Culler  

 

They do more damage then the other tanks, so they are a damage doing tank. Blah

I'm not flaming ya but there are alot of theories going around about tanks and taunt which i hope this will end. This is unoficially from verant as they dont want to go on record for actually stopping any rumors or comfirming anything. Verant at its rumor mill best. lol

So anyway....when it comes to the taunt button, may people believe that if you continuously hit it, it will in effect keep the tank at the top of the "hate" list maintained by the npc. Unfortunately, the taunt button is not cumulative. It either works or it doesn't work. go or no go. A succesful taunt will put you at the top of the aggro list. Just because you taunt it doesn not mean that it was succesful....hence the skill points in it. The higher your skill, the better chance you have at a succesful taunt. I have personally tested this. I had a friend of mine, a higher level tank, attack a mob. I did nothing but stand behind the mob and taunt. he was using 2 lammies and has an RBG. Good stuff for taunting. 1 out of 2 taunts would make the mob instantly turn to face me until he was hit by my friend which put him back at the top of the list. A succesful taunt will put you back at the top of the aggro list, but by a very, very small amount. That is why it is best that if a caster gets attacked they should never fight back. Not because they are doing so much dmg that it makes it hard, but because if taunt is succesful, you only go to the top of the list by a very small amount. If they happen to hit the mob just after the sucessful taunt, well, they go back to the top of the list, until we either do more dmg in a certain amount of time, or until the taunt button cycles. This brings me to the next point.

I know alot of non "taunting" classes know this, but there seems to be alot of people in those classes that dont. Taunt is not automatic. It doesn't pull a mob off of you just because we hit it. Thats because its not cumulative. It also has about a 6 second cycle rate. If we were unsuccesful in the taunt, if the button was available when you got attacked, you have another 6 seconds to wait before we can use it again. Hopefully we'll do enough damage to get it off of you. which brings me to my third point.

Mobs have a "memory of damage" list. This list cycles through a set amount of time. That is why it is normally easier for someone dual weilding fast weapons to maintain aggro. Say the cycle time is 10 seconds for instance. to make it simple we'll use no double attacks or dual wield. using a lammy you'll hit 5 times in just under 10 seconds. Usually without buffs I'll hit in the 30's to sometimes 40's in mainhand. with a wurmy, you'll get 2 attacks. usually i hit anywhere from the 70's to 90's. There is a "remembered" damage by the mob also. Say this is wiped every 2 seconds. on the initial hit, the wurmy will gain aggro. after 2 seconds the lammy will get aggro back because the wurmy hasn't hit yet and the mob has "forgotten" the dmg by the wurmy, although the wurmy user maintains his order on the list. The lammy will get aggro back on every other swing. This is all without using taunt, dbl attack, triple, quad, dual wield.

This also opens another point. I know casters have seen it and probably havent noticed why this happens. Say a tank goes to gain aggro by a mob. The bad bad wizzie is standing in the back just chomping at the bit to lay down his biggest nuke. Say the tank does 2000 points of dmg to the mob and taunts the entire time. Although you cannot time it, the wizzie lays down the best nuke he has atm. Say its just a 1200 dmg nuke. Even though the tank has done more dmg than the wizzie, the mob takes off after the wizzie and starts ripping his arms off and beating him with em. Blood flying. not a pretty situation. But by popular belief, the wizzie should have never gotten attacked by the mob. Unfortunately, he may have got the nuke off just after the list has gotten "wiped". That is a perfect example of how the list gets wiped and the tank gets blamed for not being able to hold aggro. So....Tanks should taunt just before their first attack and then only when the mob turns to attack someone else. I know all you tanks that continually hit the taunt button have had a mob turn and attack a caster just after you hit it. Then you have to wait almost 6 seconds before you can hit it again. Then you have to hope its succesful. if not, just hope you do more dmg than the caster did, or hope the list gets "wiped" so you can be the first to hit and go back to the top of the aggro list. If you are already getting hit, you are at the top of the list. Taunting gets you nowhere. It doesn't add any points to your place on the aggro list. Taunt when you start the fight, then only when the caster is attacked. Thats how it works the best. Try it and see.

That was uncalled for...
Lemme know when you find a good rogue 2hs (yes, they are a banded melee class too)

what good is better damage output if the taunt of dual wielding gets you killed before halfway through the fight. ;) i used a woodsman staff from level 55-60 and it was great. Luckily earthcaller and swiftwind don't taunt too bad, unless you proc, but by level 60 you have cinder jolt and jolt and with tash and malo/a there's very few creatures who don't de-aggro once you cast those. even if it's resisted. So if you don't have cinder jolt or jolt i'd recommend this weapon as a ranger if you can obtain it easily enough, however for a warrior i suggest dual wielding for the taunt... or you're going to end up with dead casters ;P or worse yet, clerics.