate just doesn't actually go off, or takes a bit longer to go off. Deception I've heard can cause weird things to happen with aggro - possibly this is newish, but I'm sure we all heard people yelling about not using Deception in the Shroud. There are certain enemies who have special aggro rules (Titan for example), but those are the exception. Obviously stuns can cause a short amount of lost aggro time as well.

So in short, if you consistently hit intimidate every 6 seconds (and assuming that you pass on a 1), you will keep aggro. Yeah, you might end up with someone getting a medal or two if you lag on hitting intimidate again immediately, but it's reliable enough to work on any of the high-end raid bosses barring lag.

[cdemeritt]

Ok, since I have you all here, what Intimiate is needed for no-fail on normal in:

Hound
Orthons in VoD
Suul
Horoth
Amarath Trash
other places

[vyvy3369]

Ok, since I have you all here, what Intimiate is needed for no-fail on normal in:

Hound +69
Orthons in VoD ~+40, maybe +45
Suul Either +53 or +55, I forget which - Sally is the same DC as Harry if that helps
Horoth Somewhere around +60 - by the time ToD came out I had to remove items to get that low
Amarath Trash If you can get raid bosses, you should be able to get any level-appropriate trash
other places

Answers in red

[Quikster]

From what I've seen, teleporting does NOT reset her aggro. It's just that typically if she teleports, it takes longer than the remaining intimidate to get over to wherever she is. However, if you get out where she can see you and/or you still have intimidate time remaining, she'll charge right at you again.

There are only a few things that I've seen that cause weirdness in regards to Intimidate aggro. The big one is lag - if you're experiencing a lot of lag, sometimes intimidate just doesn't actually go off, or takes a bit longer to go off. Deception I've heard can cause weird things to happen with aggro - possibly this is newish, but I'm sure we all heard people yelling about not using Deception in the Shroud. There are certain enemies who have special aggro rules (Titan for example), but those are the exception. Obviously stuns can cause a short amount of lost aggro time as well.

So in short, if you consistently hit intimidate every 6 seconds (and assuming that you pass on a 1), you will keep aggro. Yeah, you might end up with someone getting a medal or two if you lag on hitting intimidate again immediately, but it's reliable enough to work on any of the high-end raid bosses barring lag.

Im pretty sure her agro is reset with the teleport. When dps tanking her on my wf with hate enhancements etc, once she teleports she goes after random people in the group (or she stands there bugged out)

As far as lag goes, all bets are off with lag as you dont know what is being registered by your client or the server etc.

[Quikster]

Answers in red

Orthons are somewhere around 35 on normal i believe.

[Cashiry]

Im pretty sure her agro is reset with the teleport. When dps tanking her on my wf with hate enhancements etc, once she teleports she goes after random people in the group (or she stands there bugged out)

As far as lag goes, all bets are off with lag as you dont know what is being registered by your client or the server etc.

Correct when Sully bugs out the first person to attack him will take the aggro... best way to deal with this is to pull out a ranged weapon and hit him once... he comes right to ya.... unless some newb hits him first....

[Quikster]

watch it on horoth. I tried both ways on my intim and found outside of a medal here and there and one in ten runs a disintegrate, blocking/intimming rocked.

Fighting and intimming left me open to most medals and most spells and my 39 dr went to 6. Massive spell damage and it seems the shield does block many spell effects.
I also hear the 'hate' thing is broken for stalwarts.

good luck on the runs, its fun tanking em isn't it?

Im not so sure on the tier three hate stance anymore. Will have to test some more, but it seemed that a significant difference was noticed by myself and a few other tanks i have talked too on the latest module.

Somethings maybe different but I havent noticed any difference on spell damage when shield blocking. Though Ive only tanked once since the last mod. Most of the previous times damage was from spells only (spells and badges) and teh occasional hit.

As far as dps tanks go, the reason people need to turn off pa is because the dps tanks dont have that much dps usually. Also some people tend to use stances when off tanking. I dont advise this, madstone up for the same effect and no hate. We have three tanks in the guild that utilize twf hate/dps as their main source of agro control and they rarely lose agro (usually to each other) but can occasionally.

[Quikster]

One other thing, there are subleties each tank has in how they do their job. Im rather new to the serious end game intimitanking so I usually defer to henry when hes in group (and cash though cash and I dont group all that often and rarely when both on our tanks) I still prefer to hate tank myself as its easier. But have tanked my current incarnation in both hound and vod elite, ToD hard, and havent had any issues. A few more pieces of gear and a 110k xp or so and ill get the capstone and will try to hate tank more often with intim being a back up.

Really the only test left is tod elite, I have the stats to do dq epic so im not really concerned with that at all, though the hound shield would be very helpful.

Speaking of which, not sure if you saw I posted in your thread the dc I saw for elite hound cannonfodder.

[Cashiry]

I have the stats to do dq epic so im not really concerned with that at all, though the hound shield would be very helpful.

.

I would pick up a second shield as well Quick and put the Adamantine Ritual on it for Epic Queen... i ran one the other day.. had a durability of 7/120 left before we beat her.. could have turned ugly if I lost the shield...

[Quikster]

I would pick up a second shield as well Quick and put the Adamantine Ritual on it for Epic Queen... i ran one the other day.. had a durability of 7/120 left before we beat her.. could have turned ugly if I lost the shield...

Lol yeah i got three in his bank in case i need to tank her before I pull the hound shield. Yeah if you lose that dr forget it. Ive had her chew me up on various alts, she can put a ton of dps out quick.

[vyvy3369]

I would pick up a second shield as well Quick and put the Adamantine Ritual on it for Epic Queen... i ran one the other day.. had a durability of 7/120 left before we beat her.. could have turned ugly if I lost the shield...

Heh, I've been looking for a second one too, but so far I've been doing well enough with just the one. SD requiring Item Defense seems to help, and I think the closest I've gotten was 30ish durability remaining.

[Cashiry]

Heh, I've been looking for a second one too, but so far I've been doing well enough with just the one. SD requiring Item Defense seems to help, and I think the closest I've gotten was 30ish durability remaining.

ya i picked up a second hound shield yesterday.. going to put the adamantine rituyals on it for epic tanking... and have the spare if I need it...

[RATRACE931]

I TR'd Oldbusted , my geared out Guard Barb, to max intimidate (will have 53 end game) And i love it with all of my guards and tons of DPS i never ose aggro anymore unless some1 is also Intimidating. I was wondering Quik/Cash, what kind of Intimi do u need for Epic DQ?

[Cashiry]

I TR'd Oldbusted , my geared out Guard Barb, to max intimidate (will have 53 end game) And i love it with all of my guards and tons of DPS i never ose aggro anymore unless some1 is also Intimidating. I was wondering Quik/Cash, what kind of Intimi do u need for Epic DQ?

I was failing on a 3 for Epic DQ as well... 75-4 Size=71..... 71+3=74 fail, 75 Got her on a roll of a 1... so 79 before size mod should keep her

[Quikster]

I TR'd Oldbusted , my geared out Guard Barb, to max intimidate (will have 53 end game) And i love it with all of my guards and tons of DPS i never ose aggro anymore unless some1 is also Intimidating. I was wondering Quik/Cash, what kind of Intimi do u need for Epic DQ?

79+1 before size penalty i believe.