Power line (challenge etc) is a hate over time spell. So the initial cast doesn't blow the whole spell's hate. The cast time is longer than our regular Terror line, so it's not something you want to cast while engaged with the mob unless you're 2 handing it. Having the bonus AC from the start of the fight is pretty nice too. When I used to pull with terror, it was a tossup if my bard was going to get ganked on the pull or not. With Challenge for Power, the mob runs past my bard every time. I don't know how true that "hate override" factoid is. What I've witnessed tells me that it isn't true, or that hate degrades after a tick or two of not damaging the mob (ie: long pulls) Now if I pulled the lazy way, with an insta-dot, and tagged with terror after I stopped running, aggro was mine - so the "first action" fact seems to check out. Anyhow, pulling with challenge has worked better than terror in my experience. He's boxing a bard like me, so I thought I'd share.
I've been pulling with terror as long as I can remember, of course my sk is only 96. Yesterday I decided to try the whole challenge for power thing. My wizard merc on balance usually gets aggro before it gets to camp, especially if I snare, when pulling with terror. If I use challenge, it comes right by the wizard merc and to me. Seems to make a difference at least anecdotally.
Try setting the merc on burn and use call assist once you have the mob in camp. Depending on pull distance, you can land terror, AA snare, demand for power, duplicitous audacity before the merc is off the leash. If you can land two of those and have time for the SK during the fight, keeping aggro is easy. If you can land all, the mob should be dead before merc aggro can overtake yours, so you can fiddle with your box toons in the meantime. At least that's how it works in my usual sk, necro, shaman setup with two wiz mercs. Multiples can be interesting since I cc with root, but it's very rare that all the aggro abilities on longer cooldowns are unavailable.
Last I checked last expansions Terror is more aggro then audacity. I don't think its even worth the trouble to mem unless you need the debuff. Also you can alternate explosions if needed, unless your killing faster.then 22 seconds at which point you should be pulling clumps of mobs anyway.
Did some testing. Aggro "override" on Terror is not true. Short pull Case 1: Pulled with terror. Mob instantly on bard @ 100 aggro. I dropped to 80ish Short pull Case 2: Pulled with Challenge. Mob instantly on bard @ 100 aggro. I dropped to 80ish. I picked up aggro again on next tick. Short pull Case 3: Pulled with terror, got a heal proc - bard only has 1 aggro on engage Long pull Case: pulled with Challenge - bard had 1 aggro on engage. Basically, if it's not a long pull you're best off using the debuff and immediately following up with a spear and/or Terror if spear is down.
well, it's 'true' - but it may not be working currently, and if so that's a bug. though i've been seeing an awful lot of "i cast terror on a mob, and my hate % does not move. at all" lately so this may be another bizarre issue entirely going on here having to do with terrors not working correctly.
It happens alot in HOF, plane of shadows, and chapterhouse. Haven't noticed it much in newer zones although havent had a puller. There is something going on, but it isnt gamewide older expanaions still function correctly with Poira. Odd
I noticed this a while back when I was in my 80s doing SoD content and have since been pulling accordingly. I'd pull with SK past my bard so she was facing the mob's back when I switched to her. If I'm between the mob and my bard, I maintain pull aggro, but it's definitely not at the max 6kish hate that Poira should be giving. Edit - and my tests last night were in Chelsith.
How did this aggro info become known? Did someone from SoE divulge this aggro information a long time ago? Or did someone get a glimpse at the source code? I'm not sure how I'd report a bug on something that is so non-visible in any official documentation or game client feedback. The only part of the aggro post you provided to the community I can confirm is that taunt puts you to 100 and you need 104 (not 103 ^.^) on the hate meter to steal aggro back. The only way I could test it is to grab a wiz and an SK and play ping-pong and do the ratios based on the aggro meter. Then again, how would I convince an EQ Dev that "this is how it is supposed to work"?
through several sources over the years. yes someone from SOE divulged it, nobody got a loot at the game's source code, but we DO have access to the parsed spell data which supports it. it's in the spell data - look at the "hate generated" field. this was put into the game in... god, i want to say maybe DoDH? i think the hate-override was added in DoDH but i might just be thinking of the hate-override being added to paladin stuns - but i think i remember that being when the whole 'hate-override' thing was added to terrors, stuns, and war hate discs. anyways, as the code is there in the parsed spell data, it should be pretty easy to /bug though the particulars of what exactly is going wrong in game would be harder to figure out, document, and duplicate. the best way to do would be, in theory, to just remove all gear from an SK and a wizard. we know that the hate on a nuke is SUPPOSED to be 1 damage = 1 hate for the base (focus, SD, and crits are not *supposed* to add any extra damage) - so in theory since we know that a nuke should be X hate, and we know that a terror should be Y hate, it should be very easy to just cast a nuke and then cast a terror and confirm that a mob's target changes when the values reach expected levels. if the mob does not change targets at the expected levels, then either something is wrong with our understanding of hate generation (less likely) or something isn't working right with Terror spells (more likely).
Its an AA and it procs a mana return proc on your entire group, it procs at a set % i cant remember off of lifetaps (which if your playing correctly you should be casting quite a bit...) It lasts 5 minutes on a 10 minute recast. Based on the fact its free to have up. Its worth having up since your going to be tapping anyway.
Yes I found it wasnt using it before but bought it now. I was buying most of the non activated AA previously so wasnt really even looking at it till now that Im working on activated ones.
At max rank it provides a 30% chance of returning 800 mana to each group member when you cast a level 91 or greater lifetap for its duration.
I would suggest parsing different terrors on pulls to troubleshoot and identify if its an issue with the spell itself or the spell line
Just an update. My SK hit 100 without ever swinging a weapon. I mashed the Upgrade button and took him to The Grounds with three healer mercs, pulled a ton of mobs, and a short time later all his defensive skills were maxed. I've been following the advice you guys have given me here and I'm happy to report he is doing well. I can tank CotF missions and nameds like a champ. Now I'm going to focus on continuing to learn the class, complete 1.5/2.0, and farm some more augs and wait for cotf T2 to come out. Thanks again for the help and advice.
That sounds like a great plan. I hope you are getting him some of those yummy AC augs from the anniversary tasks - notably the two 38 AC augs from the mech guardian stuff, the steel behemoth aug, and the white stone of power.
It seems random and a function of time from pull to time of tanking to be honest. I'm thinking hate degrades if no damage is done before the next server heartbeat.
