Some Tanking QuestionsFollow

I'm a lvl 65 prot pally, and i have been prot since day one. Recently though, i'm finding it increasingly harder to tank instances, specifically, Mana Tombs. As a large part of the instance are casters, holy shield becomes almost useless, and reactive damage i deal goes down. Plus, i have next to 0 resistance, so i'm not mitigating their spells at all.

This results in slight aggro issues. Nothing major, once i pop consecrate i've usually got them. But the big problem comes when i get disabled by the mobs. Some of them can incapacitate me for several seconds, and during that time aggro flies everywhere and it's really hard to pull them all back, even with righteous defence.

Is there any way to prevent this? any strategies or styles i could use to prevent aggro loss through disables?

I also have some gear questions. Concerning Seal of Righteousness, is it better to use a fast weapon or a slower one? This is all with regard to threat building of course.

Thanks.

Pretty much what arthoriuss said, CC is your friend here. There are some times when a paladin just can't take on the multiple mobs and that instance is one of them. Proprs to you for trying to figure out how to do it now, because it only gets worse later (SV and SL come to mind).

It's helpful if someone in your party or you know what the various mobs do. There's no real hard and fast rule for CC but it's necessary here. I prefer Sheep in these scenarios at least just because of its duration and it lasts a long time. Often a healing mob gets sheeped, but if not them then the fearing mob - it depends on the size of the pull the available CC and the terrain.

Of course that's not really what you asked. No, there is no way to prevent aggro loss through a disable. With some mobs they'll stay on you (or come right back to you when you wake up/stop running) but generally the aggro wipe is part of the disable. One thing that helps is having a good party - a good party knows that they can't just recommence nuking (everything and anything, especially) right after an aggro wipe, they have to give you time to get it back. If it's up and the area is clear, RD and then an avenger's shield can help. In SHadow Lab it's nice with the exorcism, though I think those blue guys in MT are demons too so you can use that for some nice upfront aggro again.

Basically what I do is leave the main mob targeted when I get feared and spam the RD hotkey so that it triggers as soon as the effect wears off. If it's a big problem sometimes I'll equip my PvP trinket to get out of at least one of the fears.

For your other question, personal prefence but I don't like slow weapons for tanking. Yes you'll do more damage with SoR on a slow weapon but to me they feel sorta spiky with threat, I like a nice 1.8/2.0 speed for steady threat gen.

Tact hit it on the head here with LOS. If you cant do this just throw your shield and run behind something that forces them to come right to you.

As you progress to harder dungeons you will need to use this method more and more, especially in Steamvaults where you will get groups of caster mobs that like to fear, heal and silence. Its just a matter of selecting appropriate CC and kill order. (Hunter's misdirect comes in handy too!)

If possible I go with: (1) skull - healer (stun when you see them casting), (2) CC (frost trap / seduce) - silence caster, (3) CC (sheep)-fear caster.

Give priority CC to fear casters as when this mobs casts fear no one can attack and chance of adds increases dramatically, whereas the other two just slow you down.

I agree with Celcio on the SoR slow fast/fast 1H question. The faster weapons (1.6-2.0) tend to be more consistent over time whereas the problem with a slower weapon is any misses you might have hurt you more.

If you are only facing one mob try using the relevant magic resist aura on them
instead of ret aura.

Good luck and hopefully this helps you in Mana Tombs. Personally I avoided MT when possible and just ran Sethekk Halls. There were plenty of fear casters there too but for some reason unknown I found it easier

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Arthorius - Khaz'garoth

Righteousness - you really shouldn't need to be spamming consecrates everywhere and your heals should return all the mana you need unless you're far overgeared for the instance (in which case, tank in your solo set).

Also, you'd be better served by getting a caster weapon with some +spell damage on it, that sword isn't really playing to your strengths or helping you out much.

Eh, you may want to train maces. There are many classic Paladin weapons that are maces, tbh -- much moreso, I find, than swords.

It's quick to train weapons anyway for a Paladin. Just keep SotC up to increase your swings and JoL up for heals and you can go for quite some time without having to do anything at all against a mob a few levels below you. To be honest, I'd recommend taking an hour or two to get your mace skill up.

Edited, Dec 7th 2007 5:47am by gwynhara

after a few runs in Mana tombs, i realized that CC wasnt nearly as big of issues as kill order.

i always saved my stun/BE silence for the healers.

i always pulled with avengers shield so fears where not really an issue.

and from playing city of heroes before this, LOS is instinct now so i do that whether i know im doing it or not.

The only thing that actually sucked, are those damn stuns that drop agro. i always mark those first. even before the healer/casters. and just keep my eye on the healer for a stun when needed. although in reality, i cant remember ever fighting a healer mob in the same group as a stunning mob.

whats worse is they come in groups of two frequently. very annoying.
and worse still, all those tactics i used go right out the window during the escourt part. as i cant mark before hand. cant get good agro lead with avengers shield, cant LOS because crap just show up and picks all kinds of random targets.

the best run was the one when i told everyone (during the escourt) to just walk exactly on top of me the whole time. and only fan out AFTER they see a consicrate. that was majik. got all the agro right off the bat. and had no issues once i figured that out.