Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

For those that play DK's, Paly's or Warriors. What your main tactic for keeping the agro, building hate, etc. I've played a DK since beta 3 and I love it. I'm curious how the other two Defensive fighters play in the tanking area. I've grouped with guildies who play the other two classes and our methods of pulling and agro control vary a good bit, as they should.

Most pulls for me require a torture cast then devour strength, healing in my groups are somewhat split. Main healer focuses on me,himself, and the secondary healer if need be. The secondary healer usually focuses on himself and the other 2 players. I keep the main healer as my defensive target whenever I pull because of healing agro.  Don't know about other DK's but I feel provoke doesnt do much at all/ shrug I've bugged it once or twice feeling it was never a successful(possibly broken) taunt. I usually play in defensive stance when leveling or pvping, usually using a Shield and 1-hander. Two handers never really appealed to me , meh. I  built my tank around a Con/Dex build for awhile to increase his evade chances as well as blocking and parrying chances, but now I'm going with a more traditional Con/Str build to see if theres a real difference other than damage. I put the occasional point into Int because i'm a caster tank but my most common third stat is Vit for the regen purposes.

Aside from the increase in damage with the plus STR i dotn see a whole lot different with my build. I can tell i get hit alot more but aside from that not much. I've never played a Tank in a MMO before so I'm not sure on what might be best suited. Closest thing i can relate to with my DK is my TKM/MCM in the CU in SWG and in Pre-CU he was a TKM/Doc & CM hybrid.

Two hand weapons although they do more damage they tend to miss alot and are very slow.  but I imagine it happens until you get a lot more points in that 2hd slot.  Although I think you'll still miss alot later on too. Do you?

I'm also a dk but only at level 15 atm.

It's nice working with a group that knows what they're doing especially the healers.  I was in group with a Blood Mage and 2 Clerics and one of them said,"We can't begin 'til we get a healer."  What???  Just to show how some people don't know how to work their professions. We already had healers in that group, he was a healer.

By level 16 warriors have half a dozen hate generating moves. Doing good dps initially is still possibly the best insurance. We get a pull command (just a ranged attack but generates hate). This is why warrior tanks need to do the pulling, I know it pisses off some others. I dont like situational pulling because of confusion and 2 people pulling at once. Then I do a big hit, a debuff (sorry cant remember the names) and then into defensive and start using hate generating attacks. So long as a caster doesnt wtfpwn as soon as I start, I dont have a problem keeping aggro. If they do or if someone pulls then it can take a while to get the agro back. The biggest mistake other players make I've found is they start too early. There is no need, I can sit there taking hits for longer than most realise, but thats really the healers call. I still havent worked out the best defensive target system yet, ie I am always keeping my eye on who needs rescuing and fumbling around selecting them. The only thing I'd add is I'm of the school of 'pls assist offtank' because I'm always switching targets when we get adds etc.

In summary, I am fairly happy with my warrior as a tank although the taunts are more subtle than other mmo's I've played.

To Solo: I never really lvled up two handed skill to begin with so yeah I miss alot:P

To Rounner: Yeah if they dont give us our few seconds of hate building it can fubar the entire group. I've grouped plenty with other tanks for Skawlra Rock, cyclops tower, and other places. I've never had a problem offtanking mobs either, just one of the ehalers focuses on me and I can hold two of the three mobs on me that we pull because of no CC classes, which happens alot to me O_o. Some will bitch because in some instances where i'm pulling I dont use my Shadow step+ Phantasmal Blade manuever( stun done from behind) to mez a mob and pull the rest  dont realize that majority of the time it puts me closer to more mobs we dont want to pull and I've made my fair share of bad pulls, I have a macro button on my tool bar that says in group:"My fault bad pull let me die" Nice to have :P. We really cant say how tanks will play out untill we see alot more people at 50. Right now we have an idea and understanding of how they play but how they truely flow we cant say yet.

20 High Elf Paladin here, and I use a variety of things to keep hate. I've got a couple Auras that generate hate and a few party-wide spells/buffs that generate a large amount of hate as well. I've also a small taunt-like ability and a special attack that generates some pretty good hate, as well as the all-too-useful Smite. But the best thing for keeping the mob on me is to do as much damage as possible (kinda hard since High Elfs have the lowest strength) and most importantly to use my rescues effectively. My rescues have a pretty short refresh and I never really run into any trouble if I use them. If for some reason I'm really in trouble I'll cast my 5-minute heal on the person being attacked and that usually gets the mob off him.

What i do is I pull in offensive mode with infuriating shot, then with my big 2 hander i execute the full decimate chain.

I have my shield and axe on hot keys, so i switch to those and defensive mode and ride that out using the taunts and what nots.  I have no issues with aggro control.

In multiple mob pulls with no CC, i do the above as well but i switch targets often to build up hate,  the original mob wont move as long as decimate landed.