_Tundra_

I have a scrapper (The Late) I'd like to bring along who's at the upper end of 28 just now. Happy to SK up if everyone else is at the upper end of the level range.

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It's just not fair - a post of this quality and I can't give you stars anymore

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Okies Guess a cone just seemed to make more sense, obviously not one that just stretched.......so actually I guess small anchored aoe makes more sense. I'll be quiet now

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It's technically a small AoE, but in most ways it's more useful to visualise it as a cone, since the repulsion effect means you have to sweep in a cone-like area to pick up multiple targets.

I have a Dominator who's just in the range for this - so Prof. Migraine will be happy to come along for either team 1 or team 2 depending on where he'll do the most harm.

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I'm not sure this is quite true.

AFAIK the taunt in Mud Pots goes with the slow effect which is auto-hit. The damage now requires a to hit roll.
Ice also get a taunt aura in Chilling Embrace. This does no damage.




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It's an oversimplification, but it is true. None of the auras (except Invincibilty) applied any Taunt at all before Punch-voke/Gauntlet was added to the game, including CE (although it always grabbed pretty good aggro, simply because all debuffs do). MudPots was only changed very recently, and thankfully the Taunt travels with the debuff - but it didn't Taunt at all prior to the addition of punchvoke and relying on it to draw aggro back then would have been... unproductive.

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Also I believe Gauntlet, unlike normal aggro applies a specific taunt effect that is unrelated to damage dealt, so a Jab and a Knockout Blow will have the same taunt duration. The normal damage related aggro will still occur but whilst under the influence of a taunt an enemy will stay targetting and attacking the tanker.

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The Taunt effect is unrelated to the damage dealt, but the Taunt duration is proportional to the power's base damage. Bridger was able to confirm this in a discussion on aggro some months ago - before the board wipe, I'm afraid.

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Can someone confirm whether the power pool attacks have the Gauntlet effect? The way to test is that with Gauntlet enabled attacks you can 'stack' enemies and hit up to 5 with single target attacks. If they don't then the gauntlet effect is a property of the powers in the Tanker secondary powersets rather than a proper 'inherent power'. This is in the same way that all Blasters powersets get an endurance discount in all their primary powers.

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Pool and Epic powers do indeed apply Gauntlet - Fireball for example is a very effective secondary Taunt.

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But nearly every tanker power set has tuants and there is also a power pool with tuant powerers so it dosent seem nececary also tankers are suposed to be damage absorbers, that is what their description says. Just becuase people like to heard with them dosent mean that is what they are for.

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Well, there's not much point being able to absorb the damage if everything ignores you - which was the pre-Gauntlet situation for many tanks.

The reason why almost all tanker powers taunt is because of Gauntlet. All those auras (with the exception of Invinciblity) would only be drawing aggro based on their rather low damage rather than actually applying a Taunt.

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I read this as implying that Brute attacks have Punch-voke in PvE. Agreed?

If Bridger's out there, could we get some official word on this? It's not the first time I've questioned (or been questioned about) the existance of Brute Gauntlet/Punch-voke.


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IIRC the difference is that the Brutes' Punch-voke is single target and the Tanks' is AoE.

I should be up for this with any one of a legion of alts - will have visitors for some of next weekend, but I think they'll be leaving early on Sunday.

DVM, Clanky, Late and my lowbie Kin/Elec are all missing this badge, and Ghost or Tundra are about if they'd be more use.

Looks good to me. A word of warning about Super Speed - put it somewhere you won't click on it by accident. The instant you activate it, it will drop both Granite and Rooted. This can be either useful or fatal depending on the situation and GA has quite a long recharge on it for a defensive toggle. Well worth having for getting around, though.

Your End reducers look about right for the early game, but you'll probably find you can use the slots for other things post-Stamina.

It's very difficult to comment on a 1-50 build for a Stone Tank because so much changes as the game progresses - my build was based around a planned respec at 32, and if I was starting again now it still would be. Reasons for this include... Teleport is almost vital for getting around in combat later in the game, but is very difficult to use for travel pre-Stamina. Brimstone and Crystal are useful in the 20's, less so afterwards.

See how the game treats you, but the only time I ever longed for Brimstone Armour was during the first respec trial with all the Jumpbot Incinerators that involves. Outside that there just wasn't enough Fire/Cold damage to justify it as a power selection for me. Since you're not perma-Granite, though, you'll need it for CoT, Nemesis etc. as late game Fire attacks are rather damaging.

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I'd take Frost early - it's one of the best attacks in the Ice Melee set.

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This is very true, an excellent wide cone attack which works very well with you being in the middle of big groups a lot of the time. I didn't mention it before because it was in at level 10 in the previous build

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looking at your build again, I'd fit it in by swapping it (or roughly, given levels when things are available) with Stone Skin, which is really only helpful for capping the S/L resist of Granite.

Well, it's a while since I levelled Tundra, but from my experience...

Ice Patch is invaluable. It's far more use to you defensively than Brimstone, Crystal or Minerals, so I'd take it before them - the only exception being if you plan to do the Synapse TF, you need Crystal for that. Given the choice, I'd try to fit Swift and Health in before 20 and put Stamina off to 22 so you can pick up Ice Patch as soon as it's available. The reason for picking Ice Melee, normally, is extra defense and control - Ice Patch is the key power for that, and you won't regret taking it.

Personally I'd put a couple more Taunts in Mud Pots - it'll keep you Taunting when you're slowed down by Granite.

A third Heal in Rooted gives more regen than the third heal in Health, so I'd either swap them or better yet have three in both.

The recharge on Earth's Embrace is long enough to justify more than one recharge - all those extra HP are too good to miss out on.

Expect to be disappointed in Ice Sword, and more disappointed in Greater Ice Sword - if you want to deal out damage Ice melee isn't really the place to be as the damage is low and these two don't offer anything usefull in addition to their mediocre damage. Freezing Touch, OTOH, is a great attack - respectable damage and even better a hold.

Epics are a matter of taste, of course, but since it would fit your theme I will just point out that Arctic Mastery synergises very well. An extra hold means you can lock down bosses with ease, Ice Bolt is my most damaging single-target attack and much quicker than anything in Ice Melee and best of all Ice Storm synergises wonderfully with Mud Pots as the Immobilise stops minions running out of the storm - since I can also Hold a coupl of Lt's or a boss that's a whole lot of AoE hurt (well, for a Stone/Ice tank, anyway... it's still no Nova). Really looking forward to it becoming buffable by Build Up etc.

I'd be up for joining in on a Shard TF or two - Tundra, DVM or Clanks all available depending on what the rest of the team is made up of, but DVM probably a preference as he's fun to play and hasn't done them yet.

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Unslotted Focus Total damage = 102 * (1 + 0) = 102
Focus + follow up = 102 * (1 + 0.375) = 140.25
Focus + 1 SO = 102 * (1 + 0.33) = 135.66
Focus + 1 SO + follow up = 102 * (1 + 0.33 + 0.375) = 173.91
Focus + 2 SO + follow up = 102 * (1 + 0.33 + 0.33 + 0.375) = 207.572 damage slots lvl 52

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3 damage slots lvl52
focus pre follow up 201.58
focus post follow up 240.06 = 19% mark up

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Unslotted Focus Total damage = 201.58 * (1 + 0) = 201.58
focus + 3*++ SO + follow up = 201.58 * (1 * 0.35 + 0.35 + 0.35 + 0.375) = 287.25

but in game i got 240.06 thats quite far out dont you think? or have i done something wrong here?

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should be:

Total Damage = 102.59 * ( 1 + 0.35 + 0.35 + 0.35 + 0.375) = 248.78

But you have an ED penalty on your third SO which will bring the total down a bit. The main problem was that you'd used slotted damage where you shaoul have used the base value.

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i would of thought the 0.33 becomes 0.34 at +1 and 0.35 at +2 and 0.36 at +3


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In fact, going from your numbers above it's 0.366 at +2. The penalties from ED start to complicate this, though. With +3 Enhncements you'll see a very slight penalty at 2 SOs, otherwise there'll be a penalty on the third, so the best way to find out your enhancement bonus is from the enhancement screen.

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Well never have i seen a post showing the behaviour of build up or follow up or anything said. Seeing as you knew this is their any maths for it? As for bonus stacking ill go and find out.

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Sure, the maths is pretty straightforward.

Total damage = Base damage * (1 + damage bonuses)

so, in your example with focus:

Unslotted Focus Total damage = 102 * (1 + 0) = 102
Focus + follow up = 102 * (1 + 0.375) = 140.25
Focus + 1 SO = 102 * (1 + 0.33) = 135.66
Focus + 1 SO + follow up = 102 * (1 + 0.33 + 0.375) = 173.91
Focus + 2 SO + follow up = 102 * (1 + 0.33 + 0.33 + 0.375) = 207.57

and so on. The small differences from your measured values are because you're using lvl52 SOs and I can't remember how much extra bonus that will give you off the top of my head, so I just approximated with even level ones instead.

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lvl 50 possessed scientist

3 damage slots lvl52
focus pre follow up 201.58
focus post follow up 240.06 = 19% mark up

2 damage slots lvl 52
focus pre follow up 177.42
focus post follow up 215.19 = 21% mark up

1 damage slot lvl 52
focus pre follow up 140.17
focus post follow up 178.65 = 27% mark up

0 damage slot lvl 52
focus pre follow up 102.59
focus post follow up 141.07 = 36.5% mark up

ok it looks scaleable the more damage you have in your attacks the less effective follow up is omg how devious can the devs be and omg how bored must i be doing that

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This is perfectly normal behaviour - you'd see the same thing with Build Up if you tested it with another build. Damage boosters add a proportion of the base damage of a power, which will become a smaller proportion of total damage as more Damage enhancements are added. This means, among other things, that all such damage boosters became substantially more powerful post-ED.

37.5% does seem a pretty low bonus, though, but at least it can be in effect almost constantly - a lot better than Build Up in that respect - and adds slightly more than one extra SO would have done. Does its bonus stack with itself, out of interest?

Hey Prize, good to see you around again. Mbar seems to have a very functional Inv build if you want to grab that from him. SS should be straightforward - just no more than three of the same SO in any power. Look out for the Taunt changes since you last tanked - there's a limit as to how many enemies you can hold the aggro of now (17 according to the boards although I still have a sneaking feeling that may have been increased slightly in a stealth patch)

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Some of us would rather 'win' due to our ability to control our characters, as opposed to our ability to buy inspirations, though - a test of skill as opposed to a test of inf.

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It's not even a test of Inf - all lvl 40+ characters have access to a limitless supply of tier 3 inspirations and will earn Inf whilst fetching them.

Still, since Insps are about the only way for some builds to counter some tactics it's pretty hard to just view them as lame. Rushing out of the zone to re-stock every time your tray's empty, OTOH...

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It's interesting reading that list of nerfs and then trying to think in what way a DM/Inv has been buffed. I come up with nothing (the Scrapper damage bonus doesn't count as it's been overpowered by the wonderful ED).

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Depends on where you start counting from, as with many things. Fear used to make things just run away from you, making ToF worse than useless rather than the key defensive power it is now. Unyielding used to immobilise the user - again extremely bad for a Scrapper. Both these changes would certainly be considered improvements to DM/Inv. And since you're considering something as global as ED, you also have to bear in mind that Scrappers didn't even have criticals at one point. In other words, most power sets have received quite a lot of buffs since launch, they just mostly happened in I1-I3 so were already in the game by EU launch.

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Anyone have any idea how the presence pool taunts compare to normal tanker taunts? i like the idea of the mass fear that comes at the end of the pool which could be quite helpful.

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I heard rumours that Provoke can affect more people than Taunt. Someone in the know should confirm..



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Provoke used to effect more enemies than Taunt and under some circumstances still can - it has a larger AoE around the original target. They're both capped at 5, though, so unless the enemies are quite spread out there's unlikely to be a difference.

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that makes sense, it's far more effective if you can get into the mobs nice and fast (go go TP Stone Tank!!) and grab the initial aggro with the 'Pots.

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My stonetanker concept is to tp stone onto herself as opposed turning into stone this is because tp self is quite a good idea for getting a rooted tanker about and getting places faster.

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In Tundra's case I always visualised him sinking into the earth in one place and growing back out of it somewhere else - rather Swamp Thing inspired since he's a Shaman of the spirits of nature, and all.

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ok got it, done some testing, the higher the level of mobs it seems the lower the taunt effect is ie lesser duration.

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Yup, that's true for any Taunt from any source - one of the reasons why Tanking on Invincible is tougher. When I used to Tank for higher level teams (quite a lot in the 40's) I sometimes had 4+ Taunts in Mud Pots, but there's no point at 50. As you observed, the Taunt still appears to be an auto-hit, traveling with the debuffs rather than with the damage.

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I think yesterday it was a case of team early aggroing and untaunted enemies running through my mudpot area between ticks. The ticks are like every 2 secs.

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That makes sense, it's far more effective if you can get into the mobs nice and fast (go go TP Stone Tank!!) and grab the initial aggro with the 'Pots.

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The Dr. needs major I6 surgery, but I am not in any rush. Taunts in mudpots sounds like a good idea, I might try slow as well. Damage doesn't seem like an effective option anymore.

Edit: Actually the more I think about it the more sense those Taunts make. Until the taunt duration exceeds the tick you will always stand the chance of damage pulling a mob away. The moment you exceed it, stacking will build up taunts on a mob to the point it can't be disturbed at which point anymore is a waste.

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That's exactly how I tested it. With 2 Taunts a Blaster firing off Full Auto had a significant chance of attracting the aggro of mobs stuck in the 'Pots. With 3 Taunts that was no longer the case and they'd keep hitting me unless someone else Taunted them.

The Slow effect was improved not so long ago, I think. The -Speed is still the same (and pretty significant once slotted up) but it has a small -Recharge now as well, which I don't think has always been the case and makes it also a minor damage mitigation power (that bit's not enhancable, of course). And on the off chance that you get involved in PvP boosting the auto-hit -Speed certainly won't hurt.

I suspect you'll find that despite all the horrible memories of it sucking your End dry at low levels you'll be able to cope fine with no more than one End reducer in it now - I don't have any in it at 50, but then Ice melee is far less End heavy than Stone.

As I said way up the thread, though, I think there a lot of effective ways of slotting it and I've worked through quite a few of them to fit different situations, although I can't really see myself slotting it for damage again.

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As Tundra pointed out the taunt effect is still autohit for Mudpots, so its ability to hold aggro hasn't been reduced. The key thing is the interval between ticks and taunt duration of the AoE taunt powers for tanks. Information I don't have.

Actually Invincibility tick is 1 sec as it was changed recently.

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I don't know the duration of the Taunt, but I'm pretty sure from pre-ED testing that 3 Taunt SO's causes the Taunt to last until the next tick. When steadily increasing the number of Taunt enhancements in Mud Pots I saw a marked improvement in aggro holding from 2 to 3 enhancements, but not on adding 4 so I don't think it's been hit hard by ED in that sense.

Incidentally, am I the only Stone tank out there slotting for Slow? It still seems a rather good effect to me.

It should work as a pretty nice combination. Short Circuit used to be a phenomenal blapping power, but now takes 2 applications to drain an even con enemy - once you pick up Power Boost you should be back to draining them dry, though. At lower levels, SC and Ball Lightning both slotted for damage will give you very respectable AoE damage output, albeit at close range. Tesla Cage will be incredibly useful to you and should be a priority as soon as you can pick it up. Voltaic Sentinel sadly doesn't really cut it - I had some success with it and it's a fun power, but it blasts at a slow enough rate that you'll tend to finish things off before it can help you much - a better power for Defenders. Thunderous Blast is probably the best of all the 'nukes' - ranged, and a viable single target attack in a pinch as it won't then fully empty your End bar (End cost varies with the number of enemies you hit - 3 hits will drain you from full to empty). Zzap is a good snipe - never bothered with it on my blapper, but it's probably worth including for PvP.

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Do you click the melee attacks on the Tray to use them or do you have any other key with a bind?

I've seen the tactics, I just need to know how to get them out faster than clicking them on the tray and in a reliable and fast way xD

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1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0

alt+1,alt+2,alt+3,alt+4,alt+5,alt+6,alt+7,alt+8,al t+9,alt+0

Profit.

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I prefer F1-F10 for the second tray, easy to reach and avoids clashes with other binds I have using ALT combinations.

But even just concentrating hard at the keyboard should work out a bit faster than relying on clicking the trays...