Diplomacy Skill is Pointless

[Bjond]

I'm not sure what's going on with Diplomacy, but for my ranged character, it does not function. I don't mean it fails. The skill check is successful, but nothing happens. The mob stays glued. Classic INQ build during sub29 leveling, v.high DPS thrower L29+.

Most recent observation was in R1 Strahd. Strahd glued himself to my ranged. Diplo. Success. No change. He's stuck on my ranged while a pack of melee beats on him. My ranged this life is on the tanky side. So, I just stood and tanked him. Diplo. Success. No change. Char died. Tanky doesn't mean tank NB: real diplomacy skill from a thrower, not inquisitive's automatic, though that also does nothing (packs of yellow success icons that never flinch off my ranged).

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I know it can work, because I've seen it work on my Bard. Great DPS "for a Bard", but it's not a haxen build -- so B- or C+ maybe. My Bard's native skill is sometimes enough and I've seen mobs turn around after a success there.

The only thing I can think of as to the reason is that the Wiki data on Diplomacy is completely incorrect. Perhaps it was based on something once true, but that's not how the skill works now. The two parts that are incorrect are "causes mobs to attack another for 6s" and "puts you on the bottom of the hate list".

What I think is really happening is that it shaves off a certain fixed piece of your hate. If you're running a grade-B melee, no problem -- that's enough to loose agro at least for a while. If you're running a grade-A DPS ranged, it does nothing.

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BTW, I'm not advocating ignoring the skill on characters that find it useful and especially not ignoring it on an INQuisitive. INQ is only high DPS sub-29. After that it's just a solid B at best. I can't say how or if diplomacy works now on L29+ INQ because I've not run it there since the nerf. It definitely did NOT work on INQ before the nerf, though. This isn't new behavior for diplomacy on high DPS.

I'm just finally giving up entirely on the skill for my ranged, though. Been trying to make it work for too long without results. I did find one very painful solution: Steel's Happy Time Coffee. My ranged pulls agro with -50% hate, but not with coffee. Coffee stacks it over -100% and makes you nearly agro-free. First agro will still stick until someone else touches it, but I've yet to pull anything off anyone while using it.

Coffee is annoying to use. Short duration and ugly debuff hiding in the buff line not the debuff line means you have to watch the hotbar not the game. And, it prevents rage and thus the FotW tree, too. That might be a mixed blessing. FotW is a lot more work for only maybe +15% DPS on my char.

If a dev reads this and thinks "not WAI", I'd suggest changing Diplo's success to include the complement of Intimidate's Hate+400; eg. a Hate-75 that lasts as long as Intimidate's version lasts. That would make even a sometimes-success useful to DPS. Coffee would become a choice or option for saving skill points, too, instead of "it's the only thing that works". Hate-75 will still punish DPS foolish enough to use a defensive stance, assuming that was the intent of including Hate+150 in the stance.

[Mindos]

I'm not sure what's going on with Diplomacy,

I had the same problem, but from the other side. Was using an Intim tank, and success on intim over and over, but the mob never stopped running a bee line for the thrower. Only seen this happen with a thrower, not any other type. I'd run right beside it, intim, success, thrower would run backwards while plinking away, mob never even turned around or slowed down whatsoever.

So I think it has something to do with a thrower, somehow messing up the intim/diplo. I never got around to testing it. Who knows, maybe thrown weapons have their own special hate list. shrug

[Dragavon]

As far as I understand how it works now, then diplomacy does not put you on the bottom of the list anymore, it reduces your aggro by an amount.

In the same way that intimidate does not put you on top, it increases your aggro and increase the hate you generate when you hit.

And they also made the interval between each aggro check longer, so if a mob is aggroed on you and you use diplomacy it will stay on you for some time before the next aggro check.

The best way to not get aggro is to wait and let someone else build up aggro before you do anything.

My experience is that if you have the highest DPS in group and go all out attack immedeately then you will not be able to shed that aggro until you die or the boss dies.

[Bjond]

I had the same problem, but from the other side.

This actually leads me to suspect a race condition on the way both intim & diplomacy work (assuming diplo really has a reset to lowest aspect); simplified it means the thrower and the social user "fight" for updating the hate and the quicker one wins.

If I ever find a situation where I can test it, I'll check to see if this is it. You can test by getting all damagers to halt dps while you social then start up again when you've finished. Kinda easier said than done for the tank, but as the thrower doing the diplo, I can halt my dps, diplo, then start up again to see if that permits it to work. If this is it, it would explain why INQ's automatic diplo never works, too -- it only triggers on a hit and if the hit always "wins" the race, it always trashes the result of the diplo.

[SpartanKiller13]

As far as I understand how it works now, then diplomacy does not put you on the bottom of the list anymore, it reduces your aggro by an amount.

In the same way that intimidate does not put you on top, it increases your aggro and increase the hate you generate when you hit.

I can't speak for Diplo, but I can speak for Intimidate (my alt has 140 currently). Intimidate definitely stuffs you on top of the list before adding the buffer; if someone else has stacked a few Intimidates or a melee has been DPSing for a while I can no-fail pull aggro with Intimidate. Might not keep it b/c the buffer isn't modern, but I've never had an issue grabbing aggro.

Buffer also seems to be working fine, if I get to Intimidate a few times before the DPS starts it's usually enough of a lead to keep aggro indefinitely (except for PM's hitting Rudus, mostly).

My experience is that if you have the highest DPS in group and go all out attack immediately then you will not be able to shed that aggro until you die or the boss dies.

If you're high-DPS and you only have an Intimidate tank you really need to slot -Threat somewhere; one Treachery filigree can get you -50% which is a big chunk.

On my tank alt I have 140 Intimidate; this generates 28k of Hate every 5.5 seconds; that's a little over 5k "DPS" worth. In the current state of DDO it's pretty easy to get >5k DPS. Aggro-swap takes a little bit so you can stretch your eDPS a bit though, as the boss turning around twice doesn't hurt much.

Endgame Intimidate minimum is like 90, which is 18k worth of hate. Unless you're sitting on a stack of +threat to go with your DPS you should lose aggro at least briefly if someone else lands Intimidate. If you have a bunch of +threat and DPS it's entirely possible to beat the Hate generated by Intimidate before the aggro swap happens, I guess?

Try going all-out for like half the bosses HP bar, then stop for like 3s and have your tank Intimidate to see if they can grab it back from ya? Seems like easy testing lol.

[Mindos]

This actually leads me to suspect a race condition on the way both intim & diplomacy work (assuming diplo really has a reset to lowest aspect); simplified it means the thrower and the social user "fight" for updating the hate and the quicker one wins.

If I ever find a situation where I can test it, I'll check to see if this is it. You can test by getting all damagers to halt dps while you social then start up again when you've finished. Kinda easier said than done for the tank, but as the thrower doing the diplo, I can halt my dps, diplo, then start up again to see if that permits it to work. If this is it, it would explain why INQ's automatic diplo never works, too -- it only triggers on a hit and if the hit always "wins" the race, it always trashes the result of the diplo.

It definitely needs more looking into. As you say, there's either a race condition, where the number of hits from a thrower is so great that it breaks the intim, or as I was guessing maybe there's a melee hate list (which we know exists), a ranged hate list (again we know this exists), and possibly a broken thrower only hate list that shouldn't exist yet does so that intim/diplo don't work on it because it shouldn't exist lol. IDK

[Matuse]

Certain characters smell better to monsters, and nothing will deter them from attacking anything else. My 2nd box account is like that. I've seen enemies cross huge rooms and go down hallways to attack him when he has never done anything to them despite being beat on constantly by my main while they are chasing this other character that the mob shouldn't even know exists.

[Xgya]

Certain characters smell better to monsters, and nothing will deter them from attacking anything else. My 2nd box account is like that. I've seen enemies cross huge rooms and go down hallways to attack him when he has never done anything to them despite being beat on constantly by my main while they are chasing this other character that the mob shouldn't even know exists.

That part can be partially explained - mobs like certain classes, but also like killing the weakest people first.
I don't know exactly how mobs determine "weakest", but max HP seems to have a LOT to do with it, though they might target a slightly tougher healer first instead.

[Bjond]

Intimidate definitely stuffs you on top of the list before adding the buffer

I can confirm this one, too -- we swap agro between tanks on Baba (mound tank builds hate to get initial mound agro then baba tank takes her back after they spawn). One intimidate is all it takes to put you on top. After the multitude of intims stacked on Baba by the mound tank (every CD during wisp & crow cleanup), there's is no way one intim could flip her unless it puts you automatically on top.

you really need to slot -Threat somewhere; one Treachery filigree can get you -50%

AFAIK, filie -threat says melee-only, but I've not tested it. If it's bugged and is all-threat, that would be far superior to coffee, though -80% won't be enough with a turtle-tank.

My melee chars don't have nearly as much DPS. One will occasionally flip if he digs in too soon, but mostly they only pull agro off a decent timi-tank when they forget to unslot commanding-presence. They pinch hit as tank often enough that permanent -threat would be pretty bad.

OTH, I could just "lean in" and play my problem child as a "ranged off tank". She has more HP and similar PRR to my melee that off-tank stuff now and then. There are a number of bosses that don't do anything at all if you have agro at range -- 2H2H Titan comes to mind there. Face him away from the melee pack and he's effectively neutered. Slot commanding presence on her and God couldn't pull it off.