EQDiva

Went on an LDON adventure last night with a necro, two rangers, two druids, and me. All of us were between 50 and 55. My original character was a ranger. I played him up to 55 and quit playing right after PoP came out. If I wanted to keep aggro, VERY few people could take it from me. Losing aggro was a problem from time to time, but I never, ever had trouble gaining it when I wanted it. I figured that with TWO rangers along, I would barely get hit and the three casters would be able to cast to their heart's content. Little did I know I was grouped with two defective rangers. I pull the first mob and we start fighting it. It keeps hitting me, so I sigh inside and turn off attack for a few seconds. Mob switches to one of the rangers, then starts switching back and forth between them. The mob gets down to about 80% HPs (plenty of time for the MT ranger to lock down aggro completely, right? Wrong) and the casters start doing their thing. Now the mob is all over the camp, whacking everyone a couple times before moving off to the next target. Mob finally dies, after it has had a chance to abuse each and every member of the party. I do have a tendency to start pulling as soon as the designated MHer zones in, so I'm thinking maybe everyone wasn't fully prepared. I go off to pull the next one, making sure to leave a little time between the time the first mob dies and the second arrives, just so everyone can get settled and ready. Second mob is in camp and seems to reallllllly like me, just like the first one. I turn off attack and wait a few seconds til it switches to the ranger MT then turn attack on again. I see it switching back and forth between the two rangers and think to myself "This isn't going to go well." Sure enough, casters start doing their thing (this time at about 70%) and the mob starts beating them down. In addition to the lack of aggro generation by the designated MT, it's taking us a long time to kill each mob (perhaps because we're constantly having to chase them around). It's a mass kill 52, though, so I'm not terribly worried. The necro is trying to gently point the ranger in the proper direction, aggro wise. I'm not feeling very gentle, so I just shut up and pull. He mentions flame lick to her. If you've never played a ranger, you probably don't know just how useful flame lick is. It's a very weak DoT and an AC debuff. Mobs tend do dislike you when you lower their AC. Drop a couple flame licks and a snare on a target and you've pretty much got its undivided attention. I can't think of a single time from level 9 (when I got the spell, I think) to level 55 when my ranger did not have flame lick and snare taking up a couple of spell gems. This ranger did not even have flame lick memorized, so she sits down to mem it. "Cool," I think. "Aggro problem solved." I was wrong. Even with flame lick, she couldn't keep aggro. She did a better job than before she starting using flame lick, but still not really adequate. At this point I had given up on chain pulling and was staying in camp until the mobs were almost dead. Next mob is a runner. You'd think that with two rangers, two druids, a necro, and a bard in a group that someone would snare, right? Wrong. I don't blame the druids and the necro because snare has pretty high aggro and the two rangers are right there, one of them TRYING to get aggro. I had been snare/slowing earlier, but one of the druids asked me to switch to regen song. Mob gets low on health and starts to run. So, between twists, I quickly type SNARE in the chat box and go back to twisting. What does the little MT ranger cast? Root. Rooted mob starts beating me down, since I was closest. I sigh and back off a bit. Lull fails on the next pull and I get three of those annoying whirlwinds. First mez is resisted. Both rangers are just standing there with all three mobs beating the poor, li'l bard down. Mez sticks, I move to next target. Mez fails. Two rangers are still standing there with slack looks on their faces. Druid starts casting heal, mez fails again. I died. I don't mind taking the occasional death, it's part of the game. Taking a death because someone isn't doing their job is mildly annoying, though. After I died the MT ranger dies and one of the druids evac the group back to the zoneline. At this point we're pretty tight on time, but I think it was still doable. We kill a few more and I go linkdead. MT ranger dies again, group evacs. Second ranger announces that he's late for supper and logs off. I come back and head back to the zoneline, to wait for MT ranger to get back to reinvite me. The necro is sitting down at the zoneline, apparently AFK. One of the druids accidentally aggroed two mobs while pulling the MT ranger's corpse back to zoneline. The druids both zone out. I don't want to let the necro die and there will be a naked ranger zoning in shortly, so I start mezzing both mobs. I figure I'll keep them mezzed til everyone gets back and then we'll kill them. Shortly before the ranger zones back in, mez fails on one of the mobs twice. Mob wakes up and starts beating on me. I start to mez it again, but the necro chose that moment to come back and casts something on the mob. I refresh mez on the other mob (the one that's still mezzed) then start trying to get the other one locked back down. Naked ranger zones in and just as mez lands, she starts attacking it. Naked. Unarmed. I mez it again, she keeps attacking. I type "ZONE!" and zone out. I wasn't about to die because of her again. Silly ranger dies again. By the time she gets back, we've got 12 minutes to kill 27 more mobs. We all agree there's no way to do it and decide to quit for the night. Now this isn't a rant against rangers in general. I played a ranger for a long time and enjoyed the class. I like having rangers in my group. This particular ranger, though, needs to be removed from her class by one of the ranger Guildmasters.

one comment... pick up groups sucks... :p

To put my last sentence first, what I'd like to see is a guide that lists the other classes and what a bard should expect from them in terms of agro performance. Anyone know of such a guide/thread/whatever? Anyhow, I don't agree with Tsol; I reckon pick up groups can be good, especially at lower levels or off-peak times when people are in pick-up groups because they have to be, and they don't want to look like idiots. On the other hand, I had a similar experience recently. After going through quite number of LDoNs with no agro problems (in some, the tanks were pulling post-charm mobs off me in just a few seconds), a recent event made me wonder about some tanks! I was in a group with several tanks, including a war, a rogue, and a couple of other ones who were either rangers or pallys or maybe one of each. Frankly, I wasn't too concerned because I trusted the cleric we had with us. However, I noticed that I was the one keeping the agro on some mobs. I was slowing, hasting and using a chant, and pulling, but I've done that before and had very few agro problems. It kinda felt like the tanks were just going through the motions, /autoattack, bash, bash, go get a drink, check they aren't dead, repeat. They were waiting for me to get hit before jumping in, even on mobs that I pulled with slow, they bashed or otherwise pushed things into the next room (!) which agro'd things I'd previously lulled, and so on, like robots. I know I was generating a bit of agro myself, but I would have thought that one of them would have been able to pull them off me. Anyway, it was a normal difficulty mission, no one died and we WERE successful, but it bugged me. So, what I'd like to see is a guide that lists the classes and what a bard should expect from them in terms of agro performance! Anyone? Cheers,

Paladins, Shadow Knights, and Rangers should easily and quickly move above you on the aggro list if they want to do so. In the past, warriors had to work a little harder for it - I'm not completely sure how much easier the recent melee changes made their jobs, though. [quote] they bashed or otherwise pushed things into the next room (!) which agro'd things I'd previously lulled [end quote] I stopped putting up with that in my 40s. I tell the group before we start that I don't like being crowded when I'm pulling. I try to arrange things so I'm pulling from two to three rooms ahead of wherever the "camp" is at a given moment. If they crowd me, I just stop pulling until they either agree to abide by my request or get someone else pull. If I notice that the melees are encircling the mob to counteract a lot of the push factor, I'll relax my standards. Most groups don't do that, though. As far as pickup groups go, the vast majority of my pickup groups have been at least tolerable. Quite a few have been enjoyable. My Do Not Group list after 50+ levels of pickup groups has just 5 people on it.

If I notice that the melees are encircling the mob to counteract a lot of the push factor, I'll relax my standards. Most groups don't do that, though.

Most pickup groups are filled with peeps that don't understand how the game works. I had a guild rogue complain at me about a bard crowding her in back of the critters they were fighting. After I explained that anyone who isn't the tank wants to be in the back of the critters so they hit more often [i]and [/i] don't get riposted/parried she was 6less upset. I also told her that you don't need to be directly behind, and to tell the bard to move to off the shoulders or something if she's blocking backstabs. Which seemed to satisfy everyone. ;) My point is that surrounding the critters isn't to avoid pushing, it's so you do more damage.

hehe.. let me re-phrase my one comment... [b]That[/b] pick up grouped sucked. other than that.. I've been in some nice pickup groups.. its just a matter of luck.. I normally just do LDoN with guildies, or in some cases with people I've been in groups before.. anyways. thats all i have to say

So, what I'd like to see is a guide that lists the classes and what a bard should expect from them in terms of agro performance!

Paladins can stun a mob as it comes back to camp. When you pull more than one, they can allow you to mezz your initial target, stun the add on you and take aggro, allowing you to move back and CC the initial target. With their stuns, they can keep aggro throughout a battle. Shadowknights can snare incoming mobs and are very good at generating hate to maintain aggro. Warriors are very good now at gaining snap aggro. Rangers are a bit more difficult at quickly getting aggro, but I've played with two as tanks and had no trouble. Of course, they were both lvl 65 and had 200+ AAs. I think that at lower level ranger might have some problems, but I can't recall what a 50 ranger can do. Beastlords are pretty good at gaining aggro and tanking if they wish by the way.