23 réponses à ce sujet

[ckriley]

I built a character for the sole purpose of tanking and protecting others in my group.  But it has been extremely frustrating to say the least.  And not because I'm dying or anything like that, he's a wrecking machine, it's actually just the opposite.  Everyone else is dying around me.  I CANNOT hold aggro for anything.  And I'm the most heavily armored guy in the group.

I thought I read on here that the mobs will automatically go after the most heavily armored.  Whoever said that is on a healthy dose of crack.  Seriously.  My group, or I should say my "A" team (que the music if you like) is me, Wynne, Morrigan and Leliana.  All ranged.   That means as long as I hold aggro on all the mobs, the fights all go smoothly.

Except one thing.  That NEVER happens.  Ever.  And I even have Threaten on and taunt whenever I can.  By the way, whoever at BW thought taunt should run off of stamina is retarded.  I mean, I can understand moves and certain sustained abilities needing stamina - that makes sense.  But taunt?  Seriously, how hard is it to say to someone "Hey, you son of a motherless goat!  Face me!" That takes stamina???

Anyway, I digress.

Every fight starts with two or three mobs IMMEDIATLEY going after Leliana and/or Wynne.  Wynne draws healer aggro like a mother.  Thank the Maker for Morrigan who has some sickening CC, otherwise, everyone in my group would be instakilled all the time.  And in a game like DAO where you rarely fight less then six mobs at once, I can't emphasize how important it is to build high threat right at the start.  But usually, the mobs will start attacking me, which is good, that's what I want, but then two or three will go for Wynne and ALWAYS Leliana.  I'm sick of not being able to hold aggro.  I'm sick of all the mobs ignoring taunt.  What am I doing wrong?  I assume it's user error because I can't imagine BioWare would eff up tanking mechanics as bad as this.

I mean, DAO has a number of flaws but please tell me tanking isn't one of them.    

[Alphakiller]

taunt has a range limit.

[CID-78]

you deal to much damage/threat with the other guys that your tank can't keep up. the major problem is that characters doesn't have a area of control that prevents enemies from passing just straight by. ie you can have two guys blocking a small door and still all enemies can go straight through without any extra damage. (same as a big open field.

[shree420]

Weird, I have the same party layout as you, but don't face the same problems.



First thing, does the tank have the heaviest armor around? I think I had a few problems with aggro while I had him in heavy, but once he got massive armor they virtually disappeared.



Don't lead attacks with Morrigan or Leliana, unless you're Blizzarding a room. Let the tank be the 'first in sight' and they'll make a beeline for him.



My policy is to keep my members in hold position, and then have my tank scout. Once he's drawn enough attention, I bring the cavalry in.



Don't keep the default clustered diamond formation - it's too easy for an enemy to draw a bead on your squishier members.



Threaten is a waste of time and stamina. Use Taunt to keep aggro on you. It works fairly well for me.



And of course, if any do get past your tank, Morrigan has CoC, Mind Blast, Winter's Grasp and Drain Life. Leliana has her stuns. Wynne shouldn't draw aggro through healing actually.



Hope this helps.

[KariTR]

Two or 3 loose enemy mobs should not be a problem for your party. Are you pausing or playing real-time? Could you set Wynnes tactics to support rather than attack? Leliana can be set to attack your hero's target while Morrigan deals with controlling wanderers.



In short, taunt does work, but it is retarded to think even a relatively mindless mob would ignore someone shooting arrows in his arse, just because some other guy was insulting his mother,

[Zan Mura]

Hmh, either it's a bug or you're seriously doing something wrong. I don' t even get taunt for my tanks, Alistair usually does the tanking well enough on his own with nothing but threaten. Just send him in first, and unless he gets hexed so he can't hit anything to generate aggro, I can heal as much as I'd like or do whatever else for that matter, and they'll still stay on him. It's been almost 4 playthroughs, always the same tactic.

Obviously if I start blasting massive AoE spells, they'll go after my mage. But then I only do that when I can guarantee the mage will finish the job before the mobs get to them.

[Jassper]

I'm not a tank player so can't give advise on that end, however I have noticed something odd before that may relate. The character being controlled by the PC seems to loose argo.



There has been times that I select Wynne or Moraginn to deal with some direct threats and as soon as I do, the mobs loose argo and attack a nearby NPC.



I have even seen this happen with Alistair. A few times I have selected him to order a heal pot and all 6 mobs take off to other NPCs. I have to then chase one down and attack it to re-gain argo. This happens before he actually drinks the pot, so I don't think it is because he brakes combat to drink. I have also seen it happen simply by selecting Al, without changing orders.



anyone else notice this?

[Creature 1]

ckriley wrote..
Every fight starts with two or three mobs IMMEDIATLEY going after Leliana and/or Wynne.  Wynne draws healer aggro like a mother.    

Mobs attack the first character they see or the first one to deal them damage, unless distracted.  If you're opening battles by using Wynn to raise an earthquake, that's why they're after her.  If you get the first hit in with Leliana, they'll go after her.  If you're not using damage spells with Wynn maybe she's shooting them with her staff at the beginning of the combat. 

Wynn and Morrigan ought to be able to take care of a couple of enemies with no problem.  If you're early enough maybe take the glyph line, which provides you with local defense (+30 defense, +50 mental resistance--very nice), paralysis, or repulsion of melee enemies.  That should help fend off attackers. 

[Cybercat999]

Well, from my experience as dpser in MMOs, the main thing to do if you dont want to get aggro is to give a tank time to build aggro on him/herself. Then focus fire.

I only tried tanking a bit in this game but it works pretty fine for me. I took my party off most auto attacks and let them generally just auto-heal and auto-buff. When I decide my girl got enough attention from mobs I micromanage the rest manually.

[Sidney]

Tanks don't work as tanks if you are launching long range magic. If you, for example, drop an Inferno into a room when the foes leave the room they are going after the threat that caused the most damage..... they will ignore your tank and run right to the mage. This, frankly, is my biggest gameplay gripe. I can take my mage, cast Inferno, hide her around a corner and the baddies will run out the door, past by warriors who can't even get a swing off on them, and make a beeline around the corner for the mage.



I understand what the threat AI is trying to do but it is poorly implemented.

[hankscorpio21]

Sidney wrote...

Tanks don't work as tanks if you are launching long range magic. If you, for example, drop an Inferno into a room when the foes leave the room they are going after the threat that caused the most damage..... they will ignore your tank and run right to the mage. This, frankly, is my biggest gameplay gripe. I can take my mage, cast Inferno, hide her around a corner and the baddies will run out the door, past by warriors who can't even get a swing off on them, and make a beeline around the corner for the mage.

I understand what the threat AI is trying to do but it is poorly implemented.

That really doesn 't bother me.  Isn't the mage the first enemy you go for?   With a squishy mage doing all the damage I would think it makes sense to be the focus of attention of the enemies. 

Modifié par hankscorpio21, 21 décembre 2009 - 02:54 .

[Chragen]

When will people learn to actually to use pause and control all their companions and not just their PC character. If you can't keep agro and keep your companions alive you are either not running far enough in to the enemies to taunt archers/mages. Or you've got all your companions bunched up in one spot and they get killed by AoE like scattershot.

Since I really don't see how you can lose agro from enemies you've taunted. Even if your companions are nuking their little hearts out.

[Gaidren]

For the first half of the game, I used the fact that my mages pulled aggro constantly to my advantage by cheesing it up with Force Field. I'd have a mage tanking 4+ things while immune to damage while my other party members tore things up.



When I got tired of exploiting how broken Force Field is, I started having my tank go into rooms first. Don't let ranged DPS do *any* damage until your tank has landed a Taunt on their melee....they'll stick to him like glue after that. The key is landing that Taunt, which is hard to do if every enemy is running past your tank towards the mage who decided he just had to get a staff shot off before the tank got things under control.

[Sidney]

hankscorpio21 wrote...

That really doesn 't bother me.  Isn't the mage the first enemy you go for?   With a squishy mage doing all the damage I would think it makes sense to be the focus of attention of the enemies. 

I'm sure they WANT to kill the mage but when they:

A. Can't see the mage - I mean it is all good and well they know that that raging pillar of fire was created by a mage but they should not have a homing beacon to find that mage who is out of visual range.
B. Have run past a wall of swords and armor I've put across the corridor. I've literally had Shale, Ogren and Sten standing shoulder to should across a hallway and the baddies just run through them without cost to get at my mage.

I have an issue with that goofy logic. Toss in that the Taunt mechansim is lousy to start with and it gets worse if  the foes are dribbling out at you due to archery and/or spells so you can only gain aggor on one of them.

[ijmorris]

I have watched the AI in this game, and the enemies will almost always make a beeline for the mage when they realize it's a mage. That said, the "kiting" method of sending your tank in to scout will avail you best, I think...creep him up to the enemies, get a couple to see you and attack, then run back to your group and have a ball...if you feel that kiting is cheating, run the group up to your tank after he grabs a couple enemies...

[DragoonKain3]

A. Can't see the mage - I mean it is all good and well they know that that raging pillar of fire was created by a mage but they should not have a homing beacon to find that mage who is out of visual range.

I'm more concerned about the mage able to cast the raging pillar of fire from beyond visual range in the first place. If all spells including AoEs required Line of Sight, then this wouldn't be a problem.



As for B, I agree. At least implement something like opportunity attacks ala 3.x DnD. I'm not going for full collision though, since if your tanks are blocking the way, this creates pathing issues that you could otherwise exploit. For example, in the example in B, if your tanks are able to completely wall them out of the mage, the enemies would just keep trying to get to your mage without doing anything while they get massacred.

[Sidney]

DragoonKain3 wrote...

I'm more concerned about the mage able to cast the raging pillar of fire from beyond visual range in the first place. If all spells including AoEs required Line of Sight, then this wouldn't be a problem.

I wasn't sure early on if this was a bug or intent - and by this I mean for Blizzard, Inferno and Tempest. I decided on the latter for 3 reasons:

1. The long casting time makes it functionally useless except as artillery fire. Most fights are over before you can use it. Either these spells are uselss or this is the intent.
2. It stacks with Survival as a logical pairing. Survival lets you "detect" foes - I'm assuming here that you can spot signs of movement, listen at doors for people etc and not just magically know they are there. If you can know X is on the other side of a door why can't you hit them with a spell. Just knowing theh are doesn't help much.
3. If I can rain down fire or ice from the sky why should a door stop me.

Still, like you said an oportunity attack would help to slow things down a bit and make me feel better about a fighters up front approach.

[Invalidcode]

Never have problem with tanking. Taunt holds like everything, whatever ignore my tank gets shield bash, shield pummel, overpower.



Enemy bee line for mages isn't a problem, it makes them predictable and gets surrounded by my group themselves.

[Lord Phoebus]

I find there are some abilities that build aggro faster than taunt. Hexes for one, enemies love to chase the caster that hexed them. Arrow of slaying seems to make the target switch to whoever attacked them. Earthquake and Petrify will do this as well. AoE damage is another one the enemies find it hard to ignore. However CC spells are so plentiful and effective in this game there's no reason to hold aggro when you can just turn the enemies into a group of statues while you mow them down.

[DragoonKain3]

I personally call it the 'mage trap'. Them beelining to the mage makes them prime targets for Cone of Cold + Shock since they usually more or less end up in a line. Gives you time to back away as well if need be.



That's assuming my tank doesn't hold aggro. Once my Alistair learned Holy Smite, its usually Holy Smite --> knockdowned for Taunt and keep aggro forever.





@Sidney

As for their casting times, that's why I pair these spells up with fast cast AoE CC like Earthquake (of which Wynne is usually only 1 talent point away from learning, conveniently enough).



Developer intent is arguable, since its impossible to cast these spells behind walls/doors in 3rd person view, meaning that AoE'ing behind these obstructions is only available in the PC, and only in tactical view mode.



But really, how would you know where to aim the spell in the first place if you don't have line of sight? It should work both ways... if your mage knows the exact position where to cast their AoEs for optimum effect w/out LoS, then enemy should know where the mage is w/out LoS as well. Complaining about the latter while not addressing the former would be double standards, to say the least.

[Sidney]

DragoonKain3 wrote...
As for their casting times, that's why I pair these spells up with fast cast AoE CC like Earthquake (of which Wynne is usually only 1 talent point away from learning, conveniently enough).

Developer intent is arguable, since its impossible to cast these spells behind walls/doors in 3rd person view, meaning that AoE'ing behind these obstructions is only available in the PC, and only in tactical view mode.

But really, how would you know where to aim the spell in the first place if you don't have line of sight? It should work both ways... if your mage knows the exact position where to cast their AoEs for optimum effect w/out LoS, then enemy should know where the mage is w/out LoS as well. Complaining about the latter while not addressing the former would be double standards, to say the least.

I combo the Quake with them as well. Makes a nasty little combo.

I do cast them through doors on the 360 in 3rd person.

As for knowing where the answer is on the other side of the door. You don't need a lot of fine control. You can also cast past LoS and hit bad guys that can't see you but you can see them - again based on my playthroughs survival appears to affect this. If you move carefully enough and scout (or use stealth) this'll work and,a again, I don't have an issue with that.

[Cybercat999]

Gaidren wrote...
The key is landing that Taunt, which is hard to do if every enemy is running past your tank towards the mage who decided he just had to get a staff shot off before the tank got things under control.

Your mage doesnt decide anything on their own, you are there making all decisions for them.

Really, complaining that taunt doesnt hold in game where you can micromanage every party member separately is a bit laughable. 

Modifié par Cybercat999, 21 décembre 2009 - 08:00 .

[borelocin]

I hit H to position my companions towards the back of the fight and have everyone except my tank on ranged DPS or Healer duty. Also, my companions are set to only attack my target ( except mage sniping with Mana Clash and Arrow of Slaying ).



Use your shield attacks ( they generate a lot of hate ) and share the love around - don't try and finish off a mob, get the attention of a few.



I only Taunt once I have 3 or 4 interested in me ( because I bashed them with a shield )



Aura of Pain does ****e damage but is an aggro magnet, if you decide to go Reaver. I prefer Champion and War Cry - it's good crowd control and it generates a lot of aggro to boot.

[Creature 1]

DragoonKain3 wrote...
But really, how would you know where to aim the spell in the first place if you don't have line of sight? It should work both ways... if your mage knows the exact position where to cast their AoEs for optimum effect w/out LoS, then enemy should know where the mage is w/out LoS as well. Complaining about the latter while not addressing the former would be double standards, to say the least.

Actually I fought that slaver mage and we were dropping AoEs from different rooms on each other.  I'd raise a tempest and he'd drop a blizzard on my mage.  Fortunately I had better aim.