Crowd control via aggro?Follow

I need some advice from warriors. I'll be entering the 60's for the first time and I'm not sure this is something that's common and that I need to learn, of if I should just run away from the tactic.

I joined a pick-up ldon and the leader decided that rather than having the ranger root-park, that crowd control would be accomplished by me keeping aggro on multiple-mobs as we had no way to single-pull.

I tried my hardest to keep aggro up on two and three mobs at the same time but I kept losing at least one of the adds.

Should I:
a) Keep on the original mob I chose as MA. Whoever gets aggro from the other mob shouldn't have and needs to fend for themself.
b) Chase after the mob and get it off the caster.

If the fights take 2-3 minutes, heals will eventually draw some of the mobs onto the healer. Should I try to keep aggro up on all the mobs, or wait an try to snap aggro back after the secondary mobs aggro on the healer?


Edit: Oh, I should mention that somehow this tactic was different than the one we used last night on our froggy group, Kajolus (your frog is Oobaa right?), because our froggy group was successful and it didn't seem like we were playing ping-pong with adds. The ldon kept wiping, though, and the leader/healer was upset that I couldn't keep all the mobs on me.

Edited, Mon Aug 1 14:09:58 2005 by JoltinJoe

if you're trying to control aggro on multiple mobs, make sure that everyone is only on one of them.

Before you get more aggro tools, it's hard, unless the rangers awful or something root parking is better. I still prefer to root park most of the time.

I don't think that's the standard key, but I made mine Tab. That's also my warrior track ability - if I'm outside looking for a mob, I run around mashing Tab until something I like appears in my target window.

As a general rule, trying to have the MT keep agro on multiple mobs is not only difficult, but is also somewhat self defeating.

Of course, general rules always have exceptions, but it sounds like this particular group wasn't one of them. The problem is twofold:

- Keeping agro. Holding agro on one mob can be difficult at times. Trying to do it for 2 or 3 mobs at the same time is much moreso. Unless you have some method of AE taunt, this is usually going to require that you cycle though the mobs and taunt them as you can. This isn't going to be terribly effective. Also, since most folks use /assist on the MT to target their mob, it means you run a very good chance that a caster, healer, or anyone for that matter could end up on the "wrong" mob, making the tanks job that much harder.

- Reducing damage. The whole point of CC and single pulling in groups is to reduce the amount of healing needed during a fight. Heck. The whole point of having a MT is to try to fight in such a way that you have one mob hitting one person. Even if you succeed in keeping agro on 3 mobs for instance, you have now trippled the amount the healer needs to heal. It's just plain inefficient.


Either offtank adds, or CC them. Your group will work better even having a ranger/rogue offtanking adds, then trying to keep them all on one tank. The healer(s) can heal multiple people getting hit if it comes to that, and assuming they're all being meleed might even be able to do it without taking agro. You're unlikely to get away with that for long with just one person tanking.


I guess I just don't understand *why* this group was doing this. If you've got a healer in the group, you've got CC. Every class that has a heal spell also has a root spell of some kind. Just have the Tank engage one opponent and have everyone assist him. When the adds peel off for the healer, he should move a distance away, root the add, step away from it, and go back to healing the tank. Alternatively, a wizard can root. Necros and mages can offtank with their pets, and if you had an enchanter, I'd hope there would be no need for the discussion at all.

My point is that you'd have to work really hard to come up with a group makeup where you absolutely couldn't CC or offtank adds (or just avoid them in the first place). If you've got casters, you can CC. If you've got a melee heavy group, you can offtank. Trying to have one tank keep agro on several mobs as a tactic just seems wrong on many levels...

I am still the MA in situations like that, because I'm a bit of a control freak.

I just call the mob to do damage on, and yell at people until they get that I want them to stay on it and not continually assist me =p

Lol! I tend to do that too...


The problem though is when you have 3 mobs that all have the same name. So which "a goblin" are they supposed to be attacking? For most melee folks, that's not a problem, but for casters, especially healers, it can be a big deal.


Let's say I'm a druid, and I want to be able to heal *and* nuke (yeah. I know... no druid really wants to do that!). You engage and call assist. Ok. No problem. But then I need to heal you, so I /assist the mob to target you, right (or maybe use the F-keys, whatever). I heal you. Great. Now I want to nuke, so I /assist you to target the mob and get whatever mob you are targetting at this particular instance. Now maybe that's the right one, maybe not.

Presumably, the smart player would look for the mob that's already got damage on it, and not nuke an undamaged one. But now you've got folks clicking mobs trying to target them, which wastes time. Or you could target another melee and assist that person, but that defeats the whole MA/MT thing. Or you can just never have your healers cast offensive spells on the mobs, but that would **** off a lot of druids and shamans (and maybe even a few clerics!).

Also... There's a whole lot of not-smart players out there. I still say it's best to not have a single tank try to agro multiple mobs unless for some reason you actually have to do so. I guess if it's a guild group and your practicing agro control that's fine, but that's not something I'd ever recommend in a normal run of the mill group.

I would imagine so.

When playing with Fort, I assume after agro is established that you will stay on a mob until it's dead or message that you're changing targets (cause that's what you do). When we're fighting big mobs, Ob's will typically ONLY nuke the monster that you're battling with.

If you started switching targets frequently others would need to have one target to pound on.

Although it's certainly another technique to keep noted, and may have it's merit in very specific types of groups, it sounds like a funky way to do things.

Honestly though, you'll be better off offtanking in those situations. There really aren't that many places in the game with tons of root immune mobs, not if you're "just getting into the 60s". The problem is that you rapidly hit a point of diminishing returns when trying to agrotank multiple mobs.

Your agro is split up, but the damage is multiplied. So if you've got three mobs, you're mostly splitting your agro generation up among them (not exactly as there is some social agro buildup by agroing the mob next to another, but it's not that huge a factor), so against any one mob, you're generating about a third as much agro over time. However, assuming equivalent mobs, you're taking 3 times the damage and will therefor require three times the healing. That means that the healer will generate three times as much agro from heals. Your nuker will have to nuke 1/3rd as much (assuming he was working close to the agro edge before).

It's really really really not a tactic you should ever choose to use. Honestly, if the mobs you are fighting have a low enough dps that you can take the damage from all three, while splitting agro between them, and the healer isn't pulling agro by healing the damage (and he's able to keep you alive!), then just about *anyone* could offtank those mobs. Put a pet on one, a ranger on another, everyone else on yours. The healer will actually have an easier time keeping three people healed at X damage rate then one person at 3x. Obviously, this gets even easier if you've got more then one healer in the group too.


Don't get me wrong. I'm all for expanding horizons and learning new tactics. As a learning experience, I say go for it. It's a game, play how you want. However, I can tell you with some certainty that 99% of the "tactics" in the game is about avoiding situations like that. There's a reason why you'll find hundreds of guides and posts around on how to single pull in various zones, or the best methods for offtanking, or how to effectively use crowd control. All of those are techniques used to avoid multiple mobs in camp on a single target. I'd just make sure you're aware that this is something you should be working to avoid, not using as a tactic. You should be going to great lengths to find *any* other way to fight in order to avoid this. You'll just be better off...

Sounds like you need a chanter

I recomend the root/park method. In some cases if needed to the druid/ranger/necro could kite while the rest keep on the main target.

The game changes in the higher levels and different situations call for different strategies. In the low levels you didn't get as many resist/immune mobs if at all. In the 60+ it's very common especially with the newer expansions.

One thing that's fun is trying something new out. If it works great! If not well there's always the new guild lobby.