AOE Tank

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by nick121, Sep 20, 2018.

  1. nick121

    nick121 New Member

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    Hello,

    Which tank can hold the best aggro of four or more mobs? My goal is to have a wizard, tank, cleric trio. I want to use quad spell of wizard if I can get a tank that can handle the aggro. is this setup doable?
     
  2. Faults

    Faults I Feel Loved

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    Paladins
     
  3. Morbo

    Morbo Well-Known Member

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    The easiest aoe aggro for this set up would be the wizard. Just quad as normal.

    Paladin doesn't have anything over SK for this set up either I don't think. Paladins need group members to be hurt so that they can group heal for aoe aggro. Otherwise it's the same amount of aggro for pally stun and sk ac debuff (same cast time and recovery time too iirc). I think you will have an incredibly hard time keeping aggro over your wizard, especially during low levels when mobs don't have much HP and therefore your pally/sk aggro spells will not do as much aggro.

    Another option for aoe aggro here would be a bard. Snare and normal swarm kiting songs should keep aggro if there is enough time in between wiz ae. I haven't played a bard in quite some time, however, so I don't really remember their aggro.
     
  4. Faults

    Faults I Feel Loved

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    Self healing is ae aggro morbo - paladins are far superior to holding aggro over a group of mobs than an SK. Now for one single mob the SK will likely snap aggro better - but it has nothing on a paladin due to the healing capability. The group heals are CRAZY aggro as well. Yes you have to pass a witness check but its not the end of the world.

    There's no other option if you want ae aggro from a plate class regularly (warriors can ae taunt). Bards do not hold ae aggro that well unless we build up a massive shield of songs buffer and even that requires a witness check as well.


    You should have zero problems keeping aggro - even if the wizard gains it - blast a heal on him (if he survives) and you will regain aggro. You can also LoH your wizard in really shit scenarios.
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2018
  5. Sketchy

    Sketchy People Like Me

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    For a enchanter/wizard/?? aoe trio, I would 100% go with the paladin. Rez, self heals, LoH. For a cleric/wizard/?? I would probably suggest SK. They will be able to hold aggro just fine on the 4 mobs that you pillar. You also have an awesome puller once you get FD. Paladin overlaps a lot with the cleric abilities, it is somewhat wasted slot.

    The pally group heals are on a long cooldown and cost quite a bit of mana. The biggest heal we get a the moment is Superior, and that is at level 58. Heals play a role in pally aggro generation for sure. I like using them in VT at the moment. But they are not the be all and all of keeping aggro, especially on 4 mobs, with 3 group members.
     
  6. Faults

    Faults I Feel Loved

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    http://lucy.alkabor.com/spell_3430.html

    I know this is in the future but pop looms large and close. Paladins are the ae aggro king. This is 850 (pbae aggro too) heal on a 5s recast and 1s cast timer (you can channel between swings or even while getting beat on).

    http://lucy.alkabor.com/spell_3429.html Also a sexy little heal. Longer recast than above though.

    Ofc you have:

    http://lucy.alkabor.com/spell_3427.html

    As well. But mostly quadding is done in the absence of a tank - the best aggro holder for a quad i've ever seen was zozo (a necromancer) kiting for wizards in C2.

    Food for thought. (Yes necromancers do this far better than sks)
     
    Last edited: Sep 20, 2018
  7. Sketchy

    Sketchy People Like Me

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    Those spells are great and I am really looking forward to having access to them. For a leveling up crew, it is going to be a long while before they have them. They also have a considerable mana cost. If you have kei, a whack of +100 mana gear, FT, MP3/4, healing aas, yah you will be rocking and I can't wait. But if you dont, you may run into mana issues. Kiting is a good option as well of course. Gearing up a tank class is a slog. That said, of course, play the class that interests you.
     
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  8. Faults

    Faults I Feel Loved

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    QFT. Still if you're gonna quad you might as well kite.
     
  9. nick121

    nick121 New Member

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    Thanks for all the replies. Sounds like if I want to quad I need to do it the normal way. I still am making a pally after all the talk on here :)
     
    pharmakos likes this.
  10. Mokli

    Mokli I Feel Loved

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    I knew someone who dual boxed entirely with a Pally and Enchanter. An amazing combo. Chanter over agro? Pull it back with a heal/stun combo. This was in PoP however and obviously using the better heals.
     
    pharmakos likes this.
  11. Faults

    Faults I Feel Loved

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    The ever deadly PoPadin.
     
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  12. Morbo

    Morbo Well-Known Member

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    I always thought heals were a crappy form of aggro on live (except group heals, those were regularly followed by an loh to myself). However now I suppose I am much better at micromanaging. But they still require you to be hurt and are a boat load more mana than a stun/ac debuff, making them pretty horrible for leveling. Especially without a form of mana regen.

    You really can't go wrong with a knight for leveling.
     
  13. solar

    solar Administrator Staff Member

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    Ranger tank IMO. Less HP than a knight but it doesn't really matter if you have a cleric and a slower. Rangers can use snare and flame lick to generate aggro and kite stuff around for your wiz.
     
  14. Dane

    Dane People Like Me

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    Agreed. Ranger tanks are undervalued. Tangling Weeds is a great aggro tool while tanking because it's a .5 second cast. It does have a 6 second recast, but I usually alternate Tangling Weeds and regular Snare. Super mana efficient, high aggro, and doesn't break mez if you're grouped with an Enchanter.

    Plus, Rangers add all sorts of utility.
     
  15. Mitya

    Mitya Well-Known Member

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    I am really dumb when it comes to tanking (all of my characters were always casters) but I was curious about something:
    How does a tank in EQ actually tank more than 2-3 mobs at a time without getting ground to dust? I figured that AoE kiting worked because "no one" got hit, right?
     
  16. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    If deciding on a knight: Paladin if no cleric, SK if cleric. Paladin with cleric isn't a bad choice though.

    Rangers are an interesting wildcard. You could possibly do crazy stuff like have the cleric tank and use archery. Ranger+Ench+Cleric means archery with charm pet. Hard to box archery though unless you have multiple physical machines.

    Don't be too concerned about quadding. Exp here rewards high level kills, which will become much more relevant in PoP. A group that can plow high level PoP mobs will rake in exp; it's not like earlier eras where you want to grind on the lowest level dark blues forever. No 3 box is going to tank four high level PoP mobs well enough for the strategy you're thinking of to be viable, I'm fairly sure. The level 67+ stuff all innate quads.
     
  17. solar

    solar Administrator Staff Member

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    Generally tanking means getting hit and soaking damage. If you're not being hit then you might be kiting. For a straight melee fight where you want to tank multiple NPCs, you'll have to alternate targets, probably by clicking on them, and casting an aggro spell on each one. If they're hurting you significantly enough to need a heal, you'll need to keep aggroing them all to keep them on yourself and off the healer.

    AoE on everquest is not very well developed in our era. Enchanters can PBAOE most NPCs and completely prevent them from meleeing if they're stunnable and not over level 55. If an enchanter is keeping the mob stunned, you can melee it and not get hit at all. A wizard is much better to use in this situation though, because they can PBAOE damage all of the stunned NPCs at the same time. People pull the entire zone and AoE them like this, but pulling them without dying on the way back can be tricky.

    For the kinds of AoE spells that are targetable, with a green icon, you can generally only damage 4 NPCs at a time, that's what people mean when they say quadding with a wizard.
     
  18. Pithy

    Pithy I Feel Loved

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    I sometimes tank 2-4 mobs on my SK when exping, because I'm too lazy to cast Pacify, but that's slowed chumpy mid-50s trash. I think Torven's right that the cool PoP camps with high-level mobs (like PoFire tables, PoWater regrua, and so on) will dish out way too much damage for one tank to handle more than 1-2 at a time.
     
  19. Dasidarius

    Dasidarius Member

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    2 at a time in PoFire is totally doable with EP gear and AA. Probably even 3. Before that you're going to have a real bad time. Of course most people will live in BoT until they're EP flagged which is fine xp and they don't hit nearly as hard.
     
  20. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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    Doable and efficient are very different things
     
  21. Dasidarius

    Dasidarius Member

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    Very true. It is really only efficient if you're chain pulling... otherwise it would be more efficient to kite.