Pulling form herc

Amsel - Sanctuary

Im currently 88 and i have both tt 80 sword endless and 79 leg glavie and i pull from herc with the tt weapon. herc has lvl 5 bash and im a vit magic build with my magic on the low side and im confused why this happens, has been going on since prolly 82 maybe sooner

my attack with the tt is 4508-5835
leg 4166-6136

anyone have any idea or ideas on why this happens? i know many other venos that dont have this problem

Sevas - Heavens Tear

Ask anyone and they will tell you it is easy to pull agro off of a Herc. Many Venos do it (and suffer for it) and other classes can steal too. Usually the problem is not letting the herc acquire enough "agro" off its own simply by letting it tank for several seconds on its own. Even if you or a squad allows the herc to gain some "agro" on a boss, if the other members out damage your herc in either DPS or just hitting too hard, it is likely they can pull it off of your herc. I've done that with FB bosses. That's not at all fun.

LloydAsplund - Sanctuary

You are either attacking too early, or you are intentionally trying to steal aggro off of the herc.

Ex. On a increased phy. def earth element mob. You amp, extreme poison, mind break, 2/3 spark and ironwood it.

Both herc and I are lvl 83, and I have 5010- 6312 magic attack. I rarely steal aggro from herc, unless its a earth based mob or the mob has +phy. def.

Amsel - Sanctuary

well i actually havent pulled him from a boss, just mobs, and its every single time i hit, no matter what if i use the tt wep, i cant use it at all even elite or mag res, i just steal :<

Sevas - Heavens Tear

At your level I would suggest trying AoE grinding. Rockenwolves would still be good exp for you and good drops. You just need to get to the spot first. If you can get 10-12 gathered up you will only be able to spam heal until about two of them die, then you will be able to pop off an AoE (like Noxious Gas). For 1v1 with a mob, unless the herc absolutely needs the exp, I would suggest another pet. =3

tweakz

As a veno we have better on hands training of the rules of aggro. If a mob has increased defense: less phys dmg = more chance of stealing aggro with mag! If the mob is Earth based: more chance of stealing aggro with veno mag! If the mob does no melee, there is no reflect = no extra aggro for Herc. Increased atk on reflect = extra aggro for Herc. Weak = less reflect aggro.

Under the right conditions I can steal aggro from my Nix with a mere +2 non imbued weapon. Venos that actually play the game can predict behaviors better and develop ways to avoid stealing aggro. It's nothing to blame the pet for.

Brael - Dreamweaver

Amsel - Sanctuary wrote: »

well i actually havent pulled him from a boss, just mobs, and its every single time i hit, no matter what if i use the tt wep, i cant use it at all even elite or mag res, i just steal :<

Hercs aren't the greatest aggro machines around. The buffs come at the cost of additional aggro skills, and those skills are very valuable for keeping the mob on it. It's one of the plusses to a cub or magmite when doing things like FB clears (until the boss).

If you're using Lucky Scarab... don't. With a herc that will get you aggro. Other than that, pay attention to the mob. If it's wood your nukes generate less hate, if it's earth they generate more. If it's a ranged mob you don't get reflect damage, if it's a caster you don't get as much reflect damage. If it's weak it generates less, if it's increased attack it generates more. Increased defense will cause pet melee to generate less, while increased magic resist will cause your nukes to generate less. Sacrificial assault is the real winner. The lifespan of a weak mob with the additional reflect aggro of an increased attack.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

Hercs attacks *suck*
Hercs damage *sucks*

It holds aggro with its reflect (which does NOT suck, not even a tiny bit)

But - monsters out of dungeons don't hit very hard. So they don't reflect very much.
So the herc doesn't generate very much hate, nor very quickly.

I'm not even gonna mention ranged and caster mobs.

Generally I need to wait until the mobs are down to 80% health before I start casting. (Although my herc doesn't have bash, which would let me start sooner - I'm quite significantly lower levelled than you)

Cenminator - Dreamweaver

what you need to know is that pet agro is based off dmg, if you outdmg your pet you "will" pull agro. yes skills such as bash and fleshream pull agro but only for a moment then its back to who does more dmg. just give the herc a few seconds to get some attacks in and then go nuts

tweakz

If you don't out damage pet: you fail.

Vidalaire - Heavens Tear

what you need to know is that pet agro is based off dmg, if you outdmg your pet you "will" pull agro. yes skills such as bash and fleshream pull agro but only for a moment then its back to who does more dmg. just give the herc a few seconds to get some attacks in and then go nuts

I nuke for over 10k and my Herc does around 2k-3k with normal hits and 3k-4k with Bash. If pet aggro was based off damage, then there's no way ANY pet could hold aggro. Pet skills generate more aggro than raw damage. Get any low damage pet, give it 4 lvl 1 attack skills, and see if you can steal aggro off it.

JanusZeal - Heavens Tear

Firstly, herc dmg does not suck. Compare for me your dmg at quest lvl against bosses like Dimentora, Soul, Fataliqua, Feng, etc. Herc kicks ****.

Secondly, there are variables on aggro that most apparent well-knowing venos have covered. Any high lvl veno should know how NOT to pull aggro from their pet, unless it's timed well enough to where they take little to know dmg on pulling. It should be obvious that stuns dramatically increases chance of pulling aggro, as well as your veno being on the wrong side of monsters defenses (i.e. inc phys defense monsters), as well as Earth monsters.

Thirdly, it should be apparent that, as you get higher in lvl, not only will you have an easier time pulling from your herc, so will dd classes like archers/wizards/bm's, and even clerics. This ain't just an issue with hercs either. When doing BH/FB/TT/etc and herc tanks one should plan around that and make sure everyone is on the same page about their attacks. Likewise, dd's should have a relative idea how much it takes to yank aggro.

Sevas - Heavens Tear

In PvE situations like TT, physical and magical damage is nerfed on the bosses. My herc does over 2k damage all the time, in TT and out of it. My barb and BM friends tell me that is unfair, but I can't help it.

Overall, if a herc is tanking, the squad should know to let you have several seconds to generate agro on the boss(es) so that they will have a harder time pulling it off of you. Out of TT and FBs, try AoEing. That prevents you from dealing damage until a couple of the mobs have died. Of course, this will depend on the level of the mobs you're fighting and how many you have gathered up. (I liked to get 10-12 Rockenwolves when I could grind there. That meant spam healing until a couple had died before I could use Noxious Gas.)

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

I'll qualify my statement - Herc damage sucks compared to other pets. The "Pets don't get reduced on skull bosses" thing does indeed make pet damage rock on those bosses.
But other pets rock harder.

Hercs damage mostly comes from the reflect, and all too few bosses rely on boring old physical attacks for their damage. So there's often little to reflect.

Which means it's very easy for other classes to pull off of a herc.

But yes, it's something you need to learn and to learn to manage. And skills are a BIG chunk of your pets aggro genration. But less so on a herc, since you only have one slot for aggro skills.

tweakz

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I'll qualify my statement - Herc damage sucks compared to other pets.

How many non air pets can you name that have higher dps?

Hercs damage mostly comes from the reflect, and all too few bosses rely on boring old physical attacks for their damage. So there's often little to reflect.

There's only oddball bosses like Stygean, and Hercule Trioc that don't do any melee. Rarely does reflect dmg out dmg Herc. Herc has to be close to dying for it to happen.

XHappyBunnyx - Sanctuary

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I'll qualify my statement - Herc damage sucks compared to other pets.

i dont think you used a herc before.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

I'm willing to agree that things may change later.

But right now? At my level?

My eldergolth and my magmite, both lower level than my herc, hit harder than it.
My magmite also has three bash-like skills to cycle through, which adds a heap of damage on top of that.

Reflect makes up for this on some mobs - but by no means all.

tweakz wrote: »

There's only oddball bosses like Stygean, and Hercule Trioc that don't do any melee. Rarely does reflect dmg out dmg Herc. Herc has to be close to dying for it to happen.

I'm seeing my herc hitting for 800-1k depending on boss. Reflects are commonly 1.5-2.5k

On bosses which hit reasonably quickly, the reflect is by far the more important component.
(On bosses which hit slowly, on the other hand, I can slip in ironwoods, which tips the scales even further away from reflect)

LloydAsplund - Sanctuary

I saw a 7k+ dmg reflect on my herc some time ago . Pretty sure it was because of dragon + amp dmg + extreme poison

Sevas - Heavens Tear

Reflect is based off of the damage hit on herc. I don't think amp or any other skills affect it.

LloydAsplund - Sanctuary

Doubt it, because there is no way in hell my herc coulda survived a 7k reflect.

Sevas - Heavens Tear

Reflect is based off of damage taken. I used to eye the reflect strangly because I noticed that the reflected damage was higher than the damage taken. :P Then I was reminded that he has buffs which reduced the damage he took. Therefore, say your herc is only taking a 100 damage per hit or so, but it reflects 200-300 damage. That's because it's basing the reflect off of the original rather than the damage your herc takes while it's buffed.

LloydAsplund - Sanctuary

Ill test it later if I have time. I know reflect is caluculated without defence, but maybe amp dmg/dragon affects it too. Im pretty sure it does.

Sevas - Heavens Tear

I've never noticed. =3 Would be good to know so I could insist on it more if my herc is tanking some very evil bosses.

Solandri - Heavens Tear

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

My eldergolth and my magmite, both lower level than my herc, hit harder than it.

The eldergoth has 0.5 attacks/sec (once every 2 sec). @90 with 3162 phys attack, it does
3162*0.5 = 1581 DPS

The magmite has 0.6 attacks/sec (once every 1.67 sec). @90 with 3240 phys attack, it does
3240*0.6 = 1944 DPS

The herc has 0.8 attacks/sec (once every 1.25 sec). @90 with 2672 phys attack, it does
2672*0.8 = 2138 DPS

We've done the math long ago. The only pet which does more base DPS than the herc is the phoenix. Adding skills changes it slightly, since skill damage is front-loaded (it comes at the beginning of every 8 seconds, instead of in the middle) and is independent of attack speed. Still, depending on how you assume pet skills work, it only takes a herc without reflect about 15 sec to a bit over a minute to exceed the damage of a same-level magmite with Bash enabled.

The obsession with seeing high damage numbers comes from two sources. Ego, with people wanting to brab about their highest critical hit. And PvP, where you need damage spikes to kill someone before their charm can tick. In PvE, a low-damage fast weapon or pet can deal substantially more damage than a high-damage but slow weapon or pet. Especially if you've got things like -attack interval items which boost fast weapons more than slower ones.

My magmite also has three bash-like skills to cycle through, which adds a heap of damage on top of that.

Reflect makes up for this on some mobs - but by no means all.

So you're claiming that herc damage sucks based on a customized magmite with nonstandard skills which have to be manually triggered every 8 sec?

Sevas - Heavens Tear

Sol, I have a question! Would that apply to the Kowlin too? I ask because my Kowlin could notoriously (and unfailingly) take agro off a barb that was 5-7 levels higher than me and at most I would only have my kowlin using bash + two debuff skills it has. In my opinion, it's the land form of the Nix.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

Your maths is *at 90*

I'm willing to believe that the herc overtakes it. The difference is indeed getting smaller (enough that I've stopped trying to level my rock at all)

But right now? The herc is NOT top damage of the pets I have in my bag.

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

So you're claiming that herc damage sucks based on a customized magmite with nonstandard skills which have to be manually triggered every 8 sec?

Nope, I'm making that claim on just normal damage figures, and adding that the skills I have put on the magmite swing it even further (as you'd expect)

My herc will often lose aggro to another party members magmite (which promptly snuffs it and the herc gets it back) on bosses in TT.

And yes, reflect is most certainly able to do way more damage back than the herc ends up taking. Thank goodness!

Lastly - you really really shouldn't be able to steal aggro from a good barb (well, maybe on [?] bosses where the fight lasts aaaaages)

Sevas - Heavens Tear

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Lastly - you really really shouldn't be able to steal aggro from a good barb (well, maybe on [?] bosses where the fight lasts aaaaages)

b:chuckle Depends on if you're actually fighting to get agro and the barb doesn't properly use his agro skills. In 2-2 and 2-3 I have fought barbs for the tanking rights of Astralwalker. I normally win, unless I have a barb that does know what he's doing.


~ On the note your herc losing agro to magmites, any tanker will lose agro to a pet skill at some point. It was why my Kowlin bit the dust so much early on. I would leave Bash on because it was L1 and it allowed my Sexy to hit a little hard than he normally did. There is a reason why we're all told to turn off pet skills when fighting a boss.

Cenminator - Dreamweaver

reflect dmg "is" affected by any debuff that increases dmg taken, for example extreme poison, heaven's flame, amp dmg.

tweakz

Applied pet skills generate a lot of aggro even if they don't do dmg. (Threaten, Slow, etc).

Fatalvenom - Lost City

I know where the OP is coming from ....at lower levels with bash it seemed like herc held aggro very well (you could pull aggro from it but you had more play room with it). Now at higher levels I do so much damage I can pull aggro very quickly (even with just 1 crit'd nuke).

Obviously this makes sense we do more damage the higher level we get.

I just have to be a lot more mindful now of over nuking (which is what you have to do now as well). I usually use dots and my lev 79 myriad rainbow dots... and one ... or two random nukes. I definitely cant spam nuke like I used to anymore.

Solandri - Heavens Tear

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Your maths is *at 90*

I did the math at 90 because while pet attack increases non-linearly, it seems to scale pretty well between pets with level. As it happens, I did record my eldergoth, magmite, and herc stats across a variety of levels.

At level 42:

Marksman atk = 839. DPS = 419.5
Magmite (17) atk = 900. DPS = 540
Baby Hercules atk = 764. DPS = 611.2

So even at lower level, the herc still comes out on top. By a bigger margin in fact (13% more DPS than the magmite vs. 10% more at level 90).

Heck, at level 17, my magmite had 197 atk (118.2 DPS) while my herc had 213 atk (170.4 DPS). A 44% advantage for the herc. (Maybe I'm missing the 20% attack bonus for the magmite for loyalty > 500. The level 17 data pre-dates when I started recording loyalty.)

But right now? The herc is NOT top damage of the pets I have in my bag.

I'll repeat, I find that highly unlikely unless you're just looking at the damage per hit stats. As tweakz pointed out, in very short fights the damage per hit can dominate (since both a 0.6 and 0.8 attack rate pet may only get in the same number of hits before the mob dies). But in terms of damage over a reasonable amount of time, the herc is #1 for land pets.

My herc will often lose aggro to another party members magmite (which promptly snuffs it and the herc gets it back) on bosses in TT.

And yes, reflect is most certainly able to do way more damage back than the herc ends up taking. Thank goodness!

Tell the magmite owner not to cycle its skills at the beginning of a fight. He's probably got it loaded with some debuff skills. Each use of a debuff adds almost as much aggro as Bash. So if he uses them early in a fight before a herc has built up sufficient aggro from damage and reflect, the magmite (or even my kowlin) can pull aggro off it.

Edit: Er wait. Did you put Bash on your herc, or are you still using it with Pounce? If you're still using Pounce, then that explains everything. Pounce gives the same aggro as Bash, but it fires only once a minute. Bash fires every 8 seconds, and a magmite with Bash can quickly overwhelm the aggro of a herc without Bash.

Sevas - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Sol, I have a question! Would that apply to the Kowlin too? I ask because my Kowlin could notoriously (and unfailingly) take agro off a barb that was 5-7 levels higher than me and at most I would only have my kowlin using bash + two debuff skills it has. In my opinion, it's the land form of the Nix.

At 90, a kowlin has 2218 attack and 0.8 atk/sec, for 1774 DPS. So it's pretty high too. But I think tweakz is right and its your use of debuff skills which is causing it to pull aggro. Give the barb some time to build up some aggro margin before you unload on the debuff skills.