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Understanding Attack Priority

AuthorMessage
Hero
Jul 30, 2012
771
My observations suggest the following.

1 - When a group of similar powered (leveled?) wizards are in battle the enemy focus most of their attention on the first wizard to enter the battle circle. The last wizard gets attacked seldom.

2 - If a powerful wizard is on the team the enemy focus more attention on that wizard. Less powerfull wizards get less attention. "Powerfull" usually means much higher level but not always. Its really the most deadly wizard, perhaps the one with most offensive capability.

3 - If a significantly powerful wizard enters the circle first, the other wizards take hardly any hits. The last wizard walks away without a scratch.

Are my observations correct?

Why would the game be designed for the enemy to focus on the first wizard to enter the battle circle?

Squire
Feb 29, 2012
502
RottenHeart wrote:
My observations suggest the following.

1 - When a group of similar powered (leveled?) wizards are in battle the enemy focus most of their attention on the first wizard to enter the battle circle. The last wizard gets attacked seldom.

2 - If a powerful wizard is on the team the enemy focus more attention on that wizard. Less powerfull wizards get less attention. "Powerfull" usually means much higher level but not always. Its really the most deadly wizard, perhaps the one with most offensive capability.

3 - If a significantly powerful wizard enters the circle first, the other wizards take hardly any hits. The last wizard walks away without a scratch.

Are my observations correct?

Why would the game be designed for the enemy to focus on the first wizard to enter the battle circle?


Only if that person is drawing attention to them self. Quite frankly, even I, a Storm with mediocre (this may be exaggeration XD) health can deal with the hits focused.

It just depends on how you set up your deck.

Astrologist
Dec 16, 2009
1035
My observations of attack priority.
1) If the number of players that enters the ring at the same time is equivalent to the number of monsters, the first monster will attack the first player, the second monster will attack the second player etc regardless of lvl etc. If the number of monsters outnumbers the number of players, the priority falls to the first player and if there was 2 players in battle, the first player would be targeted by the first and third monster.This priority remains constant until one of 2 things happens: a player hits a monster or a player heals.

2)If one player enters the battle ring alone(ie his pips show up) and the other players enter late, all monsters will only recognize and attack the first player who entered. The only attacks that will hit the other players are aoes.(use this to your advantage: example in mirror lake, i put on my 85+ storm resist gear and enter alone.Thus all spiders attack me and my friends can blade freely etc while only having to worry about lord or tempest). This priority changes when the other players attack or heal.

Now once initial priority is decided several factors can be used to shift priority. If a player manages to do a sucessful large heal(Pixie+; sprite has little to no effect) then all monsters who have not been hit by another player will begin to target the person who heals. A monster will also switch priorities if he takes a large attack from another player. Example: Monster A was targeting Player A, Player B hits Monster A and now Monster A switches targets to Player B. Monsters will also attack a player who has sucessfully killed another monster. However Monsters will ALWAYS target the player who did the largest direct attack to said monster and this can only be offset by an even larger attack from another player or an exceptionally high heal.

Now monsters target players with a set priority
1)Direct attacks trump all- A player who directly attacked a monster with the largest attack will be targeted even if another player heals(Example If Bob attacked Monster B with lighting bats and his friend Joe healed with pixie, Monster B will target Bob instead of Joe)

2)Heals affect targeting- If a player heals a significant amount and no monster was directly attacked by another player, monsters will attack the healer.

3) Numbers matter- If a monster is hit by both lighting bats and storm shark in the same turn, the monster will target the person who attacked with storm shark. Same thing applies to heals, the player who heals the highest will attract more threat.

Spells such as taunts or pacifies can reduce or increase threat to manipulate a monsters target choies. A long answer but I hope it helped.

Archon
Feb 07, 2011
3175
Close, but not quite accurate.

RottenHeart wrote:

1 - When a group of similar powered (leveled?) wizards are in battle the enemy focus most of their attention on the first wizard to enter the battle circle. The last wizard gets attacked seldom.


In regular (non-cheat) battles, this is the case only if that first wizard enters the battle ring alone, because s/he is the only one there to draw enemy aggro. If all teammates enter the ring at the same time, it depends on how many enemies there are, vs. wizards in the ring.

Generally speaking, the enemy focuses on the wizard directly opposite him. Therefore, the enemy in first will focus on the wizard in first, and so on... UNTIL one of the other wizards draws the enemy aggro to him/herself by attacking or healing.

Example: if the first three wizards blade, but the 4th one casts a heal, that wizard on the end will now be the focus of all enemies.

Another example:

Let's say that two archmage wizards (Life and Storm) enter a dueling ring together; Storm stands in the first spot, Life in second. If there is only one boss, he will attack Storm first, because Storm is directly opposite him. If there is a minion present, that minion will focus on the Life wizard.

For multiple minions: in this scenario, the enemies in 1st and 3rd will target Storm, and those in 2nd and 4th will target Life.

RottenHeart wrote:

2 - If a powerful wizard is on the team the enemy focus more attention on that wizard. Less powerfull wizards get less attention. "Powerfull" usually means much higher level but not always. Its really the most deadly wizard, perhaps the one with most offensive capability.


Again, not completely accurate. The reason the "less-powerful" wizard gets hit less often is because her spells generally draw less aggro than her teammate's.

If, on the same round, both wizards attack, the higher-rank spell will draw higher aggro. If Storm casts Triton and Life casts Seraph, the enemies will both attack Storm, as he's drawn higher aggro than his teammate; if Life casts a Forest Lord and Storm uses Storm Shark, both enemies will now target the Life wizard.

RottenHeart wrote:

3 - If a significantly powerful wizard enters the circle first, the other wizards take hardly any hits. The last wizard walks away without a scratch.


Only if that "powerful" wizard is the only one attacking. To use the example above:

If Storm keeps shielding and Life heals him with a Satyr, the Life wizard has just drawn the attention to herself. Often called "healer's ag", this will cause all enemies to start attacking Life instead.

Also worth noting: defeat does NOT clear aggro.

For example: Storm hits with a Triton, then is defeated. The enemies will now target the Life wizard, but only until she heals Storm. Once he's alive again, the enemies will continue pounding him unless Life's heal drew more aggro than Storm's last attack. Not likely, if that heal was a Sprite or Fairy, but Rebirth would get the enemies' attention.

-

Generate or reduce threat on target:

Most schools have a Reduce Threat spells, trainable from Mortis(the Death tree) in Nightside. In the example above, if Storm cast one of these, he's decreased his threat, which will cause the enemies to start attacking Life instead.

The exceptions to this are Ice and Balance:

Iinstead of reduced threat, Ice learns the Taunt spell, which INCREASES their threat and will draw enemy aggro to them. When a taunt is cast, the enemies will begin attacking the Ice wizard~ because they have such high health, it allows them to keep the spotlight off their more-vulnerable teammates.

As for Balance wizards, we don't get either of these, for reasons unknown to me. LOL.

Hope this helps!
-veebz

Explorer
May 07, 2011
95
RottenHeart wrote:
My observations suggest the following.

1 - When a group of similar powered (leveled?) wizards are in battle the enemy focus most of their attention on the first wizard to enter the battle circle. The last wizard gets attacked seldom.

2 - If a powerful wizard is on the team the enemy focus more attention on that wizard. Less powerfull wizards get less attention. "Powerfull" usually means much higher level but not always. Its really the most deadly wizard, perhaps the one with most offensive capability.

3 - If a significantly powerful wizard enters the circle first, the other wizards take hardly any hits. The last wizard walks away without a scratch.

Are my observations correct?

Why would the game be designed for the enemy to focus on the first wizard to enter the battle circle?


*Buzzer sound*

I'm sorry, RottenHeart, but this is incorrect. Attack priority at the beginning of the fight is based on position.

EX: Jim, a Life, gets in a fight with two Samoorai. Both Samoorai are focused on him. Then, Joe joins the fight. Joe is a Storm, and 10 levels higher than Jim. Now, when the next Samoorai joins the fight, the first two are focused on Jim, but the last one is on Joe, because it came in the fight with him. Attack priority in the beginning of the fight is based on position.

Now, in the middle of the fight, priority is based upon threat. Say Joe defeats the Samoorai attacking him, Now, since defeating enemies creates threat, the other two Samoorai are prioritized on Joe. Now, say Jim heals Joe with a Dryad for 9560 (Random No.). Now the Samoorai are prioritized on Jim because the heal accumulated more threat than the attack. Now, if Joe uses a Tempest, but does NOT kill the Samoorai, they would usually be prioritized on him for doing damage. However, the threat gain from the Dryad still outweighs the damage, the Samoorai are still prioritized on Jim.

Hope this made sense.

-Alex DuskGlade, Archmage Thaumaturge.

Explorer
Jan 03, 2011
99
corrections in dark red

1 - When a group of similar powered (leveled?) wizards are in battle the enemy focus most of their attention on the first wizard to enter the battle circle. The last wizard gets attacked seldom.
- When a group of wizards of the same level enter a fight (actually level doesn't matter in the decision) at the same time , each enemy will focus their attention on the wiz right in front of them. so say you have 4 wiz and 4 monsters: each wizard will get attacked by only one of the enemies (except in case of AoE which will hit everyone.)
If you have 4 enemies and 2 wizards, each wiz will have 2 of the monsters focused on him/her.


2 - If a powerful wizard is on the team the enemy focus more attention on that wizard. Less powerfull wizards get less attention. "Powerfull" usually means much higher level but not always. Its really the most deadly wizard, perhaps the one with most offensive capability.
- Again, lvl doesn't decide who gets attacked. it's pretty much assigned based on placement in the battle ring. this answers question 3 as well.
there are exception to the rules i discussed in question 1:
a) if one wizard gets in the circle alone (and there are 4 enemies), and the rest join after the battle has begun, all the enemies will attack the first wizard only and the people who joined late will not be attacked (until they attack an enemy. that enemy will then focus its attention on the offender)

b) In a case where the group of wizard enter at the same time (and get the attention of 1 enemy each): healing will cause all the enemies to focus their attention on the person that healed. (pet's unicorn will also get that reaction from enemies)


Why would the game be designed for the enemy to focus on the first wizard to enter the battle circle?
So yea the game is not designed that way. the enemies will all focus on the first wizard to enter only if he/she is alone when entering. if you all enter at the same time, the enemies will get assigned to a particular wiz (this will be as equal as possible).
In case you have 4 enemies and only 3 wizard, 1 of the wizard, (the first) will get assigned 2 enemies (the first and fourth enemies)

Hero
Jul 30, 2012
771
Great answers and totally make sense to me. Thanks very much! Really appreciated.

My observations were skewed because I play very offensively. I'm only level 38 Death but I have over 50% power pip. I set a feint and start killing with the best spell i got asap. Within two battle rounds I'm usually blasting. Evidently I become a big threat very fast. Result: I usually take the pounding! But I find it makes the quickest battle.

This also completely explains another big annoyance: players that jump into battle, draw more enemy, and contribute nothing, just gaining pips and taking no hits. I take all the work & pain, possibly die, then they can mop up at the end with their favorite show-off spell. Totally explains it, thanks!

Hero
Jul 30, 2012
771
Not quite guys!

I just did a bunch of tests and what you guys claim is defintely not correct.

I did tests with one team mate, exact same level but different school. I did tests and variations over and over. (two wizards fighting).

1. If both wizards enter at same time, and only one wizard attacks, the other wizard just passes. The non-attacking wizard will take hits.

2. If one wizard enters, then the second enters late and only passes. The second non-attacking wizard will take hits.

What is claimed in previous posts may affect probability of attack. The only certain pattern I found was:

All things being equal, whoever is in the first circle position takes the majority of hits. Second circle position takes less hits.

3. I sat and observed the Wizard City Kraken boss. Priority of attacks is defintely based on position in the circle. Last person takes almost no hits.

Archon
Feb 07, 2011
3175
RottenHeart wrote:
Not quite guys!

I just did a bunch of tests and what you guys claim is defintely not correct.

I did tests with one team mate, exact same level but different school. I did tests and variations over and over. (two wizards fighting).

1. If both wizards enter at same time, and only one wizard attacks, the other wizard just passes. The non-attacking wizard will take hits.

2. If one wizard enters, then the second enters late and only passes. The second non-attacking wizard will take hits.

What is claimed in previous posts may affect probability of attack. The only certain pattern I found was:

All things being equal, whoever is in the first circle position takes the majority of hits. Second circle position takes less hits.

3. I sat and observed the Wizard City Kraken boss. Priority of attacks is defintely based on position in the circle. Last person takes almost no hits.


Your test "results" are skewed and biased. If you only observed one low-level boss, how can you call that an accurate representation of combat mechanics all 10 worlds?

If I recall correctly, you just told us that you're only level 38. Most of us who answered have high-level wizards with more experience in all worlds. If we all share the same experience, and are all telling you the same thing, it's obviously not incorrect~ that would imply that everyone who answered is lying, and we certainly aren't. Just because you lack the experience to conduct accurate testing doesn't make us all wrong.

The other night, I was fighting in Celestia with a friend~ I'm Storm (61), and she's Death (65). I made the following observations:

1) When my friend entered the battle ring alone, she was the focus of both enemies and I didn't take any hits at all. The same was true when I entered first/alone.

2) When I entered the circle late, the enemy I brought in was focused on me only. If I cast an attack-all spell (Tempest, for example) from second, but did not kill, all 3 enemies focused on me the following round.

3) When we both entered the circle at the same time (her in first, me in second), the enemy focused on whoever was directly across from him. The enemies in the first and third places attacked my friend, and I took hits from the ones in second (and fourth, where applicable). The same was true when we switched places.

My 2 cents, for what it's worth.

El Veeb

Balance/80
Death/75
Storm/61
& the rest.

Hero
Jul 30, 2012
771
vonawesome1 wrote:

Your test "results" are skewed and biased. If you only observed one low-level boss, how can you call that an accurate representation of combat mechanics all 10 worlds?


My test used a systematic approach with controlled conditions performed repeatedly. My test results indicate that the firm attacking priority indicated in previous posts is not correct. I am not suggesting that people are lying. I simply conducted a test that indicates otherwise. Ease up vanawesome1, no need to get angry. I'm just trying to figure it out. This is why i asked the question.

You are suggesting that attacking priority might change based on the specific enemy, the fighting location, or my level. Maybe other factors too. This is a very different answer from those above, and quite possibly true.

I am starting to believe it is based on probabilities that are affected by a number of factors.

Archon
Feb 07, 2011
3175
RottenHeart wrote:
vonawesome1 wrote:

Your test "results" are skewed and biased. If you only observed one low-level boss, how can you call that an accurate representation of combat mechanics all 10 worlds?


My test used a systematic approach with controlled conditions performed repeatedly. My test results indicate that the firm attacking priority indicated in previous posts is not correct. I am not suggesting that people are lying. I simply conducted a test that indicates otherwise. Ease up vanawesome1, no need to get angry. I'm just trying to figure it out. This is why i asked the question.

You are suggesting that attacking priority might change based on the specific enemy, the fighting location, or my level. Maybe other factors too. This is a very different answer from those above, and quite possibly true.

I am starting to believe it is based on probabilities that are affected by a number of factors.


Oh, wow. Now that I can actually see the post, in its entirety, I guess I did sound pretty angry. Then again, I wrote this just after someone on the other board insulted my intelligence... I'm sorry you were the target of that. Peace-offering?

And yes, combat mechanics change depending on all of those things: world, level, # of people in the fight... I'm all for research, though it definitely helps to have all of the tools available to you. Maybe ask a high-level friend to let you port to him (or her) in combat~ that way, you'll be better informed and able to achieve more-accurate results. ;)

Cheers!

Squire
Feb 29, 2012
502
In higher level worlds Vonawesome's 'theory,' as it is, actually is what happens. I have a Storm currently in Avalon and all the ideas she listed are true. (Note, I have battled in there for a long time, at least a month at the least.)

Survivor
Nov 16, 2010
41
Or maybe your all correct and these stats keep changing through updates.

Defender
Feb 24, 2012
192
I dont know how many other mmo games you have played in the past but it has alot to do with AGGRO (aggrivation) . Usually who ever is doing the most damage gets the attack attention. If no one is attacking heals and charms may also draw aggro. This is how it worked in the other mmo's ive played and seems to do the same here. Other than that the first person in circle has the mobs attention the second usually draws the second mobs attention and so on until the aggro or taunt has been established.

Explorer
Jan 03, 2011
99

1. If both wizards enter at same time, and only one wizard attacks, the other wizard just passes. The non-attacking wizard will take hits.

This is normal. like you said "both wizards enter at the same time". this is means, at least one of the enemies (depending on how many there were) was assigned to the passive wiz because he got in the circle with you at the same time.
- if the second wiz keeps passing, eventually, the offensive wizard will generate enough threat to get the attention of all the enemies.


2. If one wizard enters, then the second enters late and only passes. The second non-attacking wizard will take hits.

This is also normal. because the passive person entered late, he/she drew in a late enemy as well. If i am correct you were fighting 2 enemies (assuming they were regular monsters) at first then, when your partner got in, there were 3? While the passive person is getting attacked, he/she is safe from the first 2 monsters (which will focus on the offensive wiz), with only the last one attacking.

Also, there are a few factors you may not have included here:
- did the passive (non-attacking) wizard get with with single target spells or AoE? Getting hit by AoE spells would be normal too..
- I forgot to mention this but the dynamics work a little differently with certain bosses. some of them might focus on one person and keep at it even if a teammate hits them. was this the case?
- did the passive wizard have a pet using "may cast" talents?
- In this case as well, eventually even the third monster will attack only the offensive player (though this works mostly in higher level worlds)

All things being equal, whoever is in the first circle position takes the majority of hits. Second circle position takes less hits.

This is true because the first person usually gets assigned more enemies except when there are 4 wizards for 4 enemies.

All things can only be equal if you have 4 wiz for 4 enemies. and in this this situation, everyone would be taking roughly the same amount of damage (assuming none of the enemies fizz).
After a few rounds, the amount of damage each of you take will be affected by other factors (pet healing and normal healing, threat you generate, use of AoE spells) .