Paladin lulls don't workFollow

Deleted: It occurs to me that I have little of value to add to the subject.

Edited, Mon Jan 19 10:10:22 2004 by Natdatilgnome

This does work as well depending on mob placement. Sometimes it can be more efficient to lull one than many. Of course it mustn't path neaer an un-lulled one or you have a problem. The lull line reduces the radius at which a mob will aggro if another mob it is social with is aggroed. It also reduces the radius that a mob "expresses" it's aggro so that mobs close anough to aggro normally will not.

Where Paladins can have trouble is in level of spell and mob. Lull however should work up to level 30 mobs and a 22 should not be meeting those in an LDoN

Another thing is that it reduces aggro radius - it doesn't abolish it. I've seen people walk over a pacified mob and then wonder why they got aggro. Perhaps they confuse it with mezz.

The description of Lull says (15/30) I know 30 is the mob level it works up to. Is the 15 the radius? Cleric Pacify for example is (1/55). If it is then that could explain the problem - a much lesser reduction in radius.

What happened was this. I was nominated main puller, main luller and main tank. I approached a room of say 40 radius which contained 4 mobs and my plan was to lull them lrft to right leaving the furthest right for me to pull. But as soon as i cast lull on the furthest left they all aggroed on me. This happened a few times without any of my fellow adventurers offering any advice. What would everyone else had done in that situation. My group consisted of a pally, a cleric, a enchanter, 2 rogues and a ranger. I am getting scared to use the pally now in case other peole die.

Raknruin of the Clan Dreadtail
Sadywen of the Whisperers of the wind sword.

What I suggest you do is go to a level appropriate regular dungeon where you can practice using your lull spell, preferably somewhere you can zone if things go amiss. The lull line of spells is one that has been continually tweaked by the devs (including the most recent patch IIRC), so any advice you get here may well be out of date. Better to learn confidence in using it in non-pressure situations.

P.S. From your description, it doesn't sound like you are doing anything wrong. I can confirm that the lull line does work, I use it quite often, and very rarely get the critical resist you seem to be getting often. You could be very unlucky, or you could be doing something wrong.

It is possible you are proximity aggroing as you try to lull (in LDoN I find that I get aggro just by peeping into a room sometimes).

One other thing: any group should be able to handle more than one mob. It is reasonable to have a plan for any group to deal with 3-4 mobs if necessary. Overpulls will and do happen. If your group can't handle this, it is either a bad mix of classes, or has many bad players in it. There are many different ways of dealing with overpulls, mesmerise, root, pet tanking, hate kiting etc etc, and as a last resort evac. In fact when I pull in LDoN, I warn the group I intend to pull 3 at a time, confirm they are ok with that, and then I go ahead and pull multiples. As long as the group can handle multiples, this is much quicker than pacify single pulling.

Next to stun, Lull is the best tool a pally has available. Don't give up on it. My main char is a pally and I've used lull in LDoNs many a time.

My advise is to find some mobs in a safe location and practice a little until you get comfortable with lulling mobs.

Two things which may be effecting you:
1. The level of the mobs - They should be close to your level. If you're in LDoN, they're probably blue to you, right? Shouldn't be a problem in this case. Lulling reds though, you're asking for trouble.

2. Charisma - Lull is charisma based. Just like a chanter or a bard, a pally needs to have good charisma. It doesn't need to be real high (I think mine is 120), but if it's extremely low you will get fails more often. If you're wearing a full set of crusty (like I used to be), look at trading it out for something different.

Hope this helps some.

While I don't know about lulls at your level (my pally was near 40 when LDON came out), I can tell you soothe/pacify range of spells for us and clcs are much in demand for pulling in LDON and groups without them need to have crowd control ready. Having said that, agro ranges inside LDON are quite tight compared to regular dungeons in my experience. I remember getting agro from 4 mobs after opening the first door in Sand Elf LDON that I didnt even see (cant see worth a hoot there with my dwf for some reason). I have had only a few fails on soothe or pacify attempts and normally only get the target agro if I do, I can only think that the one you failed on's path led it through the other's range and you picked up a train. I have been on over 160 LDONs and haven't seen many problems with lull/pacify lines. Bigger problem (though very rare) comes if puller has undead damage spell next to lull and accidently hits the wrong spell which happens once in a while (puller usually appoligzes to the group which is why I know it happens). I agree with the poster above that groups need to be ready to deal with adds from failed lulls or anything else - main job of my chanter in the group is crowd control if something goes wrong. Single pulling is an art that takes practice, hang in there and you will be popular.

I'd like to add that it really sounds like you were unwittingly in agro range of a closer mob in this case. Casting lull alone should not agro a mob (except very rarely on a critical failure). Thus, it wasn't the casting of the lull that did it. Since you say you hadn't done anything else, then I have to conclude that you were within agro range of one of the mobs in the room.

One of the tricky things about agro radiuses, is that they get checked once a tick. This is why sometimes you can run right past a mob without generating agro (if you time it just right). Ok, most like "run near a mob", but you get the point.

I've found that a lot of times, the doorway of a room in LDoN is within agro range of one or more mobs in the room. You just can't see them. Thus, you could very easily have been sticking your head into a room and been in agro range. You don't know it, and the mobs don't react immediately because the "check for people I don't like near me" process hasn't been run yet for the closest mob. You then cast your lull and while casting, the nearest mob agros. The other mobs in the room are all within social range, so they agro as well. This could easily appear as though you got agro from casting the lull spell, but really had nothing to do with it.

Lull has a pretty short range. Usually, you need to lull the mobs nearest the door first just to get far enough into the room to lull the rest (I also know you don't have to lull an entire room, but you get the picture). Try using different camera views to look around the corner into the room you want to pull from. Lull is not line of sight, so you can cast around a corner once you have a mob targeted. Find the mob hiding just inside the room and lull it first. Then step in and lull a couple more near him. Then pull that nearest guy. Always pull any mob that'll agro to the doorway first since that'll save you haveing to lull him every time you pull from that room (saving time in the long run). Also, since lull still leaves mobs with a decent sized agro radius, it's really critical to pull the nearest guy first anyway. You don't want him pathing anywhere near anyone else, or you'll get a train.

Just to add some confusion.

I have seen some very odd things happen in LDoN.

There was the example of a level 59 Pally (who I have known and played with for more than two years and have the highest respect for) who simply could not break the first room of an MM adventure (same thing was happening that Raknruin describes). We put it down to the mix of levels in the end, we had 58 through 64 people in the group, but average would have been well over 60.

This group was made of people who had played and raided at the highest level and we spent some time trying to sort it out as we could not believe what was happening, in the end just put it down to a bug.

On the weekend Celeni was in a similar sort of group in an LDoN MM adventure, we had a Cleric so she was trading nuke for nuke with the wizard (Oooh I just love being 61 with a full array of 1000 point nukes, lol).

Celeni suddenly started pulling aggro big time. Now, she has enough HP for this not to be a major issue, but it began to bug thre cleric and MA. So she slowed down nukes . Still got aggro. She stopped nuking and began DoTing (waste of bloody mana but the MA was getting iritated chasing the mobs around.) Still grabbed agro. She went and sat in a corner and did absolutely nothing, and still grabbed aggro!!

By this stage I had run out of ideas. I did absolutely nothing stood at the back of the group and would still have the mob leave the MA and come for me. WTF??

I think every now and then you just get an adventure with a bug of some sort.

Regarding Lull/Paci. Aesten, my young cleric has had Calm resisted and pull the room once or twice, but never Pacify.

I've had this happen before. My necro would be standing behind the group as a pull comes in. I'm not actively doing anything, just standing there waiting to mez any adds. Only one mob came in, group settled onto it, I still haven't cast, sent pet, sit down or anything - still just standing there. 5 seconds later, at 50% health, the mob just runs over and punches me in the head for absolutely no reason. WTF?

Regarding agro on caster doing nothing, I had the same thing happen Sunday with my chanter - great group and puller had agro and rogue backstabbing, so I didnt cast and just stood there looking for adds to mez. All of a sudden the mob runs over and bashes me silly while tanks try to grab agro back. I didnt move, cast or anthing and I was in the back row of group. I could understand if i had been casting, but was conserving mana (but not sitting so that wasnt it) and just watching. Thought it strange and moved on until I saw the post.