User:Yamagawa/Scratch

Aggro, the Full Story
Work in progress... Yamagawa 08:26, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Aggro, in it's simple form, is how AI controlled entities (heroes, enemies, etc) select what targets to kill. Knowing all the fine print details can enable you to manipulate that behavior to favor. To that end, lets start with the basics of aggro, then move more into how it can be manipulated to your favor:

Levels of Aggro

 * No aggro
 * Active Aggro
 * Breaking Aggro
 * Fleeing Aggro
 * Loitering

No Aggro. Put simply is when foes don't see you. Typically this is because you haven't entered their aggro bubble yet, but other factors can affect this. If you land an attack or cast a spell targeting the foe, it will take aggro. If you aggro any other members of his party, he takes aggro also. Some foes are incapable of seeing you at any range until you attack them, others may see you from an extended distance and come towards you to initiate aggro. Also, if you cast a spell on an ally, any foes that have aggroed that ally will aggro you as well. Without aggro, if a foe dies, you do not gain xp, and the foe leaves no drops.

Active Aggro. This is where the foe has come to the conclusion that you don't need to be around anymore. It is actively trying to kill you. Whether it succeeds or not is up to you. If given multiple targets to choose between, who it targets will depend on a number of factors, that we will go over below.

Breaking Aggro. For whatever reason (there are several) the foe has given up on killing you, and heads back to where he came from.

Fleeing Aggro. There are two general scenarios here, but they are both variations of the same thing: Your foe has taken damage, and is uninterested in taking more damage. The first scenario is the bully scenario: Your foe needs to get to melee/touch range to hurt you, but can't because of some obstacle. Your foe will wait at the obstacle for a while, but after taking damage for long enough it will flee and avoid the area. The second scenario is the mob scenario, one that most solo-farmers are familiar with. You have six, eight, or fifty foes all targeting one thing: You. And you've hurt some of them. The ones that are hurt most will back off and wait while they heal up. As they heal and others take damage, the most hurt will flee you, and the most healed will come back in to continue the assault on you.

Loitering. Oops! Things went a little pear-shaped back there. Whether it was the monk that tried to Rambo their hammer warrior, or the six firestorms all landing on the mid-line, you had to cut and run. In the process, you left three or six of your team-mates back there as corpses. While some of your teammates did flee the fight with you, they got beat down, and whatever foes that overpowered your team are now camping on their remains. While it might be debatable that this is a state of aggro, that foes camp corpses is a given. Sometimes they leave after a short delay, other times they return to their natural haunt only after some of the corpses are removed.

Aggro in General Melee
Given a range of targets, there are a number of criteria that dictate what target a foe will pick. These factors include:


 * Health
 * Armor
 * Regen/Degen
 * Movement Speed
 * Distance

The bulk of these are a direct measure of how squishy you are. That is, whether you handle a foe like a rock (thunk!), a sponge (squish!), or a tomato (splat!). In general, they work out to a factor of time -- How long will it take for the foe to kill you. The less time he needs to kill you, the more likely he is to do just that.

Health: The lower your health, the fewer hits it takes a foe to kill you. Thus, your foes will favor anyone with low health. Conversely, more health means more effort to kill, and your lazy foes will look elsewhere for things to kill. Some tanking builds exploit this behavior, by donning extra runes to bring down health, some as low as 55 HP, then survive by either limiting or preventing damage. Death Penalty can also affect HP, meaning foes tend to target (for repeated slaughter) anyone who has already died once or twice. Conversely, Survivor builds tend to favor high HP to make them unfavorable targets.

Armor: How tough are you? The thicker your armor, the more work is involved in killing you. Whether or not you understand this, your foes are well aware of it, and have a crystal ball telling them who has the thinnest, weakest armor for cracking open. Some tanking builds don't necessarily exploit this outright, but it still happens to a degree as a result of how the builds work (specifically, the 600 tank, although the 55 tank usualy does this too, as armor is irrelevant for the 55 build, so the cheapest (thinnest) armor is typically used. One good reason for survivors to upgrade their armor early: In weaker armor, you are automatically targeted more.

Regen/Degen: The faster your health regens, the more a foe will need to bang on you to kill you. The reverse is also true for degen. Shorter work can be made of degening foes. Survivor builds will exploit this by applying some constant regen to make them less appealing targets.

Movement Speed: How quickly can you be caught? If you are slower than your other allies, you will be less able to flee from attack. If you are faster, you are more able to flee attack. If you move fast enough, foes may ignore you even if you are fully inside their aggro bubble and have nothing else to attack. They have no hope of catching you so they don't even bother trying. Some tanking builds work by snaring the foes, making it harder for them to catch your allies, then they stand still to present a nice, easy target. Others snare themselves (eg: Dolyak Signet/Armor of Earth) to make themselves look more like nice tempting targets, if an 851 HP 189 AL target can be called tempting....

Distance: This goes hand in hand with snares. If the foe is only able to move very slowly, he will favor greatly any targets that are nearby. No point it limping ten feet to kill something that will likely be dead or gone by the time it gets there, much simpler to bang on the thick skinned warrior that's right here.