Thorsson

I 'm not having any aggro issues and Amends is not bugged. When you are tanking, and you're sudden'y not holding aggro, the first place to look for the solution to the problem is ===> your Amends target. Here's a checklist:

1) did you make a wise choice as far as which class of player to have Amends on?
Tharinor makes some good points in his posts above. the makeup of every raid or group varies of course, but in general the best Amends targets are high-parsing scouts and warlocks...you know~ the players that pull aggro from you when you are tanking. if you've got Amends on a Necro or Conjuror and you are losing the mobs, you will want to make a switch to a better choice. if you have Amends on a Warlock or a Swashy, and you are losing aggro, it's time to look at 2)

2) did you tell them you have Amend on them?
you just can't throw Amends onto someone in your group and assume they know what to do with it. all scouts, for example, have some way of getting rid of hate, whether it's a transfer or a dispell-buff or even a poison-proc. if the scout you just put Amends on doesn't group with you often, doesn't realize you have Amends on them, or even if they just died and are re-buffing~ they're probably using their hate-decreasing tools out of habit. means less hate for the paladin. the onus is on you to educate them. tell them you've got Amends on them and to take off any hate-decreasers.

3) did you tell them how important their dps is to your ability to hold aggro?
two points to make with this statement. the first is that some players that rarely group with a Pally have resigned themselves to holding back on dps because pulling aggro = instant death...i'm talking about squishies for the most part. make sure you tell them that you put Amends on them, and be sure to tell them they can go all-out. Warlocks will love you for this, and will want to be in your group forever afterwards. also be prepared for their enthusiastic compliance with your request.. because if you are off-tanking, they will get you killed. the second point in telling them how important their dps is to your aggro control is to try and flush out any chance that they are going to ninja on you. it's happened to me before. it's typically a chick who is minding their kids, but it could be a guy who ran off to grab his stash as well. one minute, the mobs are on you like glue, and the next they are all over the casters because your Amends target went afk.. a look at the parse will tell you instantly that your aggro magnet is rolling a fatty instead of mashing buttons like you need him to, but a little communication up front on your part could head off some embarrassing wipes.

4) is your Amends target hitting the mob?
i know it sounds stupid but, hey~ some mobs have immunities to certain attacks. the Magical Advisor in Emerald Halls, for example, is highly resistant to magical attacks and the Martial Advisor is highly resistant to melee attacks. If you picked a mage for an Amends target, and you're trying to burn down the Magical advisor, you're aggro magnet isn't going to be hitting the mob enough to keep the Brigand from pulling it off you. vice versa with the Martial Advisor. some mobs are immune to pierce/crush weapon attacks, so if your scout is dual-wielding with the wrong weapon type, then you're not getting the hate you think you are getting. was in castle mistmoore last weekend with Amends on a Ranger (who I group/raid with often), but kept losing aggro to the Illusionist. switched Amends to the Illusionist and would lose aggro to the Ranger. the problem was that the Ranger was getting a low percentage of hits from his bow attacks. I ended up leaving Amends on the Illusionist because it was the best I could do in that particular group. the Ranger could take a few hits until I got aggro back whereas the Illusionist couldn't. check the parse on your Amends target when 1), 2) and 3) have been covered.

as far as your own dps goes, yeah there's always room for improvement. once your hate gain is maxxed at 50%, a Dirge's AA line buffs and CoB will will significantly increase your procs. even better is to have both a Brig and Dirge in your group and have them time their Dispatch and CoB~ mad dps. one key to making your dps shine, and to really take advantage of your AA spec, is to have a good weapon and as much proc gear as you can find. it's been talked about in other threads, but for a weapon you really need a one with a long delay, and large damage spread. basically an Avatar weapon. if your guild isn't raiding Avatars, you're out of luck, but there are some drops that will tide you over until you can.

Zen

This is kinda shocking to me.. Am I the only dumbarse person around here who think that transfer cap should be 50% per toon instead of a total of 50%??

Faxon

yea, because then you could technically stack a paladins transfers to (correct me if im wrong) 111 w/o sigil, with sorc transfer + both scouts + monk with 5AP in avoid share + amends + coercer. that alone would make it possible for you to hold agro through a druids thornshield more or less, and that isnt including the hate increasers from a dirge+ coercer as well. there is a reason that they nerfed transfer and + hate mod abilities ya know......


as for not holding agro in labs, your group should really go warlock/swash for amends, dirge, paladin (you) templar, defiler, and either warden, or coercer/illu depending on if you spec pure dps and what is avalable. dont forget, haste increases how often your trample will go off since you are auto attacking more, ammounting to a lot more damage. what a lot of people forget about a dirge is that most of the dps boost you get from them cant directly be measured in parses, since it is based on auto attack, and auto attack has a tendancy to vary from fight to fight a lot more than a flat value proc like tomb's clam, CoB, PoTM....ect would.

also, what weapon are you using? i usually do about 1600ZW on my paladin with that group (more with warlock than swash) i listed above, and with the people im currently raiding with i never fial to be within 4 places of top on the parse BEFORE amends + hate increasers to help with agro. honestly i cant actually troubleshoot your hate issues till we know what you are hitting the mobs with yourself, we can only speculate on who is best for what. and btw if your amends target isnt doing at least 1300ZW in labs in that group (warlock with ad3s could do that NP) you need to boot them from guild and get a new one. my first raid in labs (second raid ever) i did 1600ZW on my wiz with ad3s and shit for gear, you just gotta make sure they know not to hold back. if i have to use a wiz for amends, i usually tell them to get as much precasting as possible + save FG+iceshape for buff agro, cast fusion mid pull so it lands 2 seocnds after the mobs are in place, ect ect you konw the deal. learn the classes you generally use for amends to the point you could almost play them yourself.

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boli

Myself ~ 900 (1Hander/QG) ~ 1.4k (Prides's edge)
Wizard ~ 2.8k
Swash ~ 700
Assasin ~ 1.6k

No dirge or coercer in raid (pickup)

And we recast the transfers in every order under the sun and I relogged and everything .. it was simply as if amends wasn't there when all were up.... found out later under the second pally that removing one transfer made it appear back again :/

Jalathan

I think you were putting too many transfers on.

But even then, with amends on the assassin, you would of gotten 656 hate + 900 hate from your dps = 1,556 hate per second, that wizard would of been in a world of hurt as you aren't going to make up 1,132 hate per second from taunts.

Using the wizard would of given you (assuming the dps held true) 1,148 hate per second + 900 dps hate = 2048 which would of been enough to hold agro off of the wizard who would of had a modified hate per second of 1,652

boli

yup... that's the point... even casting it first amends seemed to bug out with that many transfers on

Jalathan

I have never run with more than one transfer on me. Too many chances to 'mess it up' in my opinion. I've already got near cap transfer, why mess it up trying to pull another 9% out of it?

Probably the only transfers I would consider stacking would be amends on the swashy and then their hate dump on me, that way I'm sure I'm getting 50% of their hate, that would be plenty in most cases if the swashy is doing their job. Also remember that a swashy's hate can be modified by taunts as well, so you need to let them know that the use of taunts and taunting CAs are fine and encouraged to give you that extra hate.

I think the lesson in this is to not mix your amends target and other transfers (other than sigil), you are probably doing things that will break your ability to hold agro.

boli

In a raid with no bards I think the raid leader was trying to make sure "I'll never loose agro" proved him wrong I guess :P

Thorsson

ok, I never run with more than Amends on a target, then their transfer on me. thanks for the heads up.

Kalath

As I understand it, the last applied transfer from a single target takes presedence, so if you had a swash and an assassin in your group, it sounds like you put your transfer on one, then they put their's on your, canceling amends. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the understanding I came to after they added a transfer to the sorceror power procs. I've always been under the understanding that you can't transfer from the same person twice, not because of caps, but just because it doesn't stack.

But then again, I'm a pretty lazy paladin, so they may have changed this a long time ago.