Game Mechanics: SK's Aggro Spells Not Working

[choice]

SK's disease cloud is not working since the last patch. It does not draw aggro any longer. Even other aggro spells like shadow vortex does not work as well as before.

I don't think it's an intentional patch to nerf SK, so I reckon it must be a bug. I don't think SK would have any aggro problem in P99's eras. It hit the SK class very, very, very hard. As it stands, SK as a class is no longer viable. I hope it gets attention to get this fixed as soon as possible.

Thank you.

[long.liam]

Disease Cloud shouldn't generate much aggro either way. It's only 1 disease counter spell. Likely a bug that it was generating alot. Other spells like Shadow Vortex, Darkness etc are HP based. The HP of the Mob determines how much Hate the spell generates. Higher HP mobs generate more hate per cast. The formula should be rougly mob HP/15 up to a cap of 1200 for spells and 400 for procs. Have you tested on high HP mobs. Also there are temporary bonuses for being in Melee range, sitting, low HP aggro etc.

[loramin]

Not sure if the evidence is needed here, but here's a couple of classic SK's (well, one's a little slightly post-classic) extolling the virtues of Disease Cloud:

Originally Posted by March 2000

First off always lead with a good taunt spell (Disease at level 9, Darkness at 15 to give your group mates a few extra seconds to get ready), to make the Mob hate you above all else. Now if you are unlucky enough to pull multiple Mobs, disease them and keep on chopping them down, and using your Life Spike and darkness in-between melee rounds.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010911...EW.ASP?ID=3358

Originally Posted by May 2001

Your job in a group is simple, make yourself the single most hated opponent the mob has. Very easy for us, infact we have some spells that help. Disease cloud, level 9 dot, keep it memorized! one cast of this little puppy and a single use of the taunt skill will make you the single most hated enemy a mob has.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010911...EW.ASP?ID=5645

[long.liam]

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

Not sure if the evidence is needed here, but here's a couple of classic SK's (well, one's a little slightly post-classic) extolling the virtues of Disease Cloud:



https://web.archive.org/web/20010911...EW.ASP?ID=3358



https://web.archive.org/web/20010911...EW.ASP?ID=5645

Those posts are bit vague as to what level Disease cloud is still good. I don't doubt that at low levels, Disease cloud should be sufficient for generating enough hate to hold aggro. At high levels though the hate generated should not be able to keep up with other spells. 1 Disease counter spell should not be able to out aggro a 10 poison counter spell like Envenomed bolt or Bane of Nife or a 9 Disease counter spell like Pox of Bertoxxulous.

[long.liam]

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

Those posts are bit vague as to what level Disease cloud is still good. I don't doubt that at low levels, Disease cloud should be sufficient for generating enough hate to hold aggro. At high levels though the hate generated should not be able to keep up with other spells. 1 Disease counter spell should not be able to out aggro a 10 poison counter spell like Envenomed bolt or Bane of Nife or a 9 Disease counter spell like Pox of Bertoxxulous.

Also one of those posts seems to mention a old tired myth about how Disease cloud or how any diseased based dots prevent NPCs from regenerating. This was a misconception at the time from people. This makes me doubt the expertise of these individuals that posted this information given that they had wrong information for this, who knows what else they were wrong about.

[loramin]

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

Also one of those posts seems to mention a old tired myth about how Disease cloud or how any diseased based dots prevent NPCs from regenerating. This was a misconception at the time from people. This makes me doubt the expertise of these individuals that posted this information given that they had wrong information for this, who knows what else they were wrong about.

You should always doubt the expertise of random commenters (or guide writers) in classic sources: people misunderstood a lot about the game back then.

At the same time however, the quote speaks for itself:

Disease cloud, level 9 dot, keep it memorized! one cast of this little puppy and a single use of the taunt skill will make you the single most hated enemy a mob has. Warriors are likely to be jealous of your superior taunting abilities, you can even outtaunt rangers if you really try. Another good taunt spell is Heart Flutter, which we recieve at 39.

This guy was playing at least to 39 (quite possibly to 60), and for him one cast of Disease Cloud and a single click of taunt held agro. You don't need his expertise, you just need his honesty ... and I could see no reason for a guide writer to lie about something like that.

[Ennewi]

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=686

RE: Disease Cloud
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#Jul 08 2001 at 4:17 PMRating: Decent
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75 posts
The proc is NOT an AOE it its a single target DOT that does 60 damage over 6 minutes. It is a MAJOR Taunt and not good for a rogue.

lol
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#Feb 12 2002 at 8:46 PMRating: Default
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53 posts
disease cloud is one of the best shadowknight TAUNT spells =D. to see a 50+ rogue actually use this (alhtough at lvl 50 i hope to innoruuk that he has better) would give me the chuckles for months =)

[long.liam]

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

You should always doubt the expertise of random commenters (or guide writers) in classic sources: people misunderstood a lot about the game back then.

At the same time however, the quote speaks for itself:



This guy was playing at least to 39 (quite possibly to 60), and for him one cast of Disease Cloud and a single click of taunt held agro. You don't need his expertise, you just need his honesty ... and I could see no reason for a guide writer to lie about something like that.

We don't know for certain that the person who wrote this actually played until level 39. It's still quite possible he simply looked up the spells that are available and/or simply heard from higher level SKs that this spell acquired is either another good choice for hate or quite possibly better hate at the level it is acquired.

Either way though, without hard numbers from in era, like a players log files or parse or some type of formal testing someone may have done, we can't really get a good idea of just how much hate this spell should generate. If I have time, and If I care enough, I might spend some time looking for hard to data to either justify my position or possibly a change if that data says otherwise.

[Jimjam]

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

You should always doubt the expertise of random commenters (or guide writers) in classic sources: people misunderstood a lot about the game back then.

At the same time however, the quote speaks for itself:



This guy was playing at least to 39 (quite possibly to 60), and for him one cast of Disease Cloud and a single click of taunt held agro. You don't need his expertise, you just need his honesty ... and I could see no reason for a guide writer to lie about something like that.

But if he is doing 1 dc and then 2 taunt, it is the taunt putting him at top. Because that is what taunt does. Nothing to do with the dc. Unless dc had a crazy per tick aggro which helped keep aggro after the successful taunt.

[choice]

One key first principles of Project 1999 is to re-create what Everquest was during those eras. There is no evidence, at least not posted publicly, that disease cloud would not work at end game content from classic to velious era (my SK is 60). If 1 disease counter drew as much aggro as 9 disease counter, it was what it was. It should be respected and re-created. We should not "fix" it.

There are many things that dont seem right, but SK being able to draw aggro reliably and easily is not.