In ToV Expansion Pets Do Not Hold Agro

Discussion in 'Bug Reports' started by Roguexx, Feb 28, 2020.

  1. Roguexx Journeyman

    Sooo I just got my group of mage, necro, Beast Lord high enough to go to ToV expansion. The Beast Lord cannot engage at all because the mobs instantly agro him whenever he engages, despite all pets having taunt turned on.

    Please tell me that is a bug that is being fixed. Otherwise I have a dead weight character now with the Beast Lord.
  2. Duder Augur



    Two things:

    1) Proximity aggro is a thing, all mobs in eq used to do this, they changed it so most now do not, except for mainly event type mobs. In that case, just use your beastlord to pet tank while the beastlord stands back and dots/nukes/keeps the pet alive. Their pet tanking spells are stronger than mage anyhow ;)

    2) The Beastlord ToV pet buff (Spirit of Mandrakai) has a 10500pt aggro reducer proc, use the RoS version. (Spirit of Beramos)
  3. Duder Augur

    By proximity aggro I mean that the mobs that have this quality will ignore all pets and non-player characters when a PC is within hit range. So when encountering monsters that have proximity aggro with your team (many mission bosses, raid trash, raid bosses, etc.), you would want to treat it as a ranged fight, otherwise your beastlord itself would be tanking like you stated.
  4. RkMk New Member

    So now with the TOV expansion the beastlord pet taunt is now borked? Is there any intent to raise the taunt aggro to fix this? I assume that is why the pet has an "taunt" button to use. Is that a thing of the past, if so, why is that button still available? The mage pet seems to have much better aggro ability than the BL pet now, was that an intent of the game designers, or is this overlooked with this other game change?
    And since the pet has an on/off taunt button, what was the thought behind the TOV buff Spirit of Mandrakai reducing aggro (maybe for raids, or help tank) ? Should have the taunt button aggro have been increased this amount to compensate for this change?
    Any thoughts on this would be appreciated, thank you.
  5. Soulbanshee Augur

    Taunt does not generate aggro/add hate. When it fires, it takes the highest hate value on the hate list, adds 1, and applies to the taunter. Any deaggro mechanism is going to override that, or anything else that allows another target to quickly one-up. I've had SKs (as an example) easily overcome my (mage) pet taunt while I'm pet tanking/offtanking and hold aggro over it.
  6. ArtremasEQ Augur


    - Not a bug.

    - Lots of ToV are 'undead', which comes with 'undead agro' (things being equal, they hit whomever is nearest, sort of)

    I solo my Beastlord in ToV just fine, and the BL Pet tanks it just fine with the BL in melee range.
    You need to setup the right spells, make sure pet has Tanking buffs, and does NOT have any of the 'de-aggro' buffs, and use all of your own de-aggro stuff.
    It very much helps to give it pet weapons from mage, and if you still have agro issues, try using the Pet Aggro weapons.
    Fight at max melee range, and let the pet be the close one.

    Beastlords generated a metric-f-ton of agro/hate. If you pop bloodlust, your going to be taking some damage. I find sharing the dmg with the pet at times quite beneficial. You can always back up a bit if needed and pet takes it back.

    Beastlords are in a great place right now, doing superb DPS (as are mages).

    PS: Same applies with BL/Mage combo. Melee toons with undead and pet tanks need to watch their fight range, and their aggro.
  7. Jaylnn Gnomish Bog Jogger

    Just a quick note. It hasnt worked that way since Feb 17th, 2016. So 4 years now

    A number of changes have been made to the Taunt skill:
    - - Corrected a longstanding bug with pet taunt which resulted in pets having a 0% chance to successfully taunt their target.
    - - Corrected a bug that could result in Warriors failing to taunt their target if the taunt button was used too rapidly.
    - - Increased the overall success rate of taunt, most notably reducing the rate that taunt will fail against higher level targets.
    - - Increased the total hatred granted by a successful taunt to 2% more hatred than the most hated target.
    - - Added a 2% chance for a successful taunt to result in 10% more hatred than the most hated target.
    - - Modified the result of a failed taunt attempt to give the taunter a chance of adding more hatred.
    - - Adjusted the success rate of pet taunt to match the same logic that player taunt uses.
    - - Added messaging for both player and pet taunt to more clearly inform the user to what degree they or their pet succeeded or failed.
    Wulfhere likes this.
  8. Zeus Journeyman

    Actually all of these players commenting on this are wrong. In the group missions, pet aggro is bugged, but the open zones its not. I box 2 mages and a beastlord, and that is just how it is in this expansion I guess. I have to sit the beastlord out and just heal and dot with him. I don't think that this is correct, and many of the post above are oblivious to how complicated this makes things.
  9. Duder Augur


    Actually you are wrong. Proximity aggro is the reason in the hero missions. The same as proximity aggro on raid mobs. It is a thing. Some things are pet-tankable (without proximity aggro), some are not. It is design, not a bug.
  10. RkMk New Member

    Well, reading through these comments I learned more about the inter workings of taunt, thanks for that. But it doesn't change the fact that especially in missions with this expansion the pet can't hold aggro when the BL steps in, which is different than other missions I have experienced in the past. Also it doesn't seem as prevalent in non-mission content, but have noticed more aggro at times. All of this discussion really doesn't address the fundamental problem of this expansions change. One comment above says its via design that this happens, so the intent is to make the BL pet useless as a tank when melee step in? If this was truly the intent, then the BL class capability/value has been significantly reduced in my opinion. This really seems stupid now since the game attendance has dwindled over the years and borking play of a class just adds to a reduced paying customer base. I have been playing since 2001 and this is getting exhausting (I'm not going to bring another set of toons up to level). Maybe this would have been a feature added to help get more tanks in player groups in years past, but readily finding proper classes to tank, heal, and CC are a thing of the past. Pets, VP, and mercs step in for this missing feature of player availability. I see people begging for help that can't find proper group classes, and to make something like this a game design feature in these times seem very counter productive from a business stand point. I have seen a tendency of harder game content over the past year or so, sort of like getting back to old school everquest, but I think these are not the times to bring "all" of that back. I also see scaling of level for the recent anniversary quests missions, which seems stupid to me. In some of these missions, the reward remains the same as when released (tent trophy, pearl aug, etc), but the difficulty has been raised. Whats the point? Sorry guys, I had to vent but these are my recent feelings with the game in general.
  11. Duder Augur


    Its not only BL pet. Its any pet. Proximity agro was the rule of every single mob in EQ for maybe the first 17? years. They removed it on 98% of the game for many of the reasons you have brought up concerning group makeup and availability. Some hero missions/mobs-within allow pet tanking without proximity aggro, some don't. Pets are very, very, very strong and if I had to choose between them weakening pets or an occasional mob/mission having proximity agro I'd choose the latter. Removing diverse needs of the group game would further stale the game in my opinion. While it may be difficult to find the right classes for a group at least it is still encouraged with the MMO spirit. The more we remove the MMO from EQ the more EQ loses what EQ is and was. You've heard it before, it's cliché, but make some friends, join a guild, branch out, yada, yada, yada.
  12. RkMk New Member

    Thanks, I get it. Anyway, I have been raiding for years and probably on the second biggest guild on the server. Times change and maybe the game should also. I guess it depends what side of the fence you are on to define stale. Just one persons opinion. It could be why the strict MMO's are fading. I can see how WOW impacted EQ with the quest system where before it was total discovery so outside influences have a big effect/impact on what EQ was. I know some of the people that have left are on MMO that could actually do most of the material solo; they just don't have the time to invest in looking for a proper group makeup and put in the time. I have observed the typical player that can put loads of time in get burned out over a few years and move on. Balance is always good. Take care and thanks for any considerations.
    I would like to hear you view about the scaling of tasks where the rewards haven't change and what the thought behind that was.
    Duder likes this.
  13. Duder Augur


    I don't understand it. Makes no sense to me. Maybe they still want old(er) tasks to present some sort of difficulty to max levels? I suppose that would extend the life of content. If that's the case the reward should be increased to scale to the levels they're scaling to imo, somehow.
  14. smash Augur

    Beastlords new proc is rather hard on the aggro, because when it proc, it loses 1150 aggro, i think it is, while old was around 10% of that.
    But it has been reported from dev that is not a bug.
  15. Duder Augur

    From my earlier post in this thread:
    Or use Depleting Bite if you don't care about the stun that will not be effective on anything above 113 from Beramos.

    But this poster is referring to proximity aggro rather than the de-aggro portion of Spirit of Mandakai.

    For Spirit of Mandrakai yeah. But proximity aggro itself isn't a bug either. It's just a misunderstood mechanic that needs to be in place to prevent boss type mobs from being pet tanked like a real tank. The major places you will find proximity aggro is in Hero missions and in raids. If proximity aggro didn't exist our pets would be made to be weaker and less viable as tanks in the first place. IMO, asking for the removal proximity aggro in hero missions is just wanting the game to conform to the loner/boxer playstyle. That may be what play has evolved into, but then maybe they shouldn't pack a chest full of rewards to suit a group, rather just 1 player? Hard pass from me.

    (smash, I just used your quote to base the response. Otherwise I was speaking to the whole of the posts around the boards crying about proximity aggro, not you directly)




  16. Nylrem Augur

    Hmm...

    Other than dracolich trash mobs, which I know are designed to ignore pets, I've not had any issues with pet agro in open zones, for magician pet, and I try and melee most the time too, and have pet tanked every single named (about 3/4 done with hunter) that I've killed, including the named dracoliches.

    Because of that, I'd have to say it's your pet deagro buff. Don't buff pet with that, and see how it goes.

    Missions I always do with a 'preferably' full group of non boxed toons, and never tried pet tanking them yet.... I take that back, I have pet tanked AoW, in mission... Had no agro issues whatsoever, doing it, but everyone else was at range, during first part. Second part, he dies so quick, wouldn't be able to tell if he did agro someone else over pet, so.