streetlight

If more people knew about it, it would stop a lot of confusion. I thought Taunt stacked up until a few weeks ago and at one time believed Magnitude mattered in the calc. I wondered how aggro could ever be lost. Then someone posted the calc and cleared up stacking for me, which was nice.

I do wish we had more info on how debuffs factor in, though.

That only matters for the first 0-2.0 seconds before any taunt aura ticks. Fire could tick immediately upon contact or just a hair less than 2 seconds later, depending on when the toggle was activated.

Taunt the back of a spawn, move to the front of a spawn (or vice versa) and you'll have it taunted within 0-2.0 seconds. You'll also get the "first available target" moment regardless of primary (or AT, for that matter), which isn't technically Taunt, but works just as well for that first round of attacks, each of which will have an animation between 0.75 and 4 seconds. After that, Taunt should be working into the equation.

No significant damage weaknesses is still a secondary trait of WP, much like the endurance management. WP is all about the Regen, which is simply amazing. You can find builds here with 350+ hp/sec regen and capped hp. It's all passive, so you don't have to blow billions on global recharge IOs and sets or crash after a few minutes. That's what gives the set it's survivability.

The resists and defenses are great, too, especially when stacked with the regen & hp (edited... heh). So is the endurance management (again, passive). The +perception is nice. The exotic mez protection is nice. It gets everything and it gets it in good quantity. Well, everything except a standard taunt aura. That is the one and only weakness of the set. It also gives the Tanker AT a single option that isn't going to suck up aggro by default, which is a good thing on a lot of levels. Not everyone wants to be a meatshield.

Is this state of affairs good for people that want an everything set? No, but there are no everything sets. Build appropriately for what you want out of the character. I don't build an Invuln and then whine about how they need to give Invuln psi defense & resistance. The inadequacy of the set regarding psi damage is disclosed up front. Just like RttC's taunt aura. If you want a better taunt aura, roll something else.

No, the taunt effect just ticks at 13.5 and refreshes at 13 back to 13.5. Invuln's ticks at 16.9 and 15.9 back to 16.9. Taunt duration remaining gets multiplied by 1000 as part of the threat calc. Nothing stacks, it just refreshes at the highest available value.

Threat = Damage * Debuff Mod * AT Mod * AI Mod * Range Mod * (TauntDurationRemaining * 1,000)

Shield, with high damage (thanks to AAO), a debuff (again thanks to AAO), and a 16.9 duration taunt is the king of aggro. Debuff mod is a number between 1 & 2 (not sure of values of specific powers). AT mod is 4 (Tanker or Brute) or 3 (Scrapper). Due to their higher damage potential, Shield Brutes are the undisputed aggro kings.

Taunt (the power) can have a duration of up to about 82 seconds if slotted. That means you can have ~82000 for the "Taunt Duration Remaining" portion and refresh that as fast as Taunt comes up (10s unenhanced, IIRC). Compared to the 16900 (Invuln & Shield) or 13500 base (all non-WP), that's a huge modifier. Again, though, it doesn't stack. It just refreshes and retains the highest available level.

By the numbers, assuming equal offensive ability, Ice needs to overcome a 25% deficit to Invuln in the Threat Duration Remaining portion. It might do that through debuffs, but I don't know the exact values in play. Shield can match Ice's debuffs to some degree (possibly exceeding them, depending on the calculation), has a damage buff that will increase threat by default, and has a longer base duration.

If there are more than five targets (Taunt max), then any Tanker can lose aggro. Scrappers and Brutes are capable of stealing aggro with superior damage. Fortunately, it's rarely completely stolen. Even with Taunt, a Brute or Scrapper can still snag aggro at times, even without using Taunt/Confront themselves.

The extra taunt duration on Invuln helps quite a bit (+25%). To my knowledge, Taunt doesn't stack. A target is either taunted or not taunted, with the highest effective duration used in the threat calc.

There is quite a bit of KB in the game, but it doesn't necessarily enhance most teams. I liken it to a Controller who spams an AOE hold that leaves mobs scattered all over the place, weakening the rest of the team's AOEs in the process. He's fine and everyone's likely safe, but it's become a chore at that point. The guy spamming KBs is adding scatter, which is inefficient by nature. Teams can deal with it and survival likely won't be an issue, but it's harder with the KB character than without them. If you're not making the team better and maybe even making it worse, then what purpose are you serving?

It's not that it needs to go away or even should go away, but that it's not necessarily helpful to most teams. KD and KU are great. KB is just bad for the majority of teams. It's outstanding in a solo context. It's likely great with other KB-heavy builds (though perhaps it would just create a mess?). It's just not that great when the team functions better with everything close together, which is almost every team out there.

KB-unfriendly teams can work around it, but they can benefit more by adding almost anything else. KB is something that has to be catered to and worked with, where almost everything else just fits into a natural flow. There are some good KB-using players out there, the kind of guys who attack from above or at enemies already up against a wall/corner. Those are more rare than they should be, though, and even they tend to slip up from time to time.

Like I posted before, Invuln doesn't need sets to be good. Everything gets better with them. Resistance-focused sets improve greatly with IO set bonuses to defense. Invuln has unbelievable resist where it counts most (S/L) and something less desirable elsewhere, but it has some defense to build on if you decide to go that route. If not, you've got Dull Pain and/or Unstoppable to keep you alive against the exotics.

Invuln has the second best aggro control, behind Shield, due to Shield's equal aura duration and damage buffs. Everything else falls behind by several thousand threat points at any given moment. All are equal in terms of Gauntlet and Taunt. How much aggro control is enough? Most of the time, any Tanker will do, even a limp aura'd WP. Sometimes, though, you need something more. More is almost always better, assuming you can handle the incoming damage.

When it comes to survivability, again we get to the question of how much you really need. Invuln will be better than most due to 90% resists to 70% of incoming damage, 30% resists (or 90% if you pop Unstoppable) to 28% of incoming damage, and a great big 0% for psi (2%). That's assuming you don't either pick missions for the character or characters for the mission.

Compared to the resists for anything other than Stone, Invuln is way ahead. Softcapping is the big benefit here. You can essentially stack the defense of the Ice set onto any Tanker, to one degree or another, and it isn't difficult to softcap to S/L on any AT. Invuln is defense-friendly, being one of the easier resistance sets to softcap (Dark being the other). If you softcap just S/L on even the weakest of the primaries, you'll end up with a very durable character. It won't necessarily be durable at the extreme levels of the game, but it'll be great for 95%+ of the content out there.

One thing Invuln doesn't have is any sort of offense. It's a purely defensive set, so if you're judging them on offensive capabilities (e.g. soloability & damage output), it'll come up short. It's not a speed farming set. It's a survivability & aggro set, great for tanking. It isn't an everything set, but nothing is and nothing should be. Players looking for aggro control and survivability in a Tanker, both typical goals, do well to take Invuln. It's not necessary, but it is helpful.

And that's really quite a bit of the issue. Get locked in on a boss and you're punchvoking all around him, but everything else is wandering away between ticks of RttC. So you've got to either pop AOEs or switch targets more often, and likely both, if you want to hold aggro.

Gauntlet taunts for 13.5s. If you're attacking normally, regardless of the weak taunt aura, you should be able to hold a spawn or two relatively easily. Taunt helps, too (big duration multiplier, but no real damage multiplier, so even it can be overcome, if I understand the mechanics correctly). Some damage AT might steal a bit of that, but that's okay. If they whomp a target with a big orange number, it makes sense that the target might pay them some attention or at least have a chance to do so. That's not a big deal. The game's aggro mechanics are already very player-friendly, so some risk is good for the game.

WP is the best survivability set in the game. I've seen a lot of talk about defense and resists, but it's that unholy regen and +hp that really makes the set shine. When Invuln Tankers used to complain about the psi hole, someone would inevitably point to Dull Pain as de facto protection against psi and everything else. WP doesn't have any holes, it gets a passive +hp boost, and it gets gobs of regen. It's easy to get over 250hp/sec, which is better than having a pocket Emp spamming Healing Aura constantly.

If WP were really a terrible set, it'd be the rarest of the choices. As is, it's one of the most common, if not the most common, in use today for Tankers, Brutes, Scrappers, and Stalkers. It is just that good for survivability and it's really easy to manage (toggle up, go kill stuff). It has one downside that can be overcome through gauntlet & taunt, one of which it gets for free on every attack and the second of which comes easily through power choices and requires no slotting.

All this said, I wouldn't be opposed to WP getting a 2 second duration on RttC's taunt. It'd still be a weak taunt aura, but at least it wouldn't have a gap.

I'll second War Mace, but I'd also throw in Fire. War Mace adds great AOE and mitigation, while Fire also has AOEs, but trades mitigation for more damage. Both should be high-threat options.

Haven't had problems with Furious Flea (Inv/SS Tank) under any circumstances (raids, TFs, whatever). He's a regular RWZ raider and absolutely invincible on the Mothership. Doesn't even have problems with Psi, thanks to slotting. That "huge amount of exotic damage" isn't all that huge, after all. Flea isn't even naturally softcapped.

Not likely.

Invuln's resistance to S/L is a huge factor. Even though you're looking at ~30% to everything else, that S/L resistance will help see you through almost any fight. The defense bonus of Invincibility scales to be at its best when potential damage is at its worst. When enemy numbers fall off and Invincibility becomes less effective, the threat to the Tanker is also reduced to the point where ~30% resist to exotic damage is sufficient. Throw in Dull Pain and Unstoppable and you have what should be a nearly unkillable character. Invuln's biggest weakness isn't really the exotic damage, it's the endurance cost and lack of an endurance builder.

I like Willpower for pure survival, especially with large quantities of lower-difficulty (+2 or less) enemies. The weak taunt aura helps survival quite a bit, since it can stand in a pack of enemies, get all the benefit of RttC, and essentially limit threat to punchvoking and taunt. It's a great set for standing next to an Invuln Tanker . It doesn't have a click heal, but you can stack a lot of +hp naturally and take advantage of that great regen. I like Unstoppable over Strength of Will, if only because it delivers on the promise of godmode. Outside of SoW, it doesn't have anything that interferes with attack chains, so it is nice for DPS builds. QR also helps characters maintain long-term power use, something that Invuln can have trouble with.

[Obi-Wan]I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if a million farmers cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced...[/Obi-Wan]

The key question is whether or not you have slots to spend on an IO mule.

If you don't have the spots to spend, then my answer would depend on when you take Boxing. If you take it late, then it doesn't really need to be slotted at all (you'll have a full attack chain from other powers, even when exemplared). If that open slot bothers you or if you take it early, I'd recommend either an Accuracy IO or an Acc/Dam IO or even a Hami Nucleolus if you've got influence to burn. That way, you'll have something to fill in the attack chain when exemplared.

If you do have the slots to spend...

Accuracy: Absolute Amazement x4
Defense E/N: Pulverizing Fisticuffs x3, Pounding Slugfest x3, Stupefy x6
Defense F/C: Stagger x3, Razzle Dazzle x6
Defense S/L: Kinetic Combat x4, Razzle Dazzle x5
Defense Melee: Touch of Death x6, Razzle Dazzle x5
Defense Ranged: Mako's Bite x6, Stupefy x6
Defense AOE: Razzle Dazzle x6
Hit Points: Stupefy x3, Mako's Bite x3, Touch of Death x3, Kinetic Combat x3, Razzle Dazzle x3
Recharge: Absolute Amazement x5, Stupefy x5, Crushing Impact x5, Stagger x5
Recovery: Absolute Amazement x2, Stupefy x2, Razzle Dazzle x2

Just look at what you'd like to get in light of how many slots you have available and make your choices.

In my personal opinion, +HP is always nice on a */WP, so I'd be tempted to 3-slot Stupefy as a baseline. With a full six slots available, I might 3-slot both Stupefy and Razzle Dazzle for the +recovery and +HP.