I'm finding more and more often that I'm having a hard time actually holding aggro as the DPS in my guild gets geared. Eternity Vault is a choice example, with those dumb lava hounds. I'll jump in, hit Sonic Missile, spam my AOEs and try my damndest to grab all these dogs on me, but inevitably the rest of my operation will orbital strike/DFA/AoE and peel a large portion of the pack off me. That particular example isn't such a big deal since they hit like a wet paper bag, but I feel like with the amount of AoEs I have I should be holding aggro better against multiple targets.

I'll jump in, hit Sonic Missile, spam my AOEs

 

There is part of the problem.

 

Jump in, hit an AoE or two, and don't use Sonic Missile until you need it. It is a very powerful 30 second AoE taunt and blowing it unnecessarily is a big mistake.

There is part of the problem.

 

Jump in, hit an AoE or two, and don't use Sonic Missile until you need it. It is a very powerful 30 second AoE taunt and blowing it unnecessarily is a big mistake.

 

This. Sonic missile and neural dart are emergency taunts to get a mob or group of mobs off the squishies. As for holding aggro on a group I've noticed AoE's tend to produce less aggro than single target attacks. So I'll open with flame sweep and focus on the primary. But I'll throw a rocket punch and flame burst on other targets to keep their aggro up while saving the taunts for emergencies.

 

Of course if a sorc wants to chain lightning storm the group it's very difficult to hold aggro on every mob getting hit.

Edited January 12, 2012 by Shivus

Of course if a sorc wants to chain lightning storm the group, **** him. Let him die.

 

Fixed.

 

Flame Sweep is efficient threat/Heat only at 5+ targets I've found, so I don't throw it around a lot except one to start the fight. Flamethrower takes a bit of positioning but if you line everything up right is is much better bang for your buck.

 

The best advice I can offer is to leave the nonelites for your DPS. They have means of soft control (knock down, stun, immoblize) built in to most of their attacks and they never last more than a couple of global cooldowns anyway. This makes the amount of mobs you have to control much smaller and also allows you a few moments to build threat on the nastier guys while they mop up the weak ones.

 

Also don't be afraid to use crowd control. If you couldn't tell by the leveling process this game actually expects you to use all your little tricks rather than just letting them collect dust on your hotbar. If you need markers you can right click the target's portrait on your targeting pane and an option will be there.

To simplify what chain said, how I typically react in this game

 

If it can kill another member of my group, tank it. If the group can kill it quickly, don't worry about it.

 

Even in hard modes, when I decide to DPS occasionally, I see a lot of tanks desperately and frantically trying to pick up and hold everything, resulting in everything having low threat and running around beating on dps and healers. Don't stress yourself out over things that realistically won't cause harm or you to wipe.

 

Note: The only alternative would be if it is hitting your healers. Having their casts being messed up isn't really the best idea....

To simplify what chain said, how I typically react in this game

 

If it can kill another member of my group, tank it. If the group can kill it quickly, don't worry about it.

 

Even in hard modes, when I decide to DPS occasionally, I see a lot of tanks desperately and frantically trying to pick up and hold everything, resulting in everything having low threat and running around beating on dps and healers. Don't stress yourself out over things that realistically won't cause harm or you to wipe.

 

Note: The only alternative would be if it is hitting your healers. Having their casts being messed up isn't really the best idea....

 

I think it is a good design philosophy actually.

 

Tanks like to have their time on the nasty guys to build threat.

 

DPS hate waiting around to stab ****.

 

Everybody wins!