I've noticed a significant difference in the amount of aggro needed to keep my caster merc on burn vs just on balanced. My setup is Voice of Thule, Pulling with Demand for Power Rk2, Anger Mask Normally I have to use one of the 2 AE Hate AAs to keep the mobs on me however in the Dead Hills HA Scouting ahead its not always the case. If fighting Vegerogs, Xulus, monstrocities, I have to to my normal tank rotation above. The mosquitos however require nothing more than auto attack and a spear to keep them on me. I keep my parser up, and my 100 J5 caster merc is a solid 30k dps on burn against all types in that HA so its nothing I can see on the merc's end in regard to more/less damage causing more/less hate. Granted this is a small sample size, but its completely reproducable.
Nobody's seen this before? I was doing RoF T1 tasks/missions and my normal rotation that would typically keep aggro couldnt keep aggro to save my life on those Mission. Spamming both AE Hates AA/Hate Spell/Hates attraction couldnt keep a mob off a caster merc. I can only assume this intended.....
I had actually noticed it a few times, figured it was a fluke. Scouting ahead golems and vegerogs were the culprits.
several things: 1. do not pull with demand for power, pull with terror. 2. several different mob types have different modifiers to how they process their hate tables - what you are seeing is one of them: animals and undead have a significant aggro multiplier based on proximity, ie the physically closest person to the mob is much more likely to be attacked. so, mosquitoes are classified as 'animal' in terms of the game's mob AI code, so... there you go.
The initial hate from demand is wasted if you use it to pull so you're actually making it harder on yourself.
Do animals & undead generate more aggro from damage than regular mobs? Assume both players are in melee range (identical aggro proximity bonus). This would explain the mosquitos staying aggro'd with just melee + spear nuke.
they shouldn't, at least not in my experience. also, "identical aggro proximity bonus" literally, physically, doesn't exist. it's a bonus in hate to the target on their hate list that is the closest to them - if one of you is 1 pixel closer than the other, only one of you gets the proximity bonus.
For whatever reason, I had been thinking that the aggro bonus associated with undead/animals was a function of distance, not just closest . Thanks for the info. I have another question - caster dps (as an example) get a bonus to hate on their first spell, so it's a good idea to use a low aggro debuff/clicky before starting their normal weave (I haven't tested this for a few years). Is there a way for SKs to use this to their benefit? i.e. bard pulls, SK tags with terror and gets a bonus?
What? I have never heard that. The first person to agro a mob gets what is now a very small amount of extra agro, but no more than that. Do you have dev/CR comment to that effect handy?
I had never heard of or known about the bonus associated to your first spell cast on a mob until I was on the Fippy server. I want to say I had read a Dev comment on this a long time ago but I can't be sure. I'm not sure how you could test this without knowing the actual numbers that each spell generates and knowing all the other factors that go into hate generation. I would be very interested though in knowing for sure and if so how much of a bonus there is. I want to say it was with the release of SoF that the changes were made to how proximity agro works. Sony increases the amount of hate to whoever was the closest to the mob across the board it seemed. With those changes I could no longer tag an incoming mob and have it agro to me without either running in front of the puller or having the puller run behind me. It's kind of amusing to see this in action. I pull with my bard using bellow and when he gets in range I'll hit commanding voice with my warrior. If I run behind the warrior then my warrior becomes highest on the mobs hate list, if I stay in front of the warrior I stay the highest. That's working with indirect and social agro though, if I use enough direct agro with my warrior on a mob it doesn't matter if I stay in front of or behind him, he will take agro. What I would like to know though is just how much that initial pull agro is and how much proximity agro is. Also know how much agro in generated by social agro. Puller's have used the benefits of social agro for a long time to be able to pull named solo across zones. I knew about the agro modifier that undead have, but never knew that animals shared a similar bonus. That gets me to thinking on a couple of things now: How many different mob types are there and which ones have a modifier to which type of spells and other forms of agro generation? If each mob type has a modifier to proximity agro, does that also extend to resist checks having a modifier as well? ie. Does a human model type get more angry if you use a Poison based spell over a magic based spell? How many factors are there that go into hate generation? Does a mobs Intelligence effect hate generation? If* there is a bonus to the first spell cast on a mob, does the use of a debuff help or hurt you over a nuke or dot as your first spell? In my experience debufs like tash create more agro than other resist debuffs. Also statistical debuffs that effect Ac, atk, Str ect. create more agro I would assume over resist debuffs. Snare and slow even more so. Then to take it even further, will a certain type of debuff create more agro against an animal mob type over a human model? I also assume that spells aimed at just Undead, or animals ect. create more agro than a regular spell. What is the bonus added to "sit agro" and why is there one.. I mean I use to have fun with people fighting over a mob, I would just sit and laugh as the mob ran to me from across a zone. I know all I have to do is turn on attack and pop my Phantom aggressor disc and tab back to my bard and not worry about agro one bit, but I would love to know the actual numbers on a lot of these factors myself and what goes on behind the curtain so to speak on Agro and Hate generation because I just like knowing how EQ works.
It was SoF that changed prox aggro. It happened at the same time they changed pet aggro because tanks complained pets were holding aggro over them. I suspect it was also changed to make raid kiting more difficult.
there isn't a bonus on the first spell cast and whoever said that is either privy to some kind of magical font of EQ knowledge that completely contradicts everything known about the game, or they are talking out of their . there is a CAP on how much hate the first action performed on an NPC can generate, which is why it is always stated knights should pull with their hate mod spells (terrors, spell stuns/crushes, etc) because they bypass that initial cap and give the full hate amount, whereas other spells (including challenge/confrontation) do not. as for the increase in proximity aggro, yes... though i recall it being in SoD. the sit aggro bonus is, if i recall right, 500 hate. there are, off the top of my head, about... humanoid, giant, animal, undead, construct, dragon, mechanical, wow i'm tired and can't think of any but there's at least a dozen more. a TON of factors go into hate generation, and yes that includes mob AI and 'intelligence' level.
This is from a really old post, so it may no longer be relevant. (link here) I'll test it sometime. I used to play a wizard, and opening with a large nuke is a great way to pull aggro, whereas using an instant clicky debuff (Staff of Temperate Flux etc) makes it safe to cast whatever you want. Not considering initial aggro (i.e. mob was previously unaggroed by anyone) in this case.
Wow, I haven't been to Graffe website in ages, totally forgot about it. Brings back memories of the first toon I ever made being a wizard and checking out that website on how to play one. And Merloc! Man, I always thought the Crazed player-base had sent lynch mobs after him for poor itemization back in the day. Wonder whatever happened to him :0 Fixed that for ya! I used to group with this wizard a while back. They loved to test my abilities and see if they could get agro because I may have said something along the lines of no one can take agro off me when I don't want them to. Memory is a little fuzzy on that part but something along those lines. Well, this wizard loved to open up with the biggest nukes I think sometimes just to prove me wrong and then give me grief over not being able to keep agro My favorite excuse they gave as to Nuking the mob before it's even in camp was that their gift of mana was about to fade and they have to use thier biggest nuke before it fades. Then there was the one about wanting to get the biggest Crit dmg so they could Screenshot it and later email it to me bragging about it or some such. So even if this is true and a wizard would be better off agro wise by clicking that staff for the first spell agro bonus, how much agro does that really save the wizard from getting? My experience in a raid is that DPS classes go balls to the wall as soon as the mob is in it's spot, and there are some who like to start attacking before that, all to get highest on that dps pars. And if I lose agro and a DPS dies, it is my fault. Of corse in a raid setting as a warrior all I have to do is pop an AA, throw some discs out and nothing is going to get agro off of me outside of another tank hitting taunt. Now in the group game it's totally different and I can see this as being a very beneficial strategy in a fast paced group. So I really am curious about this initial agro bonus and how much it is. Get to testing, Chop chop!
Y'all are talking about two different things. Initial aggro on an un-aggroed mob has a cap. Initial aggro for every other player has an increase.
What is this cap you are talking of? This is the first time I had heard of Initial agro on an un-agroed mob being capped. I was under the impression that pull agro had a bonus associated to it (Initial agro on an un-aggroed mob if you want to call it that) And then every person who then hits the mob and gets on the hate list, the very first thing they do is increased? By how much? From what he is saying, there is a cap as well, but what is the number on this cap? And that you can bypass it by using a large enough agro ability on it? Doesn't that kind of negate the definition of the word cap? What am I missing here.
the initial action hate cap is like 125, and you can't bypass it with a 'large enough' aggro ability, you can bypass it with specific hate-cap overriding abilties - which are terrors, spell stuns, crushes, and war hate abilities. go to lucy, look up a spell - for example, http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?id=34689&source=Live if it has a 'hate generated' field, it overrides hate caps and always gives the listed amount.
Anyone who plays it boxes a wizard can tell you that first spell can be phenomenally important. If first spell is a nuke (aa or spell cast), they generate tons of aggro problems. If I use aa snare or resist debuff as first, that first nuke generates a ton less threat. Casting 'lower element on incoming an first nuke right at engage (100-99% mob health) is much less threat than casting a first nuke at 95% without snare/debuff. I didn't believe it when I first heard about it, but my mage/wiz/Druid now always lead off with Malo/lower element/snare. Doing this makes aggro management trivial. Leading off with dd on any of these is a lot more hate.
The first cast after pull is a perception issue. The reason is that first cast after initial agro is not cappedlike the initial agro is. Therefore if the tank hit something other than a hate override or you have a non tank pulling they don't have enough agro yet to keep it off a caster. By doing something besides a nuke for the first cast you are allowing the tank to build agro in that time before your first real nuke, and they keep it from there out.
