Advice from all WP Tankers

Ok guys, here's the question:

How on earth do you keep aggro in a team? im doing AE mission's (no debating this here), teamed with another tank /inv, and two /shd scrappers. Im the highest tank at 47, taking alpha's, taunt pulling etc, but as soon as the scrapper enter the fray, (one a 50, one 20summat) all aggro is on them, which their struggling to hold. Now, i know willpower has only a mag 3 taunt aura, compared to all other sets mag 4, but seriously, a lvl 26ish shield scrapper is getting it off me just by entering the mob.

is it something im doing?

Try a taunt enhancement in RttC would be my suggestion, and put taunt on auto when you enter the fray

My dm/shield scrapper pulls aggro off non taunting tanks with ease

What's your secondary? Thanks to Gauntlet, my WP/SS holds aggro pretty well if I fire off a Foot Stomp when anything isn't looking at me, and most of the other secondaries get AoEs before 38, don't they?

But I do make liberal use of Taunt, and have two taunt IOs in RttC.

I am using Taunt, almost as soon as it comes up, and have 1 taunt in RttC, as well as using Tremor whenever possible, and knocking loads on their backs, but their jumping back up, and pounding the scrapper again. However, once he's faceplanted, me and the invul are holding two mobs at the same time fine. The scrapper obviously wont turn off his aura, so his own fault, but the time its taking getting them on me after he drops is also problematic to the team.

I do know WP has the weakest tanker aura, but it should be pulling from a scrapper surely?

*EDIT

Bizarrely, i can keep aggro off a spines / fire scrapper also in the team fine, and the MA / WP scrapper, but the /shd is taking everything.

Just wondering, but are you pulling multiple groups or doing something else that might take you over the aggro cap?

Yes it should. But he's faceplanting with two tanks in the group taunting? I'm led to believe one of two things...

a) he's jumping the gun early and jumping into the group before the tanker taunts take effect.

b) he's using taunts in his aura/attacks (which I doubt)

You mentioned the scraps have SD (secondary) so are they Shield Charging before the tanks go in? Also, Against All Odds has a taunt mag equivalent to RTTC, but again, either of the tank Taunt should take hold especially if you are taunting everytime it comes up.

Likely, the scrappers are getting aggro before the tanks are.

On my Fire/SD scrapper I was basically pulling off a WP tank just by being around the mobs, even if I waited for the tank to get some AoE damage out there. After that didn't work I killed off using AAO, same deal. Once I established the tank didn't have the stones to hold off threat from me just because I was doing damage, I left. Granted, this tank wasn't even pretending to taunt and hardly had any sets going, so it is possible I got that fresh faced level 50 tank that thinks he can handle himself now because he's 50, but it's been my experience that WP tanks put out jack for threat regardless.

Most scrappers deal more damage no? Maybe if he's dishing out serious dmg it ends up pissing the mob off and they all turn on him...Heck I have a few doms I've played in the past that can easily get all aggro on them lol.

You're really, REALLY gonna have to work to get aggro from that Shield scrapper... his aura is I believe a Tanker level MAG 4 and I believe the same duration as Invuln... have to check on that in-game as Mid's is wrong about the Shield taunt aura. Unless I'm mistaken the scrapper aura is identical to the Shield tanker aura. The only way you'll have a chance to keep aggro is to make damn sure you have it solidly before the scrapper attacks.

I've main tanked several AV's and a whole ITF with my Shield scrapper... a WP tanker was completely unable to get aggro from me despite his best efforts. Now, my scrapper is soft capped and was actually more durable than said tanker so it was no big deal for me.

Just assume that once that shield scrapper enters melee you're going to loose aggro... the only way you'll keep it is to use Taunt before he enters melee and you'll have to keep Taunt up while also spamming attacks.

I've written a guide to this very subject. I like two taunts in RttC, myself.

It's also important to educate people about knockback. You knock it, you tank it.

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Your going to be low on the threat ladder compared to others at times but these others tend to be tanks, brutes and scrappers of which you don't really have to concern yourself about.

I don't understand the issues some people seem to have with a WP tank. The only time I lose aggro on mine is if a blaster nukes or if a controller goes aoe crazy.

I have a Stone / WP tanker and I can tell you that I have no problem holding agro.

You should be the first one in, Fault, Taunt then other tankers roll in, do their respective AOEs if they have them, and then taunt. There should be nothing for the squishies and scrappers to fear from that point on. Fault will likely disorient most if not all of the group and knock them on their butts. I'm not a fan of tremor at all on a WP tanker. It makes your job tougher by pushing the group out of your taunt range. Why make a negative worse by spreading them out? Just my thoughts.

I haven't seen anyone touch on it, so I'll try to explain why your WP Tank is having such a hard time keeping aggro against a Shield Scrapper:

• Taunts are not binary on/off switches, they're gigantic threat multipliers on the magnitude of 1000*duration. So a 5 second taunt effect multiplies threat by 5000. This threat comes from damage, debuffs, AI preferences, etc. At any rate, this means the biggest factor of taunts is their duration, as it increases that multiplier.
  Note: Taunt effects deliver threat of their own (based off their duration) when they land, too. So a taunt aura is passively pumping out threat even if you don't attack.
• RttC's taunt duration is 1.25s, Invuln and AAO are both 16.875s. Both of these completely overwhelm RttC's minor taunt effect, even when 95% taunt slotted. There are two things to keep in mind. First, AAO has a damage debuff in it, making its passive taunting more effective than Invuln's. Second, Scrappers deal more damage than tanks (esp coupled with AAO's +dmg buff), so when coupled with an incredibly strong aura like AAO, they will out threat non-Taunting (the power) Tankers.
• Once somebody is holding aggro, it takes twice as much threat to force targets to switch targets.

• Try to get into the mobs first. The bigger the headstart you get, the better. Remember how I said that it takes double threat to steal aggro? By getting in there sooner, you can build up your threat making it harder for the Scrapper to take it from you in the first place. The key is being able to guage when the group is fine without you and to move to the next spawn while they clean up.
  
  Start small, when there are only a few mobs left, then slowly ramp it up while you get a feel for it. This is a skill that will take time to develop, but you'll eventually get the hang of it.
  
  
• It is absolutely essential to take, and slot, Taunt. Its base duration is 41s (for most sets, DM and DB are inexplicably only 30.75s), when slotted that's about 80s. That multiplies your threat by 80,000, which is enough to swamp out AAO. Don't skimp on recharge, though! You'll want to use it often.
• Now you you're arriving at spawns earlier than anyone else and you have Taunt well slotted, it's time to build as much threat as possible. You'll want to priorities your abilities such that you generate the most threat in the least amount of time. So, your priorities are as follows:
  1. Taunt - This applies threat and sets up the multiplier. With any luck you'll be able to use it twice before your group catches up with you. After that, start rotating it between mobs to try to keep it applied and refreshed on all mobs. If the Scrapper has aggro and you need to take it back, taunt those mobs repeatedly.
  2. AoEs - This will apply more threat to more targets than your other powers. (As Stone Melee, they're also nice crowd control, anyways.)
  3. Single target attacks - Either rotate these between targets or focus on a single target that you want to guarantee that you hold aggro on. If the Scrapper has taken some aggro from you, hit those targets.

I think getting into groups first and laying down the highest end costing secondary powers before other people start helps a ton, even my WP scrapper often tanks and she does damage for a bit before the team arrives, damage making me the threat. People should have to adapt away from putting themselves at risk though if they want to live.