SK aggro scaling

[Manguadi]

I'm just going to copy paste a response I meant for that other thread but as Wold suggested we should use another thread to discuss aggro.

An inherent chance would still be static, the problem isn't the aggro itself from terrors, it's that it doesn't scale.

I'd say damage increment would probably be best, its not a very useful focus for shadowknights right now and it makes more sense than bane (plus i dont think SK gear is equipped with bane).

In other words, all add hate effects would be increased by damage increment.

I think you are wrong about damage increment on a shadowknight not being very useful. In fact, I'd say it is their most useful focus effect. Between their spears and deflux and procs I can't think of a focus an SK would prefer over DI.

As far as scaling goes, I don't really think a focus effect is the best way to get it. Particularly for hybrid classes, finding a specific focus effect is going to be hard since they really weren't itemized to be widely available for non-casters. I mean it's always possible to go back and remedy this, but that may be a bit of work. Also, there really isn't a smooth progression for focuses for either raiding or buyable gear. You can buy items fairly cheaply with DI4, with a bit of cash you can get DI5, and for many, the first piece of raid DI they will see is 6 or 7. It seems to me that putting increased hate on a focus effect would provide the illusion of scaling, but for the majority it's just going to be the same business with more hate; not many will be able to look forward to their hate improving with new gear.

Another issue with using existing focus effects is that it sets a cap that becomes a baseline instead of an exciting improvement. For example, you can't be a Wizard without DI so there's nothing exciting about getting that focus; it's just a headache to keep it on your gear while maximizing mana. Also, the scaling would be limited unless there were non-caster usable DI that went well above 7.

Instead of using a focus effect, I would suggest that overcap +aggro mods go towards terror aggro. This would have a whole list of benefits for SKs.

1) They would have the opportunity to have an aggro set of gear for specific circumstances.
2) Items with very high +aggression have value beyond their ability to supplement non-aggro items (think about the stupid crit strike items with +3 and more).
3) There would be significant differences from SK to SK since not all guilds hit all their targets with the same regularity, even on the same tier.
4) The scaling range would be vastly larger and there's no reitemization necessary to ensure access throughout the tiers.
5) No necessary focus effect. This part strikes me as similar to the elemental damage mod to spells. It's not meant to be something you are required to maximize and keep on your character; it's just a bonus. As a bonus, it would just be more fun.
6) Using damage increment would mean that an SK could look forward to a single hate improvement in all of ikisith. Using +aggro would essentially enable uncapped scaling. Even jenks only has +12% aggression.
7) The SK would be able to make a choice about how much aggro he thought he needed. One SK could decide that 20% would be great, and another could be satisfied with having all aggro being capped at the regular 10% mod.

However, in keeping with the spirit of adding a terror improvement that also scales, current +aggro mods would need to be tweaked to affect terrors differently. Perhaps +1 aggro would be +3% terror or something like that. This would provide scaling for all tiers and include the aggro improvement suggested by using a DI focus.

 

[gormine]

I'm just going to copy paste a response I meant for that other thread but as Wold suggested we should use another thread to discuss aggro.



I think you are wrong about damage increment on a shadowknight not being very useful. In fact, I'd say it is their most useful focus effect. Between their spears and deflux and procs I can't think of a focus an SK would prefer over DI.

As far as scaling goes, I don't really think a focus effect is the best way to get it. Particularly for hybrid classes, finding a specific focus effect is going to be hard since they really weren't itemized to be widely available for non-casters. I mean it's always possible to go back and remedy this, but that may be a bit of work. Also, there really isn't a smooth progression for focuses for either raiding or buyable gear. You can buy items fairly cheaply with DI4, with a bit of cash you can get DI5, and for many, the first piece of raid DI they will see is 6 or 7. It seems to me that putting increased hate on a focus effect would provide the illusion of scaling, but for the majority it's just going to be the same business with more hate; not many will be able to look forward to their hate improving with new gear.

Another issue with using existing focus effects is that it sets a cap that becomes a baseline instead of an exciting improvement. For example, you can't be a Wizard without DI so there's nothing exciting about getting that focus; it's just a headache to keep it on your gear while maximizing mana. Also, the scaling would be limited unless there were non-caster usable DI that went well above 7.

Instead of using a focus effect, I would suggest that overcap +aggro mods go towards terror aggro. This would have a whole list of benefits for SKs.

1) They would have the opportunity to have an aggro set of gear for specific circumstances.
2) Items with very high +aggression have value beyond their ability to supplement non-aggro items (think about the stupid crit strike items with +3 and more).
3) There would be significant differences from SK to SK since not all guilds hit all their targets with the same regularity, even on the same tier.
4) The scaling range would be vastly larger and there's no reitemization necessary to ensure access throughout the tiers.
5) No necessary focus effect. This part strikes me as similar to the elemental damage mod to spells. It's not meant to be something you are required to maximize and keep on your character; it's just a bonus. As a bonus, it would just be more fun.
6) Using damage increment would mean that an SK could look forward to a single hate improvement in all of ikisith. Using +aggro would essentially enable uncapped scaling. Even jenks only has +12% aggression.
7) The SK would be able to make a choice about how much aggro he thought he needed. One SK could decide that 20% would be great, and another could be satisfied with having all aggro being capped at the regular 10% mod.

However, in keeping with the spirit of adding a terror improvement that also scales, current +aggro mods would need to be tweaked to affect terrors differently. Perhaps +1 aggro would be +3% terror or something like that. This would provide scaling for all tiers and include the aggro improvement suggested by using a DI focus.

I agree with pretty much all of this. DI is the only focus I really care about for deflux and lifetap procs. Adding the terror benefits to +aggression makes more sense. In more ways than one.

 

[Miffy]

I fully support SK getting better ST agro, or as you have suggested the choice for better agro as they gear up. But there are a few problems with using overcap +aggro. The biggest problem is that unlike with using a focus effect, current or new, most SK do not have the option of going overcap or at least not by very much for a long while into the raiding game. The problem as it stands now is that there is no Progression to SK aggro, unlike warrior and to an extent paladin agro which scales up gradualy. What you are suggesting only gives high tier players the option of more agro when they need it but doesnt address the key problem of SK agro not scaling up through the tiers.

I agree with you about the Damage Inc as well and the only real solution that I can see would be a new focue effect, which of course would mean lots of balancing and itemization/coding fun. Unless there is someway to make tomes effect the terror spells, because thats the real problem here is it not? War and paladin agro is impacted much more by tomes than SK, but there are many classes (read enchanters) who do not benefit greatly from tomes so I really don't know what to say about that.

 

[gormine]

I fully support SK getting better ST agro, or as you have suggested the choice for better agro as they gear up. But there are a few problems with using overcap +aggro. The biggest problem is that unlike with using a focus effect, current or new, most SK do not have the option of going overcap or at least not by very much for a long while into the raiding game. The problem as it stands now is that there is no Progression to SK aggro, unlike warrior and to an extent paladin agro which scales up gradualy. What you are suggesting only gives high tier players the option of more agro when they need it but doesnt address the key problem of SK agro not scaling up through the tiers.

I agree with you about the Damage Inc as well and the only real solution that I can see would be a new focue effect, which of course would mean lots of balancing and itemization/coding fun. Unless there is someway to make tomes effect the terror spells, because thats the real problem here is it not? War and paladin agro is impacted much more by tomes than SK, but there are many classes (read enchanters) who do not benefit greatly from tomes so I really don't know what to say about that.

I'm not sure I understand. You seem to contradict yourself saying it fixes the scaling with tiers problem but then say you can't get aggression items until you progress... Also, I have to disagree. You can get +aggression pretty early on in the raid scene. Especially through tmaps. You can actually cap aggression through tmaps without ever raiding anything.

The one problem I did think of is with effects on items increasing sk taunt, there will be times you have to sacrifice using a better item if you want to taunt more.

 

[Minerz]

I'm not sure I understand. You seem to contradict yourself saying it fixes the scaling with tiers problem but then say you can't get aggression items until you progress... Also, I have to disagree. You can get +aggression pretty early on in the raid scene. Especially through tmaps. You can actually cap aggression through tmaps without ever raiding anything.

The one problem I did think of is with effects on items increasing sk taunt, there will be times you have to sacrifice using a better item if you want to taunt more.

Though you can get +agg early, the problem is through out the tiers you will replace these items with gear that wont have the +agg because there is no consistency through out the tiers with +agg gear. This happens to be the case with a lot of mods. The alternative is always to forgo one or the other.

At tier 5 there might not be as much +agg gear for you to reach cap hence you will sacrifice gear at the tier 5 range to keep in lower tiered gear to make sure you keep the +agg you need.
(Note: I personally have no problem with this because its fair for everyone, we all make sacrifices.)

EXAMPLE

Lets say a haste item, may be very shitty for the tier your now on but without it you will have no haste, hmmm dilemma keep the haste or gain HP/AC and stats that is relevant to the tier your at. (not the best example but i chose that one)

 

[Manguadi]

I fully support SK getting better ST agro, or as you have suggested the choice for better agro as they gear up. But there are a few problems with using overcap +aggro. The biggest problem is that unlike with using a focus effect, current or new, most SK do not have the option of going overcap or at least not by very much for a long while into the raiding game. The problem as it stands now is that there is no Progression to SK aggro, unlike warrior and to an extent paladin agro which scales up gradualy. What you are suggesting only gives high tier players the option of more agro when they need it but doesnt address the key problem of SK agro not scaling up through the tiers.

I agree with you about the Damage Inc as well and the only real solution that I can see would be a new focue effect, which of course would mean lots of balancing and itemization/coding fun. Unless there is someway to make tomes effect the terror spells, because thats the real problem here is it not? War and paladin agro is impacted much more by tomes than SK, but there are many classes (read enchanters) who do not benefit greatly from tomes so I really don't know what to say about that.

I think you misread something in my post. I said that there should be an aggro bonus to terrors for each point of +aggro and it should continue giving that benefit after cap. This way, your aggro scales up through the tiers, and particularly if you have been gearing up through the tiers you're going to have the option of putting some pretty awesome aggro on your character. Unless you're saying that SKs always have +10 aggro throughout every tier, I think this provides the scaling people were asking for.

 

[stope21]

Rider:

Paladin agro also does not scale to the same degree as sk agro.

However, both do actually scale and that comes majorly from their melee dmg. Because of this, and how melee agro works the classes do notice a significant amount of scaling in agro. It just may not be nearly as much as what a warrior sees.

Whatever the case, I have always viewed this as a ratio that changes across teirs. Low teir knights generate a higher amnt of agro in comparison to warriors and every other class. Whereas at high teir knights do not generate a higher amnt of agro in comparison to warriors and every other class. In fact, when comparing their agro to that of a various other high agro generating classes such as a wizard, rogue, etc: The knight must work a lot harder and the other class must work a lot harder to drop agro (which also in the wizards case does not scale). Concussions and jolts reduce the same flat ammount of agro.

This could be an issue where the -agg or +agg modifiers just arnt doing enough as teirs progress, or something else could be implemented to change the flat ammounts of +agg, -agg be more significant throughout teirs.

 

[Miffy]

Instead of using a focus effect, I would suggest that overcap +aggro mods go towards terror aggro. This would have a whole list of benefits for SKs.

I understood this to mean only overcap aggro mod have a higher bonus to terror line, like 3% for each point over 10. If you are suggesting that every point of +agro a SK has benefits their terror line more then yes that makes more sense.

But as Stope points out what about other classes that need to manage agro? Perhaps the real solution is to increase the amount of agro modified by each + or - aggression and / or increase the cap in both directions. This would mean that if a character is having trouble with agro swapping in a piece of gear with agro mod could actually make a difference. Right now it seems to me that +/- a few percent on a spell that is generating what 500? hate is really not enough when people are nuking/meleeing/healing for a lot more than a few percent greater through the tiers thanks to foci, tomes, gear etc.
Aggression mod right now is just too weak with regards to agro modifying spells. I think it functions fine for modifying things that cause agro as a side effect: melee, nuking, healing etc. But things like terror/blind/concussion/jolt need to receive a greater mod to keep them from being static through the tiers.

This is not just a SK problem but an agro problem in general, things that generate agro like melee/spell damage and healing really pick up at higher tiers where as pure agro spells only get a 10% boost. My suggestion is that each point of aggr mod count for something like 5% with regards to spells like terror/blind/concussion/jolt, pure "agro management" spells.

Maybe SK terrors would need a little boost on top of this but it is not at all a SK only problem.

 

[Manguadi]

In my experience this isn't a problem for paladins or shadowknights. While both classes are essentially using the same aggro spells they have for 4+ years, it is still more than sufficient even at the very highest tiers.

The problem isn't that aggro isn't enough, it's just that it isn't scaling. Aggro should get easier as you improve in tiers; it shouldn't just maintain a relative distance in aggro generation between tanks and DPS. Instead of that, DPS is slowly catching up in aggro.

As for your argument that +/- aggro mods should give more both ways, I don't think it's is a good idea. For -aggro classes, the majority either have some massively powerful deaggro ability to begin with such as evade, feign death, jolt+slow bows (which already generate less aggro than melee even with significantly higher dps), or are beastlords and mages who hardly generate any aggro to begin with. Also, the -aggro classes should see their aggro generation increase; -aggro should not attempt to keep them generating as much aggro they did several tiers prior. For +aggro classes, the effect already increases their spell aggro vastly more numerically than their dps aggro. Also you're still showing me that you haven't read my entire post.

This is much less of a problem for paladins than for shadowknights, since each of their aggro spells generate significantly more than a shadowknight, while the two classes ST aggro remains relatively close.

I think if Paladin aggro should scale at all it should come from a different source than SK aggro scaling. The problem with SKs is that their aggro spells simply generate less hate than each paladin spell. I would rather see Paladin aggro generated maybe from their utility or their DPS more than just boosting their already powerful blinds and stuns.

 

[Miffy]

Aggro should get easier as you improve in tiers; it shouldn't just maintain a relative distance in aggro generation between tanks and DPS. Instead of that, DPS is slowly catching up in aggro.

First of all there is not even a "relative distance" that is kept in agro through the tiers. DPS classes get huge boosts from focus effects better gear and Tomes. Agro modifying spells get a max of 10% better, thats nothing compared to the percent increase that DPS and also healers get to their power and as a side effect the hate they generate.
For some this is not a problem, the two you mentioned, rogues can evade and monks can feign. Healers have no such option, wizards must cast concussion more often, with the recent agro changes even rangers need to watch their bow agro. And unlike monks and rogues who can drop agro in an instant and lose little to no dps other classes must actively spend time losing agro. Even rogues can hit a crit backstab and fail an evade leading to their death.
So, why should DPS(wizards, rangers etc) have to work harder to lose agro as they advance, the non progressive state of agro modifying Spells effects agroers and de-agroers a like.

The problem to me is not that agro is unmanageable, but that more and more of the game becomes about being careful not to do too much damage to a mob or heal too hard, especially on adds where lots of agro has not been built up over time. And this comes from spells that at one time were able to snap agro back onto tanks which now take 3+ casts AND the char who pulled agro to actively deagro. My constant example is:

Its a boss fight where adds spawn and my job is to agro the adds when they pop while dps kills them. So, and add pops I cast my two ST agro spells and begin meleeing, a wizard lands a crit blast and pulls agro off of me. The entire rest of the time the add is alive is me reagroing and the wizard standing their trying not to upset the mob any further, even so it takes a good 10 seconds to regain agro.

The problem is not that its really hard, in most cases, to manage agro and keep things on tanks not squishy wizards. The problem is that spells that are meant to make agro management easier become less and less useful at higher tiers, this needs adressing as a whole issue not just SK agro spells.

Also you're still showing me that you haven't read my entire post.

No I just haven't responded to all of it, what do you want me to read?

 

[Manguadi]

For one, a wizard getting a crit nuke generates no more aggro than a non-crit nuke. If you have hit a mob, blinded and divine stunned it, a single nuke will not pull aggro.

I think you're bringing up an entirely different point by arguing that wizards and rangers need to work harder and that it's a bad thing. I really don't think there's anything wrong with working to manage aggro, either on the tank or dps side of things.

Again, my post has nothing to do with the state of aggro on the server. I firmly believe that knight aggro is better than it needs to be as is. I just think it's unfortunate that it doesn't scale, and I wanted to argue the choice of a focus effect to help the scaling issue. If you want to discuss how aggro isn't good enough or how minus aggro should be better, please do it in your own thread.

 

[Gregor]

On trash I might concus once in the beginning of the fight. Other then that it's balls to the wall.

On a named I might concus 3 times total. Once in the beginning, once before caster curse, and once after.

All of that if a warrior is tanking..

If a knight is tanking I rarely even use concus unless it's a blinking mob. Frankly I have no idea why people think a wizard needs to work all that hard to control agro, and thats with me doing full time dps non stop with just about max dps being delt out and nearly 5 full tomes completed. This was even before Greg has -10 agression.

I crit or better like a crazy fool. Like he said crit's or better don't mean much..

Again, my post has nothing to do with the state of aggro on the server. I firmly believe that knight aggro is better than it needs to be as is. I just think it's unfortunate that it doesn't scale, and I wanted to argue the choice of a focus effect to help the scaling issue. If you want to discuss how aggro isn't good enough or how minus aggro should be better, please do it in your own thread.

I fully agree with Mang.

 

[Untasid]

On trash I might concus once in the beginning of the fight. Other then that it's balls to the wall.

On a named I might concus 3 times total. Once in the beginning, once before caster curse, and once after.

All of that if a warrior is tanking..

If a knight is tanking I rarely even use concus unless it's a blinking mob. Frankly I have no idea why people think a wizard needs to work all that hard to control agro, and thats with me doing full time dps non stop with just about max dps being delt out and nearly 5 full tomes completed. This was even before Greg has -10 agression.
.

That's great..............

 

[Vallren]

Again, my post has nothing to do with the state of aggro on the server. I firmly believe that knight aggro is better than it needs to be as is. I just think it's unfortunate that it doesn't scale, and I wanted to argue the choice of a focus effect to help the scaling issue. If you want to discuss how aggro isn't good enough or how minus aggro should be better, please do it in your own thread.

Except that you are talking about +aggro in terms of scaling. In order to suggest something and discuss balancing mechanics you must look at the entire scale, INCLUDING -aggro and the current state of aggro. You can't just be like "Well I don't do enough aggro so fix it with Suggestion A." You need to view and weigh every aspect involved with your issue as a whole.

If you don't and something gets changed, and it is viewed as overpowering, then you need to nerf it to a more reasonable level which makes 99% of the population feel cheated even if it was obviously going to be changed.

Just my 2 cents though. I do agree that there needs to be something higher up (perhaps a tome?) that increases hate generated through spells.

 

[Miffy]

Again, my post has nothing to do with the state of aggro on the server. I firmly believe that knight aggro is better than it needs to be as is. I just think it's unfortunate that it doesn't scale, and I wanted to argue the choice of a focus effect to help the scaling issue.

ok so as you have said:
1. There is nothing wrong with knight agro
2. The problem is agro modifying spells don't scale
3. Focus effects are not the way to implement agro scaling

So, why do you keep saying that this is a SK only issue when many classes have agro modifying spells that don't scale? If knights are fine as is with agro and the only problem you have is that there is no scaling, why do you only seem to care that there is no scaling for SK's. I am just saying this is not a case where shadow knights are broken (you say they are better than needed) but rather the scaling of agro modifying spells is broken. And I agree with you that using a focus effect to bump terror agro is not the way to go and that using agression mod makes more sense but why not improve agression mod's effect on agro modifying spell scaling for all classes in the process?

 

[Manguadi]

I think I've said this before so pardon me if I haven't, but Paladin blinds and stuns generate significantly more hate per cast than the highest level sk terror. This gives you two AE advantages: ae spells that get aggro on you, and single target blinds that keeps it there. If you are casting single target spells on multiple mobs you are generating vastly more hate/sec than a shadowknight because a shadowknight can only generate terrors+a comparatively small assault of shadows on multiple mobs.

I think warrior hate scales fine by getting better weapons, tomes, more haste, more atk, etc. I think Paladin and Shadowknight single target aggro is fine. Anything that improves blinds an equivalent % as terrors is going to give vastly more hate/sec to Paladins. If Paladin aggro were to be made to scale more, I would want it to be done in a different way than Shadowknights and Warrriors.

Except that you are talking about +aggro in terms of scaling. In order to suggest something and discuss balancing mechanics you must look at the entire scale, INCLUDING -aggro and the current state of aggro. You can't just be like "Well I don't do enough aggro so fix it with Suggestion A." You need to view and weigh every aspect involved with your issue as a whole.

I'm responding directly to Wiz's suggestion here. In that thread, it is explicitly stated that SK terrors need to be improved specifically through some means, IE a focus effect. Because Woldaff suggested that aggro discussion be taken elsewhere, I stole Wiz's post and put it in a new thread. I happy to debate all of these points with you and everyone else that is determined to derail my OP, but I'd prefer to do it in your threads instead of mine.

 

[Miffy]

In regards to the OP, SK terrors spells should recieve a small boost to their base hate ammount. This is all that is needed to solve the disparity between SK's and other classes.

The scaling problem is another issue and should be adressed separately and for all classes. Of course SK's having the most hate spells would see more of a benefit from it, especially if their spells are improved to be inline with others. Suggesting that only SK hate spells should scale (from focus or +aggro or anything) while all others remain static does not make any sense.

Perhaps terrors should scale more but you must remember that SK agro spells may deal less hate but they have the advantage of being unresistable and quick casting. From a balance perpective you cannot make SK hate spells equally as powerful in terms of ammount of hate with none of the drawbacks. On resistant or immune mobs a SK generates infinitely more hate/sec than a paladin. This is why SK's have their niche and paladins should be generating more hate/sec on many mobs at once which is their niche.

 

[Gregor]

That's great..............

Of corse it is. I can tell your excited by the sheer number of periods you used.

I was agreeing with what Mang said since knight agro came into question in this thread.

 

[Glamrin]

I suppose it wouldnt be possible to make overcap (hidden strength) stats like str, sta, agi or dex or a combination of all affect agro on terrorline right? (too much code work?)

cuz that would really allow for scaling both based on gear and aa's.