Introduction to Agro Mechanics

As our guild members push steadily towards raid content, it's important that we all understand the core mechanics that impact our success. Since we are committed to helping everyone who wishes to experience end-game raid content achieve that goal, I will be writing introductory guides that will educate even the most inexperienced on the basics.

A brief disclaimer before I start:.

Reading guides and mastering your rotation (if you have one) on the target dummy is no substitute for actually getting into a dungeon and learning the hard way. Some people have developed a fear of running random dungeons with strangers, and that's understandable, but you shouldn't wait for an all-guild run to develop your skills. Be brave, be bold, and get out there with the jerks and idiots! Your guild mates will appreciate your sacrifice the next time you all party together because you will make a better contribution to your friends' experience.

Run randoms; do it for your friends!

I've chosen to start with Agro Mechanics because there are a lot of players who only play solo up to the level cap and it's one of those mechanics that soloing players will not encounter or have many opportunities to think about.

What are Agro Mechanics?

Agro mechanics could be describe as the game rules that determine when and who monsters will attack.

Why should I care about Agro Management?

Some people act as though only the tank needs to worry about agro management. The truth is that good agro management is best accomplished when every party member knows how to contribute to the effort. While an excellent tank can act to recover from a multitude of agro management blunders, every healer and damage dealer needs to ask himself, “Do I want to be the player who causes problems for the tank to fix?”

The answer, of course, is “No.”

Some common terms

Note: Thanks to MMOTerms.com for help putting concise language to some terms.

Mob: An AI-controlled (NPC) monster.

Agro: As a verb, it means to draw a mob's attention and aggression (e.g. “The tank will agro the boss). As a noun, it refers to the mob's attention and aggression (e.g. “I got the boss's agro!”).

Agro Radius: The minimum distance from which a monster will “notice” and attack a player. Generally, the lower your level, the higher a monster's agro radius will be towards you.

Threat: A measure of how likely a mob is to attack you. The person with the most threat is the person the mob considers the greatest threat---and also the person to which the mob will focus its attacks.

Performing actions that hurt a mob, or that aid a player whom the mob has already agroed will generate more threat and increase the chance that the mob will attack the player that performed the action. It is every party member's responsibility to help ensure that the tank has more threat than every other party member.

Pulling/Drawing Agro: When you make a mob attack you. Hopefully, the tank is the only person who draws agro, and hopefully the tank can hold it during combat.

These terms should be sufficient for our agro management discussions in the near future. In my next article on the subject, I will continue with what I call Rule the First: Let the Tank Handle the Pull.

Cheers for now.