How melee aggro works?
 

Is it known exactly how aggro works from melee? My understanding was the only factors, discounting procs, were the listed DMG+damage bonus from mainhand weapon only, listed DMG on offhand (no dmg bonus for offhand) and from there, flat aggro being applied per swing. I also was under the impression proc chance (ppm) is simply halved if a weapon is in the offhand, and that double/triple attacks have no effect on proc rate, a single swing will proc equally as often as a triple attack, unsure on double/triple attacks effect on swing aggro. For example, I thought a 200 point crippling blow and a hit for 2 do the same amount of aggro, and a single miss or triple landed hit results in the same chance to proc. I thought misses did the same aggro as hits as well, or at least more than zero.

However, I was talking to a level 57 warrior friend of mine, and he said aggro is just 1 damage = 1 aggro, applying to DD's as well. He also said every single one hander has an equal DMG bonus of 9, and that only two handed weapons have varying DMG bonuses, I thought both scaled based on delay. I don't understand this, as it doesn't seem to favor the use of Mosscovered Twig in mainhand. He claims he was the main tank for an uberguild on live and that the MCT was outclassed quickly in Kunark, before the secondary-only nerf. I really don't remember things that way, but I very well may be wrong too.

Looking through my old screenshots, in Kunark era I see my guilds' warriors using staff (MCT) nearly without exception once it became popular, and then later double dagger, presumably Blood Points? Maybe Croaking Dirks? And finally, late Kunark/beginning of Velious it looks like Red epic blade + Feverblade or blue epic, but I think we only ever killed Hoshkar once in Kunark (I think he actually was kind enough to kill himself for us) and we got four Feverblades... which were "11/20 + high aggro 110dd" according to my screenshot.. yet they're 11/18 on p99... but that's neither here nor there I guess. Then Willsapper appears to be a mainstay all throughout Velious, with a variety of offhands: I see whips, katanas, various primals, sceptres, claws, harpoons, epics, etc. Seem to recall Warrior epic being complained about often, which makes me question how proc aggro works here compared to live. Two handers are super rare across the board on my old raids, aside from SK epics. Again, this is just based off of screenshots and memory from my time on Tarew Marr and VZ.

As far as spell aggro, I've noticed a few things. Tashanian seems to be dramatically more aggro than Malo, despite Malo being 45x4 resists, and Tash being 41x1, and both unresistable. I am assuming the Poison counter is the key here. Tash aggro also seems to be higher aggro on harder mobs, leading me to believe it scales with HP, which I *think* is how it worked on live? I seem to recall a patch on live that addressed this issue, but again, purely memory and maybe entirely wrong.

On fungus dudes or juggos for example, I can Malo, then Malosini, then Turgur's, and typically don't pull aggro off a charmed krup. Then I see the Enchanter cast Tashanian on it after, as their first spell, and it'll summon them. However, if I do one Bane or Cripple, I typically get summoned as well. So I'm left to believe that poison counters and atk debuffs (blind?) scale with mob level or hp, and other debuffs including disease counters, slow, resist debuffs, and stun are flat amounts, although not necessarily all the same amount. DD's seem to be simply based on damage and DoTs a combo of initial and per tick, possibly with the initial aggro portion being based on whether or not it has poison/disease counters.

Resists don't appear to affect things here for the most part, and I am unsure if whether or not you are re-applying a debuff factors in at all. Resists certainly produced aggro on live as well, otherwise Willsapper wouldn't have been so popular. Did red sword proc do less aggro on resists? Does it here? Aside from the fact that getting things slowed was hugely important in that era, WS proc was massive aggro even if it were resisted or "unable to land" aka Turgur's was on. It was common for others to swap WS out/stop meleeing once slow landed, iirc. Earthcaller (another non-disease counter slow like WS) seems to do much less aggro here than I remember it being on live, so there may be some discrepancy.

Anyways, if anything is well understood about this, I'd be interested to hear. I tried to search around forums/wiki as I'm sure this has been discussed at length, but couldn't find much surprisingly.

Swing/misses count too i believe. Hence why ppl want low delay
begging, taunt, harsh language is up to u tho

Lots of things:

Hit/miss generate same aggro yes.

I wasn't ever clear on if crippling blows increase aggro due to them having a small 0.1 second stun component which is what allows them to interrupt spells. I doubt that has any aggro since Bash doesn't have much aggro, but it may?

The one hander DMG bonus is main-hand only. Taken from the wiki:

Which is why a fast weapon in primary is good, you get that bonus damage added regardless of the weapon delay.

Cucumbers has a post about warrior epic proc aggro that never really generated a response but it seemed to have decent evidence if I recall. The proc was apparently bad for awhile?

Your observation of Tash is correct. Poison Counters generate aggro, as do Disease Counters (thus why SKs use Disease Cloud) and so do debuffs, particularly AC debuffs (but also ATK, Resist, Stat debuffs and Snares/Slows/Blinds) for some reason (thus why Rangers use Flame Lick for aggro). Malo should generate a decent chunk of aggro just not as much as Tash since it doesn't get a cure counter. Aggro shouldn't generate any differently based on mob HP.

Malo->Malosini->Slow should most certainly pull you aggro with a warrior tank, not so much with a knight tank though.

Spell Hate is frontloaded. A Sunstrike for 1615 or a resisted Sunstrike generate the same aggro. Also, a Concussion that lands and a Resisted Concussion (or Jolt) reducing the same amount of aggro. The aggro calculation is done before the resist check. Which is why Willsapper is a good aggro weapon, even though it may resist a lot, it still generates a lot of aggro.

Earthcaller generates a lot of aggro here. A lot of rangers die when they proc it too early on raids when warriors aren't using mallets.

Whoa, what guild is op in? That kind of thinking is betraying of a skilled player behind that keyboard.

Thus why it has the alternate name amongst Rangers of 'Deathcaller'.

On live, during DoN (which is when I read up on peoples thoughts on aggro), it seemed that resists produced aggro a sizable fraction of what a successful cast would achieve (so not as much, but still a decent amount). Some spells were known to scale with either level or hp (which is why stuns produced such an absurd amount of aggro).

The 1 damage : 1 aggro wasn't correct; a swing does the same damage regardless of hit or miss. I remember on my live warrior gearing my AA to produce extra swings (through flurries and so on) as that improved aggro and dps, whereas my berserker I would consider more pure dps AA such as improving crits.

I am sure I read on dev mentioning that melee stuns have been bugged since conception as they were meant to generate similar aggro to spell stuns (where patently they don't). So I guess that leaves the question about aggro from crip blows up in the air.


I hope these half recalled memories help and some of them hopefully remain appropriate to p1999!

I wouldn't take the word of someone on the game mechanics just because they are high level. A lot of dedication, or even skill, in the game doesn't mean they have anything more than a gut understanding of the nuances of mechanics. Your approach is better OP; look at the facts, compare the differences and run tests.

Thanks for the feedback guys, lots of helpful replies.

Daldaen, with a warrior it's so heavily based on how many procs they get, which is why I compared it to a charmed krup, maybe easier to gauge as their aggro is more steady. But, I've been really surprised at how little aggro Malo produces.

Here's from a patch on Feb 21, 2001 someone was kind enough to link me, that contains some interesting notes.

Guess that confirms my memory about HP being a factor on live at one point. (bolded part) Haven't a clue if it is here or not, seemingly not? And, that last patch note kind of explains why I see so many rogues with Willsappers & Sceptres of Destruction, and to a lesser degree Baton of Flame in my old screenies. My brother was a Rogue in the same guild and I recall a time when he used two Scepters of Destruction, and would just swap in Epic dagger to click backstab, repeat. Rangers were left out of the fun.

guild pally on Inny 2.0 classic raid proc'd his sword of mourning and got splatted for it at like 95%

will never 4get

stuns were retarded amounts of aggro, esp ones with damage components

dunno bout changing how much aggro these things cause through various points of the timeline, happy researchin'

found more info someone might find interesting. Reminded me how nice Vyemm rune whip was.

Agro, Pathing depends one hell of a lot, zone to zone, on who designed that zone in the beginning. You can tell by their siginature who designed each. There IS a difference. :cool: