As this is something that sticks in my craw, I'll take this opportunity to request of you, and all of tanker nation: Please, please...stop herding*.
Herding used to be a very cool and effective tool for killing masses of baddies. Now, it's just a way to make a giant mess while long-recharge buffs wear off. The agro cap makes it such that it is much faster to just crash over missions like a wave. Lead the group, get into mobs first and take alpha, maybe taunt, and start punchin' stuff. Waiting for a gather kills any active inspirations and buffs like AM and RA. Furthermore, on a large team, you will wind up agro-ing more stuff than you can hold, thus dumping messy aggs onto the squishies. So please, stop herding and tank.
*I am assuming a full team, in a smaller team, it's often useful to combine multiple groups.
PS--I love you tankers. 
Open the pod bay doors, Hal.
Lead by leading. Set the pace for your team. Get to know what your team can handle and keep them fighting at that level. Know the instant you can let them mop up and start hitting the next group. Everyone should be doing stuff and the team should be going full-bore. All the time. Keep people busy. Keep the team efficient. Set the pace. That's the tank I want.
If you feel the need to herd, ask yourself: do you want to sit around while someone does the work (inefficiently)? Or do you want to go out and be engaged all the time you're playing? Why would anyone else?
While I agree with The_Ringer that herding is in many cases an outmoded tactic, it can still be useful on occasion and more importantly some Tanker players enjoy being able to do it and count it as part of what makes their Tankers fun.
To that end, I'd say probably Fire, Dark, Ice or Shield should be able to herd reasonably well. I personally don't enjoy herding so I'm shooting from the hip a bit here, perhaps others can be more specific.
For the most part, herding tanks waste more time than they save on a typical team in the current environment of the game (to say nothing of when the herding tank over-herds, dies, or otherwise miscalculates and unleashes large hordes onto the team). Generally speaking, gathering one or two spawns up for destruction is more efficient.
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It's worth noting that on some kinds of small teams, Herding can be advantageous. Especially if there are only a few AoE or the AoEs are not very wide in area coverage. Bunching up a group of foes tightly can improve those AoEs, and if there are only a few of them, the time spent gathering the herd can coincide with the recharges of the team's AoE capability.
Also when fighting extremely tough foes, it can be used to limit the chance of blundering into nearby spawns.
But I agree that it is no longer "the" tactic and is largely situational now.
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
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Sure...but Granite/Ice will make you wait for it. |
Originally Posted by Ice_Ember
any tank can herd...
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If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
Can we clarify what "Herding" actually is? Different people seem to have different definitions...
To me "Herding" is simply "Making a group of foes move somewhere you want them to go".
Not by itself either a good thing or a bad thing.
GOOD HERDING:
(i) The standard teaming "Group-to-Group" herd. Jumping (or Running/Flying/TPing) from one group of foes to another. Grab aggro of all nearby foes in the closest group as quickly as possible. Punch them, Taunt them, Foot Stomp them, Keep them in your Damage Aura, whatever. Stay in one place (in the middle of the group of foes) and attract the foes as close to you as possible for your team's AoEs to hit. Bonus points if whilst them teammates are beating on the foes you have around you, you can pull a second group of foes towards you with ranged attacks or Taunt. The goal here is to have a steady stream of foes around you at all times. The only time you have no foes around you is when you are moving from one clump of foes to another. NEVER PULL MORE FOES THAN THE AGGRO CAP UNLESS YOU HAVE A SECOND TANKER OR VERY SKILLED TEAMMATES.
(ii) The "Corner Pull". Useful only in certain situations, such as a room filled with foes, (to such an extent that if you jumped in you would immediately have more foes than the aggro cap on you). Attack or taunt a group of foes, then find a handy piece of geometry such as a nearby wall to hide behind until they all cluster together at the "choke point" you've just created. The goal here is to pull a "safe number" of foes away so your team can safely take care of them. Once you have whittled down the numbers, you can return to "Group-to-Group" herding.
(iii) The "Kill Zone" pull. Useful only in very very specific situations, such as when you have a Traps or Devices player on the team that can set up static pets or buffs/debuffs. The goal here is to get a large number of enemies into the area where they will be fastest killed. In nearly all cases though, it is faster to simply Group-to-Group herd.
BAD HERDING:
(i) Corner Pulling on EVERY mob. It is SLOW, and it is BORING.
(ii) Trying to grab all foes in an area without caring about the aggro cap. This is dangerous for your teammates and leads to teamwipes. It doesn't matter if you're pulling or group-to-grouping. When you aggro more than the aggro cap, it's a bad thing.
(iii) Insisting on fighting in a particular manner on every mob. There are times when it will be safer to hang back and corner pull... and there are times when you can group-to-group it safely, providing you keep a close eye on what that other nearby mob is doing.
(iv) "Trailing" foes halfway round a zone. This is what many percieve as the 'old style' Herding and is never good. Unless you're pulling foes over a very short distance in order to clump a limited number of them together, don't bother. It wastes time, bores your teammates and makes your tanker look bad. There is nothing worse than hanging around for 5 minutes after every fight whilst your tank runs off "Herding" by themselves, then finally arrives with 16 weak foes running after them and another 45 foes they attempted to aggro but subsequently "lost" strewn about various corridors.
...any more I've forgotten about?
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As long as we're talking "herding" and things that stick in people's craw, let's not forget the inept Blaster that snipes into the mob (or worse multiple mobs) prior to aggro being established, or the Controller that locks everything down before it's effectively gathered, or the "Super" Scrapper that wants to be a Tank and over aggros or dies once stuck in the mob. All of the above further contribute to "bad herding".|
Originally Posted by The_Ringer
As this is something that sticks in my craw, I'll take this opportunity to request of you, and all of tanker nation: Please, please...stop herding*.
Herding used to be a very cool and effective tool for killing masses of baddies. Now, it's just a way to make a giant mess while long-recharge buffs wear off. The agro cap makes it such that it is much faster to just crash over missions like a wave. Lead the group, get into mobs first and take alpha, maybe taunt, and start punchin' stuff. Waiting for a gather kills any active inspirations and buffs like AM and RA. Furthermore, on a large team, you will wind up agro-ing more stuff than you can hold, thus dumping messy aggs onto the squishies. So please, stop herding and tank. *I am assuming a full team, in a smaller team, it's often useful to combine multiple groups. PS--I love you tankers. |
That said, "Herding" isn't what it used to be, but can still be an effective way to work large rooms or rooms where multiple spawns can aggro on the team. Corner Pulling, Turning, "Open Herding" (gathering a couple of mob w/o using terrian), and "pulling forward" ("herding" to a forward position, rather than come back to where the team is) are usually faster and more effective ways to move through missions, provided the rest of team lets the Tank do its job.
In the ideal situation the Tank should be engaging the next mob while the team is finishing the last goon in the current mob. Multiple Tanks on an AoE heavy team is just plain awesome with visual effects, orange numbers, sound effects and xp flying across the screen.
To respond to the OP's question, aggro cap is now 17 goons, you can fudge that a bit with Gauntlet and Taunt, but for the most part it's 17. "Herding" as it was is pretty much dead unless you have multiple Tanks, and or and experienced team. Work on taking the alpha and sustained aggro, then move on to the next group. When it works (see above for things that complicate establishing aggro) it's far more enjoyable for the whole team.
*(forgot to mention "meat grinding", in a large multi-level room with lots of mobs, stand behind an column or other terrain feature, move around it (so you're breaking Line of Site) Taunting and AoEing (forcing mobs to come to you while maintaining aggro) and continously pull the goons in as the team defeats them. Usually helps if you're just slightly over aggro cap as the team is reducing mobs so quickly. Think modified "Cornering".)( You can also do this on certain outside maps.)
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all melee teams + herding = incredifun
Herding is pretty specific in usage nowadays.
Herding in those cases are meant as a deposit mob into the kill zone so the herder can run away and bring more mobs. This usually means there are other aggro holders in the kill zone or else slow/immobilizers in the zone.
Justice uses a herd-to-spot during the GM phase of hami raids and herd-to-center for ship raids in order to maximize the number of incoming mobs while the raiders are massed together. It increases the chance of a wipe but it is really fun. Lost count at 28 Rikti Magi once during a wipe but no guts, no glory.
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Eh, sometimes there's guts. Watch your step, it's slippery.
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Originally Posted by PumBumbler
Justice uses a herd-to-spot during the GM phase of hami raids and herd-to-center for ship raids in order to maximize the number of incoming mobs while the raiders are massed together. It increases the chance of a wipe but it is really fun. Lost count at 28 Rikti Magi once during a wipe but no guts, no glory.
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If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
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I also think its a good idea to herd if the team is entering an open space and there are a lot of Snipers in the mob groups. Nemesis come to mind. Safer to pull a group or two to an area that limits exposure, as opposed to fighting in the middle of the room.
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Originally Posted by Maelwys
...any more I've forgotten about? |
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As you can see in previous posts, traditional herding by a Tanker is not a preferred tactic. But IMO, the sets with the best Taunt auras are Ice and Invul. I hear Shield is good, but to be honest, the ones I've played with didn't seem to hold aggro all that well. Then again, maybe they were more focused on offense.
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Originally Posted by Nubzcrymore
So I have just come back after a year and was curious as to what is the best power sets for a tank to herd with now? Considering a few have been added since I last played.
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I actually find this even MORE annoying than what I will call "bad herding" (as designated by someone above me). |
Originally Posted by NuclearMedicine
As long as we're talking "herding" and things that stick in people's craw, let's not forget the inept Blaster that snipes into the mob (or worse multiple mobs) prior to aggro being established, or the Controller that locks everything down before it's effectively gathered....
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My craw is bursting!
Open the pod bay doors, Hal.
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I disagree. Don't stop herding.|
Originally Posted by The_Ringer
As this is something that sticks in my craw, I'll take this opportunity to request of you, and all of tanker nation: Please, please...stop herding*.
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I understand that in a lot of cases, herding is unnecessary. However, there are several cases where herding can be advantageous. For example, when mobs are spread out all over the place, the best thing to do is to herd them all around a corner, or large object, so that they are nicely grouped up. This is useful for the Tanker, why?
> Most Tankers have amazing smash/lethal def/res, herding them this way makes sure that mobs use their melee powers more often, which in a lot of cases are smash/lethal damage.
> By putting mobs in melee range, they are also within the Tanker's range as well, which means the Tanker can actually hit them and taunt them.
> A lot of powerful debuffs are location based, which means it's more effective to use when all the mobs are...well...all in one location.
> A lot of AoE powers are obviously more effective when they can hit most or all of the mobs. Herding mobs help people that relies heavily on their AoE for damage and/or debuff...thus in return helps the entire team.
> Team formations are more organized and easier to handle, since the mobs are all clumped up, you wont have teammates chasing mobs in every directions, which makes it much harder for support toons to manage. It also makes AoE heals a lot more effective.
> This last case is situational. Willpower Tankers rely a lot on Rise to the Challenge for the massive regen and moderate to-hit debuff that it offers. This means that WP Tankers preferably want mobs to be grouped up so that they can make use of RttC more effectively.
Now, if mobs are already all nicely grouped up where they spawn, then it's really pointless to herd when you can just jump right in the center and start taking a beating.
For the OP, the best primary powerset for herding is probably Ice Armor. Chilling Embrace is practically instant aggro, and you have Icicles to help out with holding aggro as well. However, this isn't really important since all Tanks can easily run up to a group, use Taunt, and run behind a corner and wait for them all. If you don't have Taunt yet or if you're not planning on getting Taunt, then hitting the highest ranked mob within the group will generally aggro them all. However, to hold aggro, you'll need either Taunt or some form of AoE that actually effects the mobs.
So I have just come back after a year and was curious as to what is the best power sets for a tank to herd with now? Considering a few have been added since I last played.