Aggro is totally screwed...

[GenesisForgot]

The devs really need to sit down and fix this whole aggro concept because it is seriously flawed.

 

When I get initial aggro and hold it for the duration of a fight, everything is great and fine, but sometimes people manage to gain aggro - usually its when a scout or mage forgets to assist, chanter fails a mez, or some other stuff. This happens from time to time and wouldn't be a huge issue except it takes an unreasonable amount of taunt to regain hate. It can take upwards of 30 taunts to regain hate (I have to cycle through all my abilities up to 4 times) or sometimes its simply impossible and either the mob has to die or the player. This is in conjunction with de-aggro skills and Rescue.

 

Furthermore, Rescue does not work as intended. Here's a perfect example:

 

Last night I was grouped with a 33 guardian and I am 30 guardian. 33 gaurd was MT and I was doing ZERO taunting. A scout gained aggro mid fight so the MT - who should be in the number 2 spot on aggro since he was previously #1 - spammed several taunts and used Rescue / taunts. Mob continued to pound the Scout. I decided I might as well try an Anger / Rescue combo and somehow moved from the bottom of the hatelist (lowest level and lowest contributor to dps/etc) to #1 instantly to gain aggro over both the MT and Scout. How does that work?? Rescue is *supposed* to only move you up above the next person on hate list so why did it fail for MT but work for me??

 

 

The whole aggro system is just screwy.. sometimes I can throw out 3 or 4 taunts an entire fight and no problems, sometimes I will spam them endlessly and get huge aggro problems. It seems arbitrary. Regaining hate is usually hopeless when it shouldn't be in theory - person getting attacked just needs to lower their hate generation and tank needs to surpass them - why is this so impossible?

 

Furthermore, Aggro on certain mobs / zones is totally off. In nektulos for example, if you kill an owlbear the rest of the group will immediately charge somebody not tanking - ie the wizard or cleric. what is that about?

[Manopow]

Guard them look here

[GenesisForgot]

Maybe you should read my post before posting an idiotic statement like that.

 

Having multiple tanks in a group is striaght up dumb late game. 1 Tank is all you need. 2 tanks don't taunt better than 1 so what's the point, its just making things hard on healers and you have less DPS overall.

[vaalen]

Very true.

 

I posted about this awhile back: http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=3&message.id=2414

[Erronn]

My responses in bold...

 

---

GenesisForgoten wrote:

The devs really need to sit down and fix this whole aggro concept because it is seriously flawed.

 

When I get initial aggro and hold it for the duration of a fight, everything is great and fine, but sometimes people manage to gain aggro - usually its when a scout or mage forgets to assist, chanter fails a mez, or some other stuff. This happens from time to time and wouldn't be a huge issue except it takes an unreasonable amount of taunt to regain hate. It can take upwards of 30 taunts to regain hate (I have to cycle through all my abilities up to 4 times) or sometimes its simply impossible and either the mob has to die or the player. This is in conjunction with de-aggro skills and Rescue.

 

     Yes, that is why it is critical for us tanks to really pile on the aggro early...we don't want to lose that aggro since it's so hard to get back. We only have one ability to jump to the top of the aggro list (Rescue) and as you know it's on a crazy 30 minute reuse, so is very much just an occassional emergency taunt. The player who stole your aggro needs to turn off autoattack, don't buff, don't heal (if possible), etc. to help you build up enough hate to pass them up on the hate list. If they don't, it's a race between two fast cars, and you're not gaining much on him.

 

Furthermore, Rescue does not work as intended. Here's a perfect example:

 

Last night I was grouped with a 33 guardian and I am 30 guardian. 33 gaurd was MT and I was doing ZERO taunting. A scout gained aggro mid fight so the MT - who should be in the number 2 spot on aggro since he was previously #1 - spammed several taunts and used Rescue / taunts. Mob continued to pound the Scout. I decided I might as well try an Anger / Rescue combo and somehow moved from the bottom of the hatelist (lowest level and lowest contributor to dps/etc) to #1 instantly to gain aggro over both the MT and Scout. How does that work?? Rescue is *supposed* to only move you up above the next person on hate list so why did it fail for MT but work for me??

 

     Not sure why Rescue didn't move the MT to the top...are you sure he actually used it? If so, makes me wonder if it can fail, or be resisted. Hmm. I haven't used Rescue much myself, so I can't comment on it's reliability.

 

 

The whole aggro system is just screwy.. sometimes I can throw out 3 or 4 taunts an entire fight and no problems, sometimes I will spam them endlessly and get huge aggro problems. It seems arbitrary. Regaining hate is usually hopeless when it shouldn't be in theory - person getting attacked just needs to lower their hate generation and tank needs to surpass them - why is this so impossible?

 

     I agree, but many folks "don't" lower their hate generation, and thus the problem.

 

Furthermore, Aggro on certain mobs / zones is totally off. In nektulos for example, if you kill an owlbear the rest of the group will immediately charge somebody not tanking - ie the wizard or cleric. what is that about?

 

     I seem to recall reading that the developers have some special AI on some mobs...perhaps the owlbears are set up this way. I have also seen this peculiar behavior...had an afk wizard one fight, and the owlbears jumped onto him in the middle of the fight...he wasn't even casting! Crazy, yes....crazy.

---

[sooner]

Yeah, I had some problems with owlbears too. Myabe that has something to do with it. I have put to use alll the good strats on this board and hardly ever lose agro. If I do its at the end of a fight and the mob is close to dead already. I agree with a lot of the other posters, though some people wont listen. I Anger, Shouting Cry, (Bury if in a clear area, I have had mixed problems with it), Taunting Challenge, Hold the Line, Group Buffs, Taunt route again, then some offense. After that is just fight specific. Sometimes I will just taunt and never touch offense but Ruin because its seems to generate good damage and hate. I am almost to 26 now, we will see how this all changes. I think a lot of success comes from having a well oiled group. If you are with people who understand the importance of hate management you should do fine. If not might have problems but if your healer is compotent it shouldnt be too big a problem.

[Dreg]

37 Guard here, aggro is jsut fine, if your learn to play your class, and study your abilitys, mix in some commen sence, you wont lose aggro, agaisnt any class, guards own, in fact i have discoverd tatics to where i can hold aggro on anything and not even use any power, i really dont want to go into detail about it, as im afraid it could be nerfed, but it is possible, guards can do some pretty amazing things, iv been able to solo kill double up blue "group" mele based mobs with ease, example here is the lv 33 minos in Runny eye, i was soloing them at lv 36 while i waited for groups, iv yet seen any other class achieve this, yes it can bee done but u have to use skill, and be wise about it, u cant just mash buttons. I will say i use DW. i dont bother with sheilds. Oh yea in case you havent figured out a good use for entrench, here is how you use it, the spell slows a mob, but raises ac, so u dont want it casted on soemthing your fighting, as it lower grp dmg to the mob, what it is good for, say your doing a named mob that has minions, and u have no chanter, no wiz, and only 1 healer. well it can still be done, pull the encounter, depending on where u at, u may need to prox pull, or pull with bow, but wich ever do your AE taunt, and have boss targeted, etrench him, then start killig nhte minions, he will barely hurt u, and will stay on u because your slowing him, once minions are dead, remove the effect and kill the named, one of many ways of doing it, but my fav is still have a wiz and just AE everything while everyone on boss. wiz will have all minions dead before named is down, most people i think just do the enchanter method and mez it, but there is more then way way to handle encounters with diff groups. Also Entrench is usefull for slowing a single add till your ready for it. If you dont have a mezzer in grp.

 Lets see what else can i ramble about while the servers are down, hrrmm. Oh yea pratice using your protection line of spells, they are usefull. sometiems even saving grp members lives when things go bad, Hunker down is still great even at my level, say all healers oom, mob near dead and your gonna die if soemthing isnt done, hunker down, you wont take dmg for 30 secs or very little, woudlnt worry about aggro cuz if you have to use, and doing your job, your way high on the aggro list anyway. Cant think of anything else off the top my head right now, but if you have a ability and not sure how it works, i know how to use every ability we have up to lv 37.

 

P.S. but dont ask me how to solo Double up blue group mobs, im not gonna spill it, if people see guards doing this everywhere, we may get nerfed, because people are goinng to whine that they cant do it, and then we will suck as tanks, and that would hurt everybody. Its not worth doing anyway, yes its almsot 1% xp a kill but it takes like 10 mins to do it, grp xp is still the best and fastest xp. I only talking about to assure all the other guards out there that we do not suck, dont listen to what all these whiners are saying cuz they simpley do not understand the game and do not know how to play. Ignore them, study your abilitys, and test things, and you may discover some of neat things iv been able to do with the guardian class

[Azry]

I agree with the OP, there is some definite bug that occurs that if you dont get that first AE taunt off before the mobs are hit it many times is impossible to get aggro back. It may be because certain mobs arent checking the hate list at regular intervals when they decide who they are attacking. It definitely has the feel of a mechanics bug.

 

 

[Kyd]

Owlbears are bugged no doubt. I pulled a group and was holding it till another member ran from the dock. A good 90seconds I had so in this time I was able to AE taunt three times, AE three times, taunting blow, taunt and throw a few dot/debuffs in. After doing all this and holding what should have been secure aggro, the wizard ran up to us, absorbed his shard, took all the aggro from all the owlbears and died. When he ran back a second time, I told him to just stand there and don't nuke and to let me solo them for him. I pulled a group of three or four. He stood there doing absolutely nothing. Forty-five seconds into the fight he got all aggro and died. That is 100% proof positive a bug.

[Dreg]

You are wrong, when i do xp groups, i dont even pull, here is a example of a solid XP group, again, you dont know how to play the class to hold aggro, i will stand by my statments,  Hunting in rivervale,  we where doing the rats Last night and the  group was, with me 37, a lv 39 bard, 36 brusier, 38 enchanter, mostly just for mana regen for non stop killing, and a 39 [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot], and one lv 36 templar. the cleric was pulling btw, i toss supress, once at start of battle, use my secret aggro skills, and never lose aggro. and uses no power. before the mob was dead, like at 5% health, cleric would go get a pull, i would switch to it, toss supress, start attacking, then the other mele in grp would finish the previous mob, then switch to mine, this was non stop killing for 4 hours straight, i did 60% xp into lv 37. I never lost aggro once, and i was not puller, in fact i was the lowest mele in the grp. Now, in some cases you may get add, and cant get to it in time, it beats soembody down, cleric has to chain heal, gets aggro, and you cant get it off, this happens, and where your protection skills come in handy, even if u dont have aggro, u can guard that person and take nearly all there dmg. untill u do get aggro. again this only happens on adds that you dont catch right away, or chanter gets rsisited on a mez or something of that nature. If your still haveing problems, then quit playing with noobs, aggro is a group effort, if everyone plays ther class proper, you wont have any problems, if we had a magic taunt button that never lost aggro then game would be easy and boring, its all about using skill, and your group using skill. BTW  Azryal say if your  doing social mobs, and you have to prox pull, like doing miners in RE, tell your grp to back the hell up, so you have room to prox pull, then cast your AE taunt when all mobs are out of range from aggroing a second encounter, as when doing prox pulls, the encoutner will alwase go for the enchanter first, only thing i can think of when u say your grp is getting beat down, wich again is because your group isnt using skill and commen sence.

[Kygan_Mc]

Kyder you're right something is screwy with Owlbears. Get this situation. Had a group consisting of me (guardian), 1 Coercer (my wife), a couple of scout classes, and 2 healers. We pull a batch of owlbears (3) and proceed to kill. I'm only using my taunt skills (shout, anger, taunting blow, Hold the Line) as well as doing group buffs. The Coercer is mezzing the ones we are not fighting so it's pretty much business as usual. We get down to 2 owlbears. I'm taunting the hell out of the active target. Anger, Taunting Blow, and Shout each time it's active plus I have HTL active. Chanter is keeping the last one snoozing. When the current target is down to about 25% health it leaves me and runs to the chanter. The chanter was not nuking the one that ran towards her (I know this because it's my wife and she sits right beside me) and was keeping the OTHER owlbear asleep.

 

Something is definitely up with owlbear aggro. If mez broke on the last one and it went towards her, sure I can accept that. But the one I had taunted for the past minute leaves me and goes to a player that hasn't cast a spell on it since the inital mez? Crazy stuff.

 

Kygan

 

[Cassusdy]

I have noticed also that if a wizzy nuked prematurely and gets hate, It is [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] near impossible to get the hate back. It definatlly feels like a bug of some kind.

[Azry]

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Dregan wrote:

BTW  Azryal say if your  doing social mobs, and you have to prox pull, like doing miners in RE, tell your grp to back the hell up, so you have room to prox pull, then cast your AE taunt when all mobs are out of range from aggroing a second encounter, as when doing prox pulls, the encoutner will alwase go for the enchanter first, only thing i can think of when u say your grp is getting beat down, wich again is because your group isnt using skill and commen sence.

---

Err noooo. I stand by my statement there is a bug in the aggro generation that has to do with mobs not checking their hate lists at routine intervals. I believe some mobs check at the beginning of combat and then stop checking, eliminating the possibility of taunting off group members. And I actually dont understand what you are saying as well. Does all what he is saying make sense to anyone?

[Rie]

---

Azryal wrote:

---

Dregan wrote:

BTW  Azryal say if your  doing social mobs, and you have to prox pull, like doing miners in RE, tell your grp to back the hell up, so you have room to prox pull, then cast your AE taunt when all mobs are out of range from aggroing a second encounter, as when doing prox pulls, the encoutner will alwase go for the enchanter first, only thing i can think of when u say your grp is getting beat down, wich again is because your group isnt using skill and commen sence.

---

Err noooo. I stand by my statement there is a bug in the aggro generation that has to do with mobs not checking their hate lists at routine intervals. I believe some mobs check at the beginning of combat and then stop checking, eliminating the possibility of taunting off group members. And I actually dont understand what you are saying as well. Does all what he is saying make sense to anyone?

---

From what I can gather he is saying that he has found an exploit (since he feels it would be 'nerfed' if discovered) that he is making full use of. Secondly, he feels that if this exploit were to be 'nerfed', that EQ2 would be a worse game for it.

 

Note: Dregan seems to be the only one talking about said 'exploit', so I do not understand how it would effect the entire game balance to correct it.

 

Just my 2cp.

[Dreg]

Nope not a exploit at all.

[Dreg]

Its jsut, if im not mistaken, other fighter classes have the same skills  that im using to hold aggro onto myself, if they started using my tatics, it may not work so well for me, so iv kinda kept it to myself, if that makes any sence,  Heres a hint though, it has to do with timing your techs. so its not a exploit. I just dont spam every button i have, i have a certain sequance, and a certain time i cast a spell. iv figured out what adds most aggro to me, and i went with that

[Azry]

---

Dregan wrote:

Its jsut, if im not mistaken, other fighter classes have the same skills  that im using to hold aggro onto myself, if they started using my tatics, it may not work so well for me, so iv kinda kept it to myself, if that makes any sence,  Heres a hint though, it has to do with timing your techs. so its not a exploit. I just dont spam every button i have, i have a certain sequance, and a certain time i cast a spell. iv figured out what adds most aggro to me, and i went with that

---

I went to graduate school for 6 years and still cant understand what you explaining with your "secret no power aggro move!"

Can you explain it one more time please and, I know it has to with AE taunting when the mob is OOR, but I get an error message stating this when I try it. Any chance you care to let us in on a step-by-step what is happening....

TO start I got the part about the cleric pulling the mobs...

[Dreg]

Well your way off has nothing to do with ae taunting , are you talking about my most for back to back pulls with guard not pulling ?

 

OK have some one in grp pull, press your range taunt, whatever u may have for your level, anger / supress, mob will come to you, attack, and use your best abilitys and tactics to hold aggro, when the mob you are fighitng gets down to 5% health or near death, the puller goes and gets a mob, when its in range, you hit your taunt, it comes to u, u attack it, the rest of the mele in your grp finishes off the previous mob you where fighting, then assist you on your current target,  this way you have head start on it.  it works well for non stop killing xp grps. as far as my personal tactics for holding aggro, that is my secret, selfish it may be but while others where whinning about how guards sucks, i was destined to figure out a way to be the best tank i could, and to be honest when i was lv 20 or so i had some of the same problems guards are complaining about now, so i sat down, looked at all my skills, head to toe, and learned to use them at there best, with tactics and skill. and now i have no problem what so ever with aggro. What im trying to say it can be done, your just going to have to figure out your own tactics. if i was to share what i do, and it dont work for somebody, then they are just going to flame your a noob, you suck, blah blah blah. all i can say is that guards are awsome and the abilitys are waiting for you to discover the class to its fullest, if you put your head to it.

[ki11g0]

Im no scholar or even a guardian, but if its a skill everyone has and cost little or no power, the only thing he could be talking about is a heroic oppurtunity. which in turn is the best way to gain total agro at the begining of a pull. IMHO. as a SK if i am taking on the role of MA i let people know not to break my chain, or better yet to not even attack till i have completed my HO. in some cases this work great in other the group fails to listen and it becomes a taunt spam. for fighters the HO's always end in a taunt, so if your pulling more then 1 end with the AE taunt, makes sense to me.I could be completely wrong though First post BTW!

[Dreg]

Laugf, nope not it, i dont use HO's waste of time, i use to try that do your own HO and start of a pull, but thats to much trouble, it uses no power becase the ability is grey to me now, very lower power cost, people are overlooking it cuz its old, there u go

[Erronn]

Hmm, might be talking about "toughness"...it seemed like a nice hate generator back in the day!

[Wasuna]

1. The Cleric pulls instead of the person with the most HP/AC in the group.

 

2. The ability is grey & Other classes have it so it's pre-level 20.

 

3. It uses no power.

 

My guess is he's discovered Hold the Line. Cleric pulls since he's rooted in place. It uses no power cause Hold the Line will stay up for like 12 hours per cast. It's level 15 so Beserkers and Guardians get it.

 

BTW: Camping one spot for experiance is no fun so your super secret tactic won't really work for me as a no-power option.

[Erronn]

Now that you mention it, I thought I noticed that the Hold-the-line "root" effect actually faded after awhile, while the buff was still up. I'll check that out again....if it still "procs" the hate, but doesn't immobilize us....hrmm...

[Xiomicr]

lets not let "conspiracy theories" detract from the original post...

 

The Hate List Is SCREWED

 

period

 

end of sentence...

 

:smileymad:

 

[GenesisForgot]

Hold the Line drains mana on each succesfuly hit anyways..

If he's doing anything I'm guessing he just uses "Taunt" over and over since it costs so little mana.. which I'll test out I guess. Who knows, if he isn't willing to spill the beans but at the same time says our class is "super good and balanced" then he's probably exploiting or something..

 

 

 

Anyways, Dregen is totally not even addressing the issue -

 

99.99% of the time Aggro is EASY to hold and not a problem. That .01% when somebody else gains aggro it is IMPOSSIBLE to regain it.

 

This is not working correctly. I'd like aggro to be a consistant but reasonable challenge that we can figure out and use skill to over come. As it is, I either don't do jack 99% of the time or I'm furiously mashing buttons while my teamate dies the other 1%. Its just stupid.

 

 

And yes, mobs in Nektulos are bugged all over. Beavers flee when their first buddy dies. Owlbears charge any target they want when their first buddy dies. Its just stupid to even fight there for xp..

[Cassusdy]

People who brag about having a super secret tactic yet refuse to tell anyone, tend to have no secret at all.

[Dreg]

No no and no, its not taunt, and it not hold the line, as i use same tactics in dungons while on the move, iv already stated it has to do with timing certain abilitys, its not just 1  button spam lol, pressing one button isnt usign tactics or skill.

[GenesisForgot]

right...

 

 

either way it fails to address the bulk of the original post and doesn't show how to fix anything since you wont give any details so [Removed for Content]are you even posting for.....

[Dreg]

uh u can regain aggro if you lose it. and if in te rare case to where u cant, try guarding the person for a change, if same person keep pulling aggro of you, cast interven on them, it last 12 hours. and will help u regain aggro, and for the last time im not exploiting anything, nore will i ever, i have no desire to be banend from the game, timming certian abilitys to be most effeicaint for aggro is not a exploit. get that in your head. Heres the soemthing else to think about, if the stupid owl bears are bugged, and im not saying they cant be, as there alot bugs,as  i never had a issue with them when doing EL accesss quest myself,  then dont camp them. move to soemthing else.

[GenesisForgot]

lol no [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] shirlock... jesus you are dense.

 

Certain mobs are bugged. They should be fixed. Yes, I'll move to different mobs obviously but its pretty lame when most of a zone has aggro bugs in it.. ie, nektulos forest..

 

 

Regaining hate is VERY HARD. You are like the first person telling me its easy to get it back. When you are down fighting level 35+ mobs and one turns on your wizard it will MELT him in like 10 seconds. When it takes over 20 abilities to regain hate on that mob that is a huge burden to the healers and the group as a whole. When even Rescue fails - when it is supposed to raise you above the next person on hate list (and the guardian should be #2 in that case) - something is screwy with aggro.

 

 

This "timing abilities to get aggro" is bull[expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] flatout. Our best hate generators are Buffs and Taunts. I've spamed all my abilities multiple times and the mob has never returned to me til its death. Thats just broken.

 

 

And yes, I know when to gaurd my teamates. Thats not what this is about.

 

An aggro system that makes sense and is challenging all the time but consistant and learnable rather than how it is now is all I'm asking.

Message Edited by GenesisForgoten on 12-17-2004 04:50 PM