Aggro magnet

[Jellobiafra]

Hello everyone. I believe this is my first post here as I recently started a doc alt for lower lvl tower battles. Anyway, while doing team missions, I noticed a couple things.

More times than not, I will be at the back of the team while going from room to room, and find that even after a couple people have walked into a room with a mob, I, at the rear, get aggro'd.

Also, when it comes time for the boss, and the boss aggros me, as long as my team can handle being without me for a few seconds, I will hit the button and go back a lvl, thus allowing for someone else to pull aggro, and me to do my job. This however is not working. The second I go back to the boss level, I am immediately aggro'd again.

So I guess my question is, do I get flagged early on in the mission as a healer, and it sticks with me even when confronted by mob's I haven't healed around yet?

If my nano init was higher, I would drop my agg bar a bit. But I am lvl 30 and need all the healing speed I can get.

Also, since I'm already here I'm mainly keeping psych, stam, and intel maxed, and am having a hell of a time finding useable armor at these levels. Any suggestions?

Any feedback would be welcomed. Thanks.

[Valea]

I'm sure a more experienced doctor will soon pop in and answer your question, but I have noticed the same thing a few times in the past.

Possible solutions? Get a tank with an Aggression Enhancer or a taunt of Mongo and if tank is doing enough damage you will be all nice and happy safe



Armor easy to wear with those stats is Cyber, but I raised Agi for a little while to wear a low level Carbonum suit. You will need Agi and Sense, to some degree, to raise speed tab skills later.

[Scamley]

Distance is key when you get agged. When you get it, run back and forth around the closest (and clear) corner, make sure you dont get adds, or else you will defeat the purpose. You will look dumb doing it, but hey, it works. Keep your distance from the meatshiled. When I first started my doc i was used to playing a soldier, so naturally I would run to the fron of the fight, not good. I like to stay back 1.5-2 rooms, or as far as you can and still heal. Since your lvl 30, a nano-formula recompiler prolly wont help too much, but that will allow you to drop agg and still heal fast. As for the boss, I like to go in about 10 secs after the main damage dealers go in. That gives them a chance to really piss off the mobs, so i usually wont worry about it. Also, dont use team heals in missions, they are great, really. But I never found a lot of use for them (cause of the agg involved) untill I started stompin borgs and the agg-holders finally realized what they're job is.


There are all kinds of ways to pull the agg, once your teamates figure these out (I dont know all of them) life will be a simple matter of /assist, /assist, heal

[Jynne]

Mobs will often head to the doctor on spotting a different teammate if we used the team health buff. This is because there's a slow, small HOT effect on that buff, that is tied back to you as regards aggro. When the HOT ticks, I believe the mob builds "hate" towards you as if you were healing the person in question. Even if that person is at full health.

At higher levels this is less of a problem, because players start dishing enough damage to get NPC attention while the amount your buff ticks for is pretty negligible.

Bosses (and other mobs) hold on to their hate list order when you go between levels with a button. This is because you aren't zoning, you're sort of warping from one area to another inside the same zone. The boss stops attacking you becaues it can't reach you (you're out of range), but once you come back into range it will re-aggro based on your old hate value. If someone else hasn't out-aggroed you before you go back up, you'll get aggro back.

The only solution there is to team with people who do lots of damage. Aggro enhancers and other taunts don't really work that well. Also, low damage hits generate less aggro than high damage hits, even if the low damage hits are coming faster and doing more damage over time. So, an enforcer with a hammer or a beam would outaggro an enforcer with a pipe/staff combo, unless the pipe/staff enforcer gets a good string of crits.

MAs with crit buffs tend to generate lots of aggro when they crit a few times in a row, two seconds apart each time.

[_____________Idoness]

how about ur aggro bar? where is it slide to? i've been a noncombat healing only doc for 150+ lvls and the bar is ALWAYS set to defense. i stick with the team, sometimes right in the middle of the fight and sometimes stay in the back. yes i do got aggros but not a lot and rarely something that's life threatening. don't know if it's just me or what but i suggest u try that. it'll slow ur attack speed REAL bad but mobs aggro u less and when they do they have a bigger chance of missing the hit on u.

[Portulis]

I remember when my nanomage doc was like level 80ish and was always being drug on these super duper high level missions.

Gimp Soldier#1 Hey, we got a doc, lets do a BS mission
Gimp Fixer#2 Yeah, cool man. I can roll a 170

Well, you guys know the drill from there. Have a few deaths in the front room, and leveling is kinda slow. 2 people die in the first 5 minutes of the misison, they don't come back, lol.

Key thing to remember, in those early tender levels in a BS mission, when somebody dies, and is coming back, run out the door if you can and go save.....next dude may be you.

Another reason to forego weapons skills....raise those evades...every little bit helps.

[Champagne]

At lower levels the key is having a higher level enforcer that knows how to taunt. Dont leave home without it! And dont team with lower level enfs when you yourself are in your fragile levels (50ish, 90ish, 120ish).

Also be aware that your hp buffs (long hp, short hp and HoTs) have a taunt to them. If your team doesnt do sufficient dmg, you will get aggroed. This is especially true if you do dmg in addition to your healing. And of course team heal does taunt also. So does single heal, but not as much as team heal.

Always use best hpbuff that you possibly can on your self, and if you have ncu issues (too little ncu) then choose hp and defense over +dmg buffs.

Find the right aggro/defensive setting for your slider that will let you cast your heal as fast as you can, but without being at full aggro if possible. Always max nano init, and use nano init buff on yourself always.

Doctors will always be near the centre of attention, because we are the key of life in team, and mobs doesnt like that. Above are ways of dealing with this. In addition I reccomend implanting shining, bright and faded max life.

You cant avoid aggro in all cirumstances, but you will soon learn to deal with it, and recognize situations where you most likely will get it. Planning ahead is the key to survival.

Good luck in your adventures! I hope you can use these pieces of advice.

[Jellobiafra]

First, thanks a bunch for all the responses. Always nice to see how helpful a community you just joined can be.

My agg bar, so far, has been kept to full agg because of the need for casting speed. I will however try to back it off a bit and see if I can still be effective in healing.

I also think I will probably lay off using my weapon for now, as I can imagine that along with heals, using the gun must put me way up on a mob's hate list. Was concentrating on a weapon perhaps too much, being used to playing a damage dealer.

I have tried to stick to target heals instead of team heals, but in a room where we are fighting add's, and more than one person is taking damage, it's kind of hard to stick to that. I imagine that will get easier when I start getting into teams with a mezzer.

I wanted to say that I'm loving my doc, and I'm real happy to part of the community. I'm on Atlantean, and if any of you have the need of gimpy GA2 wearing lvl 125 fixer for anything, feel free to send me a tell. Jellobiafra (fixer) or Jellosrx (doc). Thanks again!!

[_______________Daeva]

/macro ohcrap YOUR DOC IS RUNNING!!!!!!

Your team will love you for your macro.

Also, here's a tip you might want to use that has been VERY helpful to me as a doc.

/macro assist /assist

and don't use your TAB anymore. Instead, assist the MOB to see who he's dealing damage to, heal them, then assist your teammate to target the MOB again and assist him. My hotbar has my main heal as 1 and my assist as 3, so my battles go something like

3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1, 3, 3, 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1
[sit, charge]

yes, you will get agro... that's part of being a doc that you just live with. If, during your assist bit and you find you target yourself, you can act as the meatshield for the team, healing yourself until you're close to out of nano, at which point you use that handy ohcrap macro from the start of my post, run like hell and get ready to stim yourself.

I've leveled to 85 w/ my doc, and while I know that isn't very far to level, all but 7 of those levels were without killing anything. When I left the backyard at 8, I stopped using a gun, stopped using DoTs, focused on heals and am now at a point where I am getting extra IP built up. Don't worry about doing damage. Under lvl 100 your job is to keep your team alive.

[Nrse]

Well I have been a "Combat doc" my whole time here on Rubi-Ka and it has been fustrating at times. The best piece of advice I can give you is make sure you have the best HP buffs u can cast on you running and any evade buff u can have also. Max out your evades that will take the sting off things. I have always used max aggro and a weapon so I am used to getting aggro. Don't worry if u use all of your nano healing yourself because if you die the rest of the team dies most likely. Also you can stay out of LOS for a few seconds as your team goes in and starts dealing damage. You can also use team heals and not have LOS on your team. Bosses....well hope your eveades are high enough and lower your agg bar. Use a recompiler so you can lower your agg/def bar. this will reuire u putting in the best Complit inplants you can get.

[Turin]

Ya, this is pretty much the mantra of the lower lvl doc.

Your team HP buff builds up agro over time. thise little dinky points add up. The only way to avoid that part of it is just not to buff HP. I doubt any team would accept that.

Secondly. Single heal as much as possible. A 1000 point heal is the same agro as hitting a mob for 1000 points. its a numbers game as far as the math is concerned. it adds up all the numbers you have for "your" agro, and then the mob goes after the person with the highest number. so.

1 gun attack = 1000 points of dmg = 1000 agro points


1 heal = 1000 points healed = 1000 points of agro.

HoT = say.. 100HP every 5 seconds. after 15 seconds. = 500 agro points

Team heal = 6 people all healed for 1000 points = 6000 points of agro.


you get the idea.

As for armor. use Cyber Armor, Bau/Waiit if you can get it, untill you can put on Biomech. use biomech till you can put mkii on.

[______Frankie Leonie]

I currently play a lvl 90 atrox doc who uses 2HB as an attck skill and the only time I seem to have a problem with aggro is when I cast my Debuff Nanos. As soon as they switch to me I back out of the room/area and soon lose the aggro. I have allways played with my bar at full aggro but now have turned it to 1/2 way because I kept getting hit with huge crits when ever I did get attacked. And i use team heals constantly and never seem to draw off them. The only time this is not true is when I am the highest member of the group but really what do you expect then

[Docmax]

ever notice how a MOB's pet will stay on the Doc even if the master changes to a team mate?

grrrr, "can't get nano!" hehe

[hhli-china]

heh, happens to me cuz i init debuff the crap out of the master. they don't like it

Jellobiafra -

Also, if a mob/boss is on you and won't leave, try hiding behind barrels, pillars, walls, anything to get an object between you and eventually they will attack someone else. In low level team missions this is difficult because a lot of places are open.

ALSO.... professions that can root can help here, even if the boss is ranged. rooting causes some very big hate towards the caster, and they can pull aggro off just about anyone at lower levels, sometimes even off mongo enforcers Same thing with slow nanos....

Basically, experience will help. you will learn well how to run when you're a doc, and run fast :P

[Altared]

Concerning the Team HP Hot. I seem to remember someone saying that if you Team HP buff OUTSIDE the mission...the HoT loses the "tag" to you.

Instead of team-mates getting "You were healed by <doc> for xx points" they get a "You were healed for xx points" (Yeah I know the messages are probably not accurate renditions).

I'm sure I read this somewhere a long time ago and I'm sure a number of docs agreed they got much less aggro when they used it.

Just thought I'd mention it in case it's any help to you docs.

[Shadowset]

I just think Armor makers need to take out the little signs that say if doctor aggro..

Just my two credits..

`Iove