This Thing You Call Aggro.

[Brista]

Did the kitty have more health?
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I have no idea, it just came up in conversation as we tried to figure out how to manage the last fight. In a sense though max health isn't important because it doesn't do anything for healing efficiency

We had 3 goes at the last fight (mage, hunter, warrior, shaman, rogue). One go with the Warrior tanking which didn't go well, one with the kitty tanking which went a lot better since we had me healing kitty and the shaman healing everyone else, then we worked out a sophisticated plan of switching aggro between cat and warrior which we spectacularly failed to implement

The warrior had 1700 armour (and no shield option!), the kitty 2700

[Tal]

I have no idea, it just came up in conversation as we tried to figure out how to manage the last fight. In a sense though max health isn't important because it doesn't do anything for healing efficiency

We had 3 goes at the last fight (mage, hunter, warrior, shaman, rogue). One go with the Warrior tanking which didn't go well, one with the kitty tanking which went a lot better since we had me healing kitty and the shaman healing everyone else, then we worked out a sophisticated plan of switching aggro between cat and warrior which we spectacularly failed to implement

The warrior had 1700 armour (and no shield option!), the kitty 2700
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No shield huh? I'm also guessing that said warrior also didn't use defensive stance. ;)

[Mavfin]

I do think the level difference was the biggest issue.  You were a full 6 levels above me, since you were the high range and I was the low.  Missing on hits means less rage for more, so less skills.  Resisting taunt means I don't get hit, so even less rage = less skills.  So being underleveled compared to you guys has made tanking ... interesting.

[snip]

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Yeah, I *really* don't like tanking underleveled. It's just really hard to be up front holding aggro and getting the hell beat out of you when you're the low man in the group. I prefer to be a little higher. It just becomes not a lot of fun to tank as the low man, espec if you're on the low end of the range for the instance.

[KiloVictor]

Not that getting aggro is a good thing, and I pride myself in not usually getting it on bosses :)
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You sir, are a rare rogue. Could you please teach a short seminar at the start of all my instance runs? Let me know what your speaking fee is. :)

Kv

[Hillary]

Mage aggro can be a good thing, especially if you pair it with the cry "LLEEEERRRRROOOOOYYYY  JJJEEENNNNKKKIINNNSSSS!".
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*Snarfs water* LOL, Loch.

[Hillary]

You sir, are a rare rogue. Could you please teach a short seminar at the start of all my instance runs?  Let me know what your speaking fee is. :)

Kv
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Quark's Ramala is an unbelievable rogue. I've been very lucky with my boys. Abattoir, Ramala, Sommli (NSD) and Yuen have all been very good to me, (I've been their healer a lot - miss Yuen, sniffles). Arleas from CA has it down, too.

Rogues that can manage their aggro are an asset and a half. I'd take a bunch of them anywhere as long as they work like those guys.

Imagine my chagrin: my first dps character is giving me the hives over aggro management. *shudders* I feel like I've betrayed them or something.

[kandrathe]

Interesting you posting this. I was going to post something due to feeling frustrated with my warrior after a couple bad group experiences. My Bryn is a 1h+shield defensive warrior, and two times in two days I partied up randomly and found that the large DPS's in the group were heedless of whether of not I (main tank) could keep aggro control, and then due to (their) reckless pulls we had multiple adds. Which, of course, eventually resulted in chaotic and lethal encounters. They were the types of groups that you pray would break apart, and then are grateful when they do, but at the same time you regret still needing to get the job done and now you go back to organize all over again.

On the positive, this toon quested successfuly with some Lurkers recently, which has been fun. I think it is helpful for the tank to say "wait for the sunder" or give some visible sign to know when phase 1 is done. Focus fire on the mob the tank(s) have aggro locked down with low threat at first and then in "phase 3" as described above, let loose the big guns. I really like that phase 1, 2, 3 description.

In general, unless it was discussed by your group before hand, as tank I would prefer to be given all the mobs to let me be the sole damage sponge. This makes the healing more efficient and allows for better crowd control. If an add happens, I don't mind if another harder shelled toon peals it off the squishies, but they should then try to hand off the add to the main tank. Sometimes there is a sticky boss fight or too many mobs for one tank to handle, so then you need to discuss a split pull and having an off tank (Yay Pets, Paladins!) to keep some mobs busy. But, there is no one formula. What I like is when people play intelligently and not recklessly, and if the mobs get systematically destroyed in an orderly manner I am happy.

[Treesh]

Quark's Ramala is an unbelievable rogue.  I've been very lucky with my boys.  Abattoir, Ramala, Sommli (NSD) and Yuen have all been very good to me, (I've been their healer a lot - miss Yuen, sniffles).  Arleas from CA has it down, too. 

Rogues that can manage their aggro are an asset and a half.  I'd take a bunch of them anywhere as long as they work like those guys. 

Imagine my chagrin:  my first dps character is giving me the hives over aggro management.  *shudders*  I feel like I've betrayed them or something.
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Well now I feel like a poor healer. GG and I went on a raid (mostly lurkerish people, but a few pickups to round out the raid group) to hit the baron. Guess who was the only one to die in that raid? Sommli*, and he was my responsibility too. Crazy bugger critted how ever many times in a row and basically ended up tanking the Baron. So since I was healing that nutjob rogue a lot, a wave of skellies came on me, I faded when I saw them coming, and after I saw them turn away, Sommli was dead. :( Ramala was in the other group so I never saw how easy it is to keep that rogue alive. ;) I just need to group with more rogues so I have more practice in healing them. When I play my rogue, I don't pay attention to just how my healer is keeping me alive. Of course, usually it's GG with his druid so I may occasionally get a HoT on me, but he tells me I'm usually pretty easy on his mana. Although, now that I'm using the blade flurry + slice and dice combo more, I'm having a tendency to pull aggro, but I'm careful with when I fire that off now that it's not quite as much of an "ooh look! A new toy!" feel. BTW, absolutely love that slice and dice and blade flurry speed increases stack in some way. I don't know exactly how the two different speed increases interact, but I do know that with both up, I get more speed than with just one or the other. Very much fun for a speed demon dagger rogue. :D


*Wait, did I die once too? I can't remember.

[Hillary]

Well now I feel like a poor healer.  GG and I went on a raid (mostly lurkerish people, but a few pickups to round out the raid group) to hit the baron.  Guess who was the only one to die in that raid?  Sommli*, and he was my responsibility too.  Crazy bugger critted how ever many times in a row and basically ended up tanking the Baron.  So since I was healing that nutjob rogue a lot, a wave of skellies came on me, I faded when I saw them coming, and after I saw them turn away, Sommli was dead. :(  Ramala was in the other group so I never saw how easy it is to keep that rogue alive. ;)  I just need to group with more rogues so I have more practice in healing them.  When I play my rogue, I don't pay attention to just how my healer is keeping me alive.  Of course, usually it's GG with his druid so I may occasionally get a HoT on me, but he tells me I'm usually pretty easy on his mana.  Although, now that I'm using the blade flurry + slice and dice combo more, I'm having a tendency to pull aggro, but I'm careful with when I fire that off now that it's not quite as much of an "ooh look!  A new toy!" feel.  BTW, absolutely love that slice and dice and blade flurry speed increases stack in some way.  I don't know exactly how the two different speed increases interact, but I do know that with both up, I get more speed than with just one or the other.  Very much fun for a speed demon dagger rogue. :D
*Wait, did I die once too?  I can't remember.
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Let me rephrase: When Sommli WANTS to manage his aggro, he can. :D But alas, at times he plays uber dorf and tanks. It doesn't help that the weapons he's wielding improve his crit strike percentage and do ridiculous damage. Rogue lands too many crits in a row and can't evade afterwards? Yeah. Nothing you can do to help them but shield, renew, and flash before moving on. Though I love rogues to pieces, they're my most expendable class. If the above brew o' healing doesn't keep them alive, not much any healer can do for them. Too much time on them means you're ignoring the MT, and that's just a no no.

I don't remember where we were - may have been LBRS - but Quark (who, as I said, is a great aggro manager) got a crit hit in, maybe 2, drawing aggro. He immediately went on evade. Even though it's a 70 percent chance of evasion, he got hit EVERY time. I can't quite recall if he died, but if he did, there wasn't anything anyone could do. Sometimes it just boils down to bad luck over poor aggro management.

[Kevin]

My group experience is largest with a healer druid, a warrior, and a hunter who usually ends up as main tank.

You'll have to ask my mages (I've grouped with Sabramage and Littledude a lot) how often they can go all out when I'm tanking, I really don't know. I know I've seen pyroblasts in instances a few times and I've seen a mage fireball pull, which I took as a compliment to my aggro grabbing abilities. I also know there are AoE situations where I don't bother trying to hold anything that isn't elite except to keep it for the first blast if I can. I've managed to hold multiple elites through AoE and I've failed to do it as well.

Misses will kill a warrior for aggro control though. If you hear or see a few misses from them you need to hold off for a sec or. Treesh does this I do believe and it probably helps a lot with her rarely taking aggro for a heal. I also have the luxury of having her in the same room so that I can know what she is using to heal me. I'll stick with my dual wield in defensive stance a lot of the times on mobs because I'm only getting healed with a renew, I don't need more damage mitigation. There have been times after a fight where there is a "what happened?" question and the answer is usually, "I missed about 5 times in a row". DPS classes should try to pay attention to that.

Mages and hunters at times are what I generally lose aggro to. I generally only lose to hunters when I'm switching targets a lot and they stay on the primary or if they get a long crit string. I don't see a peel to my healer (Treesh) very often. Most of the time when they go to her it seems to me they are peeling because she healed someone other then me. Maybe I'm not watching the battle that closely though. Hunters worry me the most in an AoE situation where there are a couple of mobs I want to keep off the AoE caster because if they don't switch I pretty much lose a mob to them or lose one to the AoE caster.

As a druid it's just a heavier reliance on the HoT's to spread the aggro generation around. I'm in trouble when I cast a big heal early. I generally use my HoT's and a smaller healing touch to keep people healed. I hold 3 ranks of regrowth and healing touch on the bar. I aim for 80-90% healthy when using regrowth, or healing touch if there is a HoT on them already, let the HoT finish the heal or keep them up through it. So if someone is at 30% health and my biggest healing touch would put them at 100% but one 2 ranks lower would put them at 70-75% they get the lower rank and either a regrowth with more front end heal if they are getting hit hard still, or a rejuv if they aren't getting hit that hard to finish the heal off. Regrowth is also fantastic to top off a rogue or someone else who had aggro for a bit but won't have it for awhile. You give them a big pulse and then let it heal them up over time. Healing like this keeps aggro off me in most cases. I still have problems watching my own health at times so I can run into trouble if I pull aggro. It's worse that most of the time I pull aggro is when I'm really low on mana so I can't shift into bear form if I wanted to. Barkskin helps some with this though. So I don't think it's that bad as a druid, just different. I do miss PW:Shield though. I can't really help AoE casters. I only have natures swiftness as an oh #$%& button and that is only once every 3 minutes. Innervate also allows me to use some less mana efficient spells to help with aggro control since I can get my mana pool back when I need to.

I think my mages are waiting a bit, or just doing wands at the start of focus fire pulls. I see a lot of arcane missles but I think those are generally getting fired after a clearcast shows up. I see the fireball dot on the mob a fair bit. Now there are times when we're dealing with stuff that I just don't even bother going into aggro hold mode for and I don't always let the group know but it doesn't matter sometimes and there are times I expect aggro to be taken from me because I'm not trying and I know things will die quicker if I do it this way.

Just some poorly organized thoughts.

[Treesh]

Too much time on them means you're ignoring the MT, and that's just a no no. 
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The main tank was in group two and I was in group one. I had no one to heal but that crazy dwarf so it wasn't too big of a deal to "waste" mana by healing him. :) Group one was Gnolack (gnome warrior), Sommli (nutjob, er, I mean dwarf rogue), Arethor (human warlock), me (dwarf priest) and some hunter of some kind. GG almost never needs more than just renews with the occasional flash heal (unless there's lots of magic around. Eth made a bunch of magic resistance potions though after running through the fire in BRD so I don't to work so hard at keeping everyone healthy in heavy magic damage), the hunter never got touched, the pet barely got touched, when Arethor wasn't AoEing, he took little-to-no healing, and for most of the run, Sommli took nothing more than some renews here and there. It was a very easy healing night for me except for the last part. ;)

Oh, and Etheramwen really covets Sommli's gear. Covets hardcore. If she could, she would stage an assassination/burglery to get his stuff. ;) Especially the last few daggers he's linked me. :D

[Hillary]

The main tank was in group two and I was in group one.  I had no one to heal but that crazy dwarf so it wasn't too big of a deal to "waste" mana by healing him.  :)  Group one was Gnolack (gnome warrior), Sommli (nutjob, er, I mean dwarf rogue), Arethor (human warlock), me (dwarf priest) and some hunter of some kind.  GG almost never needs more than just renews with the occasional flash heal (unless there's lots of magic around.  Eth made a bunch of magic resistance potions though after running through the fire in BRD so I don't to work so hard at keeping everyone healthy in heavy magic damage), the hunter never got touched, the pet barely got touched, when Arethor wasn't AoEing, he took little-to-no healing, and for most of the run, Sommli took nothing more than some renews here and there.  It was a very easy healing night for me except for the last part. ;)

Oh, and Etheramwen really covets Sommli's gear.  Covets hardcore.  If she could, she would stage an assassination/burglery to get his stuff. ;)  Especially the last few daggers he's linked me. :D
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Wouldn't it be awesome if they could wear plate? Do all that damage and not be beaten to a pulp within 3 and a half seconds? I doubt they'd be nearly as stealthy, but . . .

Hey, I'd be okay with it. It would make my job and Treesh's job so much easier.

:P

[Kevin]

The main tank was in group two and I was in group one.  I had no one to heal but that crazy dwarf so it wasn't too big of a deal to "waste" mana by healing him.  :)  Group one was Gnolack (gnome warrior), Sommli (nutjob, er, I mean dwarf rogue), Arethor (human warlock), me (dwarf priest) and some hunter of some kind.  GG almost never needs more than just renews with the occasional flash heal (unless there's lots of magic around.  Eth made a bunch of magic resistance potions though after running through the fire in BRD so I don't to work so hard at keeping everyone healthy in heavy magic damage), the hunter never got touched, the pet barely got touched, when Arethor wasn't AoEing, he took little-to-no healing, and for most of the run, Sommli took nothing more than some renews here and there.  It was a very easy healing night for me except for the last part. ;)

Oh, and Etheramwen really covets Sommli's gear.  Covets hardcore.  If she could, she would stage an assassination/burglery to get his stuff. ;)  Especially the last few daggers he's linked me. :D
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It didn't help that the Baron was +5 on me and the MT had a higher rank of sunder. I hit taunt as much as I could becasue I saw that he wasn't hitting Galreth or the L60 paladin who was up there and knew we didn't want him hitting whatever rogue he was on, but my taunt was mostly resisted and I couldn't use sunder. I did taunt him off Sommli once, but that was only 2 secs of Sommli not taking damage. I felt like I failed there as well. There was a squishy in my group that died. I as a tank take it as my responsiblity to keep people alive by being the spongs as well. Though most of the off tanking I did in that run were getting peels that went to the mage or the healer in the other group, but eh.

[Treesh]

Misses will kill a warrior for aggro control though.  If you hear or see a few misses from them you need to hold off for a sec or.  Treesh does this I do believe and it probably helps a lot with her rarely taking aggro for a heal.  I also have the luxury of having her in the same room so that I can know what she is using to heal me. 
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I hear sounds like that better on GG's machine than on my own, but when I hear a bunch of whiffs, I hold off. Of course, when it's not GG as the main tank in front of me, I watch the rage bar to tell if there are a bunch of hits or misses. It's a fairly good indicator to tell when I need to be healing or not. :) Haven't grouped with a pally much and generally not as main tank so I haven't figured out a way to check their misses without having the combat log open. My combat log is always closed because otherwise I'll pay too much attention to the text down there and not enough to what's going on around me.

The sound cues in this game really do add quite a bit. That's how I tell when adds are coming in when I can't see them, that's how I hunted shadowmaw panthers with Aleri when she was littler and soloing (you can actually hear their footsteps in the grasses as long as there aren't too many other people around), it's how I tell when my mages clearcast and are about to unleash, it's how I tell when they're starting to sheep something, and if your group is comprised of different races/genders, you can tell who is getting beat on and how much even if you are lagging at the time. I like that the characters make different sounds when they melee crit or are critted themselves. That also makes it easier to tell who is going to get aggro and approximately when. Although that kinda goes out the window when Salvation is applied to people. ;) BTW, Salvation is Pepperi's favorite blessing. I can pull with a pyroblast and the pally can easily take aggro back after the pull. It rocks. :D

[Tal]

Heh, or a rogue criting an ambush.
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On Shalandrax I'm rapidly coming around with Rogues, mages, warlocks and hunters that if you (metaphorical you) draw aggro off me consistently then you can keep it. Meaning a crit to open from a rogue isn't going to keep aggro on the rogue because I'll taunt it right off. Follow it up with heavier DPS and you can keep that mob. ;)

[Darian]

Well now I feel like a poor healer.  GG and I went on a raid (mostly lurkerish people, but a few pickups to round out the raid group) to hit the baron.  Guess who was the only one to die in that raid?  Sommli*, and he was my responsibility too.
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Oh, don't even bother feeling bad about letting that little midget die. He goes out of his way to steal my aggro every chance he gets just to spite me... ;)

Seriously, Sommli's damage output is now on an entirely different level from we mere mortals, and even I have a very, very hard time keeping hate with him in tow -- but I don't worry about it too much, because he knows what he's doing. If he gets in too deep, he's usually able to hand the aggro back to me without a problem, but if not, it's definitely not a reflection on the healer.

Edit: the other reason I don't worry about it is I'm still usually second on the hate list anyway; if he's on top, it means the squishies aren't, and when it comes down to it dead Dwarf rogue who's torn through half the mob's health > dead purple elf, if ya know what I'm sayin'.

[Tal]

Or a Paladin charging in first thing and laying down a Consecrate.
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Might not want to group with Sharanna then if that bothers you. :)

[Hillary]

Edit: the other reason I don't worry about it is I'm still usually second on the hate list anyway; if he's on top, it means the squishies aren't, and when it comes down to it dead Dwarf rogue who's torn through half the mob's health > dead purple elf, if ya know what I'm sayin'.
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I agree. I'm totally more important.

*big huge crappy grin*

[Darian]

On Shalandrax I'm rapidly coming around with Rogues, mages, warlocks and hunters that if you (metaphorical you) draw aggro off me consistently then you can keep it. Meaning a crit to open from a rogue isn't going to keep aggro on the rogue because I'll taunt it right off. Follow it up with heavier DPS and you can keep that mob. ;)
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Darian's rule: if you ain't healin', he ain't peelin' unless he has nothing better to do, or for this particular mob you are critical to success. Absolutely nothing is going to get in the way of my primary job: keeping my healer vertical.

[Quark]

I don't remember where we were - may have been LBRS - but Quark (who, as I said, is a great aggro manager) got a crit hit in, maybe 2, drawing aggro.  He immediately went on evade.  Even though it's a 70 percent chance of evasion, he got hit EVERY time.  I can't quite recall if he died, but if he did, there wasn't anything anyone could do.  Sometimes it just boils down to bad luck over poor aggro management.
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That was an ... interesting fight. It was LBRS right before the spider, and I think it was our 2nd group of adds (raiding tends to have people's awareness drop), so we were scattered, and I was on "kill now, worry about yourself later" mode. I wasn't even down to 95% life when I used Evasion, the orc just kept hitting me through it - including Mortal Strike, and that's the most painful attack in the 5-man instances I've experienced. Gebo did manage to save me, I'm still not sure how.

But, yes, it should be noted that we do tend to goof off sometimes. When mobs die before you get a 3rd or 4th combo point, you tend to not worry as much about how your aggro level is. It's actually really convenient for me right now if Sommli's in the group. He usually does more damage than me, so if I hear him Feint, I know I better Feint too, because the mob will now turn on me.

Preview-Addin: I see in preview you guys talking about sounds while I'm slow on this reply (ooh, shiny object, *walks away for 5 more minutes*), like I talked about hearing Sommli's Feint. Sometimes it's hard to keep track of what's what, and it's easier when you know the other classes, so you know the sounds they expect to make. I'll keep in mind to listen more for the Warrior and to watch his Rage bar, though :)

Maybe I'll follow Darian's advice for a bit with Morn. Payback for Griz's "sorry, lag" moments :)