Pet Aggro Questions

[Stormhowl]

I'm sure this has been brought up countless times but it's getting to the point where it's ridiculous.

I missed on the first swing against a spiderling in Nektulos forest, to be expected of an Enchanter, but as soon as my pet was on it, it's first hit was 5 followed by a taunt. I figured fine, the pets got it. Backed away (running forward while jumping to get myself out of melee range), and the spiderling chased after me. The pet did another 3, taunted, then 5 damage before the spiderling was peeled off, but sitting would cause me to gain aggro again.

I have experienced similar issues like this on multiple mobs, as well as on my Necromancer and Magician alts. Is this an issue with pet aggro? They all seem to have massive issues with pulling aggro off me, even if my 8 Mage is pulling with his level 1 spell (5 damage) and the pet is wailing away at the mob for the entire length of the fight, I cannot lose aggro.

What's going on? Is this a problem with low level pets that's not seen at higher levels? Is this just an accepted fact on this server? Am I not fully understanding how pet aggro works?

Can someone please explain?

Edit: Another example just happened, I aggroed one spiderling and got a social add from another spiderling. Pet jumped on the add because it hit me first, while I started hitting my initial target. My pet dealt a total of 26 damage and taunted 5 times before I cast a single Shallow Breath spell (4 damage) on the add and pulled aggro off my pet. And I had done NOTHING to the add before casting Shallow Breath on it. Seriously, what the hell, why did I peel aggro off my pet? 0.o

[vinx]

Its really screwed
has been for awhile from all the posts i seen, i just started up a baby chanter also and if it wasnt for massive HP gear id be in trouble lol
also was jumpin around on a few of my mages and found the same thing, theres no way your going to lose agro if you nuke. just need to spam heal on the pet till the thing is one nuke from dead.

It is easier if you group heh, as PC's can hold agro..
imo i think thats their whole strategy.. to cripple the casters from soloing

[Ostros]

Pet aggro has never really been an exact thing either on here or live.

Sitting is something you never never never ever do. Sitting is how a necro regains aggro after he forgets to turn taunt off while kitting. It's been that way as long as I can remember on live, and I necro'd for a long time.

If you're pet tanking as an enchanter or mage, the pet will be doing most of the work. This means you hit ONCE to avoid the pet eating the experience, and then sit your ass down to med and do nothing else until the pet needs a heal. By then you should be able heal a couple of times without peeling aggro. Sitting down after these heals should make you nervous, and rightly so. This is because sitting generates massive amounts of aggro. Ask any guild that raids PoFear: "Do your casters sit during the break in?", I wager the answer would involve threatening to kick a player if they did that.

Sorry to say, but this is classic, and short of one of the devs saying something is off a bit, I'm going to say it's working as intended. You'll have to learn to adapt to the system. Aggro in EQ is a tricky thing to get used to, especially when working with pets.

[Athosblack]

As a Necro I usually have to wait for 3-4 pet taunts before I land my first DOT. This is only when I'm pet tanking. After 40 levels 3-4 taunts seem to be enough for the pet to hold agro before I can DOT and med without getting whacked.

[Ostros]

As a Necro I usually have to wait for 3-4 pet taunts before I land my first DOT. This is only when I'm pet tanking. After 40 levels 3-4 taunts seem to be enough for the pet to hold agro before I can DOT and med without getting whacked.

This is pretty accurate. It can vary depending on if your pet had some odd misses.

[Obsidus]

I've noticed this aswell on my level 8 Mage. Not only do they have a ridiculous time getting aggro, they lose it at the drop of a hat.

[Taryth]

Edit: Another example just happened, I aggroed one spiderling and got a social add from another spiderling. Pet jumped on the add because it hit me first, while I started hitting my initial target. My pet dealt a total of 26 damage and taunted 5 times before I cast a single Shallow Breath spell (4 damage) on the add and pulled aggro off my pet. And I had done NOTHING to the add before casting Shallow Breath on it. Seriously, what the hell, why did I peel aggro off my pet? 0.o

As an Ench, you will NEVER be able to cast one of your DoTs without getting aggro. Unless your tank is a BAMF, or you're waiting an absurdly long time to cast it, which would make it pointless. Don't mem the DoT unless you plan to melee or root. This is not an anomaly- almost every Enc spells generates huge, massive aggro, which is working as intended.

I can't explain your weird aggro from engaging. As I said before, this doesn't happen to me and I'm lvl 55 on my Enc now. In any case, if the problem persists you'll be glad to note that root isn't broken by melee.

[Saiene]

Seems beyond broken... I can't even get a dot off when mob is all the way down at 20 percent without agro...

[Envious]

Dunno about at higher lvls, but at 18 my necro can send pet, and mob will come for me if I'm sitting... usually doesnt make it all the way to me, but it does come for me (no casting, just send pet while sitting).

Honestly dont remember much about pet aggro from live... so /shrug

[Messianic]

Sitting is something you never never never ever do.

I sit all the time, even when I have my pet tanking something. You have to play with proximity and other things, and you have to be ready to stand immediately if you see the mob's animation stop briefly (because their first set of movements after switching targets causes a small warp, at least it does for me). Sit/Stand have always been on my action bar for my casters.

Something you just learn to do is root your mobs and not expect pet aggro to keep them positioned. As a soloing chanter (in some cases), I would pull with tash, root the mob and allow it to hit me once (while stabbing it to get at least 1 pt of damage), back off, slow it. I might throw in a dot early in the fight if I know my pet can't handle the slowed mob.


But root is simply a way of life when you're trying to group with your pet.

[Mirakk82]

I believe the problem we're seeing, and reason it's not as we all remember it being, is because at this stage in the game, TAUNT blows. It will continue to blow until it gets patched later to actually work worth a damn.

Taunt undisputedly sucks for all classes, and I believe pets are suffering for it as well. It does not function on mobs higher than your level, which leaves your pet shit out of luck in most cases. It also doesn't work on 50+ mobs.

Given the lack of GM comment about such a widespread problem, I can only assume it IS working as intended. This theory is the only thing I've though of that makes any sense to me thus far.

Another interesting idea was that DoTs are incorrectly applying all their hate at the front end of the spell, instead of on the ticks like they're supposed to. But I cannot confirm/deny this obviously.

[Saiene]

I believe the problem we're seeing, and reason it's not as we all remember it being, is because at this stage in the game, TAUNT blows. It will continue to blow until it gets patched later to actually work worth a damn.

Taunt undisputedly sucks for all classes, and I believe pets are suffering for it as well. It does not function on mobs higher than your level, which leaves your pet shit out of luck in most cases. It also doesn't work on 50+ mobs.

Given the lack of GM comment about such a widespread problem, I can only assume it IS working as intended. This theory is the only thing I've though of that makes any sense to me thus far.

Another interesting idea was that DoTs are incorrectly applying all their hate at the front end of the spell, instead of on the ticks like they're supposed to. But I cannot confirm/deny this obviously.

No idea what it is, but its pretty horrible. On live, I'd just wait until the pet damaged the mob down to 92-95 percent, and then I could stack as many dots as I wanted without agro (standing up). Here, I get agro sometimes when I dot the mob after pet beats it down to 20 percent. Its a joke, I feel like I'm playing a beastlord, but without any tanking abilities, and no good gear or weapon.
Doubt this will ever be fixed, would think this far into the server, it would be the first thing addressed considering how many gazillions of pet soloing classes there are. Also, am surprised there aren't more complaints, maybe not many people remember live?
To add, it certainly is fixable, because on tz/vz pvp/emu server, this problem didn't exist.

[Lucia Moonglow]

It is definitely broken. My necro is only level 5, and yet a single crappy lifetap generates so much agro that I can practically pet kite after landing one.

[Stormhowl]

Even ignoring the example where I used Shallow Breath (which someone said is a DoT, but has no DoT component to it), what about the times where I did significantly less melee damage than the pet and it couldn't pull off me? Or how about how it couldn't pull sitting aggro off me because I got smacked by a wandered while medding?

There's clearly an issue with pet melee generation and their taunt if it can't out aggro a MISS.

[Galanteer]

As an enchanter (26th atm), when I solo with the animation, I always root the critter.

[Ostros]

Even ignoring the example where I used Shallow Breath (which someone said is a DoT, but has no DoT component to it), what about the times where I did significantly less melee damage than the pet and it couldn't pull off me? Or how about how it couldn't pull sitting aggro off me because I got smacked by a wandered while medding?

There's clearly an issue with pet melee generation and their taunt if it can't out aggro a MISS.

Aggro is more fickle than you think. If you got an add while sitting, no pet short of an Earth pet with a successful snare is going to be able to peel a sitting-aggro add, or maybe a rogue necro pet with a backstab.

We seem to have been informed that taunt is broken, so we know that. You do of course know that a mob will ALWAYS prioritize the pet's owner if he is in melee ranger correct? (Figured I should ask, you never know).

I've grouped with a mage in Warsliks before and he never seemed to have much trouble with the pet keeping aggro, even when casting heal after sitting, and then sitting back down. So it does work as expected, or at least the way I expect it to work. Playing my Necro so far (level 29), I've noticed nothing terribly wrong with pet aggro. Pets were never really meant to be a replacement for a warrior, so you're going to have a little trouble, especially as an Enchanter, since Enc pets don't really function like normal pets anyway.

I suspect that once taunt gets it's fix, things will be ok again. As far as everything else about pet aggro, I believe it's working as intended.

[baalzy]

Pets get better at holding agro in later levels. Low levels they generate an absurdly low amount of agro. I personally feel that pet agro is messed up and they generate far less than they should.

[Ostros]

As an enchanter (26th atm), when I solo with the animation, I always root the critter.

What he said. If you're pet tanking, then root the sumbitch. Play smart.

[etplante]

Also, am surprised there aren't more complaints, maybe not many people remember live? To add, it certainly is fixable, because on tz/vz pvp/emu server, this problem didn't exist.


http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=27881

It's not that there haven't been complaints about pet agro. It's that posting didn't get any results and people probably got tired and just adapted. This has been going on at least as far back as February.

Pet agro at lower levels is really horrendous. It gets slightly better at higher levels. While I was leveling up it didn't matter so much playing a necro as I used the weak pet agro to my advantage to agro kite. But since the dot damage nerf on moving mobs went in I imagine it's quite a bit tougher on lower level necros.

[Mirakk82]

And quite a bit harder on ones too low level to kite. I was planning on being a necro from the start on this server since I enjoyed it so much on live (I was a necro from 99-2005). However, I stopped playing my noob necro here because the pet aggro was totally borked. I started playing again and am going to tough it out the best I can no matter what.

Post 14-16 it seems to improve from what I've heard from other folks, but post 12 is basically all kiting anyway, so that really doesn't mean pet aggro gets better, it just means you get other options instead. Which I'm fine with I guess. I didn't come here to get EZ mode.

But, this is still something worth looking at. I'm surprised there hasn't been any form of dev response on this. They probably want it to be messed up so that there aren't 8,000 necros and 6,000 mages on the server. Not that there aren't already...so I guess that point is moot.


-Sincerely,

One confused-ass necromancer