Monday, October 20, 2008

I think I figured out why I pulled aggro

Here's an eye-opener for me.

I've had many different times over my raiding career where I'd feign death, have it actually succeed and not be resisted, see my name disappear off the Omen danger zone, only to have the boss suddenly come straight for me, one shot me, and maybe wipe the raid.

As a habitual chain feigner who feigns early and feigns often, I've always found this rather confusing and offensive.

I think I might have figured it out.

With patch 3.0.2, we now have direct access to the Blizzard threat table for the mob, no longer do threat meters need to analyze your combat log and make guesses about threat levels.


When I feign death on a boss fight, I'm usually interested in resuming DPS as soon as possible. Seems natural, yes? Laying there dead is not a good way to win at WWS.

So I'd feign, hear the little female night elf moan of death, see my bar disappear off of Omen, and very quickly resume pew pew.

Usually works. In a rare circumstance, but frequently enough to piss me off, I'd then pull aggro when Omen is telling me and my raid mates (since I've discussed this with them, so ask ppl to watch me also) that its safe for Amava to start drumming, bestial wrathing, bloodlust brooching, rapid firing for massive DPS output.

Well, now that I can see what Blizzard thinks about my threat levels, I think I see the problem.

Looks like you've got to stay dead for a longer period of time, or else your threat level doesn't change at all.

Last night, I've got Bubbles tanking some massive tree boss in Dire Maul East, I start getting close to her threat level, and I'm watching Omen closely.

FD, hear female night elf death moan, immediately hit an arcane shot and resume battle.

Looking at Omen, I see my threat go NOWHERE. I'm right up the tank's butt. FD didn't take, even though the animation and sound effect both triggered, and there was no indication of a resist.

So I tried it again a couple times, and it seems repeatable. Resume attack too quickly after a FD, and your threat stays where it was.

Lets go back to the good old days.

Prior to version 3.0.2, Omen is watching your combat log.

It sees that you FD. It sees that FD was not resisted. It now reports that your threat level is zero. And you and all your omen-toting teammates feel safe that the DPS Queen is not going to pull aggro.

But Omen was wrong. Due to the timing of resumed attacks, the threat didn't reset.

So the question is: Is this a bug in WoW? I mean, FD was cast and was successful. No indication in the tooltip that there's a delay, no matter how minuscule.

n00b or bug?

Am I the first person to encounter and/or observe this? Or am I a total n00b and all other hunters know that you FD, kiss the gf, hum the Star Spangled Banner, make some ramen noodles, and then, and ONLY then, do you resume DPS?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This info already exists on some forums somewhere - Blizz introduced in a patch a ~2 sec "pulse" during boss fights that puts you in combat. FD isn't a threat wipe, it's a combat wipe. You drop aggro because you're no longer in combat with whatever boss you were fighting. If the timing of a particular FD clashes badly with one of those pulses, you never leave combat, thus your threat level on that boss doesn't budge.

For normal mobs, it was pretty safe to almost instantly resume firing if Omen said your threat had been wiped. Still, shooting or moving *right* after a feign always had a chance of nullifying it.