Spells: Buffs not causing hate/aggro?

[DMN]

So I was looking at some videos and stumbled across a druid on P99 who charmed a mob, several mobs then aggro'd and attacked the charmed mob. Then the druid cast one of the damage shields on the charmed mob.

What next happened is the important part. The mobs did not react at all. In classic all those mobs would have instantly aggro'd on the druid who cast the buff.

Is this happening with all buffs on P99 or is it just related to damage shields?(most stat buffs and damage shield would also incur aggro/hate by the other mobs who see it being cast on their target).

The video is from feb 09 so not that old.

[Dolalin]

This isn't actually true, DMN.

Torven did a lot of research into classic hate mechanics, I am unsure of how much of this Haynar has patched into the game as yet. But there are several effects that would mean casting a DS on your pet would not necessarily cause the NPCs to instantly turn on the druid.

First, there is a witness check for the buff. Just because the druid cast the buff on their pet doesn't mean all the NPCs see it, there is a roll to see if they do. If they do, hate is added.

Secondly, the hate for such a buff is actually quite low.

Many/most buffs are a flat 9 hate, even if they have a heal component.

Resist buffs, cleric hitpoint buffs, see invis were 9. Even when the cleric hitpoint buff resulted in healing, the hate value was still 9. Skin like wood was 25 for whatever reason. I didn't test very many buffs.

NPCs can fail a 'witness check' (Sony's term, mentioned in patch notes) in which case they will completely ignore a beneficial spell cast by a player which is in their hate list.

This means you can cast a heal on somebody tanking a NPC and have a chance to not get on the NPC's hate list at all. This is why healing is less effective than hitting NPCs for getting faction hits in groups/raids.

Finally, there is a bonus to hate for being in melee range, which the pet is, and the druid is not:

Temporary Hate Bonuses

The hate bonus for being in melee range is...

For NPCs with less than 4000 hitpoints, bonus = 100.

So on account of both of those effects, if the charmed pet were the first to aggro the mobs, I would not expect buffing the charmed pet to instantly cause the mobs to turn on the druid.

http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=39819

[DMN]

Well, I think this "low hate" might not have been true for damage shields. On my druid/enchanter/mage if I hit a tank with a damage shield as they were brought back to the group, I'd always eat a ton of aggro.

I could see one of the the enemies sticking to the charmed mob if it had been damaged, increasing the hate for the charmed pet, but the other mobs would have still broken and aggro'd the druid.

Edit: you know maybe it was that the so-called "melee" range being talked about was actually bigger than "true melee range"? or rather it's not truly melee range but a smallish "circle of hate influence" they think is simply melee range, and that's the difference? I certainly didn't spend my time casting damage shields in actual melee range with those characters if i could avoid it. But it was certainly common to fight in smallish rooms and passageways and such. So perhaps the bubble/circle of hate was a bit larger.

also it's kinda sad he appears to not have tested damage shields. in all those hate tests.