Is there anyway to hold aggro

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

There IS something different about pounces aggro though - when luring it works like slow (and some of the other debuff skills).

If it is the ONLY thing a monster has been hit with, then the aggro from it doesn't transfer to the caster.

All the non-damaging skills (primarily debuffs) do that. How it seems to work is:

When your pet debuffs/stuns, it picks up aggro (gets added to the mob's hate list). But since no damage was done, the veno is not added to the hate list.

When your pet damages, it and the veno get added to the hate list. Since the pet was the direct initiator of the attack, and surrounding mobs are also aggroed, but they only add the pet to their hate lists. The veno is not added to their hate lists. When you stow your pet, the surrounding mobs have nobody else on their hate list so lose aggro and return. But you're still on the hate list of the lone mob, so it comes for you, alone.

Now say you do a pet lure and stow the pet. Only the lone mob has you on its hate list, and it's running for you, but is still within "earshot" of the other mobs surrounding it.

Say the cleric has BB up and at that moment you get healed. The heal counts as an aggressive act. The lone mob which hates you sees the heal landing on you, and adds the cleric to its hate list. But it also broadcasts that the cleric did something aggressive to it. The other mobs are within "earshot" so hear this broadcast, and add they all add the cleric to their hate lists and come charging. In effect, the cleric's heal does the exact same thing as if the wizard had cast early and nuked the lone mob before it had been pulled away from its companions.

The reason pet lure works for pulling singles is that the devs either deliberately or accidentally left out this "broadcast" behavior when your pet damages the mob. The mob should broadcast "hey, I'm adding [pet] and [veno] to my hate list" so the other mobs should aggro on both the veno and pet. But instead it only seems to broadcast "hey, I'm adding [pet] to my hate list" while it quietly also adds the veno to the list.

So really, it has nothing to do with it being a stun, and everything to do with it not causing any damage (or healing, but pets can't heal others).

rinuruc wrote: »

brael- can you explain a bit more on those hate-formulas???
how exactly they work etc?

Think of the mob having two damage counters. One is for hp, one is for hate.

If you do 2k damage to a mob, 2k is added to the hp counter (visible) with your name attached (invisible). 2k is also added to the hate counter (invisible) with your name attached (invisible).

If the damage came from a skill which generates aggro (e.g. barb flesh ream), in addition to the 2k added to the hate counter from the damage, an addition fixed amount of skill hate is added. I've heard the number 60k tossed around for barb flesh ream. Dunno if it's correct, but let's run with that. So now the barb has 2k of hp damage attributed to him on the mob, and 62k (2k + 60k) of hate attributed to him on the mob.

Meanwhile, the wizard has cast his first spell for 20k damage. He gets 20k added to the hp counter in his name, and 20k added to the hate counter in his name.

Before each attack, the mob checks its hate counter. The player/pet with the highest total accumulated hate is what it will direct its next attack towards. Since the barb has 62k of hate, as long as no other player or pet exceeds that, the barb will be the target of the mob's next attack. Since the wiz only has 20k, the barb is on top of the list - the barb has aggro, even though he has only done 2k of damage vs. the wizard's 20k.

Say the wizard casts another spell before the mob attacks, and it's a doozy. Crits for 43k damage. The wiz gets 43k damage added to the hp counter in his name (63k total), and 43k added to the hate counter in his name (63k total). His hate total now exceeds the barb's, so the wizard is now the mob's primary target. The wizard has aggro.

This is how your pet keeps aggro even though it's doing less damage than you. The sum of its damage + hate from skill aggro exceeds your damage. So the pet remains on top of the hate list, and mob keeps attacking it.

(And if you're curious, the names of the damage sources on the hp damage list are used to determine exp allocation for the kill, who gets first shot at the loot, and in public quests how much contrib each person gets.)

Great work Solandri. The 60k figure does seem way off in my experience (i realize you were just using it as an example) unless lvl 5 skills really do advantage lvl 4 on a manner inconsistent with leveling 1-4.

Allisandre - Sanctuary wrote: »

My Walker was taking aggro from 80-95 hercs in the 60's. I have to turn his skills off if I want the herc to tank something.

Either your Walker is exceptionally skilled or you were running with underskilled hercs. Is not THAT easy to get a regular pet to steal aggro away from an herc that's upwards of 20 levels above you...

Maybe the herc still had pounce? In a Wraithgate 202020 recently on my HA/AA alt (level 69 at the time I think) my own-level eldergoth (level 4 bash, but attack strength is less than a walker) was keeping aggro from an upper 80s veno's own-level herc (which I came to find out still had pounce 2.) Or the walker had bash 4 and icicle 4, and Alisandre kept whichever wasn't the default cycling as soon as cooldown was up. Or used roar, which would at least temporarily give aggro to the walker.