Anyone else have a rough time holding aggro?

Hi,

I've played my dread knight to lvl 15 and I think I'm either missing something or the aggro holding abilities of the DK are lacking. The only two abilities I have for hate is provoke (which is very minimal hate) and a DoT (which is double provoke but over about 20 seconds i think) Whenever I go with a group to the gardens in Kojan If I don't get a good 10 seconds alone with the mob first there's no prayer for me holding aggro. Even then it gets pulled off. I know the DK has the rescue but again, this is only usable after I lose aggro which I don't want to be doing with normality. I'm just curious if the DK gets better at holding aggro at higher lvls or if its rough all the way through. I'm taunting every chance I get and use the DoT everytime as well on top of attacking. Then of course I use the rescues when I lose the aggro (which seems to be way to much) so its not a matter of me not using my abilities. I'm just curious if all the tanks are not quite equal as far as the ability to hold aggro, and if i'm looking for the one who does it best if the DK is possibly the wrong choice for me. Thanks for any replies and info.

Ronadin

I'm a 15 DK like yourself, except I have no problem holding aggro as long as I'm in the tanking stance. The only time I do lose aggro is to a ranger or an offensive melee class that gets consecutive crits, and that's when I use my rescue.

The DRK has the most trouble holding aggro before level 30. Until then you have to be conscious of the abilities that are needed to control it. Tanking stance is the key, and reminding your group to give you a chance to build your aggro before they go nuts. Sometimes its not your fault at all but over eager or inexperienced dps players, who dont build up to their big numbers but start off with the heavy hitters...

Xaices's answer to your concerns over on the OVF... He is the class lead for DRK:

I have been working with Avair to fix our agro and mit problems pre 30.

The problem is two fold 1 is all our abilities are tied into DC in one way or another. The main thing being our dmg, the higher DC the higher our dmg the Higher our Hate. Also Provoke is tied into DC the higher our DC the Higher the Hate from Provoke. Believe me its awsome 30+, but it is not doing us any good in the lower levels.

Also there is a ability level obtainment issue. We are not getting the abilities we should pre 30+

Basicaly 30+ is our defining time atm and it should not be.

There are two important things that make a tank a tank and able to do his job. Thats mitigation and agro.. every thing else is frills and thrills.

We are getting another pass over along with the rest of the protective fighters with in the next couple weeks. You will see continual fixes in each days patches. Their goal is to compare the three tanks and look at there abiltiy sets at levels and there respective bugs and issues and adjust/tweek/fix where appropriate.

Be aware Avair will be tweeking some things such as your hate abiltiies at lower levels. And moving abilities around for a more appropriate level obtainment. Such as Shield of Fear and Dark Bastion will be moved down Life taps will be moved down. DC is being looked into and may be adjusted on how it benifits abiltiies at lower levels.

Also keep in mind it is crunch time for them. We are not the only class on the slate for fixing and IMO there are realy some other classes out there that need more attention right now than we do in all fairness.

BTW hate numbers have been added to your hate abilities so now you can see exactly how much hate they generate. Incite did not get the update this round, but will get it in a comming patch.

to simplify how hate works in this game. dmg=hate

So 450 dmg = 450 hate so if you have an ability that says does 450 hate that is the equivilent of gaining the hate if you did 450 dmg. There are alos factors in there like counterspell, mez, heals etc that also have a hate number associated with them some do more some do less, but I think should get the picture of how hate works in this game now.

Another great breakdown by Xaices for Aggro... Uses actual numbers to show that hate=dmg and what stances help the most with aggro.

dmg=hate

100dmg=100hate

So when it says adds 100 hate that is the same amount of hate had it come from damage.

That is how hate works in this game. All strait dmg attacks are = to the same amount in hate. All other abilities, mez, root, heals, etc. are then given a hate value depending on what the developer thought that abilitiy should be = to in dmg.

So lets look at a few numbers. Using Malice, Provoke, DEF and OFF stance.

Malice Deals 150% of normal DMG + an additional # to # dmg and an extra # to # to dmg if you are flanking with an ally.

Prokoke Increases your opponents hatred of you by # to # adds an additional 10% hate per DC level.

Armor of Darkness key things here for this is loweres your dmg by 10% and increases your hate per attack by 30%.

Ebon Blade key thing here is adds 10% dmg per attack.

To keep this simple stupid lets just say your normal attack is 100 and Malice additinal bonus is 10 and malice extra bonus is 10.

So in Shadow Meld stance with no bonus to dmg or hate:
Malice would do 150 dmg + 10 and plus 10 more should you be flanking with an ally. Total DMG 170 = Total hate 170

In Ebon Blade Stance with a 10 percent bonus to dmg:
Malice would do 160 dmg + 11 and plus 11 more should you be flanking with an ally. Total DMG 182 = Total hate 182

In Armor of Darkness Stance with a +30% to hate and -10% to dmg:
Malice would do 140 dmg + 9 and plus 9 should you be flanking with an ally. Total DMG 158 = Total hate 205.4 (30% of 158 is 47.4)

So as you can see the best stance to be in to generate hate is Armor of Darkness.

Now Provoke. Provoke was never intended to be a taunt as some of you are use to from other games. Provoke is to add hade ontop of what you are already generating thru dmg to keep you slightly above your allys normaly. Problem with Provoke currently is that it revolves around our DC level. Provoke gains 10% more hate per DC level. At lower levels you can only obtain the DC level that is available to you. So at ADV LVL 1 you can achieve DC 1 and thus gain a 10% bonus to your Provoke. At ADV LVL 6 you can achieve DC level 2 which will give you a 20% hate bonus to Provoke so on and so forth.

So now you should have a good Idea on how hate works in game and how hate works with the Dread Knight.

So now into some tips tricks.

Pull with DS at max range hit Torture as soon as the global refresh timer is done. This will start generating hate on the mob before it even gets to the grp and will already be debuffed so you can focus on establishing hate superiority.

Use Ravenging Drakness every time its up because this allows you to burst DPS generating more hate from the multiple succesive attacks.

Use Provoke every time it comes up. That is just that more hate you have on the mob.

If you are at a level of which you have obtained the ability Incite, use it. I am telling you Forgo wrack and use Incite if you feel you need that little extra hate boost.

All the while you should be throeing Vexing Strike in there and be watching your DC rise on your target, if you notice a large jump in DC imediately follow it up with Dreadful Visage and you get a bigger gain.

When it all comes down to it, its managing your abilities and using the appropriate one when necisary.

I find my self for going a little agro and using the Shield of Fear and Dark Bastion Chain line to gain a little more defence, because I know that If I loose agro durring this chain I have scoruge available to me which has an enough hate generated from it to get the mob back and keep it on me.

It realy is when and how you use and manage abilities. When it comes down to it. At lower levels it is a little more difficult because the amount of abilities you have available and the DC level of which you can obtain.

Currently trying to get a slight hate increase on lower level hate abilities. Such as a slight increase to torture and provoke and get the incite chain pushed down for lower level obtainment. Avair is aware of the lack of agro we can maintain at lower levels and is being looked into by the Developers. What their final desicion and tweek will be I am unsure of.

I hope this reply helped you and others better understand hate in game and in relation to the Dred Knight.

Thanks Ralsu, here is another tidbit that I thought was pretty interesting from Xaices... Aggro=Damage... so Aggro= DPS +taunting....

Check out his discovery in the INT and minimizing the CON on his level 40!


So I min'd my CON and STR and kept DEX maxed, maxed INT and dumped the rest back into STR and CON. by maxing my INT it gave me 3 points of dmg per 1 point of INT and was resisted less.

Another thing I found quite intersting is that at level 40 when I took points out of CON.

My Health (HP) Went from 5555 to 5183 difference 372. That 372 HP is equivilent to maybe 1 hit from a mob my level. Also I only lost 12 to all resists. So in comparison at level 40 If I put no points into con I loose 372 HP one attacks worth of dmg and 12 resist. How ever when I put those points into INT I nearly double my Spell DMG.

So look for me to be maxing Dex and Int on my DRK come release... double spell damage = 2xaggro that my spells were creating before= better aggro management....

I'd be intrested to know what race he was playing for the maxing int and dex. Obviously the orc i've been playing is pretty low on the intelligence, but pretty good elsewhere for the class in my mind.