Is provoke broken or am I doing it wrong?

[Coldea]

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

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.

[StouterTaru]

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

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

[SpookyGhost]

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

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.