How to tank

[cambam33]

I was just wondering what is the best way to use a fighter to tank? due to cut scenes and dialogue sometimes the weak character is closest so he/she gets targeted immediately or enemies ignore my tank and just run past him. Is there a way to force engagement on enemies and stop them from breaking away or ignoring the tank?

 

TIA 

[Cantousent]

As far as I know, there's no strict tanking abilities. I've been in an early dungeon with some spectral bad guys and they not only ignore the fighter, they pop in behind my two wizards and start harassing them. Now, my fighter can usually engage one and then it seems to stick on him pretty well, but if there are others behind, they just appear at the rear ranks. Other beasties, however, will typically stay concentrated on the fighter if he can engage with them. Of course, I've been spending a lot of time here, so I haven't gotten far into the game yet.

[Blave]

Teleporting enemies aside, most foes tend to attack the character nearest to them. With the right abilities and talents, you can get a fighter to engage up to 4 foes at the same time, so anyone walking past him will be enganged. This stops most of them in their tracks. I'm not too far into the game, yet, but I've read that there are some tougher enemies that will just eat the disengage-attack and walk past the tank. In that case, you might want to have a second character at the front so you can block the path to your back row better and get mor disengage-attacks.

 

It's all about positioning, really. If enemies are too close because of a cutscene or something, try delaying their approach with crowd control abilities. Knock downs or knock backs word pretty well, as do stuff like hobble, stuck or paralysed. Should give you enough time to get your formation in order. It's not perfect, though, so always have potions and/or defensive abilities on all characters for emergencies.

[Lasci]

Defender is a modal fighter ability that allows you to engage two more enemies.

 

Using knockdown on enemies that are on top of your back line also helps. Despite its deceptive name Into the Fray serves a similar purpose by pulling an enemy to the fighter.

 

In general, send your fighter in first. Make sure he's the first person that runs into your enemies. If you're not playing on hard, this should take up a goof chunk of your opponents -- they won't be able to get through your fighter and the three enemies he's engaged with if you're fighting at a bottleneck.

[Fimconte]

Use terrain to your advantage.  
Almost every fight that can be difficult in it's normal room, becomes much easier when you pull the enemies back to a good defensive position.  
Corners and doorways are especially nice as the AI will bunch up near them and you can spam AOE into them without much trouble.