"Threat" vs. "threat priority"

So my fae attention span has flitted onto a Fighter temporarily. And I've avoided asking about this for a while because I thought it would just make sense on its own sooner or later. Buuuuuuut yeah.

As a Fighter you have 3 different kinds of like... obviously-Aggro-tastic abilities, based on the tooltip details they display:

• "Increases Threat to target by X" (X is a really big integer)
• "Increases threat priority of target by X position(s)" (X is a tiny integer)
• "Forces enemy to target you for X seconds"

I would like to check if I understand the difference between the first 2 types. (Forced Target is fairly self-explanatory, I assume)

Here in EQ2 the Threat/Aggro system seems slightly more complicated than other games — Tanks don't seem to just have passive Threat-scaling based off their damage done.

So, I'm guessing your raw +Threat abilities are the way you stay ahead of true DPS? And Taunts don't seem to universally just make you #1 Aggro — they only modify your "position" on the hate list.

Combining all that, I think what's happening is this. If we start by imagining a hypothetical Hate List:

1. Bored Guardian (72,000)
2. Charlie Sheen (64,000)
3. Annoyed Wizard (53,000)
4. Depressed Swashbuckler (34,000)
5. Troubador playing while drunk (33,000)
6. Bitter Defiler (2,400)

So, the first number — the ranking — is the Threat Priority, right? And the second number is the actual, raw Threat each one has. Generating enough raw Threat will move you up in the Threat Priority list.

So if the group's Warlock suddenly spiked to 78,000 Threat, then their Threat Priority would increase by 1, and they would start Lock Tanking.

Now if we assume our Bored Guardian got so bored they went AFK for 5 minutes, they might come back to find this situation:

1. Charlie Sheen (178,000)
2. Annoyed Wizard (153,000)
3. Depressed Swashbuckler (134,000)
4. Troubador playing while drunk (133,000)
5. Bitter Defiler (72,400)
6. Bored Guardian (72,000)

So the Bored Guardian immediately uses Rescue, which increases their Threat Priority by 3 positions and Threat by 30,000.

Since Rescue is +3 positions, they automatically get boosted to 134,000 Threat:

1. Charlie Sheen (178,000)
2. Annoyed Wizard (153,000)
3. Bored Guardian (134,001) ← Automatically moved up here (+3) by the Threat Priority part
4. Depressed Swashbuckler (134,000)
5. Troubador playing while drunk (133,000)
6. Bitter Defiler (72,400)

Then they get +30,000 more Threat from the raw bonus part:

1. Charlie Sheen (178,000)
2. Bored Guardian (164,001) ← Automatically moved up here (+1 more) by the raw Threat generation
3. Annoyed Wizard (153,000)
4. Depressed Swashbuckler (134,000)
5. Troubador playing while drunk (133,000)
6. Bitter Defiler (72,400)

OK. So, I think that's how the Threat Bonus abilities work in this game, after toying around with them and thinking about it.

Do I understand this correctly?

I think this is basically correct. I'm not sure if there are more variables to consider that would make it more dynamic in a way. Keep in mind that heals also generate some hate (half of what damage does).