Losing aggro, feigning death and early warding ... HELP pls!

[FrugalPlotz]

<p>Hello all (45 Defiler, grouping with an assasin and a Bruiser)</p><p>I am in the habit of casting my group ward first on the tank as it protects us all ... but have to start this early as it has a long cast time ... so sometimes it attracts aggro before the tank has got taunts in.  I am sure it is better for me to not do this and cast after the taunt but I struggle to maintain him if I do this especially against multiple mobs or high level ones.  So:</p><p>1. Am I being stupid and should I trust that I can wait until after the taunt then go for single ward?</p><p>2. Can I get a tinkered FD item (does one exist and if so at what level?) for emergency use!</p><p>3. Have I got a spell to decrease aggro?</p><p>4. How do i use Eerie avenger? I don't understand it ... just before someone dies? Can I cast it on myself?</p><p>Thank you for your patience, all constructive help valued <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Beastmage]

<p>1. Tell your tank to taunt sooner or before the mob gets to you, that lets you preward like you have been and keeps the agro off of you.  Prewarding is a great asset to a shaman as long as the tank can handle it.</p><p>2. There is a tinkered FD item, afraid I don't know what level its at tho.</p><p>3. You have one spell to decrease agro, its a point blank area spell that fears everything in addition to dropping you on the hate list.  Its not always good to use it tho, if a feared mob runs by some buddies it will bring them back as adds.</p><p>4. Toss it on someone before they die and it might buy you time to get an extra heal in to save them.  No clue if it works on the caster, never really bothered to try.</p><p>Hope that helps.</p>

[FrugalPlotz]

Thank you for your suggestions and thoughts <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />

[Kari]

<p>There are several tinkered FD charms, the first decent one is the heart stopper, around tinkering 175. I keep two types on my hotbar so that between the two I can FD every 15 min if needed. There is also a tinkered de-aggro device that can be used as a single target deaggro that doesn't fear. You may also want to check your racial traits and see if you get a racial de-aggro.</p><p>In a shameless blurb for tinkering, you just can't beat the cow launcher for entertainment on long fights.</p><p>edited to add: I use the eerie avenger anti-death line on my tank if it looks like he is about to go down. It is also good for fighting mobs with timed aoe. You can cast it just before the aoe is supposed to go off, and this can save the tank and give you time to slap some more wards or emergencies on him. So far I have never successfully been able to save myself with it, although others may have.</p>

[FrugalPlotz]

<p>Thank you Karianne.</p><p>Not that I am a tinkerer! But I may have to take it up just to get those items! Do you happen to know what the other one is? I have seen the heart stopper.  Also, do you happen to know the de aggro item? That would be even better than the fear ... although it may come to that <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>The cow launcher sounds great ... i will have to research that.  Is tinkering expensive in the same way that people say transmuting is?  But i guess i am asking in the wrong forum now!</p><p>I really appreciate your help.  Thank you again <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Sedenten]

<p>I almost always (98.9% of the time) preward the person designated as the "tank" and my group.  Tanks that complain about it and insist on no prewards are not good tanks.  That isn't to say there's not instances where prewarding shouldn't be done (if you have a person pulling who doesn't want to wipe the group if they pull more than one, for example), but the majority of the time we should be prewarding.  The tank should be able to get off their taunts quickly, especially since they are nearly instant cast.  If they are body pulling and the mobs are beelining for you, the tank should still be able to time their taunts just before you get beat down.  They may get resisted, but we generally can take a few hits while they work the mob off of us.  In much higher level content, failure to preward can mean a quick wipe for the group.  So tanks should get used to dealing with that pre-heal/ward aggro by then.</p><p>I also play a tanking class and know it can get frustrating dealing with keeping my targets off healers during the initial pull, but it really isn't that hard to pay attention and deal with it.  There's a huge difference between having those heals when you're first taking the damage and holding off and casting them later.  As you've admitted, our group wards take a while to cast, so it isn't plausible to get them off in the middle of a heated fight.  It's during those first few seconds before the mob has been fully debuffed that those pre-wards can make or break a fight.</p>

[Kari]

<p>The first useful tinker FD is the heart stopper at tinkering 175. It is instant cast with 75% success rate. So far it feels more reliable than the 75% to me, so the RNG has been merciful.</p><p>The second FD is Gigglegibber's Secret of Death at tinkering 260. It has a one second cast time with a 99% success rate. Good for those rare raid moments when the MT calls for FD and I am still alive for some reason.</p><p>The de-aggro is the behavioral modificatinator at tinkering 345. Instant cast with a 2 min reuse.</p><p>Another useful charm is the call of the tinker at 375. You can use once per hour and it is a call spell. You target a group or raid member and can call to them within the same zone. It is good to save travel time, or if I am coming to replace a healer and the group is in lower seb or some other difficult place to get to. </p><p>It took me about 3 weeks to level tinkering to max; my guild needed a mender bot and it seemed convenient for me to have one available. The cost is not so bad, there are recipies at every level that use a lot of loam, so I focused on them to level and avoided the ones that use a lot of ore. The first tier of loam is pricy, I used an alt to harvest them, and bought the mats for the tiers where it was only a few coppers.</p>

[FrugalPlotz]

Karianne and Sedenten you are marvellous! Thank you <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />.  Really helpful advice and I feel better about what I am doing!  Now I have some tinkering targets too.  Wonderful!

[Madmoon]

<p>Eerie Avenger is a bit like our no-mana Ward - it's emergency use only.  You can cast it on yourself or another, and you cast it in advance - it lasts and triggers in, I believe, around a minute, though it could be thirty seconds.  In theory, upon receiving a killing blow, one would get about five or ten percent of one's health back (varies by level and class,) and a ghostly twin of you or your groupmate would appear and draw the agro for a short period, allowing you to finish off the monster or heal yourself or your groupmate.  The Avenger would have the same number of hit points as a Ward, so would last about ten to twenty seconds, depending on the monster.  This all works up to the draw agro part.  It does not generate enough agro, so almost any action draws the attention of the monster back on to yourself or the fighter.  It only works rarely.  Once I have run out of mana, run out of health, I will cast it, in hopes that it will trigger and let me finish off the monster or run away, but again, the agro component does not work.  What should happen is that for as long as the Avenger is "up,"  it holds agro regardless.  This would make it a great spell, but in practice it quickly loses agro, rendering it moot.  Still, experiment with it yourself, you may find a way to include it in your arsenal.</p><p>GrimorShaman, AB</p>

[Solzak]

I agree with everyone else here.. a decent tank can keep aggro or pull it off you very fast, regardless of wards.  Any tank that doesn't like it will die a lot learning to deal with it.  In a raid, I cast group and single wards before pull, and add Deathward if we have to run into a room on the pull (otherwise I wait for just after the alpha strike for Deathward, to max its usefulness).  I've rarely get aggro on pull anymore.. the new Templar ward takes care of that. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  Tinkered FD items are great, but the recast timers make them emergency only.Half Elves get Misfits Trickery, a very nice single target de aggro.  -382 threat and -1 position on hate list -  Long range and 5 min recast - great for raids.  This was added with the new achievements system, so I just got lucky.Inform your tank, if you think they aren't used to defilers, about the fear deaggro.  In most group fights he'll need to fire his group taunt / encounter AE's as much as possible to keep them off you.  In some zones (many T8, very few T7 and below), firing Terror Chant = Wipe, as the feared mobs will pull adds on the way back.  So be sure to tell the group what the deal is.  You should tell them (and do it!) that you'll die before deaggroing in those zones, on the off chance that they can get you back up before the wipe.  Hey, sometimes they actually do!  Most tanks know which zones these are, so just ask.