Hi guys! I need a little advice here please. I typically run a SK, Chanter, Druid, Mage crew with a cleric and wiz merchandise. All chars are 105. I usually keep the wiz merc on balanced, but I recently switched her to burn and the dps increase was staggering. However, I am having trouble holding aggro off of her now. What spell/AA combinations should I be using to lock aggro fast and solid? I pull with the SK and typically use terror to pull. When it gets back to camp I hit a hot button that does Taunt, send pet, Reprove, snare. Then I hit a hot key that casts Terror, Demand, terror, the dot with hate-over-time, then Terror again. I have the Cotf group T1 hate mask and always have our hate buff on. The mob is on the wiz as soon as Demand starts casting. Should I be using different tricks? Maybe Mindless Hatred? Any help or advice is most welcome! Oh, and I would like to avoid switching the merc back and forth between balanced and burn in between pulls.
I would keep Taunt separate from your main hot key. Taunt doesn't do you any good at all when you are already at the top of the hate list. What it does is it puts you on the top when you're not, and only by 1 point on the list. It's a better idea to keep Taunt available to grab aggro after you have lost it. That's when you want to be using it, and that's when you want to make sure that the ability doesn't have a reuse timer.
Try doing this Terror Spear Deceitful Deflection (If no Mez) Terror. And if you can Use Deceitful on Recast, its a substantial amount of hate. (And the healing wont hurt) Set up a hotkey with AA bites on it (use them during GCD of tags) Ragged is the better hate overall, but any extra helps. Alternate using AA AE's as well. So on pull 1, Use Spite, on pull #2 use Hatred, etc, etc Treat demand as a short term buff, only refresh it when its about to wear offf (So depending on kill rate every 3 to 4 mobs). Reason being, you need front loaded hate to hold off aggro on a Wiz merc on burn. *Note: Unless i am figuring how Deceitful Deflections spell effects work incorrectly, It should be substantially more aggro then your best Terror, However it has no override, so you need Terrors to Tag. Use Voice of Thule Use taunt reactively. Don't be afraid to Hate's attraction the mob (its 18k hate), even if the mob is on top of you already. Its an aggro tool, that just happens to position.
Raven has it right, except on singles terror is still a tad better agro vs single. So use terror spear deceitful terror bond life tap with agro aa and bites in between. Main thing is spear is for a agro in those situations
Well Comparing Rank2's Deceitful Deflection has a 2206 hate mod + 2960 increase hate + 4326 base damage nuke (so 4326 hate for that portion of the spell). Which puts it at 9492 hate per cast (including the numbers of how i arrived at this conclusion) Versus Terror of Narus which is 8218 hate Shouldn't the Deceitful Deflection spell be better hate regardless of Single or Area then? *Actual question, on paper it should be more Hate then a terror, but it very well may not actually work the way i am thinking it does*
I was under the impression that the hate mod works on every kind of hate. Does it not add to the hate of a hate override? And if not, what is the source for that info?
Hate Override should override everything on a spell, hate wise, but aggro boost/aggro reduction %'s (like VoT or Paladins Marr's) should make it higher or lower Hate Mod is a value on spells to add or subtract extra hate on top of what the spell does, the VoT for + and Marr's for - hate values will also effect those the same
So Terror of Narus would be 2465 hate mod + 8218 hate, putting it at 10683 hate vs. 9492 Deceitful Deflection? Or is there something I am missing? Generally, when comparing things that share a focus, I just use the base value of everything since the bonus percentage is just a distraction.
http://spells.eqresource.com/spells.php?id=43608 Wheres the 2465 hate mod? If its there and i am not seeing it. Sorry. Under the raw spell data it shows Hate mod: 0 Heres the spell parser data for Deceitful http://spells.eqresource.com/spells.php?id=43641 slot 1: 2960 hate slot 2: decrease hit points by 4326 Raw Spell data: Hate mod (yes) 2206 When I was saying Hate mod. I wasn't referring to Voice of Thule, if thats what your getting at. Its a modifier within the spell (the paladin version Valiant Deflection also has one) that gets added on top of everything. + There is also 1 to 1 ratio of hate per health the lifetap heals (i didn't factor that in, but its also there to boost the aggro abit more in its favor) TLDR: I was using the base values.
Mithrandyr, the spell deceitful deflection itself has a hate mod on it for that spell only(2206 for rank 2). Terror of Narus does not. That's the only thing that I can see your missing or confusing. To the OP, do what Raven or Sojero stated and you'll be way out pacing the burn merc. Just make sure to keep voice of thule up and rotate between using hate's attraction, spite and hatred on different mobs near beginning to give you a larger cushion to stay ahead. FYI: Deceitful does produce more aggro than Naurus. Just make sure not to be using it initially since no hate over ride which was already stated.
Delete this hotkey it is an all around terrible idea. a hot button that does Taunt - Don't do that! Seriously, NEVER do that. send pet, Reprove - Good, do that, put them on their own key if you like. snare - This is wasting time and giving you no aggro - snare aggro was nerfed like 12 years ago. If you need to snare, do it later when mob around 25%. Mercs cast on incoming on burn, if you are waiting for the mob to get back to camp, you have already lost. SK's are balanced vs. the other tanks by having to waste buff slot on VoT, be sure you have that maxed or your odds of keeping aggro are minimal. Order wise you are best going with current terror then last expansion terror. Mindless hatred is something you should be using every mob if you are taking > 1min to kill, for fast pulling groups however you will not be able to use it as a crutch. You are better leading with the terrors due to the fact they are hate override and then saving Deceitful Deflection for when the mob is in camp. This is for a few reasons; the override hate is higher despite raw hate being higher on DD, you have it up if you get an add and need more AE hate, and you don't need the small heal to start of the fight. For me I have a key bind that fires terror, spear, terror, deceitful that works well in most situations. tl;dr = 101 Terror, Mindless aa, 96 Terror on incoming Spear, Deceitful, Terror, Terror once in camp. Be sure to do the sk buff slot sacrifice and max VoT and use it NEVER have taunt on a mash key
Ah now there's the confusion. When I hear hate mod it makes me think it's a focus. I didn't know they had put a bonus aggro in on spells. It sounded like you were applying an anger focus to one spell and not the other.
I logged into test to figure out rough hate values for most SK abilities. Here are the results: I wasn't able to pinpoint hate values for several abilities, especially the AA taps and AA snare, because they are so small. There are a few things I want to point out - - The only things worth casting on a mob initially are HA and Terror. - Aggro mods (VoT, hate mask) don't work on hate overrides for your first action; meaning, when you Terror a mob for the first time, you get 8k aggro instead of 15k. - Animals have an initial aggro cap of 100. The hate override function of Terrors/HA does not work - it's much better to tag with something else (disease debuff clicky, melee, a DoT) followed by a real hate spell. - Aggro mods do not work on DoT damage or hate over time (Impose for Power), however they do work on the initial hit of Impose for Power. - Ragged Bite of Agony and Vicious Bite of Chaos are such small aggro as to be negligible. There are a lot of good recommendations here already. Here's another example (100k aggro in 5 seconds) - - Pull/tag with HA (18k), followed by Terror (15k)- Lacerating Blade (4k) and Explosion of Hatred (10k) during the global cooldown- Spear (20k)- Explosion of Spite (10k) and Ragged Bite of Agony during cooldown- Deceitful Deflection (17k)- Vicious Bite of Chaos during cooldown- Dire Declaration (17k)If you can't AE (100k aggro in 6.5 seconds) - - HA followed by Terror- Lacerating Blade, RBoA- Spear- VBoC- Dire Declaration- Impose for Power- TerrorSince I sometimes (used to) box an SK, here's the hotkeys I used: - AE aggro:/pause 3, /cast Terror/pause 7, /alt act 822 (Explosion of Hatred)/pause 7, /alt act 749 (Explosion of Spite)/pause 19, /cast Spear/cast Deceitful Deflection- AC + group taps:/pause 3, /cast Impose for Power/pause 2, /disc Lacerating Blade/pause 7, /alt act 1279 (Ragged Bite of Agony)/pause 7, /alt act 825 (Vicious Bite of Chaos)/cast Terror- Non-AE aggro:/pause 17, /cast Terror/pause 19, /cast Spear/pause 27, /cast Dire Declaration/pause 26, /cast Impose for Power/cast TerrorHopefully that helps.
Great info here guys. Thank you for taking the time to reply. I'll give some of these a try tonight. Much appreciated!
Playing around today in group and terror was putting out more agro than deceitful, so for me it's a feel thing cause there are no actual # when playing other than the agro meter and terror was making people go down lower than deceitful was. Makes me wonder if the bonus hate is not moded, thus making a moded terror worth more.
I use HA as a pulling tool often combined with effigy such that lockup on that is already a problem so I don't count on it as any kind of agro - most of the time any agro is lost by the flop. On a longer pull I might use "of power" line to start, or even as I have got up after a HA/flop pull, because if my run back to the camp spot is 12 seconds or more, even with no override, it is more agro gained than a terror for the casting/ time, plus the AC refresh. During that pull time often I add 2 more terrors while running. I haven't played at 105, however honestly I have always struggled with wizzie mercs on burn, and that can be the case even when I am on burn as well. If I am using [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software] with caster boxes perfectly set up for burns such that I can concentrate 100% on SK agro, then I can have wizzie mercs on burn. Alternatively if I am grouped with others so I am not controlling multiple boxes... np at all with casters on burn, but I have to be 100% proactive. If I am in any way tabbing between screens to fire a burn, I can end up with dead mercs. Raiders have to work less... better weapon + better cleave + better ferocity = more damage, more damage bonus, more swings. Raid mask then gives a higher mod. End resut may be 50-75% more hate from melee depending on era. The hate differences from spells are significantly less.
