The Newbie's Guide to Hate and AggroFollow

Hello there!

So you're new to FFXI, eh? I'm sure by now you've heard of these terms, Hate and Aggro. Well just what ARE hate/aggro?

Well first, there are certain mobs (monsters) that will attack you out of aggession and others that will ignore you unless you attack them first. If a creature "aggros" you, it means you have either been heard or seen by them and in their aggressive nature they attacked. If you are high enough in level, however, you will not be attacked by the creature unless you are resting too near them. Some mobs will even aggro if your HP is too low. This type of aggro has a larger range than the typical sound or sight, so if you're fighiting undead in a tight space it's very important to keep all members out of the red/orange.

There is also Magic Aggro, which is when a "creature" will attack you if you cast a spell too near it and you are not high enough in level to not get aggro. This, along with low-HP aggro, usually has a much larger range than the typical aggro.

Next on the list is hate. Hate occurs through actions. Be it attacking, curing a party member, resting, or using a job ability, these actions create a certain ammount of hate. Each action will have a certain ammount of hate, and knowing how they affect the battle becomes more and more important as you level. Here are some big hate-causers:

Invincible- Paladin job ability, single most non-numerical related hate grabbing tool in the game.

Benediction-White Mage job ability, one of the highest numerically-based hate grabbers in the game.


Different job abilities and magic have different levels of hate. I myself cannot speak from a melee perspective, but I can tell you that non-offensive job abilities are typically not as hate-grabbing as others, such as Third Eye versus Chi Blast; Third Eye being strictly defensive and Chi Blast being offensive.

On the magic perspective, which is where it tends to get more complicated, different things can occur.

For example, if someone in your group pulls a mob and you cast Cure on them, you are now on the monster's hate list. However, if you were to cure a party member that was NOT on the hate list BEFORE you cured them, you would NOT have received any hate. If your thief aggros a mob and you cast a cure spell on him, ALL of the hate is now on you, as the Thief never actually had hate, they had AGGRO.

This is very important for parties that find themselves in trouble. If the puller accidently pulls a mob and there is a link (a type of aggro), it's important that if the party decides to zone the mob that you know where you are on the hate list. You can also be placed on the link's hate list, so be careful there.

So now you know the difference, how does this affect a party? Well first of all, parties will try to fight a mob that is as close as possible to the most difficult rating of Incredibly Tough without being murdered by the beast. This is important for everyone! If the creature is too hard, the melee cannot effectively attack it, the tank takes too much damage, the black mage cannot effectively nuke it, etc etc. If any of the above are taking place you probably need to fight an easier mob. One of the most ignored members of a party is the puller; he has the power to make or break a party, to turn them into killig machines or meat on the next mob's plate. If he pulls mobs of the appropriate level you can look forward to a good ammount of XP with low downtime!

Hate is a PARTY effort. Not a tank effort, not a THF effort, not a WHM effort, PARTY effort. Everyone is given tools to help effectively control hate. If you decide, as a melee/BLM, to just unload on the mob before the tank has a chance to establish hate, you will create too much hate in too little time and expect it to come after you. The same is true for Cure Magic. You can think of healing magic as about proportional to damge magic in the sense that a high level cure spell curing a lot of HP on a party member will draw hate similarly to had you attacked the creature for a lot of damage. This is why being an effective caster is so important! White mages should be sure to space out low level cures and black mages to space out MP-effective nukes, keeping heavier ones for the end of a battle. "A BLM is meant to finish a battle" is one of the wisest statements I've heard.

If you keep grabbing hate off of the tank and you can't figure out why, try doing the following:

1) Am I using a potent Job Ability or spell when the mob still has more than 3/4 HP?

2) Is the tank having trouble holding hate because the mob is too difficult for us?

3) Is everyone working together to help control hate? Am I grabbing it because I'm the only one actively trying to kill the mob?


Lastly, I stated above how some hate is based on numerical factors. Although there isn't a formula for calculating hate that I know of, there are some important factors to consider.

The maximum ammount of hate drawn relies greatly on the effectiveness of the job ability or spell used. For example, if a WHM uses Benediction when the party is at full-health (very inneffective), he isn't likely to draw hate, ESPECIALLY not compared to if the party was almost dead and he/she effectively cured for thousands (yes thousands) of HP. The same applies to nukes; if a nuke is resisted and does 15 damage it's a lot less likely to draw hate than a non-resisted Freeze magic burst for 1000 damage.

Non-numerically based hate-grabbers, such as Provoke and Invincible, are thought to have a static ammount of hate. This is often why a WAR with only Provoke to hold hate with is not likely to be a good tank in higher levels, and are given other abilities, such as Defender, Berserk, Warcry, etc.

To conclude:

Hate and Aggro are not the same. Pay close attention to which list you are dealing with.

Mob levels GREATLY affect how well a party can XP off of a mob. You shouldn't have to use almost all of your MP, JA's or WS's to kill one mob.

Learn to control hate as a group. Often times people die because of their OWN actions; not a bad mage, a bad tank, or a bad pull, but their OWN lack of attention to the hate cycle.

And finally, thank you for listening, any additions would be greatly appreciated!


Edited, Mon Oct 4 17:19:29 2004 by Keibah

Yes it is good. You may want to include Blood Aggro. When undead types will attack you when your life is low.

Thats a really good post and one I think would be useful for a lot of players, especially the rng/war who thinks as they have 3 shadows can Barrage on a pull and still expect a nin to get/hold hate :-/.

Lol well as enjoyable as those threads are, I myself like to get a little FFXI-meat every once and a while, and since I haven't been able to do that for a while I thought I would provide some.

I like learning new stuff about this game!

Very nice guide. I would only like to point out one thing, but it really only applies to high level WHM:


Cure V has static hate and is not related to the amount of hp healed. I don't have the link, but it was posted in one of the patches from a while ago.