Knight Tanking Guide — How to hold aggro and make your group happy!

I have noticed that one of the biggest issues Knights seem to be complaining about is holding aggro. Complaints that it is broken, or impossible to hold aggro and that Knights need a buff to their ability to hold focus are rampant. Not that I don’t agree that Knights could use a little bit more, overall, they are capable of holding aggro well against bosses, and well enough against groups of trash mobs to keep the healers safe. Here are a few tips to help you Knights out there keep your group alive, and avoid the nasty xp debt that comes with wiping.

Skill #1: Threaten is IMBA!!!
When fighting bosses, and tough single targets Threaten allows Knights to hold aggro even through crazy DPS. Make sure Threaten is fairly high. Currently on my 31 Knight I have a 78% bonus to aggro when Threaten is up. (I don’t remember how many points I spent off hand.. :X)

Skill #2: Shield Bash is key!
While this may seem obvious, make sure you keep shield bash updated somewhat. I believe my Shield Bash is sitting in the 20-25 range and I am level 31 on Knight currently. This is the most important skill when dealing with more than one mob at a time.

Tanking vs. Trash (Single and Multi-pull)
When pulling trash mobs or weaker mobs when in a group always make sure you are the one to pull. Unless special cases require someone with long range, aggro will draw everything onto the person that made the initial pull… that means if you aren’t the Knight, and they didn’t ask you to pull… DON’T PULL!!!!

After you have made your pull use Shield Bash once, then proceed to pick a target to single target DPS by whatever means you have at your disposal. Due to the fact that I am Knight/Rogue I use Shadowface ALOT, therefore I don’t burn mana DPS’ing mobs and can thus pull quickly in succession.

The most important part of killing large groups of normal and elite mobs is that your group focuses DPS. You will not hold aggro on the target of the DPS in the group. However, Shield Bash is more than enough aggro to keep random mobs from leaving the pack that is on you and attacking your healer. So designate a main assist for all DPS to burn down the target before it owns someone. Elites in RoM don’t have alot of health like WoW or other MMOs, instead they hit like trucks if you aren’t a heavy armor wearer. With 2 or 3 DPS’ers hitting the same target it will most likely die before it lands a blow on anyone. Killing mobs one at a time from the group hundled around you, your group will find that Knights can do their job just fine if they allow you to. If your group decides to attack all different targets, there is a good chance there will be deaths and it wasn’t your fault. It was the person that wasn’t assisting.

If new mobs aggro on the group while burning down the previous group of enemies use another Shield Bash to quickly and easily keep aggro on yourself.

Tanking vs Bosses or Strong Single Targets

First and foremost, TELL ALL DPS NOT TO ATTACK THE TARGET FOR AT LEAST 10% OF THE TARGET’S HEALTH!!! This allows you to build up aggro and hold it for the majority of the fight even if someone goes crazy with DPS.

Second, use Threaten as often as possible followed by Shield Bash, followed by as much DPS as possible for the remainder of the Threaten buff. Be it disarm, skills from your secondary, or Holy Strike/Punishment (if you have this spec’d at all… currently I don’t use these skills, and only use Holy Strike to Shock once in a while). After Threaten ends, I use my next set of Holy Seals to gain mana back using Mana Absorbtion and then I prepare for another Threaten, rinse and repeat. Using this strategy I have been able to hold aggro on bosses even through Rogues burning their 10 minutes. Although they didn’t burn their 10 minutes until the mob was below 50% so I have had more than enough ample time to build up hate.

Hope this helps you new Knights out there keep your groups alive and safe. If any other Knights have some good strategies for keeping aggro and their group from hating them feel free to share. I have used this strategy successfuly tanking all of Abbey at level 23, and I have started testing the strength of the mobs of Necropolis and have found that I can hold the trash just fine and we will be looking into making a run with a full group of low 30s to see what Necropolis has to offer.

Larien
31 Knight/ 30 Rogue
Illiteracy Kills