mmorchive

November 16, 2005 conquest.teamgbu.net

Quigon:

There are probably 5 threads on this forum, and many more on the WoW raids and dungeons forums that bring up the question of aggro generation on Broodlord, and various other fights.

The current chart out there for aggro on main tanks is rather missleading, and I had already made this graph for my own guild, so I figured I would post some here as this has always been a great place for warrior type discussions.

The first thing is. The “spikes” seen in other graphs are utterly meaningless.

The spikes exist, yes, but as you add more tanks you will not notice them - and they level off dramatically relative to the overall aggro (like +115 aggro vs a 1200 point peak).

The fact is the spikes are meaningless because the aggro of the highest tank immediately following a knockback is all that matters, because that is when your aggro is the lowest. So instead of showing a worthless graph of ups and downs, I’m going to show the value of the highest tanks aggro immediately following a knockback… This is your true aggro - it is the aggro threshold of the raid, and it is the value that no one can pass.

Aggro is only taken after a knockback… so all that matters is how much aggro your tanks have following such a knockback.

Here is a look at aggro using two tanks of same spec:

Notice the rapid plateau. It should be noted that in between each of these data points, the main tank’s aggro actually spikes +115 points above the data points. So it would look like a sawtooth… but again… meaningless unless its a hunter or rogue that vanishes before the next deaggro.

Here is a look at aggro using six tanks, two of which are defiance spec:

Again, if you want to think of spikes, imagine a +115 to +100 depending on which tank is up, in between each point. Further, notice how the spike would be diminished in meaning relative to the true threshold shown.

Note the value of BoS in both of these charts (even though I failed to include it in the 6, you can expect their healers to have roughly ~650 aggro or so near the end whereas horde is almost at 1000).

Here is the data for the 6 tank chart:

These concepts of deaggro more or less apply to every fight with a deaggro.

Basically the take home message is:
a. There is an associative multiplication of the threshold aggro versus the number of tanks. Doubling tanks = Doubling time till plateau.

b. The tank’s aggro spikes become meaningless since the test of aggro comes after a knockback - Rogues and hunters are the only ones who can wander into this area and survive… and all we care about are healers since DPS can throttle.

c. It is a true plateau, where the spike aggro becomes negligable relative to the aggro limit as you add more tanks.

d. Healers passing the threshold is unavoidable given 0 DPS.

e. The slope is of aggro generation is extremely steep in the early going. And it levels off… this has two direct take home messages for dps that cannot shed aggro:
i. You can only do X amount of damage.
ii. You might as well do that damage up front, as long as you don’t burst ahead of the main tank.
iii. If you’re a rogue, your most effective method is to hit near the tanks threshold as he plateaus, vanish, and repeat until you’re at the threshold again, rather than vanish before the plateau. The plateau would be after each tank has tanked at least twice in a real world situation, or three times in an ideal situation for 6 tanks.

f. The aggro generation of the main tank starts to level off after each tank has tanked at least once.

Basically: Kill the mob faster rather than slower, and don’t worry about healing aggro.

Finally, the value of the deaggro must be a percentage, otherwise the healers would never catch aggro after you add enough tanks to overcome the threshold so they can “take off”. Now, even if it is a 1% knockback, there will always be a plateau. So this graph would remain accurate qualitatively and the shape would not change - just the numbers would change.

To place this in context: in vanilla WoW, the two factions each had a faction specific class. Paladins, the alliance specific class, had a buff called Blessing of Salvation (affectionately known as “Salv”, or occasionally “Why the fuck isn’t %MYCLASS% salved yet?”). This buff reduced the aggro generated by a player by 30%.

The horde specific class, shamans, had no such buff.

While the tone of the post (and indeed the intent, according to the author) was not designed to highlight the alliance/horde difference in aggro-sensitive fights like Broodlord, the fight used as an example, it made fairly clear the advantage provided. Eventually, shamans were given their own aggro reduction method, Tranquil Air Totem. Arguments about which side’s aggro reducer had better mechanics ended quite abruptly in The Burning Crusade, when faction-specific classes became available cross-faction.