Is provoke broken or am I doing it wrong?

I've had the bard in my group pull aggro on occassion and I have yet to see provoke + taunt pull the mob right back to me.

I've used

Provoke+Shield Lob
Provoke+Flash
Provoke+Savage Blade

None of them seem to pull the mob back to me. Am I missing something?

Provoke gives you the emnity value of the person with the highest emnity + 1.

It's possible the Bard had a song in effect, so as soon as you provoke, their song effect ticks and gets the hate right back. A similar thing would happen if for instance a WHM had regen ticking on you or someone else.

Provoke is not the same as FFXI provoke. If you provoke a mob that isn't on the hate list of anyone in your alliance, it misses. If he is on your alliance members' hate list, you you get bumped up to #1 hate for your alliance.

You mentioned BRD. There may be the problem; if they're using all their cooldowns sans Quelling, it's VERY hard to rip hate back from them smoothly unless it's Provoke-Rage of Halone. Those cooldowns are no joke.

If this is happening most at the start of the fight, Fight or Flight before Shield Lob when pulling will make a WORLD of difference in getting quick enmity.
If it's happening towards the middle or end of the fight, there's probably a gear issue involved with losing enmity over time. His lucky procs, your potentially poor accuracy, VIT accessories holding back your DPS? Not sure, but it's the guess for if it happens in this period of a fight.

Yes, loading your provoke is best. At times a lob or flash or savage blade isn't enough. Voke+RoH might help a bit more and ensure some snap aggro. Usually with a high output DPS if they pull a mob off me (ST) then I will cover them, charge up RoH, voke+ROH+flash+shield bash. That should put you back in the lead with a bit of a buffer.

If it's a pack well, then...I hope they kill it before it kills them. Getting threat of a DPS on pack pulls at times is a no win. That DPS is focused on that mob and is in a death race with them. So usually I don't bother, I just pop cover on em and carry on with the rest of the pack.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

If you provoke a mob that isn't on the hate list of anyone in your alliance, it misses.

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Nope, provoking a mob that wasnt pulled will give you 1 enmity on him. You can use that to pull a mob from a great distance : Shield Lob and Tomahawk have a range of 15y, provoke is 25y.

You have the right idea that you need to follow Provoke with an enmity generating action.

Rage of Halone is far better at this as it has a larger modifier than the others. It was also discovered that you could actually do Rage of Halone > Provoke whilst the animation is going off for RoH and it will still work. I have done this myself with success. Just have to make sure to be spamming that Provoke immediately after RoH so it can execute as soon as it possible can.

Of course, it is harder to get enmity back if the enemy has run off. This is why it is greatly encouraged than any non-tank player runs back to the tank with the enemy rather than keep running away. Shield Lob is ok to use, but if the other players are still attacking the enemy they may pull it back off. They really need to stop attacking it and let you get control back.

If it's trash, though, and it's almost dead (<20% HP in my books), then leave them to tank it and finish it off. It's not worth struggling with it at that point. Better to focus your attention on any other trash that still lives.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

If you provoke a mob that isn't on the hate list of anyone in your alliance, it misses.

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As already pointed out above, this isn't true.

Some enemies, however, are immune to the effects of Provoke. These include FATE enemies and Hunt targets. This wasn't originally the case, but players would use it to exploit the mechanics of getting Gold in FATEs (or would give full credit for hunts). Basically, FATE/Hunt reward is based on the amount of enmity generated during the encounter. Provoke could be used to game this by instantly generating a lot of enmity for you. So it was patched to make these types of enemies immune to Provoke. On these, it will come up as a miss. But every other target is not immune to Provoke or its effect.

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Originally Posted by Coldea

Nope, provoking a mob that wasnt pulled will give you 1 enmity on him.

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Have they changed this since around 2.1 or so? My first few provokes missed, and the mob remained passive (unlike a missed attack)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

Have they changed this since around 2.1 or so? My first few provokes missed, and the mob remained passive (unlike a missed attack)

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This only applies to mobs immune to Provoke, like Hunt marks.

OP: You're doing it right, BRD is kind of insane on aggro pre-50, especially if they don't use Quelling. If they pull one mob (as long as it's not the boss) it won't be the end of the world, so don't worry yourself over it.

Thanks for the input guys.

Just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something glaringly wrong.

Just don't panic and provoke as soon as you lose the mob unless your next attack is RoH. Preload your combo then voke > RoH. A dps should last more than 5 seconds vs a single mob. Consider melding some STR to your accessories too for easier snap agro in those situations, then you can use lesser enmity skills to pull it back without much trouble.
Don't be afraid to cover the person with hate while you build up to voke > RoH too if it's a really hard hitting mob or boss.

Is there a way to macro cover to target's target so that I don't have to switch to the player to cover them?

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Originally Posted by Vistari

Is there a way to macro cover to target's target so that I don't have to switch to the player to cover them?

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/ac Cover <tt>

I use the same thing with Eye for Eye to slap it on the tank.

Yes, <tt> is your friend in many situations.

I used that cover macro last night and it worked beautifully. Thank you.

You can't miss the tethered line between you and the person you're covering.

What other <tt> macros are you guys using as a tank?

I used to use the <tt> on my cover but I found I am just faster at clicking the person getting smashed then hitting the macro.

I have a <tt> set up for stoneskin when I am OT, but as tank that is really it. On SCH or WHM I have <tt> set up for all my DPS stuffs. This way I can rest on the Tank and still DPS without much target cycling. Same on BLM with E4E, etc.

Not quite what you asked for but, yea...

I would suggest using /ac "Cover" <mo> actually, because there will be situations where you want to use Cover on somebody who isn't being targeted, but will shortly (such as Earthshakers or Akh Morn).

Thanks for the advice.

On mouseover, is that mousing over their name in the party window or their actual character on the screen?

Either.

/10char