Is it normal for FM to attract all aggro??

[Melodia]

It doesn't matter what AP my party has. Could be 400 or 600. I'm ALWAYS the one who gets 80% of the entire fight's aggro and it's getting extremely annoying because FM's don't have any blocks or defense. Yes I did spec into all of the "does not increase threat" nodes in my skills. Why is this happening? My AP is not even up there with the elites, currently sitting at 481, and it always happens even when I had about 450AP.

[SaveTheQueen]

either your not running with a proper tank who can hold the aggro, or if you are it is possible he keeps getting cc ie: knocked down, stunned, etc which lowers their threat. FMs tend to pull a lot of aggro from others since they are usually farther back of the group laying down non stop dps while out of boss' cc range. so basically since your not getting cc'd while others are, their threat starts to drop but yours keeps going up until u finally overtake them and the boss is now after you. if your tanks learns the boss' attack patterns so he blocks at the correct times so he doesn't get knocked back they should have no problem keeping aggro off you and everyone else in the party, although there are a few exceptions to this, such as mobs that have what seems like random aggro (terrors for example)

[Racingwind]

It is quite normal for a FM to attract aggro. I usually just tank the boss if it has very easy attack patterns for FMs (IE. Yeti) or I modify my damage rotation so that it's lower dps if my party isn't in danger of hitting enrage timer.

[Zedonia]

Lowering your dps cant be the solution. If there is no BM or KFM in the group or someone with massive more ap/crit than you, a FM will tank (except the ones who dont know what burn is). At the moment, a FM can tank everything except the terrors in SSP. A FM could also solo every dungeon boss if there were no enrage timer.

[SaveTheQueen]

If you are running with a proper tank you should not have to lower your dps. Their job as tank is to hold aggro, your job is to lay down as much dps as possible. As a tank myself, i encourage the dps to try their hardest to rip aggro from me unless a boss mechanic requires our attention over dpsing. If I lose aggro it's not the dps fault, they are doing their job... it means I messed up and it's my job to get the aggro back as quickly as possible because that's my job as the tank.

[Wiri]

You need a proper tank in your team.

As a tanker I never let a FM take the aggro otherwise I will feel shame of myself

[authyrtyr]

With a combination of moving left/right around the boss and using Q/E/SS along with prison and sheath you should be able to tank pretty much anything. It also helps to have a heal amethyst and spec into the right branch of frost fury for the healing. That way when you're low you can switch from DPS to spamming frost fury until you're healed. Depending on DPS requirements and how many FMs are in your party you can also use impact to block ranged attacks if you spec out of burning for impact. This is almost never necessary though.

[spongemike]

Pretty much on most blue dungeons I get aggro anyways. Even on some purple ones when the tank isn't well gear or have no idea what they are doing then yes I will get aggro. I try to slow down at first.

[YamiKokennin]

FM is known to steal agro especially if you are using burn build. However, like others said, if you have a proper KFM or BM or BD or Summoner, boss should ignore you.

FM's burn DoT are...OP

[Racingwind]

Lowering your dps can be the solution if you aren't in danger of hitting the enrage timer and if it will allow the whole party to dps better (BW comes to mind, though people usually just let the tank build agro first). No doubt that we can tank majority of the mobs, that said, I'm also lazy and don't want to have to tank something and I'm also not particularly interested in going balls to the walls dps if it means everyone else can have an easier time.

 

And of course, when running with a proper tank, I can unload into the boss without worry. It's situational, I adjust my dps to suit the situation at hand, aiming to make the run as smooth as possible.

 

And burn is a status debuff, it doesn't have a DoT component. Unless you are referring to short fuse, which isn't that OP.

[Shadovvv]

Either other people don't know how to tank, they're lagging much more than the FM, or the FM has ridiculous ani-cancel speed. I'm an Assassin with 631 AP, 55.65% crit rate, and 227.66% crit damage, with low ping but low FPS, among stutters and long input delays. Majority of the Force Masters of my clan, who have 500-600 AP and 210% crit damage, are fully capable of taking aggro from me if my client suffers from issues.

[Brogg]

As an FM, when you are in a party with people you do not know, spec for frost damage and you are ready to tank most anything when you pull aggro.  When you are in a party where you know you have a good tank then you can go fire spec and dps the heck out of everything.

[Zedonia]

1 hour ago, Brogg said:

spec for frost damage and you are ready to tank most anything

What do you mean by that? What will you spec? Frost F? Should heal anyway. Frost Tab? Should be specced everytime. Forst V? Always for group shield. So thats it. What else do you wanna change what should help you to tank?

[YamiKokennin]

12 minutes ago, Zedonia said:

What do you mean by that? What will you spec? Frost F? Should heal anyway. Frost Tab? Should be specced everytime. Forst V? Always for group shield. So thats it. What else do you wanna change what should help you to tank?

I think he is talking about cold snap and ice rain

[Zedonia]

Well, that won't help at all if he pulls aggro (that's what he wrote). Forst build is so bad if you have to tank. No idea why someone would spec it for tanking.

[Brogg]

3 hours ago, Zedonia said:

What do you mean by that? What will you spec? Frost F? Should heal anyway. Frost Tab? Should be specced everytime. Forst V? Always for group shield. So thats it. What else do you wanna change what should help you to tank?

What I mean is that when you expect to tank use Frozen Soul instead of Burning Soul.  Then with Frost Fury Tier 3 Stage 3 followed by Dragonfrost followed by Frost Fury again and so on, you can heal through just about anything.  Since your heal from Frost Fury is a percentage of your damage, the damage boost from Frozen Soul is a critical component of this build.

[Iaosise]

Another FM from my clan and I did some experimenting with this. What we generally found was that there are spells which increase threat, but it is not mentioned in their description. This is true for any of our cc abilities, creating burn, and oddly sheath seems to do this as well. Also, the fact that we are usually not taking damage for the boss, which lowers threat, is another factor. Generally I can avoid getting too much of the bosses attention, until later in fights, by avoiding using these spells early on in fights. Give the melee time to build more threat by not doing big damage spell until the boss has lost 2% health helps, but cannot always be practical.

[Shuchin]

Only would like to mention that threat building is not a magical process that tanks do continuously, unconditionally and just depending on how "good" they are. Mostly a specific skill sequence is involved, especially at the start of a fight (BMs need their cyclone block proc, KFMs need their fighting spirit+tremor). This can be messed up by 3rd people (ranged scoring first hit before BM, other sin/kfm triggering fighting spirit resulting in 45 second effect cool down).

So as a KFM, especially in PUG, I regularly experience a beginning phase where I cannot properly build my threat. And of course it will be the FM who gets aggro then. All that is needed in such cases is patience usually. After the blue buff cool down has expired, a threat building sequence can be started again and things should return to normal. Of course, if the FM can tank on their own that's helpful. But it's not necessary a sign of bad tanking, maybe more of bad party play.

Of course you can try to tank without tremor as a KFM, then it's going to be a challenge vs an anicancel FM.

From my perspective the FM has the choice: they can either learn how to manage their dps curve to have a relaxed time without aggro or they learn how to tank and go full-out. I am fine with either as KFM though I realize some self-declared tanks would maybe be stressed out by losing aggro. It's a thing of inter-personal chemistry - me and my FM. ~_^

Even an FM grabbing aggro from me and then dying would not faze me - easy to pick up aggro again then. :P

The only time I would be unhappy with my FM is when they stop being nice and civil. There are always many solutions to a problem and not everything works with every party.

In the end I count my success as a tank by the group not wiping and the boss going down. ^_^