Agro skill on herc?

Myralis - Sanctuary · July 2010

So my veno recently got her herc and Ive done some researching cause I got told to replace pounce.

Asked friends, got lots of answers. Some of them used bash, one swore flesh ream is best ever, the next told me its roar lol

So what do you think? Replace pounce? And if, with what?

tweakz · July 2010

Pounce is a rare skill that's not cheap to replace. I do like Bash on my Herc but I wouldn't tell other venos to replace Pounce without being sure it's what's best for them. Reflect on melee can help generate a lot of aggro.

Desdi - Sanctuary · July 2010

As far as I know Bash is considered the best aggro keeping skill while roar is just to get aggro temporary. I use it on my shaodu cub just because i had spare place to have it.
Just don't rush things and wait for when you are sure of it. Reflect can generate aggro on its own and I think it will work with bash the best.
Flesh ream is good for PK but I don't think it keeps aggro effectively. At least I never saw my pet grabbing aggro back from me using it.

Nannako - Lost City · July 2010

Desdi - Sanctuary wrote: »

Just don't rush things and wait for when you are sure of it. Reflect can generate aggro on its own and I think it will work with bash the best.

I use Bash on my herc and it seens to hold agro well on everything aside from a few fb99 bosses. (Those dam fist bms! b:chuckle) In tt, it has no problem at all keeping agro. That is if you are talking about bosses. However, depending on how much you hit and how hard you hit, it is likely for you to steal agro. Do what works best for you and keep in mind to watch your damage and space your hits for the herc to keep agro.

Lythianaa - Dreamweaver · July 2010

I have seen some Venos use Flesh Ream on their Herc instead of Bash. The only drawback to that I feel is the cooldown of the skill. During the time of one Flesh Ream, there could have been almost two Bashes.

MindCrime - Harshlands · July 2010

I use bash on my herc and it seems to be fine most times.

A rank 8 wiz, archer, psy or 5 attack bm or sin will most times take agro regardless of what skills are on herc.

Myralis - Sanctuary · July 2010

Yep, Im aware that the herc isnt able to hold agro against extreme damage.
But thats not what Im going for, if DDs dont get that hercs are no 5aps bms, well.. their issue lol

So most people indeed got bash. But why? Did you figure it holds agro a lot better? Did you pull off pounce easily? Or is it a majority trend?

Desdi - Sanctuary · July 2010

Myralis - Sanctuary wrote: »

Yep, Im aware that the herc isnt able to hold agro against extreme damage.
But thats not what Im going for, if DDs dont get that hercs are no 5aps bms, well.. their issue lol

So most people indeed got bash. But why? Did you figure it holds agro a lot better? Did you pull off pounce easily? Or is it a majority trend?

I tested those skills on my shaodu cub. After teaching it Bash and maxed it it managed to hold aggro better than before (except those times when I was careless and started spamming my skills b:chuckle). Later I heard roar is good to take aggro back. I tested it. It worked. I think Bash should come first though since you can send the pet and wait a few moments. So I guess it's true what they say

but don't expect to see wonders, like others have mentioned. If you spam your attacks you'll grab aggro anyway. This is why I said not to rush. If it could be possible to test it on a pet and see it yourself would be nice but it costs to upgrade that skill..quite some money b:surrender

EDIT: Something I forgot to mention. Pounce is a really nice skills and came in very handy in certain situations but in my opinion tank pets should come with an aggro keeping skill (after the defence buffs) instead of a stun. They are supposed to be tanks after all.

Kineni - Sanctuary · July 2010

I've tried them all out at max level, and, my opinion from what i've seen tanking for groups or even soloing... Bash is the best! When i got my herc thats the first thing I did was replace pounce most definately, waaaaayyy too long reuse timer.

Desdi - Sanctuary · July 2010

Kineni - Sanctuary wrote: »

waaaaayyy too long reuse timer.

That's correct. I totally forgot about the cooldown. Bash has little cooldown compared to other skills so you can use it more often too b:laugh

Alphae - Lost City · July 2010

Myralis - Sanctuary wrote: »

Yep, Im aware that the herc isnt able to hold agro against extreme damage.
But thats not what Im going for, if DDs dont get that hercs are no 5aps bms, well.. their issue lol

So most people indeed got bash. But why? Did you figure it holds agro a lot better? Did you pull off pounce easily? Or is it a majority trend?

Basically you get the most out of the skill with bash. Pounce, as ppl have said, has a long cooldown. Calculations have been done (I think) that show over a longer fight, ream does more damage. However in most fights where aggro skill aggression is important (read: grinding), the fights are too short to take full advantage of flesh ream. Therefore, in short fights, bash is more effective, and short fights are where aggro skill aggression matters. In long fights (read: bosses), you'll generate far more aggro from your reflect damage.

Squeakytoy - Dreamweaver · July 2010

Alphae - Lost City wrote: »

Basically you get the most out of the skill with bash. Pounce, as ppl have said, has a long cooldown. Calculations have been done (I think) that show over a longer fight, ream does more damage. However in most fights where aggro skill aggression is important (read: grinding), the fights are too short to take full advantage of flesh ream. Therefore, in short fights, bash is more effective, and short fights are where aggro skill aggression matters. In long fights (read: bosses), you'll generate far more aggro from your reflect damage.

In pve, the bleed damage from Flesh Ream is affected by level modifiers, just like player skills, while the extra damage from Bash is not. Against a [?] level monster, Bash will always out-damage Flesh Ream.

tweakz · July 2010

Alphae - Lost City wrote: »

Basically you get the most out of the skill with bash. Pounce, as ppl have said, has a long cooldown. Calculations have been done (I think) that show over a longer fight, ream does more damage. However in most fights where aggro skill aggression is important (read: grinding), the fights are too short to take full advantage of flesh ream. Therefore, in short fights, bash is more effective, and short fights are where aggro skill aggression matters. In long fights (read: bosses), you'll generate far more aggro from your reflect damage.

Ream is mostly effective in PvP, and the Herc's ream would suck compared to a Scorpion's or Nix's. Ream may cause lost dps on [?] mobs / bosses as well. I'd rather have Howl on my Herc than Ream. Lvl 90+ comes fast these days and you're up against -int's while you should be able to steal aggro from Herc yourself. Pounce is a good PvP skill.

The biggest problem with not switching to bash has little to do with what you can solo, or how good. It's more a matter that squad members will expect bash unless otherwise stated beforehand. Not that it matters much because mages will still unload on bosses like Stygean (high pdef, low mdef, no melee/ reflect dmg/ aggro) basically killing themselves anyway. I stopped caring when they refused to learn. I raised a Dark Wanderer for tanking Stygean, but in most cases there's an -int that will steal aggro anyway. If adds didn't pop up in FF, the Herc may be useless there (main boss is typically [?].

Vixter - Harshlands · July 2010

i replaced pounce and put bash on my herc. like it was said earlier, only thing that turns me off with fleash ream is the cool down. even with bash, i still steal from my herc often (on normal mobs anyways), so im sure with flesh ream it would be even worse. and as far as i know (i heard from somewhere on the forum) flesh ream and bash give the same amount of aggro (not sure on dmg though), so the more you an use the aggro skill the better chances you are unlikely to steal aggro.

i did try out my herc with pounce at first, and yeah, i constantly stole aggro, on anything, with 1 hit. i then replaced with bash, and usually have to hit at least 2-3 times (on normal mobs again) w/o stopping (or do a crit xD) to steal aggro (as long as he bashes anyways xD). i took bash over roar because i would rather have the herc do some dmg while getting aggro than no dmg and getting aggro... lol.

Vitenka - Dreamweaver · July 2010

Argh. Stupid browser lost what I was typing.

I replaced pounce at about level 80. I still miss it sometimes.

The good thing about pounce is that when it works, it is instant. The mob STOPS, even if it is in mid-cast. And it builds a significant amount of aggro. On, for example, frost-bishops, it is wonderful.

Its disadvantage is that it doesn't build all that much aggro. Its long cooldown is a bad thing.

Flesh-ream. Forget it. Doesn't build as much hate over time, doesn't do as much damage over time (except in pvp) can't quickly be applied to multiple monsters (meaning you can't AOE as soon)... bash is just in all ways better.

Roar. The downsides, compared to pounce, are:
1. It's not instant. The mob will finish its current attack and the archer who stole aggro from you will die.
2. It doesn't assign very much aggro - the archer will steal again very soon.
3. You can't accumulate aggro from it, each use resets it. You will permanently be at a low level of aggro and anyone spiking will pull. A single crit from you will do it. You also can't build up aggro ready to be second tank. (Though you can recover straight after)

The upside is that it is a guaranteed aggro steal, even on bosses. That IS a significant upside.

All in all, I went with bash, eventually. There's strong arguments for pounce though. I do not recommend anything else.

Myralis - Sanctuary · July 2010

So I went and grabbed herc and husband and did some TT yesterday.

Didnt have a problem at bosses, herc held perfectly. But at mobs... b:shocked
The mob went for the sin, the bm, anyone but the herc lol Didnt help most of them were magical or ranged and that pounce got a long cooldown.
Im also a little afraid to grab agro that way myself, 8% crit dont do good when pounce is in cooldown.

As much as I love the stun, I guess Ill go with bash too. Rather have a reliably agro skill that generates hate on ranged stuff too instead of the stun. Pounce is risky business lol

Thanks for all that input, thats exactly what I was looking for, experiences and reasons why this skill and not the other. Helped me a great deal. b:cute

Vitenka - Dreamweaver · July 2010

TT bosses are level [?] which the game treats as 150%.
That gives a significant reduction in damage from players. Pets don't suffer that, so a pet should be able to hold aggro easily on TT bosses no matter what.

Normal mobs are indeed where you'll have the trouble.

I'd note that an early crit will pull aggro even through a bash. Don't expect bash to work miracles on your aggro management. It makes it easier, but not perfect.

Alphae - Lost City · July 2010

tweakz wrote: »

Ream is mostly effective in PvP, and the Herc's ream would suck compared to a Scorpion's or Nix's. Ream may cause lost dps on [?] mobs / bosses as well. I'd rather have Howl on my Herc than Ream. Lvl 90+ comes fast these days and you're up against -int's while you should be able to steal aggro from Herc yourself. Pounce is a good PvP skill.

Ah, I should have stated that I was talking about PvE when I said "short fights" - i.e. the amount of time it takes to finish 1 mob. Ream will not have finished its damage when the mob dies, while Bash puts out its damage all at once. More damage per skill cast, therefore.

I suppose that if you were planning on using a herc for considerable amounts of AOE grinding, where mobs survive longer as herc builds aggro (before veno begins firing AOES) that the bleed could finish and therefore be a desirable skill. I know people who put Ream on the herc for PvP as well.

For PvE, though, I would really recommend Bash.

Xainou - Sanctuary · July 2010

Yep I know that pets are no barbs

But before I got my herc I used both, a pet with flesh ream and a pet with bash and I cant say Im more likely to pull off one skill to be honest. Seemed pretty equal.

Im gonna go with bash, like to have a skill ready when you need it.
Thanks for the advice ^^

drjiggle · July 2010

I've seen math that claims Flesh Ream does more damage, I've seen math that claims Bash does more damage. Similarly, I've seen math that claims Flesh Ream holds aggro better, and I've seen math that claims Bash holds aggro better.

What I can tell you for sure is that I've done instances with my herc, who has Bash, and another herc of the same level, who has Flesh Ream. My herc is consistently the one that gets and keeps aggro.

You can debate the math, but it's hard to argue with reality.

Agro skill on herc?

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