Game Mechanics: Necromancer Spell Threat

[Trystych]

This issue is related more to summoned pets not generating the agro they should. Once you get higher in level and find zones with undead, use charmed pets and it acts like you would expect with the side benefit of better dps.

[Knight]

Again the main point I was making is being missed and people are arguing apples to oranges. Note the title of the thread is not 'low pet aggro' but rather Necromancer Spell Threat. And I know all the screenies made it hard to see so I'll repost some of my closing comments:

Originally Posted by Knightmare [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

...it should be pretty clear that my current spell aggro is out of control.

The point is, even if I wait until the mob is 1/2 dead, and have a group, with an even /con tank, I still get aggro from that 1 dot.

This is not about soloing, kiting or even my pet entirely. High threat means we can still kite, great, that's not the point, we're fear kiters and it doesn't really matter (psycho resists aside). The point is, the threat on my end is so high that it causes instant aggro even to half dead mobs, whether solo or in a group. The issue is this, I should be able to at least get Darkness cast on a 1/2 dead mob in a group without getting instant aggro. Compare the threat complaints Sk's had about low threat on Darkness Pre-Kunark and now how high ours is on Darkness.. why should my low lvl darkness cause more threat than his? Especially if he's been beating on the mob! It just shouldn't.

And that even con twink tank beating on a low blue.. waiting until 38% and still getting aggro? No, something's wrong there.

[Ropethunder]

There is no reason to cast a high aggro snare while in a group. If the mob is running, then cast Clinging Darkness. If you want to dot, then use a Boil Blood type spell. Is this one pulling aggro?

Also, don't cast Disease-type spells like Disease Cloud if you don't want huge aggro.

[Nagash]

Experienced that as well with my necro. In my case it is great as I'm a kiter (my stuff doesn't give me enough mana to fear kite as much as I would like) but I agree the aggro we generate (in solo and in group) is over the top compared to how it was in Classic. I can't provide any comparison figures (so m aybe I'd better shut up [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]) but it is much higher now than it was.

Nagash/Petitpas

[Knightmare]

Originally Posted by Ropethunder [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There is no reason to cast a high aggro snare while in a group. If the mob is running, then cast Clinging Darkness. If you want to dot, then use a Boil Blood type spell. Is this one pulling aggro?

Also, don't cast Disease-type spells like Disease Cloud if you don't want huge aggro.

Obviously agree Disease Cloud and such are high aggro, should not cast, and I never do (unless I'm tanking on a Sk). Basic necromancy 101 there [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.].

The other point, cast Clinging. Is that classic? Is that the way the game should, or did function? The question (as mentioned before) is not 'Are we broken' (clearly we can work around it) but rather, 'Is this how it should be or was?' Or even how it was pre-Kunark on a DE Necro?

It's not just Darkness though (it shouldn't be that high aggro of a snare anyway, kinda the point here, I mean really, aggro on a 38%hp mob? Really?? lol), I used that one spell mainly to simplify things for myself. Comparing it to BB line isn't quite the same because they have different aggro modifiers. BB is strictly a dot, while most of our other spells are a dot and something else (debuff, snare, etc). Heart Flutter, Leach (actually Leach I totally see why I'd get aggro from that), Darkness and etc have (iirc) higher modifiers to account for the dual effect, which means if threat is off, it could be off two-fold on those dual effect dots.

Honestly, I didn't start the thread as a whining complaint of how we're fuxxored, borked wtfbbq and such. I started it to point out or bring to light what may be a bug. Responding by saying "you can work around this" isn't the point. I'm attempting to show by examples that the threat is not in line with what it should be. Just because you can work around a bug, doesn't mean the bug no longer exists.

Granted, this is going by my evaluation, memory and estimation. However we can notice that while people have posted work arounds, nobody (yet) has argued with the original content of the post.

And yes, I know the devs are busy, not trying to whine-n-cry lol. Just pointing out in the post how it is, and hoping for the best [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[baalzy]

If you read any of the necro guides through the wayback machine on casters realm. There are many that state, cast darkness, boil blood, VoS and at this point the mob will agro on you. They're all in the context of opening with darkness, sending your pet in, then continuing with the other spells. Not a single one of them makes mention of getting hate off your pet with any single DoT cast. Cross referenced with the patch notes having no mention of a change in hate generation until Feb 2001 where procs were made to cause less hate and heals changed to cause more hate, and you have pretty good evidence that spell threat in general is way too high on this server.

Necromancers aren't affected very much in a negative sense while leveling because we can solo. However, it makes being effective members of a group extremely difficult when your DoT that needs close to a minute to do enough damage to be worthwhile causes immediate agro anytime it is cast.

[Vladesch]

This makes it extremely difficult to solo.
Usually I let the pet develop some agro so that if my first darkness is resisted I don't have the mob on me, but with current broken agro the mob will come at me regardless of how long I have the pet on it first.
If my darkness is resisted then im in big problems.

Not much point in trying to play as things stand. I risk death every 4th or 5th mob.

[Mirakk82]

Thank you for helping document this, because it's completely messed up right now.

Right now my necro on this server is only level 8. I have to cast clinging darkness after a few taunts and no other spells if I want to keep aggro off me. Waiting until a mob is below 50% and casting poison bolt? Instant aggro. They do the same damage too, but clinging has a snare component which on live caused EXTRA aggro. As mentioned by another DoTs with multiple effects generated more aggro than pure damage DoTs. It's just not right.

I played a necro from 99-2005 on live, so I'd like to think I've got this down. It's a completely different animal playing on this server. It's worth the developers taking a look into. Sadly I haven't seen even a head nod to any possible problem from them [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[greatdane]

The darkness line is a snare, that's the reason for the huge aggro. Get a warrior to beat a mob down to 80% with non-proc weapons and a druid would probably take aggro with their plain snare, too. Pets might generate less threat than they should, but I certainly don't remember being able to comfortably dot up a mob while expecting my pet to hold aggro on Live. You'd aggro-kite, fear-kite, or let the pet tank for a considerable amount of time before you could start casting anything major.

One thing that doesn't seem to be working correctly here is the initial aggro cap. On Live, there was a limit to how much threat you could generate with whatever you hit the mob with first. For example, a given spell might generate 500 threat by default, but if you used it to pull a mob with, it would only generate 100 or something. This is probably why people have read guides that indicate the ability to pull with a dot and have the pet take aggro without much difficulty.

It was always pretty bad in the lower levels. Melee threat generation is tied to (potential) damage output while many spells generate an amount of threat that's hugely disproportional to what they do. I think the threat from poison and disease counters might be a bit off here, but it was always a challenge and you were often better off figuring out which spells had no added threat besides the damage they dealt. Also note that it doesn't matter how many times your pet taunts if it already has aggro - taunt does nothing unless someone else has aggro, and until 30+, its taunt skill will be so low that success is pretty uncommon. While your pet is tanking, its only threat generation is from its lackluster melee damage. This gets significantly better at higher levels, but at level 8, your pet is generating threat equivalent to a wizard meleeing with a cracked staff. Literally. When your pet starts quadding, it'll generate more meaningful threat compared to your spells.

[Mirakk82]

"The darkness line is a snare, that's the reason for the huge aggro"


Actually, I find that my darkness spell has the LEAST threat of any of my spells as a general rule. At least on this server.