Decaying agro for hybrids, but maintain burst agro

[Kaesorn]

I originally posted this idea in Knights - still second rate tanks without aggro lock? (http://steelwarrior.xwarzone.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=901), but decided it could probably fit better in it's own thread.

One of the major arguments for hybrids having such powerful agro generation abilities is burst agro through their spells. Hybrid tanks excel at this. However, with the ability to sustain this "burst" agro due to mana regen and low costs, combined with small overall difference in tanking ability on hybrid tanks and warriors with equal equipment, makes hybrids a better tank in the eyes of several people. Many threads are present on this message board about this exact topic, and the presence of high DPS exp mobs in PoP, where leveling to 65 forced the majority of people to go, made this high agro control much more of a "necessity" to the average group. One change probably could not solve this, it will most likely be made better with several changes, such as making places outside PoP possible for exping for 61+ characters, as well as the grouping bonus increase to make grouping better outside PoP. These two don't help those inside PoP tho.

Many recent ideas involve changing the taunt ability (I support lowering the refresh on it by a couple seconds), lowering agro on hybrid spells (I support lowering the agro given from stuns to which mobs are immune), changing/adding discs (unlocking the single timer for them is an interesting one), and a variety of interesting ideas.

I feel whatever change needs to keep the setup hybrds have of burst agro, by making it where that burst agro does not stay around forever.

They recently changed the agro system, right? Why not make it where hybrid spell agro will depreciate over time? The paladin can stun the mob and gain agro, but unless he keeps going or can do a lot of melee damage, that stun agro will disappear after a while and he'll have to stun again to regain it. Kinda like how if you get slapped, it hurts a lot at first, but the pain slowly goes away. The "benefit" to warriors (or just pure melee in general) that their agro won't drop on the list, it'll stay wherever it's at, but hybrid spell agro will slowly depreciate. It fits right in with the whole idea that hybrids use their spells to gain agro so the slower/etc doesn't die(burst agro).

Then, if they want, they can alter it to however they see fit...say Paladins, Rangers, and Beastlords can gain agro fast with stuns, snares, etc, but it drops somewhat quickly, whereas Shadowknights are designed for agro and they don't drop as fast, and warriors simply don't drop at all, and can maintain it like they normally do.

Of course, it'd have to be figured out how to work Taunt with this...

[Timmok]

Why not leave the job of coming up with poorly thought out nerfs to SOE?

And I fail to see how this idea in any way helps with the agro issues non-uber warriors are having in exp groups.

[Valeris]

it's the initial overwhelming aggro as the mob runs in that allows immediate landing of slows and almost garanteed aggro that is the problem, if it decays too fast (so that the mob flips back to the caster etc a second or two later) then it's as much use as having no burst aggro ability. If the decay is slow enough the knight can use the time to lock aggro via other means (recasting or DPS) then it does nothing to address the problem....

I don't really see this as an effective balancing measure from anyones viewpoint.

Val

[Synapticus]

I think that's a horrible idea, and completely unnecessary.
An SK can automatically drop his aggro by FD.
A Paladin has built-in decaying aggro by Slow 2 handers and (usually) lower than warrior DPS.

[Glatius2]

I think that's a horrible idea, and completely unnecessary.
An SK can automatically drop his aggro by FD.
A Paladin has built-in decaying aggro by Slow 2 handers and (usually) lower than warrior DPS.

You fail to see the point. No one is saying that SHD/PALs have a problem losing aggro. The problem is that they gain it too easily. Having it decay over time would require them to actually 'chain' cast to keep aggro high, rather than burst casting a few spells when engaging and cruising from there.

The idea isn't a bad one, I'm just not sure it would have exactly the effect intended.

Edit: For example, it occurs to me that a Paladin could chain stun a boss mob a few times using this technique, have a Warrior AE taunt right afterwards, and know that the Paladin would rather quickly drop down the aggro list as long as he didn't stun anymore. Seems like it makes aggro transfers that much safer.

[Synapticus]

Alright, I misunderstood you.

I play an SK and a Pally, so I have to say this "decaying aggro" you speak of already exists. If i don't chain-cast aggro generating spells, I am guaranteed to lose aggro against a wizard, rogue, or monk by virtue of their high DPS's; that is of unless I generated such a huge aggro lead in the beginning and the fight ends before I lose the aggro (or alternately, they caught up with me), which is what occasionally happens.

Edit:
P.S. that method you mention is aggro piggybacking (or called start aggro, whatever) and is use it all the time to allow the warrior to tank in a group. In an XP group, saves the Cleric a crap load of mana by just having to heal only the warrior. In a raid, allows the warrior to call assist much earlier.
Once a warrior taunt is successful, I FD, then lifetap my HP back. The warrior effectively has my aggro, and everyone else can start attacking. Just this method alone, I can say that warrior taunt is not broken. In fact, this shows that a warrior can actually work with, not against a Knight to maximize the efficiency of the group.

[Mathas]

The "benefit" to warriors (or just pure melee in general) that their agro won't drop on the list, it'll stay wherever it's at, but hybrid spell agro will slowly depreciate
You realize that's really not going to fix anything, right?

The main problem is your average warrior's ability to generate and maintain aggro efficiently. This solution does nothing to fix that. Those same warriors will still have the same issues, and knights will just have to cast a couple times more per fight to keep aggro on them the entire time.

Basically, your whole idea just sucks an extra 10% mana(tops) out of a knight, for no real change in the situation.

[Kaesorn]

You do realize tho that there really isn't going to be one simple fix for the problems warriors have, right? Hell, a good amount of warriors won't even admit there IS a problem, because they're at a stage in the game where they don't see one.

I never meant this to fix everything, just an idea, which is what others are doing. Paladins and Shadowknights have "burst agro", they can gain it really fast. Problem is, this agro doesn't go away unless they use their special abilities to make it go away (and paladins have none, only certain ways to gain LESS agro than others, which isn't always the case). I know it'd flawed, better a bad idea than no idea, tho.

[Donnel]

I think it's a fine idea and I applaud your effort.

However, I don't think it would really solve the problem. How long do fights really last? How quickly would the agro generated by the Knight have to dissipate? Seeing as how Cleric and Paladin's share the same stun spells, 2 clerics and a Pally rotating their stuns could keep a mob stunned indefinately since each's "stun" aggro would go away so fast.

This wouldn't work in the long run, so the idea needs tooling.

[Remf da Troll]

Like folks have said, interesting idea, but probably wouldn't address the issue (snap aggro/general desirability of the class). Would also be a stone biatch to code I'd imagine...

RdT.

[Khumak]

It's an interesting idea but I don't think it would help much. It would increase the amount of mana a knight would have to use to maintain aggro throughout a fight, but it wouldn't address the "initial aggro" problem at all. In PoP fights, by far the most critical part of the fight is right at the beginning before the mob is slowed. Most warriors with decent weapons don't have much trouble maintaining aggro once they have it, it's gaining initial aggro that's the problem.

Knights can cast a couple of quick spells at the beginning to lock aggro long enough for slow to land. Once slow lands the cleric could tank if he wants, it doesn't much matter. Before slow lands it makes a big difference. This wouldn't do anything to improve warrior initial aggro or reduce knight initial aggro.

[Adarian]

Compromize idea. Leave paladin aggro alone 100% and add in a new warrior ability.
Most of you warriors are complaing about initial aggro not really holding onto it once the mob is slowed and on you. So what you do is make a new warrior ability called "Fierce challenge"
Now what fierce challenge does is give you a instant cast push button amount of aggro right off the bat. Make it scale due to level but i will go with the lvl 65 version for explanation.
At lvl 65 the fierce challenge ability would do 3 things when pushed. It woould give 1000 aggro to the warrior on that mob. Second it would put a buff up on the mob and third it would put a buff up on the warrior. The buff on the mob works like the C Heal buff from the kunark Cleric BP. basically it stops any other fierce challenge from beiing dealt to the mob. The buff on the warrior works differently. It is a Deaggro over time. Lasts 4 ticks and every tick it makes you loose 200 aggro. So overall you still get a push button spell that is 200 aggro even after the deaggro is over but it is 1000 aggro at the start when you need it most to keep the mob off the slower.
This leaves paladins and SK's as the 100% aggro lock champ and still answers the problem of initial aggro for warriors. Will paladins and SK's still be able to keep the mob on them 100% of the time? Yes. Will warriors be able to keep the slower alive with this and then be able to keep the mob on them unless someone does some pretty damn high aggro? Yes.

[Khumak]

Thinking about it a little more I thought of a variation on your idea that might work. Instead of knight spell aggro decaying, why not make it generate aggro over time instead of instantly? They could still toss in a few stuns at the beginning of a fight and guarantee a huge boost to aggro but it wouldn't take effect instantly so slow might still draw aggro at the beginning.