On Aggro

Aggro management is something of the latest bee in my bonnet. Chaotic Divinity has been doing well in MC and ZG and the epics are flooding in, but it creates as many new problems as it solves.

When we started these instances, we were able to get away with a certain sloppiness with regards nuking, since our tanks were all skilled and our DPS was comparatively low in our basic gear. However, I've noticed as our gear gets better, our damage dealing/healing ability has increased considerably, but our tank's ability to create and maintain aggro hasn't.

I used to smile on the Hunter forums when people used to say that nuking from the word go pulled too much aggro, since it had rarely happened to me in my time with CD. I now realise that it's a lesson I should have paid more attention to.

The way the game works at the moment, better tanking gear lets our tanks survive for longer (gives them better armour, better Defense skill, more resists vs magic, more health), but it doesn't let them maintain the attention of a bunch of be-eppicced DPSers much better. As a result, whereas I could wait 10-15 secs on a mob before going all out with damage, I'm starting to realise that a slow-building crescendo of pain might be the best way to go.

Ah well, I'll try it out in MC tonight, see how it goes.