Part of the magic of Everquest when it was new was very few people knew the content, the quests, and the mechanics of the game. This is really evident when you dial back the clock and actually read (or remember) through the misinformation ... great example was the pervasive tall tale of a mythical leviathan living at the bottom of lake rathe. Most classic era posts were more misinformation than not. Thott (Afterlife) and a select few others were amongst the first to look under the hood and try to figure out the nuts and bolts.
While there have been shifts and changes over the years, the basic backbone mechanics have been pretty constant over time.
In this case, testing the hypothesis is very easy. It’s easy to assume that melee hate linearly correlates with damage done. Many still do, but we know that misses generate threat the same as hits and parsing that out is/was actually more challenging than strength.
The strength factor is really straightforward. Get 2 guys of the same class of the same level (assuming capped combat skills) with the same haste (or none at all) and the same no-proc weapon. Now buff the strength of one of them up and leave the other significantly lower.
As previously stated, if the bonus damage potential from higher strength generates more threat, the high strength character cannot possibly not eventually overtake the lower strength warrior. The gap between them from that point on would continue to grow.
Very simple test and one I do recommend you try out on your own.
Our understanding of melee threat is simply:
-ratio of weapon
-delay of weapon as it relates to frequency of damage bonus application
-haste and it’s impact on frequency of hate per swing
-double attack and dual wield rates
-misses = same threat as a hit
-minimum hit = same threat as a max
-attack/str increase functional damage output but not threat
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