The Secret World Hate and Taunt Mechanics Guide

The Secret World Hate and Taunt Mechanics Guide by bluedot

This guide covers the mechanics of Hate in The Secret World.

Note: Many of these numbers are based on averages, and have room for error. This article is a work in progress as I am able to test new mechanics/abilities/items/etc.

Hate and Aggro Basics

What is hate?

Hate is a mechanic that determines who a mob is attacking, or who has “aggro”. In a party, the player with the highest amount of Hate with a monster will be the person the monster is attacking. Ideally this will be the tank.

Every monster has a Hate table, the person at the top is the person the monster attacks. Barring unique boss mechanics, each monster’s Hate table is completely separate from other monsters. Generating Hate with 1 monster does not effect the Hate table on another monster.

Pulling Aggro and Initial Aggro

To “pull aggro” means you have generated enough Hate with a target for the target to aggro to you, instead of whoever it was focusing on before.

The Secret World uses the 110% rule with Hate. This means to “take aggro” from the player at the top of the Hate table, you must generate 110% of their Hate with a monster.

To illustrate this, lets pretend you and you’re friend Bob are attacking a monster, and the monster is attacking you. You have 1000 Hate with the monster. Bob has 1099 Hate with the same monster. If Bob generates 2 more Hate, so that he has 1101, he will pull aggro and the monster will attack him instead of you. Now, because he has replaced you at the top of the Hate table, you would need to then generate up to 1211 Hate (110% of his Hate) to pull aggro back off of him. In other words, even though he only generated 2 Hate he now has a 110 Hate lead over you.

Hate Generation

1 Damage = 1 Hate (Before Hate Modifiers)

Meaning if you hit a target for 100 damage, that target has 100 Hate for you. An ability such as Fuel to the Fire that generates 200 Hate on hit, would be as if you hit the target for 200 damage.

Using a passive such as Agitator will cause you to generate 300% Hate. So 1 damage will equal 3 hate.

Factoring in the 110% rule, if you hit a target for 100 damage you will generate 100 Hate with that target. If you are on the top of the Hate table another player will need to deal 110+ damage to pull aggro off of you.

If you have the Agitator passive active and you deal 100 damage to a target you will have 300 Hate with that target. A player will need to deal 330+ damage to pull aggro.

Healing

1 Healing = .5 Hate.
Overhealing (Healing someone when they are at full health) does not generate Hate, but can pull initial aggro. If you face pull with HoTs running on you, the healer will have initial aggro, as the existence of their HoTs will register them on the Hate table while your face pull will not. Therefore, the healer will be on the top of the Hate table because they are the only one on the Hate table.

This can also pose a problem if you miss the first hit[s].

It is important to keep in mind that healing will generate Hate on all monsters that have the healer on their Hate table. So if there are 5 mobs running around and the healer heals for 100 damage, they have generated 50 Hate with each of the mobs.

Taunts

Like most “taunts” in most games, taunts (Provoke) generate NO Hate. When you use this ability you are placed at the top of the Hate table and you are assigned the amount of Hate the person who was at the top had. If you are already at the top of the Hate table this ability has no effect. For example:

Bob has 1000 Hate and you have 600 Hate and Bob has aggro. If you use Provoke you will be at 1000 Hate and have aggro. However, this does not cause Bob to lose Hate, it only causes you to be equal to his Hate and to have aggro.

If you use Provoke, and 1 second later Bob hits the monster for 200 damage, he will now be at 1200 Hate and immediately pull aggro back off of you. This explains why Provoke often seems to fail, especially early in a fight. When the Hate numbers are low, early in a fight, it is very easy to immediately lose aggro after using Provoke. If instead Bob had 10,000 Hate when you used Provoke, and then he immediately hit for 200 hundred, he would only have 10,200 Hate to your 10,000 which is only 102%, no where near the 110% he would need to generate to pull off of you.

Provoke vs Mass Provocation

While both abilities use the word “Taunt” to describe themselves, they have very different mechanics. Mass Provocation does not alter the Hate table, while Provoke can adjust your amount of Hate if you do not have aggro. Mass Provocation forces a target to attack you for 5 seconds, however the Hate values remain exactly the same. To illustrate:

If Bob has 1000 Hate and aggro on a monster, and you have 600 Hate and you use Mass Provocation and do nothing else for the next 5 seconds, the monster will immediately return to attacking Bob once the 5 seconds are up.

Additional Hate

Some abilities say they deal Additional or High amounts of Hate. These are percentage increases based on the damage done.

Additional Hate appears to be around 200% – 250% Hate. High amount of Hate appears to be around 350% – 400% Hate.
I haven’t been able to test “Small” amount of Hate yet. Would love to hear from someone who has.

None of the items or abilities I have tested have been effected by the Agitator passive.

Specific Abilities

(Remember to use the Ability Search function on the right side of the Skill Wheel screen if you aren’t sure which ability I am talking about)

Agitator – Works somewhat as expected. Hate is generated at a rate of 3 Hate to 1 Damage. For abilities that say “Generates High/Small/Moderate Hate” it multiples. So using a High Hate ability with Agitator will generate around 1200% Hate. However, it doesn’t work with some abilities, for example Fuel to the Fire.

Fuel to the Fire – Only generates Hate when the swing Hits. Does not generate on Blocks or Glances.​

Mockingbird – Works as described, no internal cooldown. Does not generate Hate if the swing Glances, is Blocked, or Evaded.

Turn the Tables – This is just a small self heal, but if you aren’t at full health it will generate AoE Hate.

Stoicism – Stacks additively with Agitator. It appears to be multiplicative with other Hate generating abilities (not including Fuel to the Fire). Hard to confirm due to how large the numbers were getting, the monsters were dying before they peeled off. Will test on bigger mobs soon.