Disease Cloud appears to have broken aggro

[uygi]

Disease Cloud should be huge aggro, but at lvl 9 a lvl 3’s weak melee is enough to pull aggro from me after DC. Should not be possible, but I don’t know how to quantify.

Reminds me a lot of a bug from 2011:
https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30775&highlight=Disease+cloud

[Smashed]

I feel the same way. But, I haven't played SK on blue so I'm not sure if things are behaving properly in comparison. I did play a lot of SK on live though. So I was surprised when consistently 3-4 disease clouds were not enough to pull aggro off an enchanter pet (while I was also meleeing the target). It isn't nearly the tool I remember for repositioning. Also, no idea how to quantify it.

[fzzzt]

I use DC all the time on raids to keep aggro, and it works (at level 60).

Maybe it isn't as much as it should be, but it's definitely a lot of aggro.

Oops I just realized this is about Green, sorry.

[uygi]

Sounds very much like it's broken, and sounds a lot like the aforementioned 2011 bug.

[Danth]

I use DC all the time on raids to keep aggro, and it works (at level 60).

Maybe it isn't as much as it should be, but it's definitely a lot of aggro.

Oops I just realized this is about Green, sorry.

There's a level based component at work. Casting NOTHING but disease cloud, my 60 SK easily holds aggro over my wife's 60 Shaman casting it's spells, while a 54 SK I have access to has to cast it much more often to do the same job.

Danth

[uygi]

There's a level based component at work. Casting NOTHING but disease cloud, my 60 SK easily holds aggro over my wife's 60 Shaman casting it's spells, while a 54 SK I have access to has to cast it much more often to do the same job.

Danth

I'm pretty sure this is not true.

[Danth]

I'm pretty sure this is not true.

Perhaps not, but when I tested it in-game just this past week, that was the result observed. I am open to it being caused by something other than level disparity, but the simple fact is that against the same aggro generated by the Shaman (X number of slow casts), the level 54 SK has to cast disease cloud more times to achieve the same effect (flip aggro back) than the level 60 SK does. Perhaps there's something else at work, like one character simply generates higher hate from spells than the other due to some sort of unknown quirk? I'm open to ideas.

EDIT I have NOT tested it--or even been online on my Shadow Knight--in the few days since the very latest patch (been mainly testing stuff on various test chars) so it is equally as possible that something was just recently borked beyond anything I've experienced above. Perhaps even likely. If the aggro is exceptionally low to nonexistant on Green it would suggest a separate issue since, as noted above, on 'blue' the 54 can still use the spell for hate generation even if it is a hair less effective than with the 60. In that case consider it a free bump to an important issue.

Danth

[uygi]

The 54 SK would generate a little less aggro just because of less damage and fewer hits, but my experience with DC is that the aggro it generates should totally overshadow small, marginal differences like that.

[Chortles Snort|eS]

Me beg 2 differ
Might be the kuNarK wepS dat been floating arounD beTa

[Rafiell]

Lets not forget that this is classic folks, I do believe DC was not given as a taunt spell for quite some time, pallys were always the 1 true tank with the stuns cause that spell pulls agro like no other spell....until DC starts working again. so forget about your level 60 cause that's not happening for a long time. level cap is 50 in classic

[Daldaen]

Dunno if they ported over different EQEmu hate information.

But if you test on Live you find that hate for spells with stuns, ac debuffs or disease/poison counters are not a fixed value. But instead scale relative to the Total HP amount of the NPC. IE on level 1 mobs with 20 HP they generate almost no aggro. But on level 50 planar trash they generate quite a bit of aggro.

Keep testing and see if your disease cloud pulls aggro in the teens or twenties.

[Rafiell]

I’m almost a level 30 SK on beta and am streaming in the evenings PST and usually on blue I was able to peel a stun in 1 to 2 casts but on green approaching lvl 30 snare dot spells are generating more hate through just the dmg so there is no hate modifier on the lower rank spells which is unfortunate but I do believe it is classic for a while at least should look up old patch notes to find out when it gets a hate modifier

[uygi]

DC should have added aggro to it, the damage itself is negligible. DC’s total dmg is like 65hp, that’s not why it’s an incredible aggro spell from level 1 to [past Velious]. Read the post from Uthgaard I linked in OP, he touches on it. I suspect a similar problem now.

[Tecmos Deception]

Disease Cloud should be huge aggro, but at lvl 9 a lvl 3’s weak melee is enough to pull aggro from me after DC. Should not be possible, but I don’t know how to quantify.

Reminds me a lot of a bug from 2011:
https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30775&highlight=Disease+cloud

You weren't just casting 1 disease cloud to pull something and then wondering why it wasn't generating much aggro, were you?

[uygi]

You weren't just casting 1 disease cloud to pull something and then wondering why it wasn't generating much aggro, were you?

I wasn’t, but that should still work. There’s nothing special that changes aggro generation depending on whether you had aggro before. It actually seems like the aggro from DC might be as low as for a 5 point nuke, certainly not much higher. Definitely less aggro than 65 dmg worth. I used to know the ratio of sunstrikes-to-DCs, I feel like it was something like one DC and one SV to balance one sunstrike, but it’s been forever. I suppose the added hate for DC might be scaling with level like other spell effectiveness attributes, but shouldn’t it be maxed by lvl 11 for a level 1 spell?

[Bannen]

Disease cloud was always, from day 1, a HUGE agro producer.

[Tecmos Deception]

I wasn’t, but that should still work. There’s nothing special that changes aggro generation depending on whether you had aggro before. It actually seems like the aggro from DC might be as low as for a 5 point nuke, certainly not much higher. Definitely less aggro than 65 dmg worth. I used to know the ratio of sunstrikes-to-DCs, I feel like it was something like one DC and one SV to balance one sunstrike, but it’s been forever. I suppose the added hate for DC might be scaling with level like other spell effectiveness attributes, but shouldn’t it be maxed by lvl 11 for a level 1 spell?

There has been an aggro cap on the intial action that aggros an NPC on blue for quite some time now. I'm unsure if this is classic or not, but it wouldn't surprise me if it is present on green. For example, tash or a slow are crazy aggro if you use them on a mob that was just aggrod a few seconds ago, but a charmed pet will pull aggro off of you with one melee swing if you pulled with tash or slow.

Dots don't put all their aggro on a target immediately. You can see this when a class like necro loads up dots on something only gets aggro a few ticks later when the combined damage/threat surpasses the previous highest target. Unless DC was a special case or something.

I think you're going out on quite a limb assuming a level 1 spell, if it does have threat scaling with level, would max by any arbitrary level you can think of.


Sorry I'm not much help.

[Tecmos Deception]

Pissed around with a necro a bit. Yeah. A disease cloud should probably pull aggro off my level 1 pet attacking for only a second or two, but it definitely doesn't, regardless of whether I pull with DC or let my pet engage then land a DC.

[Rafiell]

Update: so upon reaching the 30s with my SK I can definitely say it must be level based since I am noticing a larger agro grab with each level. So it must be level based it feels like it fell off hard in the 20s though but I’m glad at 35 I can hold agro vs lvl 40 casters in my group

[Palemoon]

I always thought the hate from DC was because all the DoT damage hate was front loaded to the initial cast.

[uygi]

I always thought the hate from DC was because all the DoT damage hate was front loaded to the initial cast.

Naw, DC is practically no overall damage (65 IIRC). That is def not the mechanic that makes DC effective. Current green beta DC is very different from what blue was in original, but that probably means nothing. Perhaps that bug in 2011 was incidental to implementing the level-based aggro we [apparently] have now? /shrug

[Tethler]

I always understood that DC aggro functionality was down to the disease counters it applied. The damage is negligible. The disease counters don't increase with level do they? My SK on blue could lock aggro with a disease cloud in the 20s even with twink rogues in the group, though sometimes I needed to cast a second one if the got big backstabs. I'm not sure about before that though as I solod like 1-25.

[DMN]

DC should be a mega taunt from 1-50. Eventually it starts to fall off on high HP raid-type mobs a bit but still adds a good amount of hate for little mana and a fast cast so it will always remain part of the hate spell cycle.