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Simple: use the already-present "aggro" mechanics instead of a supplementary and overriding mechanic. If Tankers need to grab aggro, let them do it the sensible way: by being a threat. If this is not possible, it's a problem with the AT design.
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Um, so this would correspond, using the given aggro mechanics, to the tank doing enough damage to pull aggro from a blaster. Which would mean he'd have to do _more_ damage than a blaster.
At which point, why play a blaster?
What is the number of targets limit on the "Taunt" power itself ?
Single target attack = max 5 targets taunted
Area attack = max 10 targets taunted
Taunt Skill = max ???? targets taunted
Max Total = 17 targets taunted
Is this correct ?
Taunt Skill 5 targets.
What about Provoke from the presense pool ?
Provoke is also 5 targets.
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Simple: use the already-present "aggro" mechanics instead of a supplementary and overriding mechanic. If Tankers need to grab aggro, let them do it the sensible way: by being a threat. If this is not possible, it's a problem with the AT design.
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Um, so this would correspond, using the given aggro mechanics, to the tank doing enough damage to pull aggro from a blaster. Which would mean he'd have to do _more_ damage than a blaster.
At which point, why play a blaster?
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It's not my fault that the CoH archetypes are flawed. 
The "Tankers" in comics are the Scrappers. There are few Blasters who aren't gifted with some kind of defensive ability in comics. Defenders are generally Controllers, and the "Scrapper" types often operate more like Stalkers with better defenses.
In the system we currently have, however, people have offered suggestions like giving Tanks extra damage against enemies that aren't paying attention to them (or "aggroed" on them). That would give them situationally high damage allowing them to steal aggro and retain it if they kept up the damage.
Blasters need a buff, anyway, in my opinion, so I figure they've got issues of their own anyway.
Two things:
First, I was rereading this again, and I happened to notice a weird anomaly that perhaps only someone who actually writes these things might notice, but nowhere in your original guide to taunt do you say what taunt actually *does*. Heh, we all know, but it seemed an odd omission.
Second: do we really know what taunt does? I was doing some tests with my fire tanker in Brickstown recently, and I happened on a couple of crey. I believe one was a crey crisis, and one was a crey eliminator. In any case, like many such pairs in bricks, as soon as I attacked, one fought back and one ran. I taunted the runner, and he stopped running. While I fought the other one (I believe the crisis unit), I happened to notice that the runner (the eliminator) had stopped running, but wasn't attacking.
Over a significant period of time, I discovered that if I left him alone, he would eventually run away, if I kept taunting him, he would stay, but he never attacked, unless I myself ran into melee range, whereupon he would begin to melee me for a while. But if I moved out of melee range, or he did, he would make no attempt to return to melee range to attack: he would just stand there, and eventually (presumably when taunt wore off) run away.
These were I believe even con LTs. I was not using burn. Taunt was overriding the run away AI, but not causing the critter to actually really want to attack.
Which brings up an interesting question: bug or not, is it possible for a mob to be aggroed enough to *want* to attack (and therefore not run away), but not aggroed enough to want to actually *do* anything about it, like attempt to approach?
And why would a crey eliminator choose only to use melee attacks? I wonder now if it was because I had blazing aura running: somehow, I wonder if taunt overrided the run, but it was BA that was actually causing the eliminator to attack, almost as if it were feared.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
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Total nooB tanker here, only level 25 and no taunt yet on my Ice/Em. I've felt like I use my aura and punchvoke pretty effectively, and have felt too squishy to handle much more aggro.
I am looking to respec either now or at 27 and trying to decide what to do about taunt. Ultimately down the road, I will probably respec my build for more pvp'ish flavor, right now I am thinking mostly PvE. I don't see any mention here of "Challenge" from the Presence Pool. It sounds to me like single target ranged gauntlet. I am wondering about this for when I want to pull selective targets to me but avoid all of the aggro. I am also thinking about getting the two fear attacks above it eventually for more pvp'ish stuff, so either Challenge or Provoke will be necessary.
Any comments on this power?
12) The AoE for Taunt, the power, is 15
Fifteen feet? Radius or diameter? With the actual Taunt target as the epicenter?
Either there is something I am missing, or this is not the behavior I am seeing.
Figthing Nemesis troops in a mission, throwing out Taunt to work on my pulls and such; expect to get three MOBs, get two. Ummm... pretty tight group there, too.
Saw this same sort of thing happen repeatedly. Expect to Taunt a bunch of mobs, actually get a lot less than I thought.
Are the different Taunts from the different powersets, actually different powers? Seems I remember for the longest time that WM's Taunt did not have a visual cue on the MOB's, but was eventually fixed. I dunno... just been feeling like, even given the nerfs, aggro management ain't what it should be (at least not for me).
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can you tell me about the effect, or lack thereof, of slotting accuracy enhancements into a taunt aura, in PvE?
Mudpots seems to be autohit in PvE, is only the Taunt autohit and the Damage requires tohit? or are both autohit?
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Hi Circeus, thanks for a truly invaluable guide! One question: do you still think that this ...
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Epic and Pool powers *do* have Gauntlet, but they are single target only, not AoE like Tanker Secondaries.
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... is correct with respect to Epics? I ask because you later quote _Castle_ as saying:
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Note that there is no distinction between Primary and Secondary powersets, Epic Powersets or Pool Powers? These all have Gauntlet on them, to one extent or another (Pool Powers version is limited to 1 target, and only the direct attacks have it.)
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Here he seems to be distinguishing between Epics and Pool Powers, and he specifically only mentions the latter as limited to 1 target.
I ask because I'm getting ready for epics on my Inv/Ice/Ice tank, and trying to decide how to allocate a few spare slots that I plan to devote to Taunt enhancements. (Taunt-the-power and Invincibility are already well-slotted.) If the Epics really do have an inferior Gauntlet, then I'll slot the extra Taunt into my melee attacks. If the Epics have a full-strength Gauntlet, I'd much rather put the extra Taunts there, for ranged taunting.
Cheers!
Relevant toon: Harmless Kitty, 38 Inv/Ice, Liberty
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Which brings up an interesting question: bug or not, is it possible for a mob to be aggroed enough to *want* to attack (and therefore not run away), but not aggroed enough to want to actually *do* anything about it, like attempt to approach?
And why would a crey eliminator choose only to use melee attacks? I wonder now if it was because I had blazing aura running: somehow, I wonder if taunt overrided the run, but it was BA that was actually causing the eliminator to attack, almost as if it were feared.
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Very interesting. And even more so in conjunction with the (somewhat inconsistent) experiences people are reporting in this thread:
Invincibility Bugged
It occurs to me that one way to capture most of these results would be to replace the standard definition of the Taunt effect (roughly, "makes the target attack you and only you") with something like this:
While under the influence of Taunt, a creature:
1) cannot run away;
2) cannot use powers on targets other than the Taunting player.
This might be enough to explain the observed behavior, in conjunction with the AI behavior rules. For example, if a mob is already determined to run and not fight (for whatever reason), Taunt will stop the running but not force it to fight. The fact that they attack when you close to melee range would presumably then be the result of something in the AI code, rather than anything to do with Taunt. (It would make sense that there might be code to override fleeing behavior when the mob is already in melee range and has a melee attack ready.)
To be completely accurate, #1 would need a caveat for special cases like Burn ... but I haven't followed the Fear/Feeling discussion closely enough to know how the Burn effect might be differentiated from other, non-Taunt-proof forms of fleeing. (At minimum, this seems to show that just one Feeling status can't be doing all the work ... unless Burn simply has a huge Feeling magnitude?)
Thinking of Taunt in this disjoint way opens up a few more possible questions as well. For example, when a caster is Taunted, can they use location-targeted AoEs that don't specifically target the taunter (e.g. Quicksand)? I haven't paid specific attention to this, but I have to say that offhand, I don't remember the mages casting many such effects once I've started Taunting. Ditto for e.g. Crey scientists using targeted heals or buffs on their allies. Either way, the answer could be built into #2 by changing "targets" to "players" and/or "enemies" as appropriate, yielding a little more precision about the effects of Taunt ...
I can't help it if the devs consistently explain things to the masses in a convoluted manner. Though I think you're over-parsing what he said. Epics are "Epic Power Pools" not "Epic Powersets", that should help you better understand what he said.
Lot of good information in this thread .. but one thing I missed reading it or was not included .. How long does a taunt last? I am curious because I would not mind making an ice tanker who if he/she hibernates would hold the aggro around the big ice cube.
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While under the influence of Taunt, a creature:
1) cannot run away;
2) cannot use powers on targets other than the Taunting player.
This might be enough to explain the observed behavior, in conjunction with the AI behavior rules.
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Is this the same thing a player-controlled villain experiences when they are taunted? I know they can still move freely, but are they limited to only attacking the Taunter? If a villain were taunted, but chose not to attack the Tank, would he even be able to target another character or NPC?
I understood the discussion about "Aggo" and "Feeling," but on the PVP side does Taunt act as a "reticle governor," in the same way that Placate for Stalkers works?
How about Ice Patch from Ice Melee? Does it have a taunt effect?
Also, someone said the other day that if you heal a tanker they lose some of their aggro. This isn't true is it? I have a feeling they are confusing us with WoW.
Edit: Forgot. How about the lowbie attack you get which varies by origin? Does it have a taunt effect too?
Nice guide. Makes alot of sense.
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12) The AoE for Taunt, the power, is 15
Fifteen feet? Radius or diameter? With the actual Taunt target as the epicenter?
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Just passing through and I didn't see this question answered. I believe what he means is the Taunt target is in the center of the AoE, which extends 7.5 feet in any direction, for a diameter of 15 feet. So the radius is 7.5 feet.
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one thing I missed reading it or was not included .. How long does a taunt last?
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Inquiring ice tanks want to know.
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one thing I missed reading it or was not included .. How long does a taunt last?
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Inquiring ice tanks want to know.
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The answer is "depends on level".
I do plan to update the guide in the near future.
Edit: to be more specific...
In PvE, Taunt the Power has a base of 20s which is then affected by your level. At level 32 (when you get Hibernate) the modifier is 1.67 * 20 = 33.4s, at level 50 it's 2.05 * 20 = 41s.
Gauntlet typically has a 1s base in PvE, which mean that at level 32 its base is 8.1s and at level 50 13.5s (inherent Taunt uses a different table).
These numbers are before Taunt Duration enhancements.
It also still depends on some 'X' factor doesn't it? Did the mystery of the decreasing duration ever get solved?
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It also still depends on some 'X' factor doesn't it? Did the mystery of the decreasing duration ever get solved?
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No it did not, but that's a different issue and likely a bug.
I can only work from the numbers I know.
Since no one answered these yet :
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How about Ice Patch from Ice Melee? Does it have a taunt effect?
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Ice Patch does not have a taunt effect, although it does provide a very high amount of threat due to the slow and knock.
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Also, someone said the other day that if you heal a tanker they lose some of their aggro. This isn't true is it? I have a feeling they are confusing us with WoW.
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Haven't seen his here or in WoW, although it's been a while since I played WoW. From what I've been able to observe, normal targetted heals (Aid Other, Healing Aura, et all) have no aggro component. Transfusion and Darkest Night does. None of these, however, override Taunt.
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Edit: Forgot. How about the lowbie attack you get which varies by origin? Does it have a taunt effect too?
[/ QUOTE ] I don't believe so. These powers don't even have a chance to critical, after all!
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The answer is "depends on level". [....]
In PvE, Taunt the Power has a base of 20s which is then affected by your level. At level 32 (when you get Hibernate) the modifier is 1.67 * 20 = 33.4s, at level 50 it's 2.05 * 20 = 41s.
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Thanks, this is helpful.
Does this base also get scaled against the target's level? IE, if you taunt something higher level, will your taunt duration be shorter?
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Does this base also get scaled against the target's level? IE, if you taunt something higher level, will your taunt duration be shorter?
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Yes, and it seems to follow the purple patch numbers.
For future reference (source Castle):
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Gauntlet is a generic name for a variety of powers which all include an inherent 'Taunt' effect. The text says "Each time the Tanker attacks, he enrages the target, and those around him, enticing them to attack the Tanker."
So, what is an attack?
* Any of your Melee Powers which damage a target, and many that simply apply a Status Effect. Single Target attacks are limited to 5 critters effected per attack. PBAoE's such as Whirling Mace are limited to the number of critters that take damage -- in this case, up to 10 critters.
* Any 'Aura' powers you may have, such as Icicles or Invincibility.
Note that there is no distinction between Primary and Secondary powersets, Epic Powersets or Pool Powers? These all have Gauntlet on them, to one extent or another (Pool Powers version is limited to 1 target, and only the direct attacks have it.)
If you are dealing with +3's or higher, it may be worthwhile to slot a Taunt enhancer or two into the powers you are using. They *do* help.
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