Paladin Blinds, Stuns, and Taunt

Z

Zengo

Dalayan Adventurer
I have been playing a Paladin for quite some time and I have noticed some issues when it comes to agro. I would like to become a better tank so I have a few questions that I'm hopeing some kind person/people will be able to answer.

Blinds:
I use Blinding Light all the time. I really like it. I use it on treasure maps especially.
1) If a mob is mezzed does casting a blind on it help to generate agro towards me, and, if I cast 2 or 3 blinds on the mob before I break mez does it help me even more.
2) Do blinds stack? Is it worth it to cast Blinding Light and Flash of Light at the same time to help hold agro.
3) Is there a hate number that is generated with a blind spell. Example, Wizards DD increases hate by 500, Paladin Blind increases hate by 400. And, does this hate accumulate.

Stuns:
As I was leveling to my 50's I would use my stuns all the time. I did notice a few things as my stuns became longer and longer.
1) Stuns don't seem to keep a mob permanently stunned. If I get a successful 6 second stuff off and immediately cast a 4 second stun on the mob and back to another 4 second stun and back to the 6 to do it all over again, it should be permanently stunned. It seems that there is a cool down time for a second stun to work. I get the mob is successfully stunned message, but the mob continues to beat on me. If I wait around 8 seconds in between stuns, the mob is stunned properly. Is this as intended?
2) I understand that stuns add agro and this will help me keep the mob on me. Do the higher level stuns have more agro? I know the higher level stuns have a knock back effect and I find this rather annoying when doing a tmap. I try to use the lower level quick stuns instead.
3) Similar to question 3 for the Blinds section. Do the Stun spells generate a hate number and does this number accumulate.

Taunt:
I was reading in the previous posts about this and it seems the general rule is "If you are tanking the mob, and the mob is on you and ignoring the others in your group, do not spam Taunt." Save it for when someone gets the agro off of you. A successful Taunt will immediately bounce agro back to the tank, and add 1 point above everyone else on it's hate list. Is this correct?

With all of this in mind could a Paladin give me a suggestion for a proper spell lineup, say, if they are mid 50's to level 65.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to your responses.
 
Overwriting a lower level blind with a higher level one will give you more aggro. Once you have the highest level blind on a mob wait for it to wear off before re-blinding.

You can't keep a mob permanently stunned, this is intended. I'm not sure if you get aggro if you stun a mob that has been stunned recently.

Your description of taunt is correct.
 
I dont play a pally as my main nor do i have a pally for an alt so this may be not all correct. I played a friends pally a lot for while. I don't think that pally blinds stack. You have to wait for them to wear off in order to generate agro from casting it on a mob again. And i think that stun agro accumulates. When i was tanking on that pally i boxxed i was usually always in HHK. My spell line was Consecrate, Blinding Light, Wave of Light, Words of Thunder, Word of the Crusader, Blessing of Malath, Ethereal Cleansing, last one i would usually switch between another heal or buff. Hope that helps a little. And im sure someone that mains a pally would prolly be able to tell ya more.
 
blinds dont stack, they overwrite each other. keeping flash of light and blinding light is not necessary after you get to 63. getting divine stun AA early on helps you a lot to toggle between multiple targets and keep aggro. aggro accumulates no matter what you do. you cant keep a mob perma stunned. casting blind on mezzed mobs builds up your agro. for more detailed info on spells use a parser or wiki, they give exact hate numbers. general trend is, the higher the agro spell, the higher the agro it generates. personally i use word of crusader and wave of light for my ae needs.

if you have any more questions, send me a tell
 
Blinding Light
Wave of Light
Words of the Crusaders
Shout of Agony

are the 4 bread and butter aggro spells for a paladin.

Divine Stun doesn't generate a lot of aggro but its important since after you stack your 2 blinds (wave of light overwrites blinding light) it gives you another aggro hit.

Shout of agony obviously is not a option for everyone sinces its a raid drop only spell. But one that paladins should definitely try to get as soon as they can.

Definitely seems that multi-stuns (as long as thier not cast instantiously on top of one another) do stack up additional hate.
 
Blinds:
If you switch between AE blind and single blind you don't have to wait until they wear off to cast again as they overwrite each other.

Stuns:
After I got divine stun and the recast AAs that go along with it I never needed to keep any other single target stuns up. Giving me space for more useful spells.

Taunt:
As far as I know knight taunt is pretty awful. I keep it on page one of my hot buttons but I only use it when i need to pull agro.

As far as spell line up I use; single blind, ae blind, ae stun, shout of agony, 2 self heals, group hot, and the last spell is usually situational. Usually targeted heal or consecrate.
 
My normal spell lineup is
1: Taraztu's Healing flames
2: Blessing of Malath
3: Ethereal Cleansing
4: Touch of Vitality
5: Wave of Light
6: Blinding Light
7: Word of the Crusader
8: Words of Thunder
-- Switch out 7 & 8 for my 2 best pbaoe dd nukes when fighting undead. Max AA so I have those toys to play with. If im not boxing one of my other toons I'll generally drop single target stun for Root or a 3rd self heal. Just depends. I've found that spell lineup works for me in 99percent of the groups Im in.
Also Vart answered your questions.
 
A followup question on this issue, since it applies to clerics as well:

On Live, stuns worked as follows:

1. Cast a 6 second duration stun successfully that isn't resisted. Mob is stunned for 6 seconds.
2. Cast a 4 second duration stun successfully that isn't resisted. Mob is only stunned for 2 seconds since this is the 2nd stun to hit the same mob. (50% of duration)
3. Cast the 6 second duration stun ... Mob is stunned for 1.5 seconds since this is the 3rd stun to hit the same mob. (50% of duration * 2)
4. ....
5. Eventually, the stun is for .1 seconds or so and only useful for stopping spell casting.

Unless changed on SoD, stuns always add agro...even if the mob is still stunned.

I will, again, confirm the Taunt description.

I don't know anything about the Blind issue.
 
There is definitely a cooldown period between stuns so that you can't chain stun something (although a stun cast within this period still interrupts normally).

I could be wrong about this but it also seems like trying to overlap stuns will actually immediately break the stun of the original spell cast when the second hits.
 
Rorne said:
I could be wrong about this but it also seems like trying to overlap stuns will actually immediately break the stun of the original spell cast when the second hits.
Click to expand...

This was true on Live, and the "new stun's" duration began immediately. Thus, as a cleric that melee'ed regularly in groups, you always waited until the known end of the "first cast stun" before casting the second one, etc.

Again, due to the duration issue as mentioned in my above post.

But, this is SoD...and things may have changed.
 
So does casting FoL > BL > FoL > BL create tons of aggro on a target, or does it only give threat for 1 blind since it is technically still blinded?
 
Vallren said:
So does casting FoL > BL > FoL > BL create tons of aggro on a target, or does it only give threat for 1 blind since it is technically still blinded?
Click to expand...

As long as you overwrite the old debuff you get more aggro. I usually BL > WoL > BL then Blinding Light all of the other mobs I'm fighting. After that I might AE stun if it looks like a particularly tough pull, otherwise just smash divine stun while waiting for WoL to repop.
 
Xach said:
Yes. Only the first blind generates aggro.
Click to expand...

It's easy to demonstrate this is not the case.
  1. Pull a mob with a blind
  2. Take aggro with another toon
  3. Take aggro back by overwriting the blind with another blind
 
Well I meant in a situation where only 1 mob was pulled. I find it easier to hold aggro on several than on a single one :/
 
Stun agro is based on the duration of the stun and your level. Mobs that have been stunned are immune to the stun effect for x seconds afterwards, based on their level, but you will still generate the agro from the stun. Same with mobs that are natually stun immune.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom