Necromancer Spell Threat

[Knightmare]

I have more work to do on this, however I did promise to make a post today with screenshots of my DoT's doing excessive amounts of threat even just with the 1st tick:

Bearing in mind my level is 21, my pet spell is the lvl 20 research spell. Every mob (but the last) is blue, light blue or green to me. Pet taunt was on. Most of these are done while solo over the a few pulls, another is in a group later that night.

Notice: I didn't go crazy trying to prove the point repeatedly, it would only make for more screenshots and more annoyance in game to me and my group :)


Targeting my pet to establish that he is indeed Dark Blue, in case the damage dealt by it isn't clear.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000217.jpg?t=1301849666

Mob is light blue, clearly below my pet, which is doing damage and taunting:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000218.jpg?t=1301849798

Pet has done 15% damage to the mob, has been taunting and I have done nothing. As you can see here the very second Darkness lands, I have aggro.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000219.jpg?t=1301849845
I had aggro until the mob was killed, more on that later.

Next up: Lesser Charbone, higher lvl than the last, same HP % (which means the pet actually had to do more damage than the last one. Same outcome:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000220.jpg?t=1301850006

Another light blue, lower lvl than my pet. Iksar Bandit:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000221.jpg?t=1301850099

Still not casting yet, and yes I'm a necro >.<

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000222.jpg?t=1301850139

Bandit is at 75% with pet taunting and the very second the spell lands, I have immediate and absolute aggro, again.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000223.jpg?t=1301850176

And as before, I kept aggro the entire time, just from 1 Darkness spell, doing nothing but running after that:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000224.jpg?t=1301850254

Overview of some of the details of that fight. Just to point out, I did nothing but cast 1 stupid Darkness spell the entire fight and run from then on:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000225.jpg?t=1301850307

[Knightmare]

Pt 2:

Another Charbone, all I cast on this previously was lvl 4 Poison Bolt, waited until it was almost 1/2 dead (67%) and still got aggro the second Darkness was cast:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000227.jpg?t=1301850413

How about a green? My pet should surely be able to hold aggro on a green, no?

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000232.jpg?t=1301850649

Green mob is at 69% and again, I get instant aggro until the mob dies...

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000233.jpg?t=1301850702


In Group: Goblin Brawler at 58% hp. The tank is the same lvl as me. Blue mob, instant Darkness aggro even still:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000235.jpg?t=1301850927

Kept aggro until mob death. Scenery changes because I was not just standing next to it getting beat on:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000236.jpg?t=1301850947

Again on a Sarnak, didn't get Darkness to land until 38% (only tried one other cast on this). Again, despite the damn thing being near dead, I got aggro:

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000243.jpg?t=1301851206

At this point, why bother even running. I mean really.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/AlektraQShin/EQ000244.jpg?t=1301851224


I know there could be better info, and I don't have links to the old aggro tables. But I can say that it should be pretty clear that my current spell aggro is out of control. I cannot cast a DoT above my lvl 4 Poison Bolt without getting threat (I'll do some screenies of Heart Flutter and such later).

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 1 dot. So, as of last night, I send pet, ghetto heal the tank, and lifetap when mob is 35%.

And I don't mean this as a rant or flame, my apologies if it comes off that way. You guys do a great job on this server and have your hands full, especially lately. However, this threat is out of control. Factor this in with the out of whack resist rate and really.. it makes it pointless to bother. Oftentimes I get resisted, when I don't, I get instant aggro.. :(

[Striiker]

I am running into this issue as well. I know that my pet should be doing a better job of holding aggro. There wasn't this issue until a couple of months ago when the aggro for spells was adjusted some how and suddenly, I could no longer sit through any fights while my pet was attacking. Prior to that, it was as it should have been where I could let my pet get aggro and then cast a couple of DOTs and not get aggro or if I did, it was brief until my pet taunted and did more damage.
I'm running into this a lot too with my enchanter where I get aggro way too easy now. I will try to document what I am experiencing better than this but I wanted to post quickly in agreement with the OP

[Knightmare]

I'll work on the screenshots of other DoTs next like Heart Flutter and such. Those are more difficult to test as getting aggro without a snare makes kiting harder or more mana intensive.

Just another side note I didn't specifically mention above, I didn't take a bunch screenshots of the mob chasing me all over, just the second the spell landed and the mob turned to chase me and whatever I could safely get after that.

I didn't even think to test my Enchanter.. have to do that next. Thanks :)

[Yinaltin]

ya i miss the "old " pre patch days , too . my normal business nowadays is pull mob with snare , dot him , root him let pet hit until mob is dead . that means i have to use 100 extra mana on each mob (lvl 53 necro using paralysing earth)

[Knightmare]

Yeah which is kinda humorous cause we're supposedly the fear-kite class, not the root-rot class lol.

Then again, with the resists hosed it all kinda sucks >.<

[Grizlor]

Just aggro kite and sit for the med tick. If I can do it with SoW and no snare you can do it with snare :P

[Knightmare]

Aye. I don't mean to imply, nor was I saying, that the class is broken. It's not a question of whether we can kite or not. It's generally easy for 1 class to come in and tell another class that they're okay. A good counter-point would be if you got what was clearly too much aggro for every heal you cast. It doesn't mean you cannot heal, it does however diminish how effectively, and reduce your desirability in groups (so sue me, I'm a grouping Necro lol). Bad analogy perhaps as it wouldn't affect your solo ability.. but then I don't have plate and a buncha HP when things go wrong. It doesn't take more than a few hits and I'm down.

The point is that things are not in line with what they should be, nor with what's sensible. Also your point about kiting doesn't address the group situation, my group members rather I don't run around like a nut with the mob chasing me lol.

Nobody except perhaps a big DD/Heal cast too early should get instant aggro, least of all before even 1 tick of 11pts is done to a mob at 75%. That is out of line with all reason.

Edit: another thing to factor in, your SoW cannot be resisted. Darkness can, and with the current increased resist rates make life more painful under the current circumstances. It's not a matter of assuming we can kite like you can. Apples and oranges, so like I mentioned at the start, it's easy for you to come in and say we're okay because your class is okay.. we still function.. bit it's kinda messier than it oughta be :p

[Hakurou]

Throwing in my experience here. Bond of Death seems to produce heal agro. I sent my pet into a group of four mobs, cast Bond of Death onto the one my pet was tanking (and contrary to the usual instant agro the mob stayed on the pet) but the three other mobs came charging at me instantly after BoD landed and before even healing the first tick.

DoTs seem to generated full or at least excessive agro on cast in addition to the normal gradual buildup of agro with each tick and that's why necromancers currently have a very out of whack hate generation. DoTs like BoD and the Boil Blood line used to be rather low agro compared to poison and disease type DoTs.

[Ropethunder]

The necro snare line is a huge aggro getter. This is actually a GOOD thing for kiting at higher levels where mobs will eat your pet.

[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:

...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 :)) but it is much higher now than it was.

Nagash/Petitpas

[Knightmare]

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 ;).

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 :p

[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 :(

[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.

[Vladesch]

The darkness might have more agro, but I can say for sure it is borked at the moment.
I haven't played my necro for about A year, and I used to be able to cast darkness on the mob after a few taunts and the pet would hold agro.
This has changed since I started playing again.

My pet can taunt 6 or 7 times and I will still pull agro.

Another thing I've noticed which backs this up, is I uised to be able to send in my pet while sitting (before I've cast anything). Mob would stay on the pet. Now the sit agro alone makes the mob come after me. (As I said, without casting anything)

Trying to solo is just too dangerous, unless you have jboots or are next to a zoneline. If your darkness gets resisted you're in trouble.
(And I didn't choose this necro because I want to be forced to group)

[SupaflyIRL]

Feign and let your Pet tank it until you can resnare. You're being overly dramatic saying it's too dangerous to solo without a zone line nearby, that's just not true.

[Vladesch]

heh, yeah I just figured out FD was an excellent workaround and was about to post for anyone else who is having problems.
What a great spell! :)

ps: I don't think the problem is with pet taunt. Most of the time I can sit and not pull agro right away.
I think the problem is the snare component of darkness is a bit too high.
standard dots (ie blood line) aren't that bad. It's just darkness that is super agro.

[Seaweedpimp]

The darkness might have more agro, but I can say for sure it is borked at the moment.
I haven't played my necro for about A year, and I used to be able to cast darkness on the mob after a few taunts and the pet would hold agro.
This has changed since I started playing again.

My pet can taunt 6 or 7 times and I will still pull agro.

Another thing I've noticed which backs this up, is I uised to be able to send in my pet while sitting (before I've cast anything). Mob would stay on the pet. Now the sit agro alone makes the mob come after me. (As I said, without casting anything)

Trying to solo is just too dangerous, unless you have jboots or are next to a zoneline. If your darkness gets resisted you're in trouble.
(And I didn't choose this necro because I want to be forced to group)


Try keeping your pet hasted for once.

[SupaflyIRL]

Try keeping your pet hasted for once.

This.