Why do…

[|tda| fatal]

Why do rogs /monks / rangers/ intentionally try and get aggro in group content as if they are helping the group so how. Can anyone explain this though process behind this.
If you have a tank in the group and the mob is rooted why are the intentionally getting as close to the mob as possible? Or they are not using evade or FDing at all and rng opening up with flame lick. Am I missing something? How is this helpful in any way? Isn’t it making more work for the healer and wasting more mana which = more downtime for everyone? So just wasting everyone’s time to feel “leet”? I’m confused someone enlighten me pls.

[Duik]

Just my 2cp
Im old but originally in groups the high burst dps (wiz for example) would wait till x% damage was done. To ensure (hope?) agro was stable.
Now, after 20+ years of poopsockers poopsocking and finding infinitesimally small gains everywhere (IMHO wrecking the spirit of the game but nvm that) along with some unbalancing twinks (medium ones which are ok by me. Sue me!) that are ridiculous (eg. de-levelled epic rog etc) means melee dps like these bad boys easily out taunt even well played tanks.
XP groups of this type generally destroy content fast enough to mitigate any mob swapping. Well/over equipped (monks especially) twinked melee also tend to be able to absorb more damage.

So all those things added together mean very few need to await the tank gaining agro like us in january 2000 who had zero clue (and loved it!) about rooting and proximity agro and which innocuous (seeming) spells would peel a mob from da tank. Snare, debuffs and dots.

[Toxigen]

Depends.

If they have a fungi it doesnt matter. If you have a bard pumping heals its nice to get more value by spreading the dmg around.

But yes in general people are absolutely terrible at this game.

[Videri]

Why do rogs /monks / rangers/ intentionally try and get aggro in group content

How do you know this is intentional? It might not be. I’ll bet the ranger just got a spell that does damage, and by Karana, he’s gonna USE IT! Maybe if someone told him it generates a ton of aggro, he will adjust. Maybe.

If you have a tank in the group and the mob is rooted why are the intentionally getting as close to the mob as possible?

Some players are not aware of this mechanic. I would give them a respectful tip and maybe they will learn.

I’m confused someone enlighten me pls.

You and I know a lot about this game, but there are plenty of people who, as a kid, got to level three on their neighbor’s account, and now they finally have time to experience EQ, but they don’t know anything about how to play the game. The game is 24 years old, but they haven’t been playing it. Those of us who know a lot about the game have an opportunity to teach others.

[Troxx]

When I’m bard healing or druid healing (free clicky regrowth of the grove) or even cleric healing (mana free clicky group heals and MoK) …

Having the dps spread around across multiple melees can actually make healing easier.

But yeah most of the time it’s just because people suck

[Duik]

@ Troxx so a bunch of melee and a druid healing, with agro ping ponging around is easier?
Im thinking i agree until someome goes into low hp agro. Is that even a thing? I feel it is at least as a wiz on live early 2k but i dunno.

So. A bit OP but a rooting melee pal/rng keeping it rooted, if any melee gets too much/lowhp agro step back for faster heals.
Sounds fun and relaxing.

[Troxx]

@ Troxx so a bunch of melee and a druid healing, with agro ping ponging around is easier? .

In a group of 5 melees a druid can either passively heal one person for 15hp/tick with mana free regrowth and rely fully on mana reserves to keep a single person healed
… or they can heal 60-75 hp a tick of the damage is being shared. Druid heals are not particularly efficient. Regrowth of the grove helps keep them viable in most all xp group situations (if they have their velious bp).

For a bard, it’s possible to crank out (or close to) 50hp tick to everyone in the group. The more the damage is spread around the easier the healing.

Cleric get a mana free 100hp per target group heal and a reverse DS.

Yes, there are instances where having some damage ping ponging around to be shared can be beneficial.

But I agree, the second anyone other than the defacto tank requires an active intervention heal, they done gone too far with it.

[Jimjam]

Also, levelling is a part of the process of filling out your character. Another part of that process is to ensure your skills are suitable for your level.

It is important for rogues to keep some aggro every level to ensure their defence remains close to cap. Furthermore rogues have huge defence skill and very good AC with gear so honestly they mitigate perfectly fine for group content and by taking the odd round they are increasing the group’s hp/tick.

People being sub 100% hp is fine as long as you aren’t one of those clerics who can’t stand partial red bars.

[aussenseiter]

Furthermore rogues have huge defence skill and very good AC with gear so honestly they mitigate perfectly fine

Nah

https://i.imgur.com/IBUogzN.png

[Evia]

I laugh out loud everytime I read someone talk about Rogues tanking or mitigating damage well. Maybe if you're raid geared it helps a bit? But in my ec gear @60 (and on the way up) I've got 3-5 attack rounds in me before I drop. My defense is capped.

With that said...I do remember I used to wait to engage mobs back on live in 99-03 or so and give tanks a few rounds before I'd attack. On p99 tho, nobody does that. Speed is king and so everyone just zergs and deals with the occasional aggro swapping.

[Jimjam]

You’re not dropping on a rogue in 5 rounds on xp content. Get real! 3 rounds vs tov trash fair enough, but the context of the comment was levelling.

That said it does feel like rogues/rangers got a lot worse at mitigation i think the antitwink worn ac caps may have got screwed up for them.

[Evia]

5 rounds is being kind...
It's probably less.

[Videri]

I’m confused someone enlighten me pls.

So, OP, any thoughts on the responses to your thread so far?

[Toxigen]

FWIW one of the best XP trios I ever did was my rogue, bard, monk. All 3 of us had fungis / epic and we non-stopped killed at slabs in hole for 3 hours.

We all took some damage.

[Cecily]

I laugh out loud everytime I read someone talk about Rogues tanking or mitigating damage well. Maybe if you're raid geared it helps a bit? But in my ec gear @60 (and on the way up) I've got 3-5 attack rounds in me before I drop. My defense is capped.

With that said...I do remember I used to wait to engage mobs back on live in 99-03 or so and give tanks a few rounds before I'd attack. On p99 tho, nobody does that. Speed is king and so everyone just zergs and deals with the occasional aggro swapping.
You have bad gear. Maybe save up for something nicer like Crystal Chitin. Hope this helps.

5 rounds is being kind...
It's probably less.
Omg dramatic update. Prioritize AC/HP instead of haze panther garbage. YW

[Cecily]

Why do rogs /monks / rangers/ intentionally try and get aggro in group content as if they are helping the group so how. Can anyone explain this though process behind this.
If you have a tank in the group and the mob is rooted why are the intentionally getting as close to the mob as possible? Or they are not using evade or FDing at all and rng opening up with flame lick. Am I missing something? How is this helpful in any way? Isn’t it making more work for the healer and wasting more mana which = more downtime for everyone? So just wasting everyone’s time to feel “leet”? I’m confused someone enlighten me pls.
People who can't position right suck. There's a lot of them and I doubt it's intentional. If you're a person who can't tank so good I'm gonna snap that mob off you with a 100% backstab until the tank can manage it. Rogues, like rangers, are light tanks. High end rogues tank better than low end warriors.

[Jimjam]

You have bad gear. Maybe save up for something nicer like Crystal Chitin. Hope this helps.

Omg dramatic update. Prioritize AC/HP instead of haze panther garbage. YW

I love this stuff.

Arms, boot and gauntlets are super easy just to stumble into while XPing at zone in. 58 AC, 22 str, 5 sta, 10 hp. Only 10 weight so +12 carry too.

Great gear suggestion!

[strongNpretty]

I'd say that in 2024, the reason for the unnecessary agro is specifically the time invested in P99 has people just being too lazy to pay attention. We can provide all kinds of reasons somebody is pulling agro, and some of those might be valid for some folks. But the usual suspect is playing his 10th alt over the last 10 years, and just doesn't have the will to play like a team player anymore. You just assume the tank is twinked and can hold agro no matter the punishment you dish out to the mob.

[ahalls2015]

They could just be new. I know when I started I didn't know much about how agro worked until I kept getting punched in the face as an ENC. Trial by fire learned real quick lol

[aussenseiter]

High end rogues tank better than low end warriors.

Not in EverQuest. Please stay on the topic of EverQuest.

[aussenseiter]

AC is extremely poor at helping rogues tank in EverQuest.

Focus on AGI 200+

[Cecily]

Sorry you feel that way.

[Infectious]

People who can't position right suck. There's a lot of them and I doubt it's intentional. If you're a person who can't tank so good I'm gonna snap that mob off you with a 100% backstab until the tank can manage it. Rogues, like rangers, are light tanks. High end rogues tank better than low end warriors.

A rogue as a tank? Cecily believing he is something he is not. Funny how this game bleeds into real life sometimes

[Toxigen]

A rogue as a tank? Cecily believing he is something he is not. Funny how this game bleeds into real life sometimes

lmao

[7thGate]

Rogues can tank fine. Its very rarely optimal because you lose backstab damage. The spread in effectiveness vs. actual tanks widens if you're getting CHeals as your primary healing, because Rogue HP pools suck. But in terms of damage mitigation, Rogues mitigate quite well if geared for AC. Rogue defensive skills are actually slightly superior to a warrior's and they get bonus AC from high AGI that helps offset some of the AC difference through softcap returns.

I've done a bunch of Puppet Show, in various configurations with various people. Here's a list of everyone (EDIT: Actually mostly the last year, I have another log file I forgot about that probably has more) that's taken at least 50 attacks from a Tribunal Puppet that I've logged, with hit rate, avg hit and the corresponding damage taken per attack.

Hit %: 63.2%
Avg Hit: 213
Damage/Attack: 134.5

Hit %: 62.9%
Avg Hit: 210
Damage/Attack: 132.1

Hit %: 69.5%
Avg Hit: 244
Damage/Attack: 169.8

Hit %: 47.2%
Avg Hit: 198
Damage/Attack: 93.5

Hit %: 50.1%
Avg Hit: 184
Damage/Attack: 92.2

Hit %: 53.3%
Avg Hit: 200
Damage/Attack: 106.5

Hit %: 54%
Avg Hit: 211
Damage/Attack: 113.9

What classes do you think these people are?

[Toxigen]

Rogues can tank fine. Its very rarely optimal because you lose backstab damage. The spread in effectiveness vs. actual tanks widens if you're getting CHeals as your primary healing, because Rogue HP pools suck. But in terms of damage mitigation, Rogues mitigate quite well if geared for AC. Rogue defensive skills are actually slightly superior to a warrior's and they get bonus AC from high AGI that helps offset some of the AC difference through softcap returns.

I've done a bunch of Puppet Show, in various configurations with various people. Here's a list of everyone (EDIT: Actually mostly the last year, I have another log file I forgot about that probably has more) that's taken at least 50 attacks from a Tribunal Puppet that I've logged, with hit rate, avg hit and the corresponding damage taken per attack.

Hit %: 63.2%
Avg Hit: 213
Damage/Attack: 134.5

Hit %: 62.9%
Avg Hit: 210
Damage/Attack: 132.1

Hit %: 69.5%
Avg Hit: 244
Damage/Attack: 169.8

Hit %: 47.2%
Avg Hit: 198
Damage/Attack: 93.5

Hit %: 50.1%
Avg Hit: 184
Damage/Attack: 92.2

Hit %: 53.3%
Avg Hit: 200
Damage/Attack: 106.5

Hit %: 54%
Avg Hit: 211
Damage/Attack: 113.9

What classes do you think these people are?

ooo i like this post...curious to see the answers but lets let the guesses fly first

[7thGate]

Here's the rest of the ones from the other log file I had, which is huge and took forever to parse:

Hit %: 48.2%
Avg Hit: 217
Damage/Attack: 104.6

Hit %: 42%
Avg Hit: 193
Damage/Attack: 81

Hit %: 51.2
Avg Hit: 205
Damage/Attack: 105

Hit %: 58.1
Avg Hit: 215
Damage/Attack: 124.9

Hit %: 64.2
Avg Hit: 229
Damage/Attack: 147

Hit %: 33.3
Avg Hit: 296
Damage/Attack: 98.6

[aussenseiter]

ooo i like this post...curious to see the answers but lets let the guesses fly first

Low hit % means rogue or monkey. I'm too lazy to guess more.

[Jimjam]

Low hit % means rogue or monkey. I'm too lazy to guess more.

I suspect the 33% with huge average hit is a silky using runes.

[Duik]

Oh great. The suspense is killing other people.

[7thGate]

Anyone else want to take any guesses?

[Toxigen]

we must know

[7thGate]

Here are all the classes, along with some information that I have about AC values from some of the people. The number in brackets is the sample size in attacks taken.

Hit %: 63.2%
Avg Hit: 213
Damage/Attack: 134.5
Naib, Shaman, 1097 AC [711]

Hit %: 62.9%
Avg Hit: 210
Damage/Attack: 132.1
Jallai, Shaman [353]

Hit %: 69.5%
Avg Hit: 244
Damage/Attack: 169.8
Ghanjo, Shaman [187]

Hit %: 47.2%
Avg Hit: 198
Damage/Attack: 93.5
Jayya, Rogue, 1256 AC [1779]

Hit %: 50.1%
Avg Hit: 184
Damage/Attack: 92.2
Snails, Paladin (~1400 AC) [55]

Hit %: 53.3%
Avg Hit: 200
Damage/Attack: 106.5
Snails, Paladin (Old)

Hit %: 54%
Avg Hit: 211
Damage/Attack: 113.9
Riddian, Shaman [50]



Hit %: 48.2%
Avg Hit: 217
Damage/Attack: 104.6
Jayya, Rogue (Old, ~1100-1150ish AC) [892]

Hit %: 42%
Avg Hit: 193
Damage/Attack: 81
Teslacoil, Monk, Raid Geared (1300ish AC?) [717]

Hit %: 51.2
Avg Hit: 205
Damage/Attack: 105
Snails, Paladin (old, includes old parse from the first block) [324]

Hit %: 58.1
Avg Hit: 215
Damage/Attack: 124.9
Curacao, Shaman [160]

Hit %: 64.2
Avg Hit: 229
Damage/Attack: 147
Euroshammy, Shaman [95]

Hit %: 33.3
Avg Hit: 296
Damage/Attack: 98.6
Zyzzx, Monk, Sub-60 ALS Leveling Geared [72]

Some thoughts on the results:

Monk skill mitigation is bonkers on non-raid mobs, which I kind of knew already. Zyzzx clearly also got lucky, and with a small sample size ended up parsing with really high avoidance; block rate is higher than average, and hit rate from unblocked attacks was also lower than average, which combined to a really high avoidance rate.

The impact of AC is very noticeable though; low AC monk getting hit for 60% more per hit than a raid geared Paladin, though they are both low sample size sets. You can see in some cases where there are blocks of parses for Snails and myself with years of upgrades in between where the damage taken drops from the AC item upgrades accumulated over time. Teslacoil is a strong raid geared monk, and with that sample size probably has a relatively stable estimate for damage taken; the extra mitigation from all the Velious all/all low weight AC gear is very noticeable here. Combined with monk skills, he had the lowest overall damage taken per attack.

A lot of the Shammys seem to parse in the same mitigation range from AC as Jayya’s old AC band. I suspect this is due to the lower defense skill caps, but with higher quality gear making up the difference; Shammys get a number of items like PoM boots, shields and Vindi BPs that are usually higher AC than a Rogue can get in slot. There are a few outliers that might indicate Shammys with worse gearing, or it could be luck based to some extent from smaller sample size. They’re all suffering a lot from the lack of skill based evasion in the average damage taken, however.

One of the things I think is kind of interesting from this is that it seems like displayed AC across classes might actually be more directly comparable than I thought it would be. Jayya’s old AC mitigated pretty close to Naib at a pretty similar level, around ~1100.

Tying back to the topic for the thread, I would guess based on this that many twinked monks actually take less damage per hit on XP mobs than anyone except a warrior running evasive. If they’re geared, it is probably not actually wasting healer mana, and is actually probably helping if there’s any sort of passive regeneration or group healing going on. Similarly, Rogues (and maybe Rangers?) are probably not that far off on mitigation vs. the tank in most cases if they’re geared for AC. If they’re not AC geared, then they’ll take noticeably more. But it is likely to be Rogue dependent based on what they’re wearing whether it is an actual negative or not for the group. Jayya is parsing worse than Snails at similar gear levels, but only by a small amount because the better rogue defensive skills are compensating for the worse AC. Jayya in current gear is outparsing Snails in older, worse gear.

I suspect that the reason why most people feel there is a large difference in Rogue vs. Tank damage taken is that a Rogue may be gearing for Str while leveling in many cases. Tanks will usually be gearing for AC. If you’re not both gearing for AC, you’ll end up taking much more damage on the Rogue instead of a little bit more. As a percentage of life, there is also a significant difference because Rogues have very low HP; Jayya is 1650 HP behind Snails at our current gearing levels. This matters a lot if you’re healing via CHeals or trying to tank something big where you have to survive large damage spikes, but otherwise doesn’t matter much for healer mana efficiency.

[aussenseiter]

Hit %: 47.2%
Avg Hit: 198
Damage/Attack: 93.5
Jayya, Rogue, 1256 AC [1779]




Hit %: 48.2%
Avg Hit: 217
Damage/Attack: 104.6
Jayya, Rogue (Old, ~1100-1150ish AC) [892]




Kaioken times two. I'm not good enough at math to figure out what happened here.



Hit %: 42%
Avg Hit: 193
Damage/Attack: 81
Teslacoil, Monk, Raid Geared (1300ish AC?) [717]



Hit %: 33.3
Avg Hit: 296
Damage/Attack: 98.6
Zyzzx, Monk, Sub-60 ALS Leveling Geared [72]




Neato, thanks for posting these. Is Zyzzx over the weight limit?

[7thGate]

Neato, thanks for posting these. Is Zyzzx over the weight limit?

I'm not sure; I think this was from a 2020 raid I led in pom, and I don't remember much except that I think he was sub-60.

[cd288]

Why do rogs /monks / rangers/ intentionally try and get aggro in group content as if they are helping the group so how. Can anyone explain this though process behind this.
If you have a tank in the group and the mob is rooted why are the intentionally getting as close to the mob as possible? Or they are not using evade or FDing at all and rng opening up with flame lick. Am I missing something? How is this helpful in any way? Isn’t it making more work for the healer and wasting more mana which = more downtime for everyone? So just wasting everyone’s time to feel “leet”? I’m confused someone enlighten me pls.

If it's a situation where Root has been applied, then it's probably just people who don't know that the mob attacks the closest player to it.

[Evia]

You have bad gear. Maybe save up for something nicer like Crystal Chitin. Hope this helps.


Omg dramatic update. Prioritize AC/HP instead of haze panther garbage. YW

Why are you so rude?
Yeah I don’t gear my rogue to tank
Sorry this offends you

[aussenseiter]

Why are you so rude?
Yeah I don’t gear my rogue to tank
Sorry this offends you

That's good because going from 1100 AC to 1250 AC adds up to two or three rounds of damage mitigated over ~2000 hits

[7thGate]

That's good because going from 1100 AC to 1250 AC adds up to two or three rounds of damage mitigated over ~2000 hits

Going from 1100ish to 1250 AC reduced damage taken by 11 per attack. Vs. Puppets, that's about 1 combat round out of 10 mitigated, or about 80 attacks worth of damage mitigated out of the 800ish stacks taken.

[Toxigen]

AC is godlike until you get to raid mobs

all knows

[7thGate]

I feel like it works on some raid mobs, especially lower tier ones, and less so on others. Not a lot of hard parsing for that conclusion though. I do remember looking through a parse on Talendor where a defensive war was taking damage at a rate where they had like 47 seconds before they would have needed a heal. A lot of that's defensive being great, but AC was mitigating a lot too.

Avatar of War on the other hand has the silliest hit distribution I've ever seen. Based on the hit distribution and what I've been able to puzzle out of the combat math it seems like it basically has infinite attack, or at the very least something like 20000 ATK or some such silly number. I believe an infinite attack mob will max hit 50% of the time, and then have an even distribution of the remaining 50% of hits across the other 19 damage intervals...and that's essentially exactly what I've seen on every AoW parse I've ever looked at.

[Jimjam]

I feel like it works on some raid mobs, especially lower tier ones, and less so on others. Not a lot of hard parsing for that conclusion though. I do remember looking through a parse on Talendor where a defensive war was taking damage at a rate where they had like 47 seconds before they would have needed a heal. A lot of that's defensive being great, but AC was mitigating a lot too.

Avatar of War on the other hand has the silliest hit distribution I've ever seen. Based on the hit distribution and what I've been able to puzzle out of the combat math it seems like it basically has infinite attack, or at the very least something like 20000 ATK or some such silly number. I believe an infinite attack mob will max hit 50% of the time, and then have an even distribution of the remaining 50% of hits across the other 19 damage intervals...and that's essentially exactly what I've seen on every AoW parse I've ever looked at.

I believe even at the time (2001) AoW was famed for being unmitigatable. He was also an interest as it was pretty much the only NPC that had levels of AC equivalent to PCs (something that p99 doesn't really replicate - on this server loads of mobs have decent AC).

[cd288]

it was pretty much the only NPC that had levels of AC equivalent to PCs (something that p99 doesn't really replicate - on this server loads of mobs have decent AC).

Omg is that Nilbog's music!?

[aussenseiter]

Going from 1100ish to 1250 AC reduced damage taken by 11 per attack. Vs. Puppets, that's about 1 combat round out of 10 mitigated, or about 80 attacks worth of damage mitigated out of the 800ish stacks taken.

Tell me you know how to do math without telling me you know why to do math.

[Tnair]

(1) theyre twinkes and lazy on leveling their twentieth character (so theyre bad at their class)

(2) theyre enjoying stealing aggro to show off their dps power (so theyre bad at their class, but on purpose kinda)

(3) they are purposefully trying to share damage to get the most out of group regen or heals

(4) they are iust having fun. my preferred way to enliven a xp group as a rogue is to drink 50 alcohols, or make jokes about smoking a quick bowl of Indica Brotherhood. but to each their own i guess