Threat

Threat is the method the game uses to determine which player or pet in a party or raid gets targetted by a particular enemy. Each enemy has its own threat that is tracked separately, so enemies can attack different targets depending on the status of their own threat meters. Almost every action in combat besides running around, including attacking, healing, and casting buffs or debuffs builds up threat against particular monsters, numbers that the game keeps track of internally and which are not visible to players. The exact mechanics controlling threat and who gets attacked are not obvious, but the target with the highest threat will probably be targeted by that enemy and will be attacked until someone else passes the threat of that target, or the target or enemy is dead.

Threat control is the basic method a group uses to control monsters or crowds of monsters, and is a large advantage of being in a group versus being alone. Managing threat in a group is a good way towards victory, because if monsters attack people who have strong mitigation, avoidance and defensive abilities, all aspects of the fight become simpler: players with heals, mainly priests, will have an easier task because the damage taken is smaller and a smaller portion of health is lost so there is less of a rush to keep the subject alive; players with weak defensive abilities, such as mages, will not be taking hits or damage and can concentrate on whatever they do best, like dealing damage, without interruption or danger of dying; and the hit-takers, often fighters, will be contributing the maximum they can by minimizing the damage the monsters are doing to the group. Scouts are good managers of their own threat levels and can help with the management of other group members' threat levels as well. Awareness, and sometimes communication, are important to keep monsters under control.

An example: Bob the Guardian, Joe the Swashbuckler and May the Fury are fighting an Orc; the Orc has 500 threat towards Bob, 650 threat towards Joe and 300 threat towards May. Joe is therefore probably the target of the Orc's attacks, but it would be better to have Bob (who as a Guardian has good defense and plate armor) taking the hits (and it would be bad if May had to take hits, as she might have the least armor and avoidance as a Warden, and may have spells interrupted by damage). Joe uses a "decrease one threat position" ability. It is likely that Joe's threat is now less than 500, and that Bob is now the Orc's target, or at least is much closer to taking its hate.

Abilities that increase threat or threat position are often called taunts, while abilities that decrease threat or threat position are often called detaunts, hate droppers, or aggro drops. There are also buff abilities that automatically move a certain amount of threat generated by a subject to another subject; these are often known as hate transfers. http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Taunt_%28Spell_Type%29|taunts]]. Sometimes an ability or monster ability will clear all or most of the current threat tracked by an enemy; after one of these abilities occurs, players should be careful about what abilities they use.