Sorry to bump this thread out of the past but...

Can anyone confirm/deny that this mechanic has changed? If so how?

I've recently found myself in the position of trying to explain to some non-priests that Fade != Vanish =(

I explained my understanding of Fade which is exactly as described above sans the 840 dmg quantity. The people I'm dealing with insist that you gain 0 additional aggro during a Fade

Thanks.

You're correct. Once Fade wears off, your threat is the same as if it were never cast. People who randomly pop Fade while healing don't actually know what they're doing.

However, eight (!) months later, I still have no earthly clue how Fade actually works, when you consider the 30% rule.

The latest 'discovery' was that after you loose the fade buff, you need to take some hositle action(IE: heal/buff/attack) before things go back to you.

In theory you can fade and just stand still after it wears off and remain on the bottom of the threat list.

Just to drive people insane, fade actually does, somehow, some way, reduce permanant aggro. The value seems to be a rounding error, but it's there. It might also be some other mechanism with the 100-110-130 rule, but if you fade off a mob, and the tank generates no extra threat whatsover, sometimes the mob will stay on the tank.

*twitch*

Seriously though, this could well be -why- some of your priests think it's a permanant aggro reduction of a significant order. It's really really not, but something gets occasionally jostled in the ordering resulting in the mob with the same threat values before/after a fade choosing not to come after a priest.

All this is just based on some testing that I idd with a guildie some time ago, so it's possible it's changed.

Edit:
Well I'll be damned. That explains the behavior perfectly, thank you. I'm assuming hostile includes the negligible ones like rebuffing inner fire.

It still doesn't explain how Fade gets aggro off of the Priest in the first place.

Couldn't it be like:
Lowers the Priests Threat value by 840 (or wtvr), in addition, until the priest does another hostile action, the Priest is dropped to the bottom of all mob's threat's list, that know of the Priest.

I find it hard to believe it's not % based (perhaps with a fixed amount attached) at all though.

Yes.

and I believe the "I can fade and it stays off me until I do something hostile" arises directly from the 100% - 110% - 130% aggro dynamic.

Usually when you're healing you'll be in the 130% of the tank to pull hate ccategory. So say you go to 135% of the tanks hate, the mob will go to you. You then fade - and the tank is #2 on the aggro list - so it goes to the tank (frequently in a raid another healer is next in line). So long as the Mob actually transitions (something that won't happen if you manage to get to 150% tank hate then drop from 150 to 135% with fade) you won't become a target until you do something. And I assert that because you do not pull hate (at least in melee) until you both exceed your threshold AND perfrom an action.

So tank is at 10K hate, Priest goes to 13.5K hate - Priest fades (to ~12.75K hate), and is now below the 130% threshold to have aggro from the former tank. Mob goes back to the tank. Priest does nothing, and the mob stays put after his threat resets to 13.5K.

That's the hypothesis I've been running with since I heard about the 10/30 rule - and it seems to fit everything I've seen. (Yay Anecdotal evidence)

Just to make this discussion even more interesting it appears that fade can reduce you 'below' zero threat.

Using the following test:
Priest body pulls mob
Priest casts renew on a full health other player (no threat, just enters the other person in combat)
Priest fades

The mob will then aggro on the other player, even though the priest was already at zero threat. The mob will not aggro back on to the priest after the duration of fade, however if it is true that after fade you need to perform an action to re-acquire agro this last observation may be meaningless.

And yes it is possible to fade and not lose aggro

Why does the mob go back to the tank when the Priest drops down to 127% threat?

I would be unsurprised to learn that it basically forces a "detaunt" if you drop below the top of the aggro list, ignoring the usual thresholds. But only if you drop below the top of a mob's aggro list, I've had often enough by now that I've used Fade just to have the mob continue to hit me anyway.

That's just based on casual observation though, I haven't ever really tested how it works extensively, though I was aware of the fact that it's a temporary reduction.

My hypothesis is that when a priest fades the mob will target its previous target if and only if the fading priest dropped below the threshhold that s/he had crossed. It would explain why fading puts the mob back onto the tank, and not the second highest person on the threat list (usually another healer, mage, rogue). In addition, if the priest crossed the 130% threshhold, but fails to fade before the mob gets into melee range then his fade must drop him below the 110% threshhold to have the mob change targets.

Also...it is quite possible to still keep agro with fade and reactive fade both up.

http://www.thottbot.com/?i=16256

Only procs a rank 1 fade, though.