Thread: How does Engage work? My Hunter is still pulling through it :(

In ToO Shadow wing (T1) Sunday night, and there seemed to be some screwy stuff going on with aggro:
Two tanks (in threat stance) were swapping aggro with engage whenever they were hit with the -inc healing debuff. If engage was on cooldown they used challenge then engage when the CD was up.
As a hunter, I had the trait for threat down (-10%) and the threat book (not specified but ~10% reduction) Further, I spent the first HALF of the fight in endurance (further 10% threat reduction) and have a threat down legacy on my bow.
Despite all this, around 250k I pulled aggro. (1.5 million hp total on Kalbak, precision stance activated at 700k).

How is this possible?
My understanding of the way engage works is that it is a threat copy on whoever has the highest aggro stack. Threat stance would then add 20-28% (28% in this case) perceived threat on top of that. 75% of the way through a fight I should not be ABLE to pull aggro from two guards trading with engage.

I consider myself a fairly well geared hunter, and I understand that my tanks were nowhere near the best in the game (though one of them ranks among the best I have played with), but what am I missing here? I don't have a 1st age bow, and I was running with less then 30k physical mastery, so there is no way I should have been pulling aggro (especially when traited/equipped to reduce threat)

My GRD is my next to cap (lvl 60 right now) but what should I be planning/doing proactively to make this better? Is there something I can tell my kin tanks that will make their jobs easier?
I already reduced my total damage by probably 100k by spending so much time/effort/trait worrying about threat, but I cannot afford to nerf my damage any further because as it was we came close to wiping due to walls. Should I plan to die midfight and get a rez so my aggro pile will drop?

Here are a few links to Engage-related posts:

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...57#post6043857
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?451292-Selfless-Defense&p=6072966#post6072966

A few things you might consider:

1. On a swap is the current tank dropping threat stance before the other tank raises it?
2. Are the tanks continuing to build threat while the other is tanking?
3. Are the tanks having trouble landing Engage?
4. Are you sure the tanks are still using Engage after a certain point for their swaps?

Perhaps something in the list above explains what's going on.

Originally Posted by clappi

Here are a few links to Engage-related posts:

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...57#post6043857
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?451292-Selfless-Defense&p=6072966#post6072966

A few things you might consider:

1. On a swap is the current tank dropping threat stance before the other tank raises it?
2. Are the tanks continuing to build threat while the other is tanking?
3. Are the tanks having trouble landing Engage?
4. Are you sure the tanks are still using Engage after a certain point for their swaps?

Perhaps something in the list above explains what's going on.

Thanks for the links
In order:
To be honest I am not sure that the tanks were dropping threat stance at all. Would that make the difference?
Perhaps a better phrasing would be "Does engage match your perceived threat to the highest or your actual threat to the highest?"
Yes, both tanks continued threat building during all portions.
Both tanks had decent finesse (~15%), so engage should not have missed/been resisted, even if it had the chance of it being resisted several times in a row seems incredibly minute.
Yes, as once I pulled (and hit Beneath Notice (-85% perceived threat for 20 seconds)) one commented that he had used an engage not 20 seconds earlier.

Originally Posted by Strikerin

Thanks for the links
In order:
To be honest I am not sure that the tanks were dropping threat stance at all. Would that make the difference?
Perhaps a better phrasing would be "Does engage match your perceived threat to the highest or your actual threat to the highest?"
Yes, both tanks continued threat building during all portions.
Both tanks had decent finesse (~15%), so engage should not have missed/been resisted, even if it had the chance of it being resisted several times in a row seems incredibly minute.
Yes, as once I pulled (and hit Beneath Notice (-85% perceived threat for 20 seconds)) one commented that he had used an engage not 20 seconds earlier.

I'd suggest the tanks should be stance-dancing here; this means they can go all out on threat generation and not jeopardize the group by unintentionally swapping aggro. This being said, they would then need to ensure that at least one of them always has it up, so on a swap the new tank raises GT and then the other tank drops it. If both Guards have dropped out of threat stance what you're seeing will very easily happen since DPSers can outpace a tank when it comes to threat generation (Wardens might be the exception here depending on the exact scenario).

The first link demonstrates that Engage copies actual/raw threat, which means an Engage while in threat stance will put the Guardian 20% or more ahead of a Hunter on the perceived threat list.

Miss chance is not affected by finesse. Even so, missing many times between two Guardians seems unlikely. However, your anecdote may indicate the Guardian's last Engage may have missed. Far into the fight if Engage lands and they are in threat stance there should be no way they'd lose top spot on the perceived threat list.

Another possibility might be a burg accidentally fat-fingering Enrage. Something else may be that you are running with a Warden in the tanking group doing something bad to that group's threat. Just throwing out ideas here... I don't suppose you have a FRAPS you can post. That might reveal something.

Missing engage is crucial in a swap. While challenge is good in a pinch, it doesn't really generate a substantial amount of threat, it'll just keep the mob focused for a bit to let you build some threat through block reactives. Usually this is enough to hold threat while in threat stance but it doesn't put you miles ahead of the raid, which is definitely where you want to be.

I'd also like to suggest that perhaps the tanks were not using all of their threat gen tools during the fight or missing their reactives. Legacies play a role here too (perceived threat passive and threat skills up legacy on belt).

Shadow and Lightning are those kind of fights where as a tank you have to re-position the boss many times throughout the fight, and often during that small time frame, the tank isn't building additional threat. I've found that if aggro ever gets pulled, its usually right after a move/re-position or a bad/sloppy tank swap. When you run with a group and do the same fight over and over, these things present themselves, and you can slow dps during the transitions so that aggro doesn't get pulled, and once the transition is complete, ramp it back up (happens in Lightning t2 on the moves around the lightning tiles... Kalbak likes to stare at us tanks from across the room for 10-20s before he decides to move lol).

Just a few thoughts.


Edit: Saw your post after posting mine

Originally Posted by clappi

do you know if CtD can miss? I'm not sure on that.

I believe the challenge piece of it can be resisted (checks the mobs cry resist chance). I haven't done any testing on it to check. I've never had the ward buff not apply though (I don't think that will ever happen)

CtD can be resisted as far as I know, although I haven't tested it. The more I think about this, the more I'm pretty sure this is a missed engage. Even bulding threat while not main tanking, a hunter can still jump into second spot.

Unless the tanks just stood there and only used engage the entire fight, I don't think it's a lack of threat gen skills. What I believe happened is that at the swap, tank 1 dropped threat stance, tank 2 turned on threat stance and used engage. Engage missed but at that point you were still slightly behind tank 2's threat modifer. 20 seconds later you beat out his perceived threat cushion and pulled aggro. The reason I think it missed more than once during the fight is that after 1 million hp, aggro should have been pretty locked up by the perceived threat multiplier.

To put it into hypothetical numbers. Before the swap threat might have been:

Main tank - 350000 raw / 420000 modified
Tank 2 - 325000 raw / 390000 modified (when GT is toggled on)
Hunter - 370000 raw

Tank 2 turns on GT and modified threat goes to 390000. Engage misses but main tank turns GT off and threat goes down to 350000. 20 seconds later hunter passes tank 2's modifed.

To answer the other question, engage only copies raw threat numbers. So if engage had not missed in this case, tank 2 should have had a raw threat of 370000 and a modifed threat of 444000.

Here's the funny thing about Engage. As a threat copy, it doesn't build any threat. One hit later and the guard might be lower on the threat table.

So my guess is the hunter had most raw threat the majority of the fight, each Engage was copying the hunter's number, and the only reason the guard's were holding the MOB was perceived threat multipliers, with the hunter encroaching on taking the lead away until the next Engage.

One crit or devastate or missed Engage (or both), and boom, higher than the threat of the guards', regardless of the perceived multipliers. (This presumes one didn't accidentally drop threat stance, burg didn't accidentally Enrage, or similar things.)

Some solutions, start attacking later, remember with threat, it's not how much damage you do, but when you do it. Think of it like a race you don't want to win, you pass the tank, you lose. If you give the tank a head start, you won't catch up.

The idea that Endurance was felt to be needed early on might indicate that too much threat is typically being generated early in fights? Try practicing other fights without using Endurance? Or keep it on when you need to endure long fights? (Your DPS will be much higher not interrupting to drop threat.)

In terms of doing enough DPS for the walls not to close in, that's not ONE person's responsibility, and there's no way a tank could generate enough threat to compensate for one person doing all THAT damage. That's the responsibility of half a dozen people, the more DPS is done evenly by the group, the less threat per each. IE, you can safely lower your DPS a LOT with the others raising theirs just a bit.

Guard's tend to put Protection on each other when tank swapping for reactives, but here's a question, why not trait Selfless Defense and put it on high DPSers in situations like these?



"Sometimes survival comes down to not being hit. Actually, most times." -the chicken skill, Bob and Weave

Originally Posted by Edlorthar

Missing engage is crucial in a swap. While challenge is good in a pinch, it doesn't really generate a substantial amount of threat, it'll just keep the mob focused for a bit to let you build some threat through block reactives. Usually this is enough to hold threat while in threat stance but it doesn't put you miles ahead of the raid, which is definitely where you want to be.

I'd also like to suggest that perhaps the tanks were not using all of their threat gen tools during the fight or missing their reactives. Legacies play a role here too (perceived threat passive and threat skills up legacy on belt).

Shadow and Lightning are those kind of fights where as a tank you have to re-position the boss many times throughout the fight, and often during that small time frame, the tank isn't building additional threat. I've found that if aggro ever gets pulled, its usually right after a move/re-position or a bad/sloppy tank swap. When you run with a group and do the same fight over and over, these things present themselves, and you can slow dps during the transitions so that aggro doesn't get pulled, and once the transition is complete, ramp it back up (happens in Lightning t2 on the moves around the lightning tiles... Kalbak likes to stare at us tanks from across the room for 10-20s before he decides to move lol).

Just a few thoughts.


Edit: Saw your post after posting mine



I believe the challenge piece of it can be resisted (checks the mobs cry resist chance). I haven't done any testing on it to check. I've never had the ward buff not apply though (I don't think that will ever happen)

just 2 thoughts on this:

1. You don't actually ever have to move Kalbak. We don't.

2. You are most correct in that moving a boss, whatever mob, is our greatest chance to lose agro ESPECIALLY if its one of the types of mobs that has a ranged component to its attacks or an AOE or something where it will just sit there for 10s or something. We FtE or whatever..then run to where we want the mob to go and end up waiting while it does whatever skill. In the meantime the hunters, et al, are pounding away with DPS which quickly overcomes your agro lead and then you lose it. In these cases its best to slowly move the mob by backing up but staying in melee range so you can keep building your threat. Other thing is that your raid goes light on the DPS until you get the mob into place.

Originally Posted by clappi

Miss chance is not affected by finesse. Even so, missing many times between two Guardians seems unlikely. However, your anecdote may indicate the Guardian's last Engage may have missed. Far into the fight if Engage lands and they are in threat stance there should be no way they'd lose top spot on the perceived threat list.

Another possibility might be a burg accidentally fat-fingering Enrage. Something else may be that you are running with a Warden in the tanking group doing something bad to that group's threat. Just throwing out ideas here... I don't suppose you have a FRAPS you can post. That might reveal something.

No burgs or wardens in the run, and unfortunately I don't make a habit of recording raids (especially when they are half-pug and we wipe.....6 times.) Ironically, the tank I run with can tank through the trash pulls without wiping (including the 2nd acid pull and 2nd shadow pull). Bossfights take just a little more (8 wipes in lightning because we tried to figure out mechanics on our own :P
I am not sure what the agility is on the two guards, but I really doubt its over 300, surprised if it is even that. I did think that engage was a cry though, can't it be resisted? Perhaps its just the slow component that can be resisted? AFAIK cry resistance is the only real reason to stack some finesse on a tank.

I guess my pull was just bad luck with the missed/resisted engages Luckily I am pretty good about seeing myself targeted and I hit beneath notice before I had a chance to pull him away from tanks, and the next engage took it off of me.

Missed attacks I don't encounter very often. On the bright side: as a hunter I have almost 0% miss chance, and high ranged damage... on the downside I have no threat management that doesn't involve a significant self-nerf to my DPS (I still do it because I need to, but a DPS class reducing DPS on a DPS race.... just sticks sideways in craw... and then I pull anyways)

Originally Posted by Strikerin

I am not sure what the agility is on the two guards, but I really doubt its over 300, surprised if it is even that.

You can check on their my.lotro page, if the setup shown is the raid setup. Anyway, miss rate is very high with low agility, there is a dev post floating around the forums, which states that the base value is 10%, and with level 78 bosses it is even worse. A missed taunt does no aggro (and no aggro copy). Finesse should be quite high for the same reason, a resisted taunt or threat copy does no aggro. Adding both effects, you can understand how several engage can be resisted. Tanks don't need to be sturdy, if no-one is beating on them...

Originally Posted by clappi

Miss chance is not affected by finesse. Even so, missing many times between two Guardians seems unlikely. However, your anecdote may indicate the Guardian's last Engage may have missed. Far into the fight if Engage lands and they are in threat stance there should be no way they'd lose top spot on the perceived threat list.

Many Guards have it programmed into their brains to stack vitality, morale and tactical mitigation. For this end battle especially they may be trying even harder to get their tactical mitigation close to cap. Usually the first stat to get neglected is agility. The Orthanc tanking set does help, but for a Guard still wearing the Draigoch set I wouldn't be surprised to see their agility sink to 150-250, definitely well within a large miss chance range. For a skill with a 1m cooldown missing on your Engage can really hurt.

I try to maintain a minimum agility of 400-450, and recommend most people to have a minimum of 300-350. Unbuffed and depending on jewellery my morale will float around 12k, which doesn't seem like much but I have a very balanced build and still boast a high tactical mitigation unbuffed of around 63%, where with buffs and a LM Raven I can hit or come close to hitting 70%. My Resistance also unbuffed is around 26%, with buffs and Anthem of Composure over 32%.

These are just little things, but add IDoME in there and suddenly my Agility is over 500.

My Finesse does drop a little bit when swapping jewellery / gear for tactical mitigation, but I still will try to aim for 15% unbuffed. Normally I think I'm floating between 17-19% Finesse depending on gear / jewellery.

I don't know why you pulled aggro since it sounds like you were holding back. However, you made a comment how your Physical Mastery was not at 30k yet... yet, lol. Okay, so lets assume for kicks that your Physical Mastery is 25k. At that high of Physical Mastery, and with a high crit chance (Hunters stack Agility) even your auto-attacks are going to be hitting hard. However, you said that you were in Endurance for the first half of the fight.

Yeah I don't know, maybe their Engages were missing often.

Were the Guards working on building up their own threat during the fight? I still try to work my butt off to build up threat so that when the other Guard steals aggro he gets a nice piece of threat.

There's something else screwy going on because if everything happened the way you described it there shouldn't have been a problem.

Honestly my hunch is that engage missed, possibly a couple of times in a row. At 250k (after over 1 mil in damage threat) and after a couple of swaps and others keeping their threat low, a missed engage can be overlooked because the tanks may still be swapping normally with GT toggle. Somewhere though, an engage missed at the swap and you had creeped into second spot on the threat list above one of the tanks. This is why I always trait CtD for tank swapping as backup.

Originally Posted by jhwort

This is why I always trait CtD for tank swapping as backup.

This is very good advice if you're having trouble with tank swaps. It's a hot-spare threat copy + Challenge + Ward buff.

jhwort, do you know if CtD can miss? I'm not sure on that.