Aggravating Guide about Aggro

Just took the time to confirm your results. It does appear to be fixed, so that there is no stacking or stripping ... that all shields now overwrite each other. Thanks guys.

My lord ... six years later I'm re-reading this and just wow.

...and there is people that still believes Dom affect aggro.

Really, how much can you blame them? A lot of this information that I put together so long ago was sourced out of player testing, and gleaning from dev posts. Unless they come here and read this compendium, it's only natural they're going to go based on hearsay and anecdotes.

https://tinyurl.com/DCUOAggro will link to this guide

Update: fixed image links.

Mesmerizing lasso, I tried to test to see if it was still broken. I thought it was, but it seemed to work fine. I took it into World of Flashpoint, would find a clump of adds fighting each other, and try to taunt one out of the group with rage blast, and with lasso. I would stay back just far enough for the reticule to turn red, so my proximity wouldn't be a factor. If goons were fighting mobsters, and would still be occupied by something on its hate table after its buddy was taunted, I figured that would work. Both powers behaved the same.

However, I'm pretty sure it's not. My anecdotal evidence was levelling a toon that didn't have ragebringer yet, but could get the iconic as a targeted pull. Taking it into seasonals, there would be other tanks and lasso seemed to take more from them than just the one thing I'd grab. But hey, that could be explained by all sorts of things in this guide, and it's not hard evidence.

Whether or not it's still broken, my link to the old Issue Tracker is definitely broken. Hopefully that will indicate to someone who comes along that that might not be current information, so I'll leave the broken link for now.

Is this information still current? Specifically I'm interested in

• the 8-12s retaunt window. Most tanks constantly use powers so this usually isn't an issue. It also seems this only applies to refreshing your own taunt, as you should be able to juggle aggro as often as you can use a power with two tanks. Also, does this work differently for single taunts?
  
• CC/Breakout profiles. Most CC rotations nowadays use "soft" CC knockdowns (juggles), which I don't really see mentioned here or in the NPC guide. These appear to not trigger a breakout unless they are very overused. I also haven't seen an add be CC'd for 15 seconds before. I'm guessing Chronometric Emitters do not trigger breakout profiles because the hard CC compinent is only ~0.5s, and the remaining duration is a soft CC knockdown. Does Dominance still affect hard CC duration, and does it impact these soft CC juggles as well?
  
• Taunt distance. Do ranged powers still taunt around the target, around you, and all the area between you and the target?

I would suggest explicitly mentioning that you cannot apply a single taunt and a regular taunt simultaneously, that is each player can appear on a hate table only once when using any type of taunt (not sure if dropping aggro actually removes them entirely from the hate table actually). This means if you want to stop single taunting, you will have to momentarily remove yourself from being at the top of the hate table, before you can apply a regular taunt.

I also think the section on the meaning of "Aggro" is a bit confusing. It's commonly used as a noun (e.g. "having/pulling aggro", meaning the position itself of the top of the hate table), not only as a verb (to put yourself at the top of the hate table).

Overall good guide, I'm surprised it's been buried here for so long.

Yes, everything here is still current and still applies, except the bit about Mesmerizing Lasso needs to be retested ^

This is a false statement. The hate table for each enemy refreshes on a timer, it is not constantly shifting.

No, it does not work differenlty for single taunts.

Control Effects and Immunities is its own section ^

Soft CC and Hard CC only refer to what kinds of actions you can take while controlled, if I recall. CC doesn't have anything to do with Hate, Aggro, Taunts, etc. It was only mentioned here in terms of times when it might not seem like the tank has the focus of the enemy so, generally, CC is out of the scope of this guide.

Yes.

I don't know where to start with this one. It means I totally missed the mark in teaching.

I think I see where the issue might be, though. Each individual enemy has its own hate table. It is not one global hate table.

Whether you hit an enemy with a single taunt, or any other taunt, it is taunted, and the timer begins.

You are totally right, you can only appear on the hate table for that NPC once; you can not double-taunt something.

But, this bit about stopping single taunting I think belies something as well. Once taunted, like you said, they are taunted. It doesn't matter what taunted them, they are taunted. There is no changing that taunt from a single to a regular, they are just taunted.

The "overriding" means that, during the 8-12 second window, when the npc says "who do I hate the most" it'll have its regular list, the tanks using abilities, and the person who last used a single taunt at top. It makes the evalutation, and that's it. Whether you earned your place on the list from healing the group or from throwing a single taunt doesn't matter until the next time it refreshes the list.

I know, it's hard to unlearn a phrase. I still use it wrong when I'm chatting ingame.

Aggro means overriding the natural order of the hate table.

The natural order of the hate table would have tanks somewhere on the bottom of the list. If they just used weapon attacks, or didn't get a special mechanic for being in tank stance, that's where they'd be. But, they gain Aggro and get on top of the list.

The natural order of two damagers would be for the one doing the most damage to be on top of the hate list. But if one is mental, and uses Grandeur, that drops Aggro. It puts them artificially to the bottom of the list. Aggro is still, in this sense, overriding the natural order of the hate table.

See the section "When they say ___ what they really mean is ___" ^

What you've said and what I've had to clarify has given me a lot of food for thought. If you could give it another read and let me know if what I've said here helped it be more understandable, I'm sure there's room for improvement and editing.

Yup. Popping a shield within a certain range will refresh aggro during reflect phases.

Now…Provocation Agent and Mass Provocation Agent consumables can be really hit or miss. It’s odd.

I received your DM on Discord. I'd rather feedback went here. That way, I'm not the only one who can respond. This guide is an amalgam of a lot of people's research, testing and, quite frankly, fighting to help correct what is "most commonly used in the community" as you put it.

With the exception of the wikipeidia and giantbomb links, you've pretty much reiterated what you posted. The giantbomb article is completely wrong when applied to this game. The mechanic simply does not work the same here, though many of the terms and triggers are similar.

I think that's giving you a preconceived notion of the way things work, but a large hurdle in talking about it is the terminology. Try putting "for the purposes of this guide" and "in this game, different than other games you might be used to" in front of the "Quick Definitions" and the guide will make more sense to you.

Thank you for this guide to aggro in DCUO! It's very helpful knowing not just how but why things work, and explains a lot about certain things I'd noticed in-game. I do have a question about this paragraph, though:

Does that include shield abilities, like Hard Light Shield or Atomic's Density? It doesn't seem to, especially after a near-disastrous raid today, where I was having to shield almost constantly and still got knocked down 4 or 5 times, but I just want to make sure.

Glad I could help! I wish I had a list of all the sources and extensive testing of the people who researched this stuff before me so I could give them the credit they deserve.

Correct, shields are not encasements. I'm having trouble finding self-encasements other than the three examples I gave; that list might be exhastive and I was just covering my bases or future-proofing the guide.

Every time someone shows they visited the guide with a like or comment, I find something else to fix or add. I'll add the short link I made that brings you here, that makes it easier to reference ingame: https://tinyurl.com/DCUOAggro

If all is going according to plan ... a single taunted NPC will be clutching this in her pocket ...