Spells: Enc spell hate too much?

[Durden]

Originally Posted by Wenai [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I had a SHD twink that I leveled to 50. I remember Disease Cloud working crazily good. So I sat down with Nilbog one afternoon and we manually changed the amount of hate associated with Disease cloud to try and make it feel right.

I have to agree with the idea that there is something in the code that adds the two distinct hates for multiple effects caused by one spell together as if it were two different spells without mitigating it at all (because it's coming from one cast and not two). For what it's worth, a mage and I could burn through red gnoll reavers easily in EK if I (shaman) simply pulled with a Poison DoT and kited the mob in circles around the mage - his fire pet (taunt off) attacking all the while and him nuking it down. I realize that the DoT is supposed to generate massive hate via an initial damage DD as well as a DoT component that lingers - and this definitely makes a difference, as a resist would lead to me losing the mob's attention rather quickly - but it seems odd that a mob would continue to put me #1 on its hate list when the mage ended up doing ~80% of the total damage needed to kill it. I realize that this damage is split between the pet and the mage, but both have easily outdamaged me by the time the mob is near or under 40% health, and it still won't even glance at them.

As far as what Wenai said, yes, SK hate generation is basically the shit, but iirc it was that way on live as well (to some extent). I have to wait a good few seconds to cast anything on a mob when a warrior is attacking/taunting, but I can basically unload if I want the second the SK lands one spell and not worry about drawing the mob off him at all. I've grouped with quite a few SKs who stress having someone else pull so they can med in between mobs, and if pays off because the mobs that come in end up sticking to the SK like glue, but that was why people desired SKs as tank on live - whatever adjustments you and Nilbog made to spells like Disease Cloud seem pretty accurate, Wenai.

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Slayn [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I have read several guides on archived castersrealm websites and allakhazam websites that have detailed comments from players on soloing strategies and techniques. Many of these comments provide hints about how much threat is generated from certain spells. For instance, many of these guides begin with the enchanter opening with spells like tash and choke, followed by the enc pet immediately gaining aggro after the enc is hit by damage.

On project 1999, this is hardly the case. If I open with tash (the lowest hate-building enc spell at the moment it seems), it normally takes my pet at least 2 taunts and/or 50 damage to gain aggro. If I open with choke, the mob will beat on me it's entire life unless I root or whirl it. Additionally, any debuffs like incapacitate or mesmerize will cause a mob to beat on me until it is dead even if my pet or group does 100% of the damage dealt.

In classic, I played an Enchanter through Velious and into Luclin, and the only spell that ever caused this much hate was charm. In project 1999, it seems that the hate generated by charm is one of the lowest hate generating spells there is. While spells like these did generate a large amount of hate in classic, Project 1999's numbers seem to be a bit off.

Some might say that the hate generated by these spells are the same as in classic, however, through research of classic-era posts from many different users, and from personal experience, I am convinced that something is not right. If Enchanter spells are working correctly, then something else is not functioning correctly such as threat generated by malee damage and/or taunt.

- Slayn, 19 Enchanter

Maybe you got a point, but there's so much complaining alongside legitimate bugs that it's hard to tell the differnece. Many many people use the term "bug" too liberally, to complain about an aspect of the game they don't like.

Mes isn't just a debuff. Once you cast it, you should "dazzle" them so they don't come on you. Otherwise, casting mes on mobs will aggro them on you once they come out of it (this is how it works anyway in the classic mm's). (this is modern eq) I been in a lot of mm's where the chanter messes htem and then gets raped because he didn't dazzle em (prolly mess'd himself tho cuz he's too close).

[guineapig]

While I agree that you should always memory blur a mezzed mob when in a group or at least root it if it's not a caster, agro is way off where it should be. Some of the spells do seem mixed up a bit, but in general if you ever played chanter before you should expect to be the most hated member of the team most of the time.

That being said, it is manageable once you get the timing of the group down. I for one wait a bit longer before I tash/slow or tash/debuff when I have a Warrior tank then when I have an SK or Paly tank and that's pretty much the way I have always done it.

With an SK tank I can pretty much start casting at 98%, with a Paly I would say start casting at 95%, with a warrior wait till 90%. Of course that depends on what you are casting and how fast you cast a follow up spell.

[Takon]

Having started an enchanter alt, I've noticed a bit of this, too. I gained aggro way more easily than others in my group. I noticed something else that I thought was a bit odd. I'm not sure how this was in classic, as I never had an enchanter then, but I was not only gaining a ton of aggro from spells, but I was gaining aggro from spell RESISTS.

I cast my choke spell on a mob and had it resisted, so I cast again. The spell was again resisted. However, at this point, with me having done no damage at all to the mob (nor having debuffed, mezed, hit it with anything!) the mob turned on me and attacked... and it took several rounds for the group to pull aggro away. And all this with me having done NOTHING to harm the mob.

This seemed more than a bit odd. Addmitedly, this was a low level EC orc group so I don't know if this happens at highter levels, but it seemed quite odd to gain aggro from two resisted spells.

Playing a wiz on '99 and having played one up through lvl 70 or some shit on live, my experience shows this working as normal. I actually think resists generate more agro than damaged nukes, through several years of testing.

[Zinyen]

Originally Posted by Takon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Playing a wiz on '99 and having played one up through lvl 70 or some shit on live, my experience shows this working as normal. I actually think resists generate more agro than damaged nukes, through several years of testing.

Yes. Resists caused more hate in classic EQ than the normal spell. Also, Enc spells like Chaotic Feedback were incredible threat, and back then we always assumed it was because of the damage+stun component it had. I remember dreading chaotic feedback being resisted, because it was going to be such high threat.

[Gaaaaavin]

Originally Posted by Zinyen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yes. Resists caused more hate in classic EQ than the normal spell. Also, Enc spells like Chaotic Feedback were incredible threat, and back then we always assumed it was because of the damage+stun component it had. I remember dreading chaotic feedback being resisted, because it was going to be such high threat.

That's good to know, thanks! Like I said, I never played any pure casters beyond the first few levels back in classic. This is good to know for the future. Thanks!

[Samuel]

Does anyone remember how much hate the Malo line of spells caused in classic? I didn't play a shaman in classic (played a druid and warrior) so I can't comment. However, I spent a lot of time as a shaman after velious and the malo line of spells caused a very small amount of hate. On this server malo causes a LOT of hate (which may be correct, as I said I don't know).

[argamath]

Tash line is not enough aggro, other enchanter spells are too much aggro. Much different than live.

[Smashed]

Another thing to consider is the terribly high aggro on these spells is only disguised to the rest of the group members by the fact that whirl till you hurl is so powerful. But considering the people playing enc on this server, I doubt the people in charge will let anything bad happen to the class?

[Elerion]

The descriptions in this thread match how it worked in Live pretty well.

Tash was always high hate for such a "small" spell. Many times higher than for the Malo line. The general consensus in the chanter community back then was that this was due to it adding poison counters, which causes significant additional hate. See Disease Cloud (disease counter, but similar hate effect). This is a major reason why shamans were preferred slowers - they could consistently land their slow much sooner, while enchanters had to gamble on a non-tash slow or wait until the tank had built heavy aggro before they could tash.

Enchanter nuke line was always massive hate compared to similar spells by other casters. This is due to it doing a stun effect, which is massive hate. See paladin low level stuns, and how they were used to create unbeatable hate during PoP. Somewhere around PoP the stun was removed from the later enchanter nukes to counter this effect.

Charm was always very high hate, as we all know.

Mesmerize was always very significant hate. There are two reasons why this may have been disguised to you in the past.
First off, later mezzes have significant chances to memblur the mob (30%). Classic mezzes only have a 1% chance to do this, which gives them an illusion of being higher hate.
Second, back in the day most competent tanks knew that you should taunt mezzed mobs until it landed (Noted by the 'I'll teach you to interfere with me' line if the mob can speak), which would put them above the enchanter regardless of how much hate the enchanter had amassed (ignoring hate bonus technicalities). If your tank isn't landing taunt or using massive aggro spells like disease cloud/stuns, you will find a mob that has been mezzed multiple times will be very hard to peel.