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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 have the most feign deaths options with Spell: Feign Death, Spell: Death Peace and Spell: Endowed Death as well as the feign death AAs Death Imitation and Life Burn. Shadowknights receive only the spells Spell: Feign Death and Spell: Death Peace. Necromancers receive their first feign death spell at level 16 and Shadowknights at 24.
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 Necromancers, 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.
Pulling and Splitting
In order to pull and split a group, a puller with feign death and a tagger are necessary. The player with feign death gets aggro on a group, brings them within range of the tagger, and then feigns death. The tagger gets aggro on the single monster while the others return to their spawn points. The feign puller must remain down at least until the group has returned to their spawn points and reset.