Cuffzter

oh yes, lol, i remember i told you it was kind of hard to herd with only gauntlet [img]/uk/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

I also remember saying that:
"anyone in front of me isnt falling back"

This week were doing synapse, I will have more tools at my disposal (like invincibility and a AoE attack) if youre looking for a opportunity to revaluation.

Doing the positron trial the other night we got 2 tanks, one with taunt, the other without. (at least at level 15 to which i was exemped down to) Both inv/nrg.
The tanker with taunt used his taunt as little as possible, because in his own words, using it killed him since he couldnt handle the aggro... or rather, his defences couldnt.

i'd say thats a tanker that tanks better without taunt.. because a dead tanker dont tank anything at all. a alive tanker at least keeps mobs busy.. even if its not as many as the tanker with taunt.

[ QUOTE ]
Having been part of an 8man, 30+ team with 4 Khelds including myself recently, I noticed first hand how differently people build and play their Khelds.

There were 2 Shades and 2 Bringers.

The Bringers were varied in playstyle. The one concentrated on his Blaps and general owning (take a bow "Badge" if you read the forums), while the other switched between Nova and Dwarf to assist me in my Dwarf Tanking, when ambushes turned up.



[/ QUOTE ]

Oh I do I do!

/em TakesABow

1) Its true I stay in human form whenever possible, it is my most heavily slotted form, so naturally its the form where I shine the most (in more ways than one)

2) dont even have nova..

3) my dwarf form is a bit underslotted I must admit. When soloing I only go dwarf when confronted with mezzing mobs, like holds and knockbacks. However, since I lack accuracy and damage slotting, these encounters takes a very long time.
In team I go dwarf only if theres no tank at all, or if the tank goes down. Sometimes I also go dwarf to get the aggro off squishes if the main tank fails to get all the aggro.

[ QUOTE ]
Veterans? Well, I guess we all better start double posting if we wanna be veterans! Chi, AWAY!

[/ QUOTE ]

yes, because everyone knows ones knowledge of the game is in direct correlation to the number of posts one has written on the forums....

Seriously.. whats wrong with people today?
Stop trolling people.

what i ment was that tankers get it at 18 while the scrappers get it at 28.
Which mean that a tank running around hunting Tsoo in IP would probably not experience this in his low 20s like a scrapper would..

Thats right, usually happens when surrounded by 4-5 of them so i guess that explains it.

It would have been different on a tank however, due to the fact that a tanker gets invincibility earlier than a scrapper...

could it be due to slotting?
will more damage resists decrease the chance of detoggling?

Is scrapper version of invulnerability's Unyileding weaker than the tanker version?
The reason i ask is because the only time a mob has knocked of my toggles and stunned me on my tank is when faced with a +3-4 AV (i think infernal has been the only ones that has been able to do it) but on my scrapper a lowly -1 Tsoo can do it. (the ink men with EM)

[ QUOTE ]

Yep folks, the only reason to take another attack is that it helps solo play. It doesn't help team play more than taunt.



[/ QUOTE ]

When I leveled up once a long time ago, I had to make the choice of either taking taunt and severly hamper my ability to solo or to not take it, have solo ability and being a tauntless tanker on teams.

There was in my mind other more necessary powers that I felt I needed first. Taunt not being one of them, Travel powers another that was delayed (took me into the 20s before I got fly even, I think the large independence port map had something to do with that decision)
Every time i hit that even level.. there was a new power i just had to get instead, but such is the lot of a Inv/Em tank. I never got that spare power I felt I could "waste" on those 10% of the time I teamed.
I dont have the same problem even close on my Nrg/Nrg blaster.. as I have "wasted" powers to get 2 travel pools, for concept reason, without having the slightest feeling of being gimped or lacking a "must have" power.

But now Im older and know more, had I started a Inv/Em from scratch today it is perfectly possible for me to pick taunt much earlier..

But the reason behind this is a greater knowledge of the game and of which powers that is skippable on behalf of taunt. (like resist elements and energies, I would still not skimp on the offensive capabilites interestingly enough)

But maybe this is more because of Em I think, due to it getting its high powers attacks so late, and lack of early AoE attack (and its slow recharge)
Compare this with my Stone/ Fire with mud pots and combustion where leveling is as easy as running into a 8-10 group of green or maybe blue minions, hit rooted and just spam combustion, it recharges quick enough.
Taunt all of a sudden becomes useful even solo as it becomes a tool to force mobs that are outside the AoEs to move into it.

[ QUOTE ]
Both, and more...

Allows pulling by tanks to corner



[/ QUOTE ]

There are ways to do this without using taunt, also, if your intention with the corner pull is to split a group in two so you only handle half while the other remains, taunt can actually be risky as you could accidentally hit a boss with it, and pull the whole group

[ QUOTE ]


Allows you to pull your weight facing the cabal



[/ QUOTE ]
as i never did the croatoa arc on my tank i have to take your word for it.. I have done it on my peacebringer tho.. and it has made it my firm belief that all of croatoa should be soloed...

[ QUOTE ]


Allows you to work with knockback



[/ QUOTE ]

falls under "mitigates bad teamwork" i should think

[ QUOTE ]


Allows you to pull ambushes and second groups, and whoopsie dasies that will occassionally happen even in very good groups

[/ QUOTE ]

only if you are in range..
Ambushes can happen when you are halfway across the map heading for the next mission, the latter falls under (accidental) "bad teamwork"

[ QUOTE ]
Tank with taunt + Good teamwork is better than Tank + good teamwork

[/ QUOTE ]

Never said it wasnt.

But does taunt promote teamwork or does it mitigate bad teamwork?

[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
Bear in mind only slots ive put in dwarf are 4 in the form (3 for dam resist and one for endurance enhancement)



end mods are slightly better better return i think

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah sorry, i meant end mods (and not end redux)

In Task force i was in we did fine without a tank for two missions by letting the Invuln scrapper take the alphas.

Against Tsoo a Storm defender with blasters walking along inside the hurricane made the mission easy if not downright boring. A tanker in that group would have been downright "in the way"

So, you will hear no argue from me whether a team actually needs a "tank".


So, if a team can get by without a tank then surely a tank can get by without taunt?

And then I read these threads about how the perfect tank takes taunt for maximum aggro control. Whats next? "must" the perfect tank also take Tough to cap his S/L resistance, or "must" he take Aid self instead because the number crunchers tell us that is much better? or to triple slot Health instead of putting those slots in Tough hide since the increased healing speed over time is more efficient that 1% more defence?

We havent got to the best part yet, my favorite is when people are advised to take punch instead of kick because the Animation time between is so much longer for Kick so it decreases the DPS..

The irony of it all is that no matter how expertly you have your taunt aura, taunt, provoke and even if you slot your attacks with taunt enhancers.. you can still only get 17.

No matter how mad your herding Skillz are, there will still be strays that will be able to aggro the squishies unless youre careful..
A certain Stone tank I teamed with spring to mind, Granite, Taunt, Mudpots.
"hey watch me herd these two groups"
Oooops, maybe he forgot that Dev earth multiply with pets and eminators and swarms.. he hit his aggro cap pretty fast...
..And he was still standing when the rest of the team returned from hospital.

[ QUOTE ]
They're not, because I team with people who can wait a few seconds before attacking, for me to group the foes in a way that's optimum for AoE attackers. Those who team with me either learn that, or die.

[/ QUOTE ]

i have a anecdote to tell thats related to this.

Earlier this week my level (at the time) level 32 Peacebringer got invited to a team doing 37-38 dev earth. I said "sure, but I need someone to SK me" The highest level in group was 35, so it made me 34. 3-4 levels difference is still way better than 5-6 i guess.

Anyway, the team already had a tank, I cant recall if the tank had taunt or even his primary, but what i do recall is that after only 1-2 groups and wipes he left. We reinforced with a scrapper and decided that maybe we could try pulling as new tactics... new wipe.
So the scrapper said, "any other plan?" to which i said that, well, i could try go dwarf and use that to tank with. Bear in mind only slots ive put in dwarf are 4 in the form (3 for dam resist and one for endurance enhancement)
No slots in any attack other than the basic, and those slots are recharge redux to increase my rate of attack. No accuracy, no damage.

I told the team that if im gonna tank, they do what i tell them... period!
I had No real taunt area other than "dwarf flare" and only antagonize as a "taunt"

for the remainder of that mission we only had one death in team, and that was after a swarm tried to escape, someone followed it, and returned with a new spawn before we had finished of the old. (and me going back to human for a quick heal, got held before i could return to dwarf to prevent the casualty)

The lesson of this is that Teamwork + Tactics is just as good as Taunting Tanker.

Whaaat?

At least now I have it. Ive finally joined the ranks of "a real tank". At least now I can lay at rest any teammembers worries about my resolve of keeping their squishy behinds safe and protected against their own incompetence by just having them look at my bio...

(Truth be told, whenever I myself am on any of my squishier alts, the tanker having taunt DO put my minds at ease.)

So, why not earlier..
Well. Only time it is an issue is when exemplared, and I dont do that very much... except when visiting PvP zones.. and there are other powers that would serve me better at those occasions. Like being able to avoid detection, (invisibility) travel, (fly) or actual attack powers.
You know, to hurt the opponent.

i just used a respec... i took taunt at 49....

my main tank is a level 50 Inv/Em tank and I decided to roll up a Stone/Fire tank for comparison.
Although the stone is only level 10 at the moment I can already tell that theres a totally different way of tanking between the two of them.

The inv/em is a speedy single target damage dealer. While I dont have any numbers on it, I can only imagine the amount of aggro dropping a even-con minion from full health to zero in one blow causes (build up + energy transfer) combined with gauntlet.

i have no use for taunt as I am constantly moving around picking a new target picking up aggro with invincibility aura and punching bad guys. If someones get in trouble I can run or fly over to the person in help.. as I said, Im fast.

But with Stone theres a totally different thing. I am more static and dont move around so much, If the mountain don't want to come to mohamed then mohamed will have to come to the mountain, or stone tank as it is. So naturally taunt is a logical extension and a power I will most definitly pick up after my travel powers.


then thers other differencies. with mud pots I get a visual cue to what mobs i have and have not aggroed by the damage figures appearing above them.
Ice/* have something similar by the icy mist that appear around the mobs.
But invincibility has no such visual cue, the tank has to guess whether he or she has picked up aggro of all the mobs.
Add to the fact that ice and stone get their aggro auras at level 6-8 or so and the invulnerable at level 18! makes for a completly different tank style.

Im only speaking from my own experience and my experience tells me that unless I have experience of a certain set I dont really know anything about it and thus I should refrain from giving any advice on how something should be played

Nobody expects a storm/rad/kin/whatever defender to play exactly the same way as a empath and so the same courtesy should be extended to the tanker primaries as well.

the way i use dwarf is to first scrap away in human form, and when my endurance and hit points get low, I pull back with the aggro I have accumulated, enter Dwarf and slowly regain health and endurance while still holding the aggro of a red/purple boss or two..
Then I go back to human and kill them.. arrest, Arrest I mean.

Dont look at it as a reward for playing badly, rather look at it as a power that mitigates playing badly.

Bad stuff can happen, and vigilance (and the blaster power, Defiance is it?) makes the path to destruction and party wipe less linear.
Its sort like when youre playing RPGs and the gamemaster cheats with the dice in favor of the player. (if youve never played pen and paper roleplaying games never mind)

Got a tell..
"youre an Empath?"
(well at least he didnt say healer)
"No, Storm"
(I thought about adding "we're better" but that would most likely be to controversial to say and later live down, so I didnt)
"kk"

Never heard from him again, got another invite later on from a team that didnt ask or cared, any defender was good in their book. Was great grouping with them, even though they did add a empath later on (not that we had run into any situaton that had warranted it, so im guessing it was just some random person who had sent the leader a tell asking if there was room)

It made me think, any team that specifically asks for a empath is probably not a team I want to be in anyway...

Unless were doing +4 missions or AVs.. then its perfectly understandable that some people feel more secured with a empath, but for casual mishes, no.

[ QUOTE ]
hurricane 3endred/3accdebuff
steamy mist 3endred/3dmgres
freezing rain 3recharge/2slow/1defdebuff
snow storm 3endred/3slow
tornado 3recharge/3disorient (gotta love it in pvp)
thunder clap 3acc/3recharge OR 2recharge/2acc/2disorient
thunder storm 3recharge/2acc/1dmg

roll on uber debuff, low end drain and add hasten = perma tornado, 2 thunder storms, fast thunder clap recharge, and nearly perma freezing rain

bauhahahahha etc

[/ QUOTE ]

Tanks must love you....

Tanker: "I'm trying to control the aggro here, Defender, just stick to healing me"
Storm defender: "So.. do I understand you correctly in that your suggesting me to use my weak 2-3 slotted O2 boost instead of using 5-6 powers that are 6 slotted that will stop the bad guys from hitting you at all?"
Tanker: "erm.. yes?"
Storm defender: "Good to know" kick tanker/leave team.

hehe, my own storm/elec defender is just in her early 20s but already its chaotic enough. Looking forward to see how it will be in another 20 levels though

With the combined effects of Disorients and Air support i have been able to juggle single targets like +2-3 bosses and lieutenants without taking a single point of damage.
With Build up + Energy transfer I one shotted white and yellow minions.

It drawbacks is that its a late bloomer and slow.
Due to the fact that you get your area taunt latest of all the tanker sets means you cant effectively tank for teams until then so you have to solo a lot.

As a solo AT youre just as good, if not better, as any scrapper or blaster, it just takes more time. This must be understood, anyone who wants a fast AT to get him to 50 better look elsewhere, like a empath defender* -anyone who wants a good AT thats slowly and steady gets there in the end and lets you experience as many story lines as possible and let you see as much as possible of the content even if you have to do it alone, INV/NRG is the one that will let you do this.

*in my experience, the fastest way to level is to get in teams, and the easiest way to get into a team is to be a empath defender... unless you have a supergroup at your beck and call that powerlevels you.. in that case any AT will do.. of course.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A really good tanker don't need taunt.

[/ QUOTE ]

the day i meet one without taunt i'll confirm it.

[/ QUOTE ]

hmm...

theres also the possibility of there being a second spawn of mobs close by who would aggro and add to the total number of adversaries. This might not be appaerant at first since this second group might start of with ranged weapons but since they stay "over there" its possible that its not obvious that you have aggroed more than the group can manage until its to late and people start faceplanting.

This second group dont even have to be close. Mobs like Nemesis both have good perception and long range weapons with their snipers. The habit of "thinning" out the groups before charging stays with the tanker even against other enemies even when its not needed as its better to be safe than sorry.

At level 10-20 or 30 this might seem unnecessary cautious but once you gain some levels, youll notice that the earlier you gain understanding as to why they act like this, the sooner you stop dieing.

trust your tank, he has a plan

im running a Claws/invuln alt right now. at the moment it combines well with the end heavy inv to the end light claws. Mind you, i dont have more than 1 toggle yet so it might still be to early to say for sure.