Call me a noob, call me a casual player, or even call me lazy; it doesn’t matter.  But for the longest time I’ve tank in LOTRO that has primarily “skated by” without doing a lot to improve my effectiveness beyond some preliminary glances at my virtues or traits.  It’s only been in the last few months that I’ve really started paying more attention to these things.  Before then I focused on leveling, then my alts, and then just getting through the epic story.  However, now that I’ve been trying to run more group content I’ve realized that something had to change.

In most cases my ability to tank was not bad, but it wasn’t great.  Sometimes I had no problems holding aggro, but other times it was much more difficult.  At first I evaluated my virtues, and after arranging them some I determined that while the virtues could improve my defenses and my stats, there really were no that could directly increase my aggro-holding capabilities.  I took a closer look at my class traits and felt satisfied with what I had in relation to holding aggro and I was pretty sure that my rotation was well-suited for my playstyle.