Aggro Generation

[Lynxal]

Unfortunately, in order to mess around with hate generation you need multiple people. I haven't been able to spend a really long time doing this but I will show you the preliminary items we discovered early on.

The majority of the time I had a ranger pull either with dmg or with proximity, then turn his back to the mob. Everything was 2 dots 4 levels below me and 6 levels below him. I had to assume, though it pains me, that the tool tip is correct and that provoke is generating 102-110 hate if I want to put numbers to dmg to hate and healign to hate. All dmg done was on initial pull...run up and hit it, or hit it with a bow then stop attacking.

The first interesting thing about Provoke is that when you cast it nothing happens....the following tick you see the two red eyes above the mob. This is the point at which it generates aggro. The mob may or may not turn at this point. Depending on it's attack delay, it finishes it's next attack on the target before it turns back to you.

The second interesesting thing in screwing around.....my skill in longsword went up 5 points since i had just leveled and I NEVER swung. The entire time the ranger was doing any work I was only standing next to him and casting provoke in combat with a longsword equipped and I was getting skill ups without swinging and without landing.

Provoke 2 = 102 - 110 Hate I am listing the number of provokes cast before I could get it to turn. Didn't have time to mess around with provoke 1 yet and start narrowing things down....especially proximity aggro.

Proximity Aggro = 2 provoke..............we did this 5 times
66 dmg = 2 provoke
93 dmg = 2 provoke
95 dmg = 2 provoke
107 dmg = 3 provokes
108 dmg = 2 provokes......damn my variable hate generation.
108 dmg = 3 provokes
115 dmg = 3 provokes
176 dmg = 3 provokes
179 dmg = 3 provokes
208 dmg = 3 provokes
278 dmg = 3 provokes
282 dmg = 3 provokes
290 dmg = 3 provokes
293 dmg = 4 provokes
430 dmg = 4 provokes
636 dmg = 6 provokes

Obviously a lot of messing around left to do there.

Ranger resists snare on mob = 2 provokes
Ranger lands snare on mob = 2 provokes
Ranger pulls with prox, takes dmg and heals 1 time for 172 = 2 provokes
Ranger pulls with prox, takes dmg and heals 2 time for 172 = 2 provokes
Ranger pulls with prox, takes dmg and heals 3 time for 172 = 2 provokes
Ranger pulls with prox, Uses Regress I which does 126 dmg and lowers aggro 174 to 188 = 1 provoke (nice, it actually works)

I prox aggro Ranger heals me 9 times for 172 health runs out of mana, the mob never turned.
I prox aggro one, and hit another Ranger heals me 9 times for 172 health runs out of mana and neither mob turns.

Essentially I need a much larger healer to see any aggro generation. We tried running it both ways with him healing before he takes enough dmg to warrant the heal of 172 and after so he really healed himself for 172 and it always only took the 2 provokes to get it off him so I need a much larger healer.

Psionicist comes over to help while we are waiting for our regular group to show up. If you have a Psionicist and wonder why your aggro lowering ability doesn't seem to work, it's because it appears to be broken. Mind Wipe I. I have to assume the psion was using it correctly. It's cast on the mob and lowers his aggression toward the psion approximately 550 hate according to the psion.

Psion prox aggros...casts mind wipe 1 time.....2 provokes to get it off him
Psion prox aggro....casts mind wipe 2-5 times..2 provokes always gets it off him.
Psion does 460 dmg = 4 provokes
Psion does 440 dmg....casts mind wipe more times than he cares to count....4 provokes

Psion mezs a mob, lets mez break = 4 provoke
Psion charms a mob, lets charm break = 6 provoke

Lots to do, I need some people to hang out with me for awhile willing to lose adventuring and crafting time. If it were up to me I would have run hate tests all night.

[Chernobog]

Holy crap man, thanks for testing that.

[Hyatt]

Good work. Any chance you could min/max your int and compare the number of Provokes needed to turn a mob?

[Niteflyx]

Interesting...

I think they said they are working on taunts across the board, I believe..because right now they are meh... 2 taunts for 100pts of dmg?

[Lynxal]

Originally Posted by Niteflyx

Interesting...

I think they said they are working on taunts across the board, I believe..because right now they are meh... 2 taunts for 100pts of dmg?

Yeah I am a little leery of spending TOO much time with it knowing they are tweaking stuff. But I am very interested in finding out what is broken and some rough idea of where things are at right now.

As far as min/maxing INT I need a psion to hang out with me, and I need a lot of int gear to mess with numbers enough to lock in values. I just don't want to waste too many people's time with things changing so much right now.

I did however mess with prox aggro a few times with his int buff on me so that my listed provoke taunt was 116-125 and it still took 2 casts of provoke the 5 or so times we tried it same as the 102-110 hate.

If the psion is patient and willing to help for a bit, I also want him to mez one mob....pull a few of the mobs friends around him...burn them down solo and then let me provoke off the mezzed one when it breaks to see how the dmg by the psion to the other mobs transfered to the mezzed one.

One thing I know I need to test too is chain aggro vs proximity aggro. I don't beleive that chain aggro is giving you the proximity aggro advantage based on what I have "seen" in a group but it needs to be tested.

I found it pretty interesting that if your healer is pulling aggro at all he appears to be really working overtime if healing aggro is based on number of HPs healed or even max HPs potentially healed for the spell.

Also the 9 heals from the ranger were done two different ways....with him next to me for proximity bonus aggro and with him at max casting distance. It didn't change anything he couldn't overcome the proximity aggro. Does our testing mean that 1500 healing can't overcome the proximity aggro...maybe. Until I get another healer I can't be sure that the different heal spells aren't just being given a set amount of hate generation and ranger is next to nothing.

I do plan on min/maxing int, using provoke 1 and 2 to try and get a better idea of what exactly proximity/initial tag aggro is generating. Then also verifying that you receive full benefit from whatever ability you use first. I.E. does pulling with torture give you initial + full value of it's dmg/hate component or is it a percentage.

A lot of games had an if greater than X type deal as to what was actually received for initial aggro. Even if they changed some values I doubt they would change the theory, so I am interested in that.

One other item unless it was fixed last patch is I think the pally smite line is broken. If a pally tagged with smite I think it was lowering aggro not generating aggro because I could pull a mob off with torture while it was incoming.

[velzevul]

Originally Posted by Lynxal

I found it pretty interesting that if your healer is pulling aggro at all he appears to be really working overtime if healing aggro is based on number of HPs healed or even max HPs potentially healed for the spell.

in this game healers also like to do a lot of damage if they have cycles. cleric and bloodmage i usually group with do a lot of dmg, not just heal me.

[Lynxal]

Originally Posted by velzevul

in this game healers also like to do a lot of damage if they have cycles. cleric and bloodmage i usually group with do a lot of dmg, not just heal me.

True, sorry didn't mean to generalize, was referring more to the number of posts where people were identifying healing too early as the culprit and needing to start out with smaller heals until aggro is built. If they were only healing they would seemingly have to be cranking out the heals.

It's certainly apparent that anyone casting a 500 dmg nuke on incoming is going to make things difficult for the tank and exceed what we were able to generate early....my usual problem with impatient shaman.

Essentially people just need to be smarter about aggro management overall. So far though I don't see that coming primarily from healing in this game. If the healers are pulling aggro on a single mob then it's their dmg output by a large majority that they need to be careful of not their healing (unless it's spell based and not amount healed).

[Zuul]

Last night I was grouped with my regular healer, just her and I fighting some even level bugbears. In general she never pulls agro from unless a wanderer comes in just as she's casting a heal on me. This, I believe, is because most of the time she's sending me small heals and keeping me at around 80%, and is at a decent distance away (about 30m). Which would suggest that the size of the heal, and the distance between the healer and the mob have something to do with the amount of hate generated.

This theory was solidified a bit for me last night when on one pull, she was in doing melee with me and we got 3 adds all at once, all 3 jumped directly on to me. Usually in this situation she'd step back a few steps and cast a medium sized heal (600ish points). In this instance though, she not only didn't step back but she slapped a 1200 point heal on me, I was at about 95% health already (they didn't hit me near as hard as either one of us expected). Instantly, all three jumped on her, and it took me a good while before I was able to pull both of them off of her. And after grouping with her for the past 3 weeks or so and never having a problem keeping agro off of her, I'm led to believe that the size of the heal and the proximity of the healer play a big role.

EDIT: oh, and thank you for doing this research and posting it!! Very helpful indeed!

[Dignitas]

Thanks for your research.

When evaluating your test results, remember that there is a threshold you need to exceed before the mob turns towards you. It is not enough to have just one point of hate more than someone else to have the mob turn towards you.

This is done to avoid the mob to ping pong back and forth, everytime he is hit by someone else like this:

Joe hits for 100, Joe's total Agro: 100, Mob turns towards Joe
Jack hits for 101, Jack's total Agro: 101, Mob turns towards Jack
Joe hits for 100, Joe's total Agro: 200, Mob turns towards Joe
Jack hits for 101, Jack's total Agro: 202, Mob turns towards Jack
...

[imported_Judas]

I did a little test of my own on my 21 Dreadknight and I used my lil level 11 cleric. heres how it played out:

I went to ToD and was pulling level 16 mobs with the cleric . I would try to pull agro from the cleric by hitting Provoke and attacking afterward . I was actully spamming 3 attacks and not generating any agro a few tiimes I actully stoped doing anything with the cleric at all and focused on getting agro and could not do it to the point the cleric died. I tried many different ways to pull agro and in fact the only way I could pull it and hold it was to actully use my rescue spells then just bascly unload the damage. If at any point I attacked again with the cleric, or healed, the cleric took agro back. Now keep in mind here this is a level 11 cleric and we were pulling level 14 to 16 level mobs I didnt miss very much. Are the agro spells a DK gets broke to the point that there protecting the DK from getting agro like say a caster would use a de agro spell ?

Armor of Darkness -- From what I read its 10% mit 30 % agro generation per attack. Am I correct in these stats ? if so then that defensive stance is completely broken since I was spamming every single attack I had when fighting with my LIL cleric and could barely keep him alive.

Ive played a tank for years since 1999 to be exact . I know what it takes to generate agro I just simply cant do it with the Dreadknight . In a group of my peers level wise I have No chance to grab agro unless I rescue. So due to the fact DPS has been cut and Agro is currently out of the question if nothing is done to fix these problems Ill be forced to just ditch the character and re Roll a toon that can hold agro. In my case Im really hoping the class is broken and will be fixed soon I really do enjoy the whole point of the DK and mine has some pretty serious gear so I do not want to part with him.