Couple of problems here that I'm experiencing. I'm currently playing a paladin, level 15 and mained a paladin for a few years on P99. I understand that things are different here than on P99, however the problems I'm experiencing don't seem to be correct. 1. Flash of Light (Paladin threat spammer) isn't giving me snap agro. Sometimes I will have to cast it 3-4 times (in addition to taunt spamming) in order to finally get agro. 2. Puller threat seems way too high. If I don't pull, I will have to spam multiple Flash of Light casts in addition to taunt spam to try and pull agro. However If I'm the one pulling, I will never lose agro even if I don't cast any Flash of Light. 3. When I taunt a mob that isn't attacking me, I will receive a system message saying something along the lines of "You already have your target's attention", even though I clearly don't. Any additional taunts will continue to give me this message even though the mob will still be attacking group members. I have tried standing directly on top of the mob (closest to the mob) and have still been unable to pull agro. I'm slamming, taunting, flash of light spamming, and still struggling to get and hold agro if I'm not the group's puller. As of now it seems that I'm going to have to re-roll as group tanking is incredibly frustrating. In my opinion, a tank that can't hold agro is a wasted spot in the group and I hate feeling like a useless drain (insert paladin jokes here) on the group. What's the point of a tank that is only able to pull agro when the mob is at 45% health? Am I crazy? Is this how threat is supposed to work?
You are level 15. Aggro in early levels is always hit or miss. I don't expect a tank to really start holding aggro till mid 20's, and even then I can pull aggro with a single nuke. It does get better though.
FoL isn't easy mode agro, it's simply a tool. Initial agro has had "Bonus" agro since always the only odd thing I've noticed about agro is occasional when I get a successful taunt message the mob never actually changes target to me Upgrade your weapon asap, swing agro is a thing.
1. Flash of Light works best when you cast it while sitting on the targets donkey. 2. Puller threat, as taliefer said, initial aggro has a bonus and always had. 3. Taunt does appear to be an issue. The messages don't seem to match actuality. As Kahna said, you're level 15. Level up and skill up that skill. It will work a lot better the higher you get in both.
When I leveled my current character on Ragefire, I had similar problems as a Shadowknight. I basically had to stand on top of the mob to keep any kind of agro because proximity agro seemed to be the only thing that was consistent. If anyone else was closer than me, they would always have agro, even when I got a successful taunt or snared it 50 times.
Something seems not right with taunt though, you hit taut and you get a message that says "you already have the targets attention" meanwhile it continues to beat on it's current target (which isn't the taunter).
If someone else has agro, say about 100pts worth. Taunt will put you at 101. If they got agro first. 101pts won't be enough to get the mob to switch target. You need about 5-10% above the mob's target's agro to get the mob to switch targets. When you taunt and get that message the mob's target can back out of melee and they 'should' switch to you and stay there unless they get more agro again.
That's not quite true anymore, numbers-wise. In practice though, yes, once you get that message, the mob's target should be able to back up a step or two and it should target you. They reworked taunt a year or so ago, so now it's highest hate + 2%, with the ability to crit taunt for 10% additional hate. Patch notes: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/game-update-notes-feb-17-2016.230797/ in the miscellaneous section. As others have said though, low level aggro is a bit hit or miss for a while. Try taunting and following it up with other abilities ASAP to bridge that gap between the mob hating you "the most" but not quite enough to let go of its obsession with murdering the DPS it loathes almost as much. (Obviously you are, but I mean in that order.) It's a team effort, though, so hopefully your puller is using something that generates as little hate as possible, and the rest of your group doesn't try to stand further inside the mob's hitbox than you're standing, and they try to nudge themselves slowly away from a mob they've pulled threat on. Good luck! It gets better!
just in case you start to feel like you'e going crazy i mained an SK on TLP's since ragefire and the "your target is already facing you" is most definitely a lingering bug. I never could pinpoint what exactly made it happen but it happened scarcely enough for me to never really mind. There's literally nothing you can do about it taunt wise, youl just have to kill that mob to clear it.
Pretty sure this is not unique to Agnarr. Possibly a TLP issue in general. I play a SK on Ragefire and aggro has been odd. Currently level 24 and I can still count the number of times Taunt has actually worked on my hands and still have a few fingers left over. Can spam the crap out of snare dots while taunting, lifetapping, and double attacking with a twink sword for 70+ a hit with haste and still not regain aggro from 100% to 0%. Though I wouldn't worry really. Even a half naked chanter in newbie yard cloth can tank things still at that level in current EQ.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record... There have been dozens of changes to all aspects of the game. Aggro has had many small adjustments over the years, some of which have been mentioned in this thread. You really should not expect anything to work quite the way it does on P99. And when things do work differently, you should not consider it broken and in need of fixing. This is not meant to be classic Everquest with all the same game mechanics that were there in 1999. These changes have been, for the most part, deliberate changes made by the devs to improve the game in various ways.
Is there a reasons you aren't pulling? I agree the old taunt worked better and was easier to skill up. I am thinking about circumventing the problem and just equipping my tanks with a bow. Forlorn bow still drops in The Warrens and arrows are only a couple of coppers. I ran into Coloth Meadowgreen in SK the other night but he spanked me like I owed him money No Runed Oak Bow for me.
Low level aggro doesn't work. For example proximity and initial pull aggro remains the same X value from level 1 to 105. E.G initial pull aggro = 100 threat. That's 1 melee attack at level 40, at level 1 that's about 5 minutes of melee aggro. Same thing with proximity and sitting aggro. Might take you 5 minutes of building threat at low level to avoid a caster getting sit aggro, where as it takes 1 or 2 melee rounds at higher level to achieve the same. As a rule of thumb, tanking doesn't really exist until level 30+. Like the poster above said, make sure you pull, at least until 30+, get a bow and arrows.
I've seen something similar to #3. Was in Unrest in a group with a Ranger who was twinked out pretty well. He was a level below me with a SSoY and some kind of glowy thing in the offhand, armor looked pretty high end too, probably Sol Ro if Rangers have a set of that. Anyway, I would hit Taunt and it would either say I had it or that it worked, but the mob never turned and just kept hitting the Ranger. I assumed it was just that he was hitting it a lot, for a lot, and I couldn't keep up with my 6/28 1hb. In that same group I saw similar issues with two different Bards, which did not appear twinked, but I know bard song aggro is pretty major at those levels. It was a good group, mostly I managed to pull aggro by healing a lot. Healed the puller when they got back to camp, healer whoever was tanking, healed the cleric. If anybody was getting hit I was healing because it was the best shot I had to get aggro.
I wonder if initial aggro or proximity aggro is a "bonus" and not included when you press taunt. It would only be noticeable at low levels where threat is such a low number. Let's do some theory crafting with some totally made up numbers: Proximity aggro = 10 points of threat Ranger: 100 points of total threat + 10 proximity threat. 110 total threat. Tank: Taunt success = 100 threat +2% = 102 total threat. In this example the Ranger would still keep aggro even after a successful taunt because the threat numbers are so low. At later levels (30+) a few attacks might put you on 1000 threat already. So: Ranger: 1000 threat + 10 proximity threat = 1010 total Tank: Taunt = 1000 +2% = 1020 total. Tank takes aggro.
I've noticed this as well. Doesn't happen enough that I am overly concerned, but I'd be curious to know if there is a pattern or way to reliably replicate the issue.
