Boerewors

All this has now changed since I grew into godmode. Now the scrappers are left behind as I port in, taunt and port out around a corner. No more need to chat up the team much ;-P

For someone who is pretty new to tanking, can some of the old hats please provide a short explanation on how gauntlet is supposed to work? It has been fixed now (or so the patch notes say) and I am curious as to how things have changed.

So if I successfully hit a minion standing next to a boss with a primary attack, the boss and others near the minion are then "taunted" to hit me rather than the members of the team?

1. How many are supposed to be "taunted" this way?
2. What is the range?
3. How long does it last?
4. Is it a "taunt" effect, meaning that the boss will now stop killing the blaster that has made a big hole in his chest and hit me instead?
5. Must I do a certain amount of damage to get that "taunt"?

So many questions.

Now with the changes to taunt not rooting anymore, pulling with taunt is such a pleasure.

Target mob, press taunt, run in till it goes off and then run away, no more standing still. Its awesome!

Has this happened to other people?

I am tanking for a 5 man group and as normal I call the pulls I do:

"pulling to here behind this corner"
"inc mobs to here behind box"
"boss, charging in"

After about 15 minutes of this and some nice smooth xp (not the lumpy debt riddled kind), the scrapper pipes up:

"oh please shut up, you are irritating me. I dont need direction all the time!"

Jaw on the floor I try and tell him that nowhere have I told him what to do, merely communicated what I am doing.

He then tells me that I am being the stereotypical stone tank that tells everyone what to do.

Is this the case? I just tell the group what I am doing so they can be aware of why I am always running back to corners etc.

Am I being stereotypical? Is the slowness issues of rooted and granite responsible for a change in tanking that people must be made aware of all the time?

Corners and the tank: a small guide.

I have recently only started a tanker but I have had much experience in pulling with various ATs. If you are the main tank in a team and you have the ear of that team: meaning you talk and they listen and do what you say then this guide will work for you.

However if you follow this guide and your team does not listen then it leads to disaster.

This guide is primarily written for tanks that have some measure of mobility or failing that (Granite) have a 2 slotted to hit Teleport Foe. As you will see, using teleport self can also be used but is really challenging to do so.

This guide sees a "corner" as defined as: a space you can go to after aggroing bad guys which places you OUT OF THEIR SIGHT.

This guide also takes for granted that the tank has some method of range pulling, proximity pulling is not recommended. TP Foe is awesome for this, taunt is great.

This can mean a normal corner in a corridor, under a stairwell in a lab, behind a box in a warehouse (although care must be taken that you do not have bad guys coming to you from 2 directions around the box), etc.


Why use a corner pulling and tanking method? Well here are some reasons, some are debatable:

1. Bad guys which are forced into melee range with you will melee you and melee is mostly comprised of smash and lethal damage. This is mostly true. Why is this important? Well most tanks have a much higher resistance or defence to smash and lethal (S/L) than any other damage type. What is more, some non S/L damaging blows have S/L as a component and defence to this will counter the whole thing (not resistance however).
So standing in an open corridor tanking allows mobs at range to range you with their various damage types, which has a higher chance of doing more damage to the tank than the S/L type.

2. Knockback. How many times have you had all the bad guys gathered around you like eager children for the chocolate aggro you are handing out, only to have a blaster bounce a whole bunch far away, over a railing, into another mob of bad guys and suddenly things go from controlled mayhem to debt riddled chaos, quickly.
Pulling to a corner allows you to ensure that the knocback does not get your aggroed sheep into the path of another angry mob, allows for better control on where the KB will send the hapless bad guys.

3. Thinning out the mobs: when the tank is on a team with high point damage and low AE damage. Stringing the mobs in long line as they run to the corner where the tank is hiding, allows the damage dealers to pick the bad guys off on the way to the corner.


So how do you corner pull? Well it is real easy.

Step 1: Ensure that your team mates are placed in such a way that they ARE NOT FACING THE DIRECTION THE BAD GUYS ARE RUNNING FROM. This is of vital importance. If your team mates do not listen to you on this one point, it will most likely fail. Their line of fire must be either away from the direction the bad guys are coming from or at right angles to it. If your team mates fire at the bad guys in the face as they run towards the corner, it will only cause a logjam of bad guys and you might as well charge out.
To illustrate:

Good corner killzone:

********************
B B B B
********-----*******
********B----*
********T----*
********-----*
********team-*

B = running bad guy
T = Tank
Team

Here the tank has pulled the group of bad guys to the corner where he is hiding. The team can safely unleash hell on the bad guys as they run around the corner to get to the tank. The can bounce bad guys into the corner wall, further down the corridor but must NOT bounce them back up the corridor.


Bad corner killzone:


********************
B B B B------------team
********-----*******
********B----*
********T----*
********-----*
********-----*
B = running bad guy
T = Tank
Team

Here the tank is pulling to him around the corner and the team will blast away at mobs that come running. It is bad because they can bounce mobs back up the corridor, which takes mobs out of line of sight of the tank for the tank to keep aggro. In this case the tank has to run back up the corridor to fetch mobs.

Step 2: run up to a group of bad guys and from range hit taunt, range power, or run back and TP a mob into the kill zone. If you do not have a ranged pulling power, then you can prox pull but you will end up more than likely pulling a large group in a mass with you and close on your heels.

Step 3: get around the corner and wait/

Step 4: smash the first bad guy, retarget to the second bad guy coming around, smash him, retarget to the next bad guy, etc, etc.

Step 5: when a leutenant or boss comes around the corner, keep smashing them or use taunt.

Step 6: shout at the scrappers to not go around the corner to catch more bad guys as they come running in.

so what is the total +dmg stacked then? ANyone know?

So if you have assault (+11% damage) and your 2 enforcers have stacked assault that means your thugs get 33% extra damage?

I just started a thugs/poison MM and I got Aid Other at lvl 8 and was struck by the great difference between the two powers. Aid other costs a whole bunch less in end and heals for more! I realise that alkaloid has greater range and can be used on the move and has 10% tox res, but the cost!

I find having both heals very useful with the paper thin thugs

If it wasnt for the demons that Infernal summoned, he would be doable as well. Zombies and fire breath dont work so well with each other. Oh well, killed him as an EB.

Going to give her another go as well as Infernal on the Magus Mu Drakahn story arc, I somehow doubt I can pull it off with infernal though, the fire damage will eat through my zombies

Yep Hero she was

1 imp, 1 shivan, 3 rikti slaves and many temp powers later, Aurora Borealis goes down on lvl 33 Relentless solo. I love my mastermind!

So no sets that prefer melee has good AE? Ninja? I hear the tier 3 pets has AE damage.

By active I mean, debuffing, healing etc all the time. I

I am currently playing a necro/dark MM and having a whale of a time as it is pretty active and has lots of control options but sacrifices for damage, most particularly AE damage.

I love the MM playstyle and an active one as well, can anyone suggest a MM set that is active and doesnt use dark? I have a lvl 20 bots/dark and its (yawn) not very active at all.

Also looking for something with realy good AE damage

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iii) Drain Psyche - you may not need the entire Fitness pool because of this, on top of the regen buff, and the debuffs.
iv) Subdue - this is a long range, pretty nasty attack! there isn't an equivalent in the other assault sets I can think of.
v) Psychic Shockwave - stupidly good AoE power and a toggle dropper.


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All of these things are USELESS in a 6-8 man team in PVE. Who cares if the mobs are recharging a little slower, they are all DEAD before it matters. Drain psyche? It has an insanely large to hit neg modifier, It seems to miss a LOT even 2 acc slotted. Granted shockwave is nice but in a large group not so nice when things die quick. Your contribution with this ONE power is minimal.

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And Terrify? and Telekinesis? and Dominate? and Confuse? and Mass Confusion? useless? .... who on earth relies on SLEEP as their main control?

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All of these USELESS in a large group when everything dies within seconds, so what if you held 8 mobs, so what when they die quickly. As I said before, if you had to stand back and do nothing you would hardly even notice any difference in the outcome of the fight.

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Use your assault powers. Psionic Dart means you will gain Domination faster than any other assault set. Because of your range and attacks - Psi Dart, Mental Blast, Subdue all have a range of 100' which means you can kite better than anyone to build Domination, when you have it Mind Probe and Drain Psyche are going to give people trouble. The -Recharge in PvP is nasty, Psi is even nastier with -Regen and -Recovery as well.

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I would like to see you kite anything in WBG or SC, oops, did you just mean single person pvp? Yeah that would work, but usually that is not the case, you will be mobbed.

I just tried a wbg door mission with my nice and shiny new respecced mind psi dom solo. It still took me half an end bar to take down a +3 LB Leut, even with dominate. Is this the same for any other assault set? I have no idea.

Well I am going to try and prove you right or wrong, either way I am playing me mind psy dom again to see.

This is again a contentious post but its from personal experience so take it or leave it, I will put it in point form:

1. Mind Psy is VERY powerful for the first 35 or so levels, you have more holds than mobs can get out of, you will always be busy locking things down. This makes you very group friendly.
2. The psi assault set is really lacking in damage, the lowest of the assault sets I would say. The plus side (supposedly) is the psi damage, which is badly resisted by most mobs. The ironic thing is that once you get to a level where mobs start resisting other assault sets and not yours, you become more and more useless in teams.
3. 35+ things change a lot: the groups you get into are all equipped with huge AE damage, massive point damage with brutes and stalkers. This means that any sleeps you use is useless, AE holds become useless as the mobs are held for 2 seconds before they all go down in the hellish onslaught of the damage put out by groups. Your damage is a fart in a snowstorm for all the difference it makes. The only doms that become of any use at higher levels are doms with AE immobs for AV/Heroes, and guess what? You have none.
4. In PVP you shine more than other sets because you have one very important power: terrify. Most ATs have a weakness to this. You also have a huge arsenal of sleeps, holds and confuses to throw at people, knocking down their mag in short order. Just dont expect to kill anyone. You will become the reason people bring breakfrees. You will also notice how inferior you feel when you come across a controller with the same power, they can heal and buff and you become instant target.
5. Please note that mind/psy at 35+ soloes better and better as mobs start resisting your attacks less. You can easily lock down a solo pop and waltz through missions with no fear of getting damaged, until you meet up with an EB or bigger, then you are screwed. It is for this reason that I finally gave in and soloed warburg door mission after door mission ad nauseum just to gain XP. There is one door mission with no boss in it, I think it is the destroy something or other mission. I finally gave up on my mind psi, not getting teams, not being able to solo story arcs even at basic difficulty for fear of getting squished by EBs.

Mind psy in a nutshell.

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looking at my power i searched what i was doing they couldn't. the answer is "absolutely nothing".


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And this is what depresses me about my doms, they are useful to about 40 and thats it. After that they become little soloers, no one wants you in a group because they realise you bring nothing to the large group dynamic. It is so easy to test. Get into a large group with your 38+ dom. Do everything you can for 2 big mob fights (large amount of baddies), then step back and for the next 2 do nothing. Now see if you made any impact at all.

Very depressing when you realise that there is nothing you you can do to actually (more than marginally) change the outcome of those fights.

The only time I found my dom useful in a group at that level was in a smaller group of 3-5 people, then the holds and damage mitigation of keeping mobs in check played a role.

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Dominators also do at least as much damage as Corruptors.

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This is not true, research the brawl index of the assault sets vs the assault sets for corrs. You will see that in most cases the non nova powers (we will exclude these for argument sake) for corrs all top the assault sets for doms. The only powers in the doms assault sets that come close are the snipe powers which have insanely long animations. The only non snipe power that beats any corr assault dmg is total focus, which is a melee power.

Add all the buffing and debuffing that corrs can do on top of their dmg potential and it is easy to see who you would rather take with.

Great discussion ;-)

Well I am certainly enlightened and hope to one day be in a RSF with a dom, maybe when they nerf it to pieces and someone actually considers taking a dom with.

Seriously, I apologise for coming across as a doom and gloom prophet for doms but I love the AT but am really, really disillusioned by the fact that my dom almost never got invited to groups, cannot solo EBs,and I had to level a brute just to see the inside of a RSF. I would love to know when and where there are actually people who run RSF with doms.

Well you are one of the few then, no one else even considers a dom into a RSF team, no one I have ever met.

You talked about AVs, what about heros? Do the doms in your RSF teams actually manage to immob any of the heros in the final mission for longer than 2 seconds?

I find that hard to believe

I am almost done leveling a brute (bit tired of the AT), would a plant dominator be out of character?

You soloed them? I hope thats sarcasm since I do not believe you if you claim it to be true.

Short answer: doms are useless in any high level group that faces anything higher than a boss.

I know, I have tried.

Long answer: doms are about useful as any other AT in all the RSF missions except the last one. No RSF team that is actually planning on finishing the RSF will take a dom along. None

I am interested, will make a brute for it. Not sure how to explain any brute secondaries away tho, has to be some gadget driven story.

Prolly SS/invuln for a Trex themed lizard like char.

Tell me where and when