I stopped playing my Monk at lvl 7. After I got the feel for him and like the race and starting area i didnt want to over do it. I mean, i dont want to lvl him way up only to do it again when the game goes live. Anyway, back on track how does the fd work. Is it instant like was in eq1. is it a skill that has to be worked up. how long is the cool down timer. How is the animation handled. In eq1 the lizards were always complaining their death animation took too long and they got smacked on the way down..hehe..another reason i hated those lizard monks (no offence to any former lizard monks ) hehe.

It works a lot better than it did in EQ when you first get the skill.  There's nothing to train up, so you rarely fail, but I hear it happens, hasn't happened to me yet, but I just got the skill last night.  The animation is hilarious.  When you succeed, you get a message that says, "Everyone thinks you are dead."  And the name above your head changes to "Joe Schmoe's Corpse" so anyone not targetting you might actually think you were dead at first glance.

I've heard that if you fail, you get a message that says, "Only you think you are dead," or something like that.

What's even more fun that feign death is the /playdead emote.  Go into 3rd person view and type that in.

I agree it is a great way to drop aggro as I find myself pulling aggro off the tank quite often with my monk. Monks also get a punch ability as well that decreases threat.

Anyway, about feign death, I find it to fail more often when you have a lot of mobs right on top of you pounding on you. Seems to work better if you can get away and then use it. Also, the level of the mob effects the success rate as well from what I can tell.

The higher level Feign Deaths also reduce the recast timers. I know the second one is down to 4second reuse i would assume the 3rd upgrade to it is 2seconds but not 100% sure about that.

Yeah, I think it drops all the aggro you have if it works, it does nothing if you fail.

Had a level 30 buffed monk for a few days now.

At level 30, not sure what level we get it, the Feign Death 2 has a refresh of 4 seconds.  Putting both FD 1 and 2 on my bar would not net me more usage. The seem coded that using one resets the timer on the other (even though the icons may be lit up you can't use them until the timer expires).

As far as higher level mobs resisting it, I found out last night this is a big fat YES.  Several deaths against much higher level mobs to me, and not once did FD save me.  My FD was successful and I got the everyone thinks you are dead message, but they kept right on kicking my ass.

One thing I noticed is that sometimes successful FD does not wipe you from agro list, you are still in combat mode regenning 1 HP/tick and it lasts forever. Mobs will not forget you and will not go away. It happened much more often when I FD right under mob feet.

Feign death will only work on mobs who are a few levels above you and below.  Anything higher will cause them to instantly see through your FD.  So instead of skill-basing it like in EQ1, it's level-based.

As far as wiping aggro...  as far as I can tell it completely whipes aggro...  Sure if you feign death at the feet of a mob and instantly get back up it'll continue to lay on the beat down.  But if you stay down a second or two they forget you unless you pop into their sight.