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User:Rari/Feign Death
Feign death is the ability to fool mobs into believing that you are dead when you are actually still alive. It is not, however, fool proof and feign death can fail.
Feign Death is arguably the most useful ability in the game, providing valuable experience from dying, but also as a way of separating groups of monsters when fighting. There are three classes in the game which can use the feign death ability: Monks, Necromancers and Shadowknights. Monks have feign death as an actual skill. Necromancers get both the spells Spell: Feign Death, Spell: Death Peace and Spell: Endowed Death as well as the feign death AAs Death Imitation and Life Burn. Shadowknights recieve only the spells Spell: Feign Death and Spell: Death Peace. Necromancers receive their first feign death spell at level 16 and Shadowknights at 30.
Mechanics
- Successful Feign Death
Succesfully feigning death drops a player to the bottom of all hate lists and prevents additional mobs from gaining aggro on them. Once a player successfully feigns death, mobs which were aggro will stop attacking and react in various ways. If they are also aggro on another player, they will immediately resume their attack or chase on them. If they were only aggro on the feigned player they will stop, wait over the feigned player for a moment, and eventually return back to their spawn points or carry on their patrolling or roaming pattern.
Players will remain on a mob's hate list even though their hate has been dropped to zero. They will remain there until the hate list is 'reset'. This will happen when a mob returns to their previous state or after an extended period of time. Stationary mobs need simply to return to the location and orientation in which they were originally standing. Roaming and patrolling mobs must return to their paths. The amount of time necessary for them to return is dependant on the distance they've traveled from their next point of destination. In either case, 60-seconds is generally held to be a 'good' period of time to wait for a mob to reset, some players waiting as long as 90 seconds for roamers. Snare spells will delay mobs from returning to their reset points in a timely fashion and so may also delay their reset. Rooted mobs will attempt to walk back to their spawn point - they will turn away from the caster and reset their hate list after 60 seconds if root does not end before then.
While you are feigning death there are certain restrictions applied to your character. Feigned players cannot move, cast spells, trade, buy, quest, bandage or camp. However, Monks can still use Mend and banking is possible. Especially helpful during a successful feign death is the ability to pan out into different views and see which mobs are close.
Health and mana regeneration rates are reduced to 1/3 of their normal rate while feigned. Therefore, buffs that increase health and mana regen such as Spell: Chloroplast and Spell: Gift of Brilliance (for Necromancers) are extra useful to someone who is going to be using feign death a lot. Players using Lich spells while feigned should be especially careful that the associated degen doesn't kill them. Necromancers should certainly try to click off their lich spell before using Life Burn, as the degen will almost certainly kill them immediately.
- Feign Death Failures
For Monks, when a feign death attempt fails the message "<Player Name> has fallen to the ground" is displayed. This signifies that they have not feigned successfully, and mobs will continue to treat the monk as a live enemy and carry on attacking. Skilling up the feign death skill will reduce the failure rate for Monks.
Shadowknights and Necromancers use a spell for feign death and as such the spell is either successfully cast or the cast is interrupted/fizzles. Obviously, an interrupted or fizzled casting of the feign death spell is an unsuccessful feign death and is readily apparent as the caster is still walking around. Aside from the interruption or fizzle message, there is no additional message of a failed feign death attempt. Skilling up Abjuration and Channeling will reduce the failure rate for these spells, reducing the chance to fizzle. Both classes also have access to AAs which prevent any of their spells, including their feign Death spells, from being interrupted.
Though not technically a failure, Shadowknights and Necromancers may find their feign death spells interrupted if they are not standing still when they attempt to cast them.
- Breaking Feign Death
Any detrimental spell landing on a feigned player will break their feign death, whether a direct spell that was being cast as the player feigned or an AoE spell cast in their area after they have feigned. When a feign is broken in this way, the player will remain "flopped" on the ground, but mobs will be treat them as if they are standing. As feign death is only effected by a spell landing, damage over time spells will not break feign death when they tick, nor will resisted spells. A player may move out of the casting range of casters before feigning to avoid being struck by spells which may break feign death.
Beneficial spells cast on a successfully feigned player, such as heals, are risky as any mobs that had aggro on them and have not reset will now aggro on the caster. Necromancer and Shadowknight Life Flow spells are aggro-free and therefore exempt from this restriction, so they can be cast worry-free on a feigned player at any point. Other heals and buffs should only be cast when a monk asks for it because only the monk has a good idea of what aggro he still retains.
- Standing Up
When a player stands up after a successful feign death, unless the mob has reset it will re-aggro and will chain aggro other social mobs within it's aggro range on its way back to the player.
If a player uses /quit while feigning death, they will go link dead but remained feigned. After three minutes, they will be logged out as if they had camped and be removed from all hate lists. The player using this technique will want to move to a safe area first, as they will be standing when they log in. This technique is often used to drop aggro on roaming mobs which are taking an excessively long time to reset.
- Pets
Pets can seriously screw up a good feign death - though aggro will be reduced, NPCs will recognize that the player is still alive when a player's pet retains aggro. For Shadowknights and Monks, making use of /pet get lost should solve this problem. This command can be used in a hotkey though it will require the player to resummon their pet. Shadowknights may instead use /pet hold before pulling to preserve their pet, assuming they have purchased the AA Pet Discipline.
Necromancers can utilize a more complicated macro that will avoid the necessity of dismissing their pet:
/alt activate 176 /pet hold /alt activate 71
Creating this hotkey requires the AAs Pet Discipline, Recall Minion (176) and Death Imitation (71). It will recall the necromancer's pet on top of the necromancer, which removes the pet from all hatelists. Then it will put the pet on hold, preventing the pet from regaining hate. Finally, the necromancer is feigned, all with one stroke. This macro may be used whether or not a pet is summoned.
Applications
- Aggro-reduction
Feign death moves the player back to the bottom of an NPC's hatelist, which can be used to prevent aggro being pulled off a main tank in combat. When used in a solo situation, a player can move aggro onto a pet. In either situation, the player must keep in mind that staying flopped long enough to remove them from the hatelist completely may result in an Assistance Penalty.
This quality of feign death can also be used to avoid the negative side-effect of Enthrall spells (more commonly known as mez spells), where the mezzed target will immediately attack the caster who mezzed them when the mez breaks because Enthrall spells generate a high amount of hate. If the caster feigns death (Endowed Death can be especially useful in such situations when working with an Enchanter) while the NPC is still mezzed, aggro should instead go to the person who breaks the mez.
I haven't edited any of the nonsense below this point yet.
- Pulling and Splitting
use tail rate to root one before using feign death.
The general application for all three classes with this skill is to avoid dying when in trouble. However the skill has to be used differently by each class, and can have further uses as one becomes a more experienced player. Keep in mind also that a Necromancer or Shadowknight skeleton pet will suicide after two minutes of its master being feigned, a charmed pet will be instantly released.. Here is a summary below of some of the extra uses for feigning death:
Necromancer As a Necromancer you will often be doing massive amounts of damage to mobs from your powerful spells. This however can cause the mob to aggro on you very quickly. Feigning death in this instance is very useful to lose the mobs aggro so it goes back on party tanks or if soloing, your pet.
Also Necromancers who find themselves deep in an area with no way out and a train of mobs, instead of trying to squeeze in an uninterrupted gate, can feign death and /quit. Then once they log back in, they can attempt to gate when they have more time. This is due to the difference in casting time between gate and feign. Feign requires only 1.5 seconds, Gate on the other hand requires 5.0 seconds.
Monkand Shadowknight Although Monks and Shadowknights use different techniques to feign they have the same applications of the ability. Feign death can be very useful while tanking to give the Cleric that extra second to pull of a heal on you. This is because it will divert the mobs attention from you to another player. It is also very useful for scouting out areas as you are the most likely to be able to escape in case of mass aggro. However, the primary application of the feign death skill for Monks and Shadowknights is "feign and tag" pulling, an in depth description is below.
"Feign and Tag" Pulling Feign pulling is used to pull single mobs from large groupings of mobs, usually when the group is especially dangerous or beyond the group(s) ability to kill. Previously feign pulling was much easier than it is now, this is due to changes that were implemented modifying how a mob reacts when you stand up. The current sub-35 feign pulling tactic is same as it used to be for all monsters. The sub-35 tactic is to pull a group of mobs to a pre-determined area and feign death, you then wait till as many of the mobs have left and stand up and bringing a single mob. This can prove difficult at times as the mobs will often leave in groups and you may have to settle for bringing two mobs or repeating the process till you get one by themselves.
Since the modifications implemented last year, feign pulling in higher-level areas evolved into tag pulling. The problem found was that when you stood up to bring in the single mob left, all the others would come back after you. So to get round this you have to get someone else come "tag" the single mob off you. Tagging normally involves hitting the monster with a ranged weapon such as a bow or a thrown dagger. Having a Magician with you to summon these items is always a good idea. Feign Tag" pulling requires good coordination between the tagger and puller so the mob does not get away. I recommend a macro that will call for the tagger to "take [ %t ]". The split seconds you save in not having to type can make all the difference.
After the mob is tagged you then have two options. You can either wait till the mob is dead and then stand up and repeat the process as the already angered mobs come back at you, or alternatively you can risk standing up and joining in with the fight. You should only take this risk if you know the mobs have returned to their spawn points and have forgotten you. Even if you "know" you are aggro free, it is always a good idea to pause after standing up and check it anyway, just to be certain.
Monks being able to feign easier than Shadowknights will find this much easier to pull off, but Shadowknights are more likely to reach the feign point on long pulls due to their better tanking abilities. When tag pulling, having two people in the group who can feign can make it much easier, as one of them can go feign before in the area which the puller will feign at, and as such will be able to tell himself when he can safely tag and not have to rely on the puller telling him. If you don't have two feign pullers it is best to make sure that the person who is tagging knows not to tag till you say or you may find him training your whole group.