Ungodly Hate

[Thark601]

I was in a 50/50 J/E party today and I was having a bad problem...
I'm fairly new at whm so i was still low lvl...

Anyways my problem...
Seemed like 50% of the time i casted Cure I the enemy would turn and run at me...
Was wondering if this was my fault or the parties....

By my fault i mean casting before the main tank pulled enuff hate...

By there fault i mean them not drawing enuff hate...

It got to the point where I'd wait untill the tank's health was in the yellow before casting and by the 2nd cure the enemy would be on me...

Also went the other route and casted so that the tanks health would be 10-20 under full... keep in mind lvl 9 tanks only have 130 hp

[Moo]

Provoke timers help a lot. Some tanks have Provoke macros like this:

/ja "Provoke" <t>
/p Provoking <t>
/wait 15
/p 15 seconds until Provoke
/wait 15
/p Provoke ready

These are nice because I know when his next provoke will be. I can pop a Cure II or III on him a second or two before his provoke is ready and he can take the hate right back, most of the time.


With a good Paladin, you won't have to worry about hate much at all. I had a contest with a hume Paladin once in Yhaotor Jungle to see if I could pull the mandragora off of him. I let him get down to about 100 hp then cast a few Cure III's on him, and he was still able to keep hate. They can even counteract Benediction hate by using Invinsibility. Paladin .

It's when you get a Warrior tank or an Idiot Paladin that you have to watch your hate. It always helps to have a backup Provoker, too.


____________________________

In your case, a few cures shouldn't pull the monster off the tanks and on to you. It was their fault.

Hate really isn't a big deal until around level 20, when some monsters can kill you in a few seconds.

[ZenXIII]

Since i didn't see this word in the post ... and you mentioned level 9...my question is:
Provoke???
Was the warrior using it?
I can't imagine any other reason you'd get that much aggro in a low level party.
But, if the war wasn't...that is why you were getting all of the aggro.
Make sure in low level parties you tell the tanks to provoke every chance they get...e.g. every thirty seconds.
And also make sure you are partying with at least one warrior that can use provoke...
If both of these aren't met, you'll end up taking a lot of damage and being a very bruised white mage.

[Thark601]

no they would only provoke when the member in the roll of tank was in danger...

see the thing that threw me off was that it was a mainly J party...
i figured they'd know better

[IhsanShade]

Anyone/someone has to provoke to start the fight off this does 2 things.

A) Draws a huge amount of hate from the target for a decent amount of time.

B) by the time Provoke is up again, your main tank should of taken enough damage to have lost enough hate to lose the monsters aggro and bam hit voke again to get a huge hate gain.


The only way to not start a fight with provoke is to have a good pld with you who heals the wounded while fighting is going, letting mages rest and gathering a ton of hate, by the time the PLD is either out of mana or the whm joins in he'll never catch up in hate.

[Icemage]

One of the problems with grouping early as a WHM is that there really IS no way around getting hit. Provoke does NOT work well at those levels... even basic Cures will get you smacked around at a moment's notice.

If you must group at that level, I'd recommend:

Start fight with Paralyze. This is Important. Paralyze will give you a fighting chance to avoid damage when you cast a cure spell and pull aggro.

Use Dia. While the damage doesn't seem like much, it does add up at low levels, and can also increase the power of your party's melee attacks, which in turn makes fights shorter (and reduces your need to heal).

Avoid +MND equipment. I didn't realize this until pretty late, but increasing the power of your heals at low levels when in a group is suicide. Yes, it makes you less efficent, but it also will help to keep you alive.

If you still find yourself getting attacked too often, stop engaging the enemy in melee. This will significantly reduce your aggro rate, at the cost of losing your melee damage contribution.


Icemage

[Thark601]

I wasn't engaging in melee
I have a decent amount of + mind
I wasn't using enfeebles cause I'd have to rest a lot more if i did
And i wasn't complaining when i get hit... only when i got hit 3-4 times and started getting low in health... there where 2 vokes after all...

but thank you for the help

[Icemage]

I wasn't using enfeebles cause I'd have to rest a lot more if i did

Enfeebles reduce the amount of MP you have to spend, not increase (Paralyze and Slow in particular, and Blind and Dia to a lesser extent). They justify themselves by making monsters die faster, or attack/hit less often.


Icemage

[Miriamel]

Yep.. while enfeebles seem to be a waste of MP at first, they really do help you out a lot. I must admit I didn't see the use of Paralyze till my mid-20s and fighting tigers in Battalia.. their roar-attack is an AoE paralyze. I never bothered to get paralyna and hadn't it been for the summoner with paralyna my PT would have been screwed.. ^_^

They missed so much due to Paralyze, it was no fun. Ever since, I've been starting my battles with Paralyze, Dia and Slow and unless a red mage is available, you should really do it. A single Paralyze will save you about 3 or more cures on average, depending on the length of the battle.

Paralyze = 6MP
Cure I = 8MP

Cure I x 3 = 24MP

24-6= 18

Hence Paralyze will save you 18MP on average at lower levels.

[Radamvice]

As a whm mnd never has an effect on the heals i am using on a regular basis in the pt because their effectiveness is capped via skill. Now my newest cures are effected by mnd (they are new, and my skill alone cannot cap their effectiveness), as well as the chance a monster will resist the debuffs i throw at them.

That said, your main tank, no matter the job he has, should use provoke immediatly when the monster is in range, and every 30 seconds thereafter. If he not, teach him to...hes not filling his role otherwise.

[Thark601]

i was always under the impression it was the blm or rdm's job to use enfeebling?
correct me if i'm wrong because i'm learning from this...

[Radamvice]

well in the absence of a rdm a whm uses his enfeebles and so does a blm of course...

[PetriW]

Blm do some enfeebles but rarelly slow/paralyze in my experience, they need to be 26 to cast slow for that matter and I think the whm can do that just fine anyway.
Rdm are often too stupid to even use their spells unless they enhance their dmg output, if they do happen to use them they should do all enfeebles. Sorry all rdm but 90% of the rdm I've met believe they picked a battlemage, some even get quite offended when asked to debuff/heal and if they do debuff they do it when the mob is below 50%, aka after they en*, engage, nuke a few times and throw a heal to show that they heal. (but the good rdm I've met have OWNED! wtb more of those )

From my experience I'd say you should generally expect that you yourself have to do enfeebles until high 30ies in NA threadmill parties. :mad:

I usually have paralyze, slow and dia on before I need to throw the first heal. If the tank has poor defense (or isn't a tank, hi war and pld shortage 33+) you might have to alternate but once you're used to it it's not an issue.

[Miriamel]

I've come across a lot of smart redmages that actually know how to do their job and have a high enfeebling magic skill (kudos to you guys), but Petri is right, a lot of them prefer to battle. When I'm the only WHM and there is a RDM in the group, I usually tell them that they might have to help heal if things get ugly or I need to rest, and I get pouty responses more often than not. =/ I figure they should have chosen a pure fighter class or dark knight if they want to do the battling.. but meh, I encounter those less and less, luckily.

Red mages are the best enfeeblers of course, and should do all enfeebling if available. If not, though, white mages are better suited than black mages for that job in my experience.

[hero]

forget what lvl the spell is, but if you get a chance buy whm Blink. it's only good for 1 hit but trust me, that 1 hit will save you a lot of headache. just cast it while your warrs or whatever are out pulling.