Old aggro testing results

[Originally posted on bluegartr.com forums in Febuary 2008]

What I'm about to post here are the results of a few hours work I did about a week ago. I decided to answer some questions I've had for a long time about losing aggro. In doing so I also expanded the testing to parties. There are several things I didn't think of testing while I was doing it and some things I simply forgot to try. I've been meaning to complete the testing to present a better total picture, but I haven't had the opportunity. So, I'm kind of sad that I'm giving you this incomplete product, but I'm positive some of this information will be new to many of you.

First tests on worms
Attacking a worm then standing near will obviously not result in deaggro. However, stand outside its casting range it will deaggro in about 25 seconds. Standing outside of melee range but inside casting range will cause "random" results. It will deaggro if 25 seconds have passed since its last spell. This can be after 1 or 2 spells, or even 0 spells if you're lucky. The deaggro on two occasions happened DURING casting of the next spell, which was not completed. Cast silence on a worm and stand outside melee range and it will deaggro in a straight 25 seconds. Cast sleep on it and the same thing will happen. That last part is very special about worms. As is the following.

Worm deaggro testing while slept
As mentioned just now, sleeping a worm and standing out of its sound detection range will cause it to deaggro in 25 seconds. Sleeping it then casting sneak on yourself while standing right next to it will cause it to deaggro ONLY IF YOU'RE STANDING BEHIND IT, or just outside its field of vision. This was a huge surprise to myself. Invisible and deoderize do not make a difference here, you MUST stand outside its field of vision for it to deaggro while you're standing close to it.

Rabbits (don't chase by scent)
Rabbits and all other mobs that don't chase won't deaggro while slept or bound. The 25 second timer only starts counting down (conjecture) once the mob is free to move. Gravity doesn't affect the timer. The 25 seconds start when the mob is not able to 'detect' you. Meaning different ranges depending on whether or not it's a sound or sight mob or has extraordinary detection range. The 25 second "deaggro timer" doesn't get reset if YOU cast something on the mob unlike when the mob casts something on you (see worms), if you time any spell like poison right before the timer is up it will land and the mob will deaggro right after.

Sheep (chase by scent)
Sheep won't stop chasing you as they chase by scent. However, using deoderize on yourself will make it behave like a non-chasing mob and it will deaggro 25 seconds after it can no longer smell/detect you. As for water, Sheep's ability to detect you by smell is erased when it's standing in water. If at the moment it stands in water you can still be seen (sheep detect by sight as well as smell) it will NOT deaggro. If you are far enough away or have invisible on yourself it WILL deaggro the instant it steps into water. Water actually seems to TRIGGER deaggro in the sense that it acts seperate of the 25 second timer I've seen before. The following was seen while leveling BST and not during my formal testing: A failed charm on a leech in Passhow Marshlands was followed by an immediate deaggro as the leech's first hop/step was into a shallow puddle of water while I was still outside its sound detection range.

Aggro in Party
This (to me at least) is my most surprising find as I don't believe I've ever seen anyone state this before, only anecdotal evidence from Darters in DA and bad exp pt wipes. Attacking/pulling a mob will cause everyone in the party that is within detection range (sight and sound) to be put on the mob's enmity/hate list. Tested on worms and lizards as well as sheep. The latter is what prooves it's not a simple range thing but a straight sight detection thing. If you attack a sheep while a pt member is behind it, logging out will cause it to go passive. If the pt member is in plain view of the sheep it will be its next target after you log out. This explains why Darters in DA don't go passive after the person that attacked them dies, the attacked flies will still have at the very least the attacker's pt members that were in sound range on their list. Whether this extends to alliance members: I don't know.

Order of enmity list
Imagine the enmity list as an actual list of names in a specific order. My question was based on a hunch I had: what defines the order of the list? My hunch told me the order was the leader order: the order in which the leader flag is handed down in case of connection loss, which in turn is the order in which party members were invited. The tests I did with a 3 party member confirm my hunch. With different leader orders, the current party leader would pull a lizard with party aggro (all party members within sound detect range) and log out, the next target was always the next party leader. An interesting thing about this is that I expected logging out to not erase someone from the enmity list as was suggested by the results of Kaeko's enmity testing, but it did. When returning to the party after logging out and after the final target logged out the lizard went passive, meaning nobody else was on the list. At the time I did not think of testing what would happen if anyone other than the pt leader pulled and if the next target after them logging out was the leader or the next person after them in the leader order. If anyone wants to test this, pls do.

Links and /heal aggro
Using sheep I tested wether a linking mob uses the same detect mechanism to generate its initial enmity list or if it perhaps copies the original mob's list. As you would expect, the linking mob only copies the original mob's target and behaves as though it was a regular mob aggro, meaning its enmity list is in fact empty and it only has a target, not a list. Curing its target won't generate hate on the linking mob. Using quadav I tested how /heal works. Apparently it's like attacking/pulling a mob (as opposed to regular aggro) in that it puts you on the hate list, because curing the person that /heal'ed causes the quadav to come after you.