New aggro changes affecting archer's puppet

Elder wraiths de aggro without someone entering the map. Comes back eventually though.

 

I've been told it also has to do with the distance between you and Nagrom (the pirate boss). Puppet will distract Nagrom as long as you are within an appropriate distance. If your archer were to walk away, say to buff, then the puppet loses its effect.

Edit: Nevermind, pirate has to be facing the direction of the puppet as well as the archer being within a certain distance.

 

IDK IF THESE VIDEOS APPLY TO THE SITUATIONS YOU DESCRIBED (i think they do, but maybe they'll help)

they're from cwkpq today. the puppet worked fine for a while (first half of first run) then completely borked partway through.



here's a video of it working like it did pre-aggro changes and how i think it should work.

 

oops, fixed!

 

Assuming the aggro in this video still holds true, archers who are able to knock back the pirate boss can still puppet AND pin on the right side. Similar to what Postcard is doing with very minor adjustments.

When puppet runs out AND pirate boss is pinned to the very edge of the platform, archers should continue to use the portal to teleport down. However, instead of walking rightwards before puppeting, archers should puppet immediately. This should place the puppet in front of the pirate boss. By doing so the puppet should be in front of the pirate boss, thus resulting in puppet working.

I haven't done any CWKPQs since the maintenance, but i'll test it out later this week. If the puppet's casting range causes it to be placed beyond the pirate boss, archers may have to move leftwards first before casting.

 

I just did a CWKPQ run and had a hard time getting Pirate to aggro on puppet. Sometimes it took 4-5 tries till it finally worked. Regardless of facing/positioning explained by Nise this doesn't seem very reliable.

It gives the impression that auto aggro is prioritizing on any player the Pirate sees (not just the closest one) instead of who's dealing the damage. Or is this now intended?

 

Hi Arthur, after the discussion about Pink Bean aggro yesterday, I noticed that one key factor in resetting aggro upon boss 'turning directions' is knockback/flinching the boss - ie. using barrage/snatch to pull back pinkbean to turn right and reset aggro when pinkbean faces left

The difference between your video and Postcard's is the important fact that your damage does not flinch the pirate boss and hers do.

If flinching the boss resets aggro, can you explain why in her video with the puppet working, upon knockbacking boss, why does the pirate boss not change aggro from the puppet to her, when Postcard is clearly the first encounter in vision after flinching?

 

One more thing, if knockback does flinch the boss, and aggro is set onto the first encounter in line of sight, shouldn't puppetting in between the pirate boss and the archer while keeping him pinned right (so he doesn't come in between puppet and archer and have archer become first in line of sight) maintain aggro onto puppet?
- ease of re-puppeting as well


Eg. if yellow star was puppet

 

Nise I don't think you fully understand how puppet works.

How puppet works is that whenever you cast a puppet, any monster that is currently aggro'd at you will become aggro'd to the puppet. When the puppet then disappears for any reason (time out, too much damage, you cast another puppet), any monster who is currently aggro'd at the puppet will turn neutral, possibly then picking a new aggro target if they're auto aggro.

In your video, the pirate boss did not aggro to the puppet on 0:02 because you never got his aggro to begin with, hence the puppet did nothing since there was no aggro to transfer to. At 0:24 the puppet worked because you had the boss's aggro, meaning that it got transferred to the puppet. At 0:29 when you cast a new puppet, because the boss's aggro target was the old puppet, it turned neutral when you cast the new one, meaning that it become aggro'd at you again when you went back up. Then at 1:00 his aggro transferred to the 4th puppet.

 

Snatch has always seemed more reliable at getting things to turn around, even before the changes. That said, it seems like it still takes a few tries to get it to do the kb-effect, after which it *probably* changes direction. Once they get passed what I term "boss stance", bosses tend to cooperate for a little while.

Also, why do we keep using nameless as a test boss? It's not auto-aggro (at least not listed as such), so that introduces another variable while discussing aggro mechanics. I mean, it might be similar, but it doesnt seem helpful atm.

 

Its usually been tied to animations, but not always. Sometimes it will stay locked for a considerable period of time, even after it has finished an animation. Other times still, the boss will be in an animation and a barrage or snatch or other rush effect will still move it, while it is doing an attack. In this case, it simply pushes but does not put the boss into hitstun. It doesnt do this all the time, however, and it seems the best way to move it when it does dig its heels in is to just keep trying, sometimes taking upwards of 5-7 seconds (potentially deadly when the team has to deal with seds during this time). Snatch is fast, spammable from the right side without requiring player repositioning, and well-controlled with respect to pull distance, making it a premier tech option for bean movement. When it does pull, it typically tends to redraw aggro with it (or at least Line of Sight), its just a matter of getting it *to* move.

 

I ran cwk a day before yesterday. All i can say is the thing that screws everything over is the “facing towards” aggro. I have tried multiple times to puppet the pirate, and timing so that it would be facing the puppet direction, but i only succeeded in like 1 out of 20 times?

I personally cant knockback the pirate boss. I realise that trying to puppet when the boss is facing a certain direction is really unreliable. I understand the part where the player aggroed will be in the sight of the boss, but trying to puppet when the boss is facing in the targeted direction has such a small window that it becomes a luck thing.

Also a question, from reading, lets say if i managed to puppet the pirate boss, i cant walk over to SE cleave, right?

I havent tried walking to the right of the platform before dropping down, or even puppeting on the platform on the other side of the pirate boss. Might try when i have time.

 

Currently, if Pirate's aggro is on your puppet and you walk away to SE cleave Pirate will switch aggro to another nearby player, even though the puppet is staying in the same place.

It seems that after these changes the puppet aggro isn't acting as it's own but as an extension of the archer. This renders Puppet as a much weaker skill now.