Well, I did test it last night a bit. Didn't have any problems at all pre-casting. I'm 46; tank is 47 SK. Tested on raid encounters, where the raid mob had minions involved. Nothing came to me. Now, as I've said, I have a particularly good tank. I'll try to remember to test it more generally on regular grouped mobs, although I might forget, since there's never a real need for the pre-cast in that situation, for us. Oh, and I'm pre-casting Adept 3 Chloroplast which is doing something like 152/tick now.
To my knowledge this fix isn't out yet(check out the link on the bottom). Your friend's agro issue isn't related to this fix... http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=spellart&message.id=32490#M32490
In answer to your above question I'm level 29 Warden. I'll keep an eye on agro and precasting to see if that becomes a problem in the future. I have noticed that when I'm playing with a pick up group instead of my regular 3 tanks that they have real trouble keeping the agro off of me. The other thing that could be helping is I normally play with an inquisitor who also prebuffs. If they do implement the changes live it will be interesting to see how game play changes.
I normally play with an inquisitor who also prebuffs Thats why you can Pre-Cast.... The Inquisitors Heals are Gaining agro for the tank... Giving him more agro then you....
Honestly I've never once gotten aggro from precasting, and I do it before any battles that pose any real challenge. I'm a level 26 warden now and I've precast BotG plenty of times, for example during the boat ride for EL. Then again it is true that most of the time the MT is a higher level than me but when I get aggro it's almost always because: A - Wizard or warlock goes too nuke happy and I have to keep them alive B - Group draws an add and I get aggro before tank steps in. C - Tank has terrible AOE taunts and only holds his main target. (Usually I then ask him/her and hear that he/she only has app1 AOE taunt)
Things like this is what I've grown to love about this game. The ever changing tactics you use with different class combinations. I'll have to experiment with only me casting pre-buffs. See what happens.
Anybody have any new information about this? I checked the last test server notes out and theres no mention there. I gave up on the game for about 6 weeks as it was so frustrating to see the agro problem and always being second choice as healer. Anyway i came on over the weekend and seen the following. 1. That i can still get hit at the start of the fight, even though a pally or warrior pulls agro (with no warden buffs cast on him, and no HOTs active), i take 1 hit then the agro normally goes straight to the fighter. 2. That im still second class to the other classes as healer (mainly cos of the agro) and that most people only like to group with wardens if there a chanter or other healer in the group Point 2 was made obvious by the fact that i first grouped in zek at lvl 32 with my mystic on saturday, grouped for about an hour and then left the group to log my warden. After logging on i seen the group (they didnt know it was me) looking for a healer, yet they would not accept me unless there was another healer, because a warden generates too much agro. My warden is also lvl 32 You could say the group above was stupid, but this isnt the first time ive done that (swapped from mystic to warden) and have the same kinda result. It seems rediculous that this problem has existed since day 1 and still not fixed. Anybody have an update?
1) I'll check again, but I believe I'm still seeing reactives show up as "tank heals tank for XXX" rather than "priest heals tank for XXX", which would imply that aggro is still incorrect. 2) I'll reiterate, as I have many times, that groups that won't take a warden either have particularly bad tanks or just don't what they're talking about. Part of that is the fact that some wardens seem not to know what they're doing, and result in more aggro than they should even accounting for our higher-than-other-priest aggro situation. 3) Initial hits are not uncommon, especially if it's a barrage. Keep in mind that getting hit with something is not necessarily a sign of aggro, as many abilities hit more than one target. Also, some mobs occasionally decide on a preferred target, and will swap to hit them until the tank regains aggro. Orcs in the commonlands are especially bad about this, and if you can speak orcish you'll actually hear them announce it when they decide someone needs to die. 4) Please remember that our aggro is *correct*. The others get less aggro than they should, true, but quite frankly- by 32, in a group with a tank who has reasonable taunts, if you're pulling aggro in a situation where you don't have adds and there are less than 4 or 5 mobs in the group, either you're fighting something too hard (or your tank needs new equipment) or you're doing something wrong. The warden class post-29 (and more so post 31, when we have both the NC and NE lines to use) has some of the best healing potential in the game at possibly the best mana efficiency. Groups who won't take one don't know what they're talking about. I've seen high level groups specifically look for a Warden over a cleric, in fact. Is aggro a potential issue? Yes. But only as much of an issue as you let it be.
Even Nettleshield generates aggro to the Warden. At the low 20's it's virtually guarantted to switch aggro from the tank to the Warden. Makes it just not worth casting.
Playing a 46 warden I have no clue what any of you are talking about. Aggro problems? I hydra a 46 zerker and I cannot remember the last time my warden got aggro. Hell, when I am out with just my two I throw 1 AoE taunt and my 40 sec buff up on the zerker when I pull, dont taunt the rest of the fight and I wont pull pull aggro off my zerker. That is pulling groups of 3. I think alot of tanks just have no clue what they are doing. I never precast my HoTs though, maybe thats why I never have problems.
Well that might be true, but templars and mystics dont have to worry about that fact....as they dont get anyway near the same amount of agro from there heals, so why should a druid have to. They should either fix it so that the agro generated is working correctly, or bring the druid down to the templars level. In fact the templars/mystics agro is not only working incorrectly but it also generates more hate for the tank, exactly what you want in a fight.........i simply cannot believe that SOE have still not fixed this, and if it werent for the fact that my subscription is paid till june i wouldnt be playing right now.
We Druids are not being vocal enough. The devs will not fix this agro problem unless we are more vocal, look how long they said there was no problem.
Agreed tagga, the problem has been there since day 1, so more than 5 months later and the problem still persists. I simply cannot believe that sony have not addressed it yet, i normally check the test server notes to see if anything is being done, but im gradually giving up on that. The worst part is that not only is our agro the only one working correctly, the fact that the templars reactive wards actually generates hate for the recipent (usually a tank) means there heals are just so much more effective. If im in a group and taking down a solo mob then i have no problems, if theres a group of 3 or more, then normally after the second/third heal i cast i will have 2 out of 3 of the group on me and spend almost the rest of the fight trying to spam heal myself to keep me alive.
if it helps that problem doesnt exist in raids anymore (at least not with heals... only with group cures).
That part right there set off a few lights for me. Zerkers are the absolute best at keeping agro in the game. If a Zerker is taunting and not a complete waste of skin, its almost impossible to pull agro off of a Zerker. The other tanks aren't as lucky, heh.. tho I still say with any really good player behind them any Tank is capable of keeping agro and doing their job, least the ones in my guild seem to be able to. A Zerker tho, heh.. they don't have to hardly try to do it.
Hey guys!! I Have a 28 templar 25 mystic and I deleted my 27 fury ( my husband, who's name i am on right now, used to call my fury "the dealer of debt"). I love the druid class more than any of my other healers because I love the spells and the nature aspect. I rerolled another Druid, who is now level 15. She is going to become a warden. Well, back to why I was posting. My husband and I decided to do an experiment to see if the devs had changed the healing aggro problem for the druid class. We fought in RoV using his monk and my templar to see if the heals were generating more aggro for him or for me. The reactives still say "tank heals tank for blah blah." Thus generating more hate for the main tank and not for the templar. We then went to do crows with my 15 druid and he mentored down. I healed him with regrowth "YOU heal tank for blah blah."...sooo no fixes in aggro yet..I am very dissapointed. I want to play my drui d more than my templar..they really need to fix these aggro problems so everyone has a "fair shot" of healing without getting murdered.
The wardens are still waiting to play on a level playing field, no news on this issue since the devs recognized the disparity.
I play in a grp w/ 39 Guardian, his RL mate 39 Fury, me 2-boxing 37 Warden/Conjuror. And I stopped being primary healer (even though I feel I should be >wisp) and letting her do it, mostly due to they live together and he knows instantly when she has healer agro. Between her and me, we give our guardian plenty of bounce. He does very well at keeping both of us alive, but he is rather ticked at druid agro and spends alot of his pwr on us. We tend to attack challenging mobs, so even w/ a pre-regen, his HPs take a nose dive fast. You know what happens next. The agro NEEDs fixing PERIOD.
On the plus side, I still believe those of us who have continued to play Warden, and do well at it, will be the best healers in game, by far, once the field is leveled. We already know exactly which spells to use when to avoid aggro, to pull aggro, etc.
