Social / Charmed Pet Aggro

[Jete]

Currently there is an issue with both Social aggro and charmed pet aggro. What is happening is the charmed pet is somehow transferring much more aggro to its master than it should. As far as the social aggro goes, mobs for some reason do not assist each other when a charmed pet attacks one of their "friends."

This link leads to a video in the PoP era. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any videos older than this. This was a popular charm kiting spot during that time. At 55 seconds in you can see the bard casting charm, and its effects afterwards.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFuupjUBB3E

This video proves both bugs. First, once his pet broke, all aggro was on him ( he only had body pull aggro at that time ) however, once he recharmed a different pet and had it attack, all surrounding mobs switched to it. Proving that he didn't have more aggro than his charmed pet AND that same faction mobs do assist each other when one is being attacked.

In an excerpt taken from Reinnhard's Bard Kite Guide, found here on EQ Divas- (around 2003)

http://web.archive.org/web/20050314200701/www.eqdiva.com/EQ/Guide.aspx?id=27&ForumID=132

"In Swarm Kiting, the bard will attempt to pull as many mobs as possible into the pattern. There he will ‘charm’ one mob and make it his servant, send it to attack the other mobs in the pattern, assist where necessary, evaluate the relative health of his pet, reapply charm if needed and re-send to attack, and finally Chant Kite the former pet to death, thanking the other mobs following for doing all the brute work. Today's Swarm Kiting allows for any number of mobs to be engaged and eventually destroyed"

Again this is just a secondary source stating the same thing.

Here is a video of what is going on currently, I apologize that the video is so dark, as I am in training now and have to use a laptop with terrible graphic settings. Even with it being dark you are able to see "A Hill Giant" and "Broog Bloodbeard" go at it. I use the Hill giant as my pet. I allow them to fight for about 50 seconds or so to let my pet get massive amounts of aggro. ( with taunt on )

When charm breaks I recharm the Hill Giant, and although I never once hit or casted on Broog, my pet was unable to taunt him off me, even after 7-11 hits and 9 taunts.

Link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5HLlJnxMsY (im re uploading this.. as I forgot to make it HD. Sorry.)

I am still editing an example of a swarm charm kite as of right now, so I will put that in this post tomorrow.

Street Cred-
A huge thanks to all the bards that came together for this bug report, there were so many of you that I am too lazy to list the names, and Shivis, who let me use him to see if the aggro bug also bugged pet classes. ( Which by the way, we found it doesn't. )

One last edit-
I say a lot of silly things in the video, and practically everything I say is in a joking matter, so don't take any of it serious.. I was just really bored.

[MiRo2]

Also happens in groups, I almost always instantly pull aggro from a tank when charm breaks mid-fight.

[Gorroth]

Before making charm even more manageable, maybe charm should have its periodic resist checks looked at. Having (enchanter/necro) charm last its full duration several times on a 45+ mob, even at max CHA, is definitely not classic.

In classic, one Fear or Hate planar mob had to be babysat by an enchanter and druid duo (snare, heals) because charm was so unreliable.

But by all means, let's trivialize content even more.

[Jete]

Bump, which wasn't necessary because the post below was a free one.

Edit- Lame.. it's gone now.

[Swiftsong_Lorekeeper]

Please fix this! There are many people on this server who enjoy playing bards and all we want is our class back. I love what yall are doing with this server and I greatly appreciate it, however, would love for the bugs to be fixed. The small AoE ranges and long attack reach for mobs in game pretty much nerfs bards completely. Also the speed that mobs can run is pretty ridiculous. I know kiting isn't for everyone but I personally love kiting. I love all aspects of the bard class and just want them working again. I like the grouping aspect but at the same time that gets very boring because twisting is easy and I just want more of a challenge other than auto attack, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, etc. "You gain experience."

[Lazortag]

Please fix this! There are many people on this server who enjoy playing bards and all we want is our class back. I love what yall are doing with this server and I greatly appreciate it, however, would love for the bugs to be fixed. The small AoE ranges and long attack reach for mobs in game pretty much nerfs bards completely. Also the speed that mobs can run is pretty ridiculous. I know kiting isn't for everyone but I personally love kiting. I love all aspects of the bard class and just want them working again. I like the grouping aspect but at the same time that gets very boring because twisting is easy and I just want more of a challenge other than auto attack, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, etc. "You gain experience."

Wrong.

Also, many of these concerns (like mob run speed) have been responded to already - I'm pretty sure they can't change that. But either way, if you're not encumbered and you have selo's on there are very few mobs you can't outrun (even without a drum equipped).

[Swiftsong_Lorekeeper]

Wrong.

Also, many of these concerns (like mob run speed) have been responded to already - I'm pretty sure they can't change that. But either way, if you're not encumbered and you have selo's on there are very few mobs you can't outrun (even without a drum equipped).

Instead of just saying wrong, why don't you elaborate? Last time I checked (which was today) you nearly have to be standing on top of a mob for an AoE DoT to work. I understand that I can outrun mobs, i was speaking in general, for all classes.

[Swiftsong_Lorekeeper]

Oh and before you respond like this...

I've made perfectly polite and reasonable posts before informing people that aoe kiting does in fact work (even if you do it very crudely and get hit every time you cast a DOT) and that they were doing something very wrong if they thought it was impossible. I'm sorry but it's so irritating that people would rather ignore advice telling them how to aoe kite and complain about how gimped bards are (which the poster I was responding to did, twice, without actually responding to the Cribanox's very well-written explanation) than apply a little effort to not suck horribly. I imagine these same people can't twist more than one song at once because it's "too much effort" and they probably think bards are "gimped" because we can't use melodies.

I have read posts about it and have taken the advice and I can AoE kite fine. I have also researched methods from eqdiva and figured out a way that works for me. I can kite while taking minimal (if any) damage for each kite. The main thing I would like fixed is the AoE range, which obviously is very small. I do not mean for the post to seem like I'm saying it's impossible. I'm not just another noob bard bitching about something. Like I said in my first post, I love the bard class. I have been playing the class since 99 and is pretty much the only class I have played past level 50. A true class player, for any class, will adapt and overcome if they really want to play the class. Bards are gimped, but not impossible to play.

note: The first post I made was prior to my finding of useful/helpful threads and also before receiving some helpful tips and figuring out how to access eqdiva.

[Jeice]

All of what Jete has said above is true and was one of the main reasons I enjoyed my bard so much back in the POP times. I could not find any other videos showing the way it was done or "evidence" of how swarm kiting worked in the past.

All I can tell you is that you could aggro 10 or so mobs, charm one and the other 9 would instantly attack your pet. Once your pet was at about 5 or 10% you would invis to break charm and then kill that low hp mob with your dot's while they all followed you in your path. Once mob #1 was dead you would rinse and repeat and the aggro would always be on the charmed pet and the bard would never have a mob on him while he had a charmed creature. As another note if this helps Dev's figure out the issue, if another player ran close to your swarm as you kited it there was always a very high chance the aggro of the additional mobs you have not yet done damage to would aggro that player. Im new to the server so I do not know what the actual issue is in which makes this not possible, but could it be the way as to mobs seem to aggro here?

[Sadface]

Instead of just saying wrong, why don't you elaborate? Last time I checked (which was today) you nearly have to be standing on top of a mob for an AoE DoT to work. I understand that I can outrun mobs, i was speaking in general, for all classes.

This guy Lazortag is a fucking idiot. His argument is that it's possible to execute swarm dot aoe kiting to a lesser extent with less mobs and more danger involved.

It's like if he was a druid and esnare duration was 30 seconds, they only had regen at 50 and lightning blast/starfire did only a third of the dmg, and there dots only did a fraction of the dmg, he would argue how druid can still be an efficient kiting class.

P.S. Thanks Jete. Appreciate the effort you have put into this. Actually being able to charm kite would be a nice change of pace.

[Lazortag]

This guy Lazortag is a fucking idiot. His argument is that it's possible to execute swarm dot aoe kiting to a lesser extent with less mobs and more danger involved.

That's my "argument"? An argument is a logical construct. What you've cited is not an "argument". Do you go to school?

[Lazortag]

Also, to be clear, my argument is that people who use overly broad, dismissive statements like "Bards are completely nerfed", "Bards are unplayable", "Bards are ruined because they can't do _____", are wrong and annoying. If Bards were "completely nerfed" then I would pretty much never be able to get into a group, yet I have no problems finding groups. If Bards were completely nerfed I would never be able to solo things effectively, or kite things, yet I have no problem doing either. By all means, try and get the devs to fix Bards so that they're 100% classic again, but don't be so fucking whiny about it, and don't act like Bards are at all bad the way they are now.

I really do like what Jete is doing and when I saw him in-game I even praised him for fighting the good fight, and for being reasonable and actually using evidence instead of whining and bitching (though he probably didn't know it was me). Most of the other wannabe Bards on this server just complain excessively without doing anything to help their cause.

[JayDee]

We want bards to be as effective as they were on live.

Period

[Lazortag]

Learn to read.

[Musetii]

GM Ruling? Bump for great future justice!

[darkonites]

answer?

[whitebandit]

total necro bump..

gonna start playing my bard again.. was looking into the charm-swarming as an option.. it sounds like as it stands things may not have been fixed as of yet..

maybe with Haynars pet love upcoming, charm pets will see some love as well :-p

[Nirgon]

Before making charm even more manageable, maybe charm should have its periodic resist checks looked at. Having (enchanter/necro) charm last its full duration several times on a 45+ mob, even at max CHA, is definitely not classic.

In classic, one Fear or Hate planar mob had to be babysat by an enchanter and druid duo (snare, heals) because charm was so unreliable.

But by all means, let's trivialize content even more.

YES THANK YOU

[Daldaen]

Not many classic people knew to tash and Malo their pets and keep those refreshed on breaks though.

Without those it's unreliable. With, it becomes a whole lot more reliable with 200+ CHA.

But yea, bard swarming needs to be classic. Especially in Velious, so many tasty outdoor zones.

[Wrench]

total necro bump..

gonna start playing my bard again.. was looking into the charm-swarming as an option.. it sounds like as it stands things may not have been fixed as of yet..

maybe with Haynars pet love upcoming, charm pets will see some love as well :-p

last i checked bard charm kiting worked fine

used to pull all giants at ww fort, charm one, send at another, run swarm over top of pet

dont know if the social aggro was quite as high as classic, but it was definitely workable

[Daldaen]

Hrmm... Wonder if it works now with the social aggro fix? I parked my bard at 19 and haven't bothered leveling him up. But I may just level him now.

[triad]

anyone tired ?

[Nirgon]

Before making charm even more manageable, maybe charm should have its periodic resist checks looked at. Having (enchanter/necro) charm last its full duration several times on a 45+ mob, even at max CHA, is definitely not classic.

In classic, one Fear or Hate planar mob had to be babysat by an enchanter and druid duo (snare, heals) because charm was so unreliable.

But by all means, let's trivialize content even more.

Love this guy.