Post your hate holding strategies here.

[Zaptruder]

After many many many hours holding aggro as a tank, things pretty much become routine - so much so that I could let a script do my job...

From the get go after the puller draws the mob back, first thing I do is usually drawing weapon (or maybe provoke if the puller is weak) then defender. If there's a thief around let them sneak+trick it onto me and from there just spam provoke and flash. I have my macros lined up - provoke, flash, sentinel, bash - if I use all these at the start of the fight along with the thief's sneak+trick, the rest of the battle I can pretty much zone out, coming back to voke and flash without much worry of me losing aggro.

without sentinel and shield bash, holding hate requires more concentration and with a dark and thief around to pull hate from me you have to either use consistent healing to compensate (easy with a rdm around) or cover when the aggro is off me.

With these strategies with the appropriate PT, I'm taking damage 99% of the time. The most common cause of loss of aggro for me would be fatigue - when I'm just not doing things quite right anymore.

[TheBruce]

Things get a bit more tricky later on so zoning out is a bit harder to do. (I still zone out a lot though, but usually have to come to when the renkei starts) When a ranger does 1.2k zerked sidewinders not with renkei mind you (1.6k+ with renkei), or your monk is attacking for 250+ in one round every round and critting for 130+ with one punch, well lets just say it keeps you awake. Than you'll have your hands full.

And lets not even think about lvl 3 renkei's with a high damage ability on the end. *shivers thinking about keeping agro against bones when monks get asura*

[Garrick]

Zoning out? Could you guys elaborate a little a bit about how zoning out is good when your trying to keep hate? Im a bit lost :confused: . I'm still a newbie Paladin, and Zoning is something i've never heard of a tank doing when trying to keep hate....

[Hinbin]

I think they're implying they can afford to lose their concentration in the battle since the jobs done, rather than actually move out of a zone, if that's what your thinking

[Garrick]

:sweat: hahaha....I suppose you are right...that probably is what they meant. Sorry about that, my mistake hehe. I dunno, when I first read it, it seemed like they literally meant zoning out of the level and coming back and what not lol. I should go to sleep, my brain hasn't jumped started correctly today.

[Zaptruder]

Hah hah :p

High end battles do sound like a difficult task keeping hate properly under control....

but I met my match last night in the form of a PT with a bard (in place of a rdm) and a thief sneaking+tricking onto a dark with thf subbed.

This wouldn't be so bad... if they allowed my mana to regen - and you'd think I would with ballad 1 + 2 floating around - but when I got into battle (they'd pull very quickly letting me recover only 10-20 mp per round, even with ballad) the bard would sing +attack and +accuracy on us melees including myself, leaving with me only able to use my mana on flash (if I healed myself, my mana would be drained after a match, and I doubt they would've let me recover - so that I wouldn't even have flash in some matches (and I didn't)) and with the other two melees behind to place massive hate onto the dark, it was a losing battle.

Eventually after an hour or two of stress I decided that if they wouldn't give me the appropriate amount of time to refresh my hate tools that the dark could stand to take a few hits - the other mages had constant refresh on them after all.

At least the exp rate was good :p

[TheBruce]

Yah I hear yah. If you have a lot of mana madrigal and minuet are good. But if you don't you should tell your party to make a setup like this.

Melee - O O - Melee
Monster - X

Paladin - O

Bard - O
Mage - O O - Mage

That way you can get ballad with the mages and the melee can still have madrigal and minuet.

*Note* this doesn't work well with front aoe attacks like exorays/crawlers so you'll have to move the face of the monster away from the mages. You can still get ballad though.*

[Aggememnon]

I cant comment on high levels but so far up to level 25 I have no problem holding agro with any party configuration. I am usually not pulling so i heal the puller when they are close, then provoke and heal myself right away. Unless a i have a sam or thf that that uses a ws right away I wont loose agro and then use more heals during the fight. I am sure it changes at high levels but so far I've had no problems.

[Barook]

Assuming I don't have a thief I usually follow this format.
Draw sword and provoke as it is coming in.
I then let it hit me 2-3 times and then flash it wait a second after flash hits and then cure III myself. This gives me a nice junk of aggro and my next provoke will soon follow.

Now if I dont have a rdm or bard then I will try to limit my casting to a flash or cure as needed.

A lot of people mix up there bash and sentinel. I use them both at the same time as a substitute to the flash/cure III.

If the monster is IT high def then I will try to start off with the bash/sentinel to really establish aggro to start.

I also try to make sure I get in a provoke or a flash right before the renkei starts.

I just hit 50 and I rarely lose aggro with this stradegy, and normally it is only from a DRK or Ranger who is just going totally all out.

Now at higher levels I may need to adapt a bit more. One thing that helps a lot is having a whm that keeps your hasted and stays on top of your negative effects. Paralyze and silence can really mess us up, so if your fighting a class of monster that tends to keep doing it then ask them to hotkey the appropiate cure for you. Most WHM dont mind if I hoteky a tell to them about being effected as a lot of time they will miss it in the spam of combat.

A side note here, if there was one thing I could wish for in this game, it would be to have seperate windows for different text. Having everything going to one window really gets old. I would like to have some things un filtered but if you dont the battle spam is just way too much.

[Zelld]

My strategy is pretty simple...

I have it timed down that i hit my attack button and voke within a second of each other, so the voke goes off first then the sword pulls out. then i pop a flash, a cure 3 on either the puller if he took some hits, or myself (usually myself just cuz it is easier to quickly hit buttons then to try and move the arrow or hit the appropriate Fkey) then sentinal and bash (or vice versa) and then flashing and voking as they come available, or another cure3.

there have been a few battles where i did the normal thing through sentinal/bash then just sat back and let it auto pilot for the rest of the battle... the mobs head never turned from me. i didn't vok or flash again durning the fight...

Anyway, IF you get a rdm in your pt, don't hesitate to point out that htey HAVE to cast fresh on you every tiem they see your MP stop climbing. I have told redmages in my parties before to cast refresh on me before the battle starts and then anytime i hit @@@ to get it on me again.

I have been in pt's where the redmage bitched about having to cast fresh on another person other than the mages... i just don't understand that. a rdm not casting fresh on someone is like a pld not voking the mob... basicly being lazy and not doing their job.

I know the redmage doesn't have a whole lot to do, but they are integral for us Paladins. I always love to see a redmage.

[Jaxon]

Thats what I do if my party let me grab all the hate. I do flash when ever I need to add my hate another notch too, not just using provoke/sentinel/bash/cure series. Theres another tactic I see many THF's in my server do and that has to do with coordinating hates between a PLD and WAR back to back while THF plays around with the aggro with track attack. The only problem with this combo is first, find a WAR, THF, SMN with Garuda, second, both Tanks line opposite of each other and THF takes turn Trick attacking on both tanks. This odd combo seems decent since even a DRK or MNK can go buck wild with the damage for a few seconds before mob turns to them. Also adding Bard or RDM will be chain even faster with refresh and ballets. One thing I like about parting with SMN for that combo is blink, on a PLD it just seems like cheating at times of course anyone can have blink with garuda. But for a PLD to absorbing zero damage and plus parry+block makes downtime seems like a joke, best of all we didn't have a WHM at all just the SMN with WHM sub. Now this works well when I was lvl 40 and up but hitting 45+ against exorays and funnel bats will not work silence gas and jet stream means quick deaths if hp is not high enough. :spin:

[asushiman]

Here's my strategy. I would cast Flash on the enemy while it is being pulled. that way the puller dont have that much damage and the damage would be on me. After casting Flash then i use Provoke to build up more hate. I'd let him hit me once and right when he's going to hit me i'd click on my Cure 2. I'd have enough damage already that when i cure myself it'll add some more hate already. Then do anotehr Cure 2 again when he hits me. Then I would alternate Shield Bash or Sentinel with each battle. They add a a lot of hate to this strategy and using both all at once will leave me with nothing for the next battles since they have a 5 minute cool down time. After all this i would do this cycle

Provoke > Cure 2 > Flash > Cure 2 > Provoke > Cure 2 > Cure 2 > Provoke > Flash > Cure 2 > Cure 2....

When doing the Cure 2s. I'd hit the button right when the enemy is going to make his move. If the going gets tough i'd use an ocassional Cure 3 or 4.

When i'm with a THF, sometimes the other melee would Provoke first then the THF would go behind me and do the Sneak + Trick on me. The problem with this trick is that you'd get all the hate from everyone but when it comes to renkei time he would do another sneak + trick on the other melee because he could only do it BEHIND the enemy and not in front - and guess who's in front of the enemy - you. and What does that mean? The other melee then gets all the hate. When this happens i'd pull out the cure 4s on the other melee, Shield Bash, WS, another cure 2, then Provoke. Most likely when I provoke I'd get back the enemy again.

Sometimes the THF wont do the Sneak + trick technique on me on the initial pull so what I would do is I'd just Provoke then cure 2, Cure 2, then Provoke again. I try not to take a lot of hate so that when renkei time comes the other melee would just provoke the enemy off me easily, do his thing then the THF would go behind me do the Sneak+trick technique and then the enemy would be back on me again. This time I'd spam the Provokes and the Cures.

I hope this would help you guys out. Have fun!!

[Garrick]

Sorry for troubling your Thread with my own question. But I'd rather not start a new thread when you guys are posting strategies in this one . As you can see, I am a low level Paladin trying my best to hold aggro. But If possible could you guys give me a good strategy for my level to hold aggro? I find I sometimes lose my mob Im trying to keep hate on due to some mistiming on my parts and maybe a bad combination of abilities to keep it. This is what I normaly do.

Provoke --> Shield Bash --> Cure--> Banish (sometimes not sure if it wise to do so though) --> Attack --> Provoke every 30 Sec afterwards. This has usually worked for me so far with my mob leaving me maybe once a battle. But is there anyway I can better this or maybe I should change it up? To prevent even that one loss in hate on the mob? Most people have said I do a pretty good job for my level keeping hate but I beg to differ for some reason in that I once lost my mob and it went downhill after that.

Also if you guys have any ways of conserving MP as a Paladin (even though we have low MP to start as Humes). Because I find myself at sometimes half if not lower in MP. I try to keep myself moderately cured so that WHM and Back-up healers can conserve MP but I also know I can't sustain myself on my own cures alone in a PT. So I ask you this. Should I be curing myself ONLY as a last resort, and save MP for the off chance that the Healers themselves take Damage? Or should I use MP on myself so that WHM save more MP?

[Arnda]

Low MP as a Hume PLD? Who are you comparing yourself to, a Taru PLD? Of the "popular" PLD races, Humes have the greatest MP pool.

If you're finding your MP isn't lasting through fights, you're probably not using it efficiently. Before Refresh (or if you're not so blessed as to get Ballad early on), you need only a few Cure 2s to keep hate pinned to yourself for most of the fight. I found my MP was slipping a little when I first got Flash, but that comes only 4-5 levels before you start getting Refresh in parties, and you learn to adjust your MP. Once you DO have Refresh, it's all a matter of knowing how FAST you can blow it all, not how much to use. So, after 41, go nuts.

Just remember that although you DO need to heal yourself to keep hate and reduce strain on the healers, they ARE the healers, not you. Cures are, and should be, strictly measures for aggro control to your hate-holding strategy. Yes, they heal you and that's a nice bonus in that it helps your mages stretch their MP a little further, but really, what's a Cure 2 or 3 to a WHM who has twice, if not three times your MP? Precious little, and after Refresh there's no reason not to expect them to use it. You're on the right track in using Cures in regular rotation to hold hate, but your MP problem sounds like you're going overboard.

There's no reason to mainline Cures until you bleed yourself dry. I started to learn this once I picked up Flash; a C2/3 and a Flash in quick succession did quite a number on my MP, but I found that I didn't NEED much more than another C2 thereafter to keep hate during the fight. So far, I still don't, and while with Refresh I can now afford to be more liberal and all, it's a good strategy to develop so that you can hold more MP for emergencies, like when your THF does a massive Sneak/Trick that pulls more hate than anyone was expecting and you need to grab the hate back by curing the trickee. Yes, in theory you could just be curing yourself more and burning MP and not run that risk, but if 9 times out of 10 you DON'T lose hate in that situation, shouldn't you be playing it conservative?

[Garrick]

Sorry, I wasn't comparing to in-job only. I meant that overall (when looked at between all jobs) that Paladins don't very much MP for casting per level as would the mages, but thats obviouse :sweat: . My MP usually lasts more than one fight, but I was bit worried because I'm usually below half and try to rest as much as possible between fights. You're probably right and I should lay off on healing myself and conserve as much as possible. Thanks . Also...should I even bother wish Banish? When I cast it doesn't always do much damage, and hell, it isn't even leveled up very high for me because I really saw no use for it unless It was against undead. Is Banish effective in hate control for lower level? Because frankly the MP it uses and the Damage I see as the result aren't too appealing .