Aggro

• A common question is: "How do I kill monsters safely?"
• Or "How do I avoid getting attacked by Additional monsters (Adds)?"

When you first start playing, monsters happily ignore you until you attack them.

At around level ten you start to meet monsters which will attack you as soon as they see you.

And not long after that you start to meet monsters which ignore you at first, but turn on you in a group if you annoy just one of them.

How does aggro work?

• Some monsters get annoyed if a player gets too close.
• Some monsters get annoyed if you fight another similar monster nearby.
• All monsters get annoyed when they get hurt. Each attack generates aggro, and also the more damage, the more hate.
• Almost all skills also cause some aggro.
• Some skills build up a lot more aggro.
• Monsters lose aggro over time, and have a limited range.
• If a monster doesn't have aggro on anyone, it will rush back to its spawn point (healing itself up with the yellow bubble of invulnerability) and go back to wandering around.
• By the way, monsters in dungeons don't lose aggro as easily as those outside, so running away from them through whole instance may be not good idea.
• Put together, this means that if there is no one in party that uses special aggro skills, then the attacked mob will usually choose the person who dealt most damage.
• But not always. Some bosses will strike out at anyone in the area, and some bosses will choose to reset their aggro at certain times.

What does that mean? It means that if you whack some random monster, then all of its friends may come over to whack you back. And if a Cleric throws a heal at you, all of those friends will then hate the cleric more than you, and so will rush over to kill the Cleric. Who will hate you forever.

Instead, go after each monster on its own (or a few at a time), and wait for the aggro to be firmly established on the tanks before throwing big spells or healing.

Tank

A tank's job is to be at the top of every important monsters hate list. Barbarians are especially good at this, having lots of skills that annoy monsters out of proportion to the damage they do (flesh realm). However, some monsters (mainly those with magic attacks) are more easily tanked by a wizard, psychic, or other Arcane Armor wearer.

Damage Dealer

You are supposed to help tank kill monsters faster, but you have to do it carefully.

Cleric

Your main role is to heal the tank and keep rest of party alive. But before you heal anyone, you should know about few things.

Puller

To pull a monster, you need to get aggro on that monster, and that monster alone. Then you step back, and it will run towards you out of its group, so that the rest of your group can safely pile in without attracting every monster in the area.

There are a few ways to do this - you can try and get close enough to annoy it, but far enough from its friends that they can't see.

You can try and hit it from a huge range so that its friends can't see you.

You can use a skill which doesn't draw aggro from the adds (Zeal genie skill: Earthflame, for example)

But most reliably, you have a venomancer attack with her pet. The monster, and all nearby monsters hate the pet, and will attack. Then she unsummons her pet. (Don't have it run back to you, but actually put it back in the bag.) This causes the monster to hate the venomancer - but all the other monsters just shrug and go back to work. The venomancer then hides behind someone big, who proceeds to beat the monster up. Job done; resummon the pet and fetch the next one.

See: Venomancer Luring for more information on how to lure with a venomancer's pet.

It is helpful to tell your team which monster you are pulling, or stick to some simple rule such as "The one on the right first" so that they can target it. This is especially helpful if the monster runs fast, or is small and hard to click on once it starts moving.

You should also use "Assist attack" (in the action panel, Alt-E, drag it to one of your shortcut bars). By targeting the lurer (click their name in the squad list) and then using this action you will copy their target. You do not auto-attack, despite the action's name.

Bramble just tanks. Bramble reflects damage, so if a squishy player is attacked bramble makes it harder for them to lose aggro.

Casting bramble won't draw aggro on you.

Passing chi with Lending Hand doesn't draw aggro either.

Mind that in some instances where player damage is reduced (i.e. Twilight Temple) your pet hit with same strength, and may steal aggro from tank. Turning off skills like bash may prevent it (don't use roar either).

When you are luring inside BB range (15m) you may accidentally aggro more mobs.

Pulling Skills

There are a few skills that need to be treated specially.

• Pet skill: Status effects. Status effects, such as slow, or defense reduction, are not, by themselves, enough to draw aggro. You have to do some damage as well. The monster may attack because you got close, but it won't follow afterwards.
• Pet skill: Roar. Roar makes the monster hate nothing except the pet, and that only a little bit. It's great to quickly get a monster that really hates the cleric to attack the pet instead, but it can be really bad if someone hits the monster quickly afterwards, because it will switch. This is a good way to get your archer or wizard killed. Don't roar on the main monster!
• Genie skill: Earthflame. This skill will draw aggro from the monster you use it on, but not on his friends.
• Until recently, some other genie skills (notably extreme poison) allowed you to safely pull a single monster. This no longer works - you will pull all his friends too.

Confidence

Higher level players do, sometimes, do things differently. Like "run into the middle of a huge group of monsters" differently.

You don't always have to pull. If you are sure that you can kill the monsters before they can kill you, you may try to tank them all. But do be sure that everyone can survive this, and the tanks and secondary tanks need to be ready to save the squishier classes.

If you don't pull one at a time, one trick is the use of area of effect (AoE) skills. These hit many monsters at once, and so work best when lots of monsters are hitting you. So pulling would be counter-productive here.

Similarly, reflect buffs (such as bramble guard) don't do much good if there's nothing to reflect.

Equally, you don't have to be a barbarian to tank, they just usually find it easier. Blademasters and Venomancer pets make good second choices, and some magic-using bosses are better tanked by psychics, wizards, or clerics.

Overconfidence

The end result of pulling too much aggro, is death.

Here are a few tips to avoid this:

1. Pull one monster at a time, and don't pull a monster until everyone is ready for it.
2. Don't join in until the tank has got in a few good whacks.
3. Attack the monster the tank is attacking. Adds usually have less interest in the tank and may come after you.
4. If a monster goes after the cleric, pounce on it quick. The cleric can bring you back to life, you can't bring the cleric back to life. (Obviously, this doesn't apply if you're the cleric)
5. Extending this, it can be helpful to have a team member whose main job is to watch out for wandering monsters and protect the cleric.
   1. And anyone else who is particularly vulnerable - the 'tabber' in an FB is usually lower level than the monsters, and often needs protection.
6. Instanced dungeons give out blessings items which increase your attack by 10%. Bear in mind that you'll be generating quite a lot more aggro than you are used to outside!
7. The simplest way to lose aggro is to stop fighting back and let someone else get some. Even better is if you can just slow down your attacks before the monster starts attacking you.
8. Archers and wizards, especially - your critical hits will often pull aggro even from a tank, if you aren't careful. Stand well back!
9. One of the most popular venomancer tank pets, "Baby Hercules", draws most of its aggro from a reflect shield. You need to wait a moment longer before it's safe to join in the attack.