The Shadowknight Terror spell line has always generated aggro when it is the first spell cast to aggro a target that has not been aggrod, but I am noticing in the new expansion that this is no longer the case. Terror is no longer generating proper aggro as the first spell cast to aggro a target.
Can you name a specific NPC who has this issue in NoS? I suspect it is a normal EQ aggro rule (is the NPC undead or an animal)?
I will have to go back and check every type of mob it has been happening on, but I notice the Shiknar in Paludal Depths have this problem and beetles in shar vahl
I was seeing this issue with the fissure and borer mobs in Firefall. An opening terror alone was not keeping them from popping my bard or other idle characters that weren't neatly tucked behind me. Thought I was going crazy, glad someone else mentioned it.
Yeah, I noticed it happening in Firefall as well. I just chalked it up to me being rusty on the SK since I hadn't done any "real" fighting with him in a few months and needing to get back into my combat routine. Pulling with a terror was typically enough for me to maintain agro while I tab over to my other toons and get them going, but I was noticing the mobs were swapping off to the mercs pretty quick. I now have to pull and make REAL sure I've built up some agro before tabbing to other toons.
I don't know jack about how agro works in eq from a mechanical level. I do know that every npc (or almost every) in NoS appears to need two "agro hits" on it to ensure it fights you. Otherwise it appears to attack the closest person to it on its hatelist until you get that second hit. Doesn't appear to matter what agro ability you use for the first or second hit. I think it's working just like what I notice undead agro usually works (without them being undead, of course). It's like all npcs in NoS we're flagged under the same agro "type" or whatever you wanna call it and it's not the usual one you'd expect for these types of npcs.
I've heard pet classes complaining about their pet having issues tanking as well. Maybe its the same root cause? I've mostly seen them complain about it when killing things in the NoS mission instances.
After more testing, I notice this seems to be happening mainly with animal type NPCs throughout the whole expansion. Shiknar, Rockhoppers, Beetles, Crawlers, etc. They all have an issue with initial aggro using terror.
I've noticed this happening since ToL, with animal type mobs. I first noticed it with Bats and Wolves in ME. I "think", these animal mobs have some kind of "jump" mechanic on the nearest PC that needs to fire off before normal aggro mechanics start working. I always pull with Terror on my SK, so the way I deal with it is simply have the SK stop before getting into camp and eat the "jump", then bring into the camp like normal. I'll have to make a mental note to pull these mob types with Spear or a DoT and see if the same mechanic takes place.
For initial aggro on an NPC: - If the initial hit is not a spell, the NPC is an animal, or the NPC has less than 41 intelligence, hate is capped at 120 - Otherwise, calculate hate of the spell: 1. Beneficial spells generate 0 hate 2. Spells with a hate override use their override multiplied by SPA 130 (Increase/Decrease Spell and Bash Hate by %), then by SPA 114 (Increase/Decrease Hate Generated by %). At this point, hate is applied (no other calculations are included in spells with a hate override) 3. Get SPA 92 of the spell (Increase Hate by #) 4. If the NPC is a belly caster and the PC is out of melee range, generate 1 hate 5. Get the NPC's max HP divided by 15, or 25, whichever is higher. Cap at 1200 6. Otherwise, if the spell generating hate is higher level than me (i.e. 255 for procs), cap hate at 400 7. Loop through all spell effects on the spell: --- If SPA 41 (banish) and the NPC is level 51 or lower, add 500 hate --- If the spell is an AC, movement, haste, blind, stun, fear, fearstun, charm, or mez, add the hate calculated in steps 5 and 6 --- If SPA 79 or 84 (NPC HP) add 1 hate per base dmg --- If SPA 0 (HP), instant duration, and the caster meets the requirements of the spell, add 1 hate per base dmg --- If SPA 147 (% HP), add 1 hate per dmg (calculated as % of the NPCs HP) --- If SPA 350 (Mana Burn), add (min(Base1, Mana) * Base2)/10 hate --- If SPA 10, 35, or 254 add 0 hate --- All other SPAs add 10 hate 8. Add the base hate value of the spell 9. If the caster is a bard and the NPC is over level 19, cap hate at 140 10. Reduce hate by the NPCs resistance of this spell (over 500 resist = 75% hate applied, over 300 = 85% hate, over 100 = 95% hate, 100 or less = 100% hate) 11. Multiply by the casters SPA 130 (Increase/Decrease Spell and Bash Hate by %) 12. If hate generated by the spell is less than 50, set it to 50 13. Multiply hate by SPA 455 (Increase/Decrease Hate by %) 14. Multiply hate by SPA 114 (Increase/Decrease Hate Generated by %)
Best mornin' reading I suspect I'll have for a while. I'll read it tomorrow while I eat my Kellogg's. Thanks!
Thank you for the excellent detail, this helps a lot, even outside of this use case. I would assume, then, that this portion is what's at play here: I guess the oddity for me is that I haven't noticed it before, but it may just be the prevalence of animal body types. Is there any way you could share the hate value needed for an NPC to pass other idle targets en route? In zones like Firefall (especially in the scars), where there is limited line of site to keep casting on NPCs at times for pulls and where they tend to randomly decide they'd prefer to pop out of the walls, this has left my poor bard tanking far more than ever before on un-slowed pulls!
I have been having this same problem with all of the pyrilen mobs in RSS. They are clearly not animals, and it would seem very unlikely that they would have less than 41 intelligence. If they do, maybe that is a bug, and they should have much higher intelligence? A lot of them are casters it doesn't make sense for them to have low intelligence. But even if they did, I'm still doing 120 hate, why are they jumping on the bard? Can niente post how beneficial bard song aggro is calculated? It just seems very wrong for them to target the bard, even if it is explainable by the code, how could that ever possibly be what was intended?
