I've had a level 41 pally sitting around for a while and this weekend thought I'd give him another try speccing full down the prot tree (or as far as i could get with the points I had at my disposal). I hadn't really tanked with him since the very early 20's when the random dungeon finder was putting me into softer instances and tanking, killing, surviving was easy.
So on the weekend, I started queuing as a tank again. First dungeon, was the scarlet monestery. It went ok, besides the one d!ckhead rogue in the group who kept wanting me to 'pull faster' even though the mobs weren't exactly dropping like flies. The rogue kept crapping on so I ended up bailing on the group before the end. Maybe not a mature option, but then I'm playing a game for fun, not to be ragged on constantly by an idiot that was struggling to pull the same dps as the tank.
Later on I end up in Maraudon, this time though I'm the lowest level character in the group. Think there was a 46 mage and a boomkin or something. Start pulling those tree things, then the priest who's healing starts whining to pull faster. First multiple mob I end up dead. Next mob of four the mage starts dropping blizzard at the same time as I pull. Aggro is all over the place, then I'm getting told off for not holding agro. I mark the targets, go through a kill order, ask them to single target in that order, at least till I have the group. I'm told 'that's boring' blizzard starts up again, mobs run off. Another wipe. I then get told pallys are supposed to pull big groups. Now I'm sure this is partly true, but when you are in an instance where the dps are all 4-5 levels higher than the tank, and only have 0.01 secs to build threat, plus limited options with which to build aggro on multiple mobs, its a little difficult.
I guess my question is, beside consecration, as a lower level paladin, how do you go about maintaining aggro on larger groups, particularly if your PUG isn't concerned about kill order or letting you build any sort of threat?
Ok, I think perhaps I was just fortunate enough to come across a couple of d**ks in quick succession. I've run Zulfarak a couple of times now without incident (besides the idiot that thought it was a good idea to open as many zombie graves as he could before dying).
I suggest having Ret aura on, and keeping concencrate up as often as possible. It's been a long time since I've tanked anything on my pally at that level and I'm not sure what tanking skills you do have lol Make sure righteous fury is on too. It's easily over looked sometimes.
Thanks. Yeah i had ret on and righeous fury. Half the problem was the mage being 5 levels higher than me spamming blizzard before I even got consecrate down.Originally Posted by Bluezoo
With a player that has a higher level, you'll always have trouble with aggro.
The key thing to note is if you can keep aggro on mobs against players who have equivalent level and gear.
If you're doing that, then you're fine! And honestly the low level stuff, you can tank as ret, just slap on the 'ole sword and board!
Quite true.
As long as you can hold aggro against someone with equal level and gear, you are doing fine.
Just remember that your job is pretty simple. You are *required* to hold more aggro than the healer on *all* the mobs. If you do that, then in your spare time (what little you have), you want to build up as much aggro on possible on the kill targets so DPS can have at it on them.
But if a mob breaks off of you, runs over to a DPS and punches him in the face, it's the DPS mistake, not yours.
For the lower level instances, you'll not get too much an an aggro issue since the Dungeon tool does tend to keep things pretty even. The real problem is shortly after you hit level 80. That's the point where you'll routinely find extremely well geared DPS going all out on mowing down the mobs while you have a rather interesting mix of purples and blues on yourself. So at the beginning warn them about your gear. Ask them to please keep track of their own aggro and then go for it. There's enough good people out there that you *will* get groups that understand this and work with it. And if you encounter idiots who just can't seem to understand the difference between "Put out as much DPS as possible" vs "Put out as much DPS as possible without pulling aggro from the tank", then take heart in that getting groups via the Dungeon tool is even faster at level 80 for tank than it was at lower levels. It's so fast that I have a hard policy to always be fully repaired and with consumables before even touching the tool considering that I frequently don't have enough time to even close the tool before a group is available.
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