Nice post.
So I guess at the end of the day, it comes down to peoples differing needs and definitions of the word fun...
Click on people and look at their power choices to work out how they may of designed their toon to play. Then you can do a group in a way that could work best for all and say "is that okay for everyone?" Everyone in the teams journey matters and so some meeting in the middle if possible on dynamics is nice.
As my trick archer on pugs mainly i have seen some tanks in mostly untaunted scattered mobs with other people wondering when healing arrow will come. 1 aoe debuff and i could be defeated in 1 or 2 hits whereas if they were all taunted i could build a really nice safe haven to be in from stacking more debuffs.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
<QR> Yes.
While pulling behind corners can be useful at, say, low levels against Vahzilok, I wouldn't stay on a group with someone that insists on doing that for every group (or I'd go out of my way to charge and mess his pulls, most of the time tankers stop acting silly when they see a blaster/defender holding more aggro than them). It's slow, boring, inefficient, boring, unneeded, boring, not fun. Did I mention it's boring ?
I find it mightily interesting that people prefer chaotic faceplants to flowing smooth xp, the non debt lumpy kind. Almost every PUG that I have ever been on with any of my characters did not like dying much.
@Boerewors
I much prefer my gameplay slightly chaotic. I'd prefer faceplanting a few times over the course of 6-8 missions than herding all the way. Herding bores me to death and frankly I'd rather quit the team and solo than stick with a perma-herding tanker, even when I'm on my defender/blasters.
Always herding USED to be the best way to level, but that was before ED and before the target cap. Now herding is completely situational, doing it constantly is simply a waste of time and very, very boring.
PUGs are chaotic by nature, quite a few players in PUGs (and that's being generous) SUCK.
The fun for me on PUGs is overcoming any handicaps in the team (such as a blasters fetish to Rain-of-fire every mob or a controller that hardly has any powers from their primary) by good, strategic use of my powers.
In the case of my tanker, it's rare that someone will die if you have everything taunted, are watching nearby mobs like a hawk, know exactly where each of your teammates are and can see what buffs they have running. If all else fails, it helps to always carry a well-thought-out bank of inspirations.
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Always herding USED to be the best way to level, but that was before ED and before the target cap. Now herding is completely situational, doing it constantly is simply a waste of time and very, very boring.
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Indeed. Not only is herding boring, the fastest teams will simply kill the mobs where they stand instead of spending time to herd two mobs together. Tankers job is mainly to take the alpha strike and after that the mobs are pretty much dead.
With a 'medium' effective team, herding is valid, and weak teams will use pulling. Usually this progress from weak to strong reflects the players level too.
Herding:
1. To gather, keep, "or" drive (animals) in a herd.
2. To tend (sheep or cattle).
3. To gather and place into a group or mass: herded the children into the auditorium.
It doesnt have to be go and get 17 mobs or gather 2 groups. It could be whatever is needed to simply try to "keep" aggro solely on the tanker and to aid the debuffer in debuffing as many of the enemy as is sufficient within one group without them getting KO'd. It could be just to simply get 10 foes squeezed into an area small enough for a rad to stack 3 debuffs on all 10 then making the team able to drop the group faster with better chance of survivability. Foes could in theory only move a mere 3 feet.
Sometimes i am happy to do split groups 10 around me and 5 away from me (to get tighter maybe a waste of time). I can only footstomp 10 and taunt 5 thats why i am happy with it even though aoe debuffs and aoe blasts can get upto 16 the taunt control is there. A couple of strays for someone who likes living on the edge is fine too. If the scrapper wants a boss for himself or to take out something thats more dangerous to others thats actually what scrappers are designed to do just as long as when he runs in he dont get aggro cap and when someone else runs in they dont get their own aggro cap for an ambush situation of 34 foes.
As long as i have assumed taunt control before anyone starts i am usually happy, following anyone else in is usually just an absolute no no. Flyby tank mage and taunt intercept is about my limit on following anyone else into battle.
Herding as most people may see it could be the taunting out of the death room not needed in all situations, blind corners, groups too close to eachother is about it but in none of those situations its about tending to a flock to me even if the sheep dont like ya.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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Indeed. Not only is herding boring, the fastest teams will simply kill the mobs where they stand instead of spending time to herd two mobs together.
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With a 'medium' effective team, herding is valid, and weak teams will use pulling. Usually this progress from weak to strong reflects the players level too.
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And the really strong teams will recognise that there are certain powers and situations where taking the 15 seconds or so it takes to get everything nice and centred makes absolute sense. Seeds of Confusion + Fulcrum Shift + Blizzard = very quick takedown, especially if you have a lot of annoying minions (malta/longbow). Of course, I still see a place for pulling, as the team I was on last night did exactly that and I think everybody on there was playing their (at least) second 50. So presumably that makes us a weak team?
Synaesthetix:if your mum wasn't already dead I would go kill her for bringing
you into the world
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So presumably that makes us a weak team?
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That's edging towards being slightly confrontational, but yes... at least it would if you were playing Hero-side.
Seeds of Confusion is a CoV power and most Brutes aren't built as tankers... that makes it rare for a CoV team to have aggro locked down as well as on a CoH team unless the Dominators are pulling their weight. There's certainly more than enough damage available, but you generally have to be a bit more cautious with aggro so 15 seconds sounds like a reasonable amount of time to prepare.
However if it took a full 15 seconds on CoH for a tanker to gather a mob then there would be something wrong with the way that tank was performing. It generally takes only 4 or 5 seconds to fully setup a "herd" of that type when you're on a good, strong team- jump (or TP) into the middle of the group with your Taunt Aura running, then taunt any that are outside the Aura's radius... a Footstomp/PBAoE is optional... 
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So presumably that makes us a weak team?
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That's edging towards being slightly confrontational, but yes... at least it would if you were playing Hero-side.
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Ah, I was replying to the implication that if you pull you're on a weak team (looks up at forum name) - if you have a tank onboard, right now, I'm inclined to agree, apart from a couple of specific missions with insane alphas. In general (I get the feeling tankers are uite rae in PuGs), there are places where herding, pulling or just plane steam rollering are the best choice. Unless you're about to pull the "we have a tanker on team and you will all play to fit my powersets (see original post)"
And 15 seconds is just to get an entire large room clustered for nukage... still better than the five minute snoozethons we had back in the day getting an entire map clustered.
Synaesthetix:if your mum wasn't already dead I would go kill her for bringing
you into the world
We should all play to fit everyones power sets. Herding to me, can be merely tending to a group you have run into.
Getting the most out of everyone makes the team stronger and you can then go lets up the levels.
My firetanker hasnt dropped in 6 levels and no one else has, i shall make that more hopefully.
When i joined a team as a lvl 17 firetanker they were all scrappers +3 to me facing enemies that were +3 to me all with single target attacks and they asked why i didnt herd.
Why bother?
On a team that had a -5 lvl player to me we did someones old mission that had -1s to me and someone asked why i was treating the enemy like +4s.
Because they were +4 to someone. Nevermind the fact that the aoes stacked dropping mobs even quicker than all the single target attacks would of in that team.
When it comes to tanking i dont say "cant do it till the 20's" i start doing it between lvls 4 and 6 (not with an invuln tho) and alot of it is teamwork as opposed to playing like random people moving randomly.
Yesterday i had fun proving certain points to a mate about PuGs. I was on my kheld, he was tank maging using a debuff to pull mobs onto quicksand only to have everyone wait except for this one regen who'd run past the quicksand not letting the mobs get to sand and then instantly dropping who then rinsed and repeated. Some people just dont get it. I liked the time when i cryo freezed ray an enemy and dropped a trip mine at his feet and someone telekinesed the enemy (on his own, he was held why TK?) away from my tripmine saving them from it. Or the kheld who using nova KB'd a group out of range from my time bomb when he could of saved the nova for the next mob and not waste the timebomb (i get there early as team finish up previous mob) and get more out of timebomb and then get what he got out of nova in the next group.
Other peoples powers are just as important as your own.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
I think Herding is a valuable skill any tank should know how to do.
That said, there is not always a need for the tank to herd though, depending on the team, sometimes all they need is really someone to take the alpha so that they the split second the tank is hit they can let loose theyre AoEs, slows, holds, without worrying about getting hit. Defenders and Controllers take care of the aggro like this while scrappers and tanks handle the bosses that resists the holds.
Herding when its not needed is not only dull, it can also be seen as insulting to a teams skill.
All ATs have their strength and weaknesses, one must allow the others to do what theyre good at, not put together a team with the powers that makes the TANK look good...
UNION
Officer Cuffz lvl 50 Inv/Nrg Tank
Badge lvl 50 dwarf/human Peacebringer
Dark Air lvl 50 Ice/Cold Corruptor
Ayre lvl 50 Storm/Elec Defender
Total Cat: @Officer Cuffz
"When I say interview, I mean engage in combat and defeat..." -Laura Brunetti, on how to deal with Warriors.
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All ATs have their strength and weaknesses, one must allow the others to do what theyre good at, not put together a team with the powers that makes the TANK look good...
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I agree with that, i cant stand for example, someone saying "we need a kin" just cos they are granite or something along them lines or "get a rad" cos its an AV although both do offer advantages that can outweigh the others in certaon terms. Although the true magic does come from the defence sets in my opinion as they buff the whole team or debuff all of the enemy and thus make the whole team look good.
A tanker helps the defender alot either by being the only one getting hit allowing more time for blasts with buddy targetting for extra measure or keeping groups together in the debuff zones and then still by being the only one getting hit in the process leaving in terms of survivability the defender only helping the tanker and the tanker taking it for the team. In case of sonic and FF its still good even though the team have that much more survivability working to the idea that insps like lucks or sturdies effectively go alot further on a tanker than anyone else. But then some blasters etc like to get hit and so they only have to say or join me in some attacks cone area.
I think the term herding is what it is in the dictionary and not necessarily getting foes to chase you, its also keeping them together. If you like mobs spread about hitting all different people and attacks hitting 1 or 2 when they could of hit 16 at once then thats not efficient in terms of damage per endurance or keeping the fight duration down to a few action times.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
It is much easier to have to support one person as an empath than the whole team. You cant fort every one and you cant give everyone Absorb pain at the same time, you cant use heal other on every one at once and heal aura isnt that good as its not a great heal versus undebuffed high burst damage.
If i am not having to run around after every headless chicken then i have time for other things like blasts or buffs.
True, but that´s only from an empath´s point of view. Despite popular belief to the contrary healing is not the end all be all.
I have been in teams with a lot of different setups (and have been in charge of some of the more unusual ones) and there are more ways to destroy mobs in quick succession (with a good measure of safety) than one might think.
Sure, some team members may feel more comfortable with one strategy than with an other. For example, it is very convenient for an empath to concentrate on the tank most of the time, but in a good tank-less team the empath might even feel quite redundant... and quite exhausted after being with a not-so-good tank-less team. 
In general I favour no special tactic, although I do love tanks who know how to collect a nice herd when I play my kinetic archer or my warshade. 
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
Herding mob after mob is a dull way to play. I go charging into the middle of the next mob whilst the team if mopping up the remainder of the last. After loosing off the pbaoes I taunt the stragglers and by then the rest of the team is arriving.
I reserve herding for multiple mobs or when a blaster has a nuke ready.
Since the DPS of a stone tank is so pathetic you can stand in the middle of a spawns and do nothing by fire off taunt regularly and by 90% as useful as you would be if you were attacking.
That all said, the scrapper was being rude even if I can sympathise with his position.
(\_/)
(O.O) Bunny: Our time is coming
(> <)
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I go charging into the middle of the next mob whilst the team
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Tending to the enemy with taunt control is herding to me, always has been, just like tending to sheep, keeping them together.
If my tank + team can drop 2 mobs in the time it'll take 1 and I am going in that direction anyway, I am herding as you would put it. If we are near an ambush point then i am also herding. If I need to see a sapper before he sees me then i will herd the group of malta by taunt and hide till I can see the sapper then pop out and whack him. If foes are too spread on a small team i'll herd them cos sometimes its quicker to drop 10 at once than 3 at a time.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
I guess it comes down to playstyle and your conceptualisation of a tanker. In my mind a good team tanker is at heart a controller.
Many times I just use taunt and provoke on mobs to keep them away from the team. Isnt this a type of controlling action? Removing the mobs from attacking the team?
Mostly, the only attack I use is footstomp, thats just to keep the mobs off their toes, another controlling action.
So think about it: a team tank is a controller, all your primaries are built around taking damage and your function is to direct damage to yourself and prevent others taking damage, so in effect you are taking all the damage/negative effects of the mobs and directing it to a big spunge in order to allow your team to kill them.
@Boerewors
No surprise then that 3 of my heroes are controllers, 2 of my villains are doms...
I like controllers!
@Boerewors
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Herding mob after mob is a dull way to play. I go charging into the middle of the next mob whilst the team if mopping up the remainder of the last. After loosing off the pbaoes I taunt the stragglers and by then the rest of the team is arriving.
I reserve herding for multiple mobs or when a blaster has a nuke ready.
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Same here. I guess both Innigo and myself refer to "collecting all the mobs to a spot before anyone can attack" as herding.
For few occasions I am still tanking with my 50, I collect one mob spawn quickly by charging into it and keep it on me collecting stragglers and KBed mobs with taunt..The team can attack whenever they please, I just tend to the aggro. Not trying to collect multiple mobs because the chance exists that Id go over the aggro limit, and usually large herd is not even needed.
At lower levels there may be more reasons to herd properly. My rad/sonic in teams is herding more than my tanker would have
Herding depends on the group and their abilities, for AOE heavy groups then I would put it to the team if they want herding, but usually we only herd if there are 2 groups together.
Usually if there is a group of 5-10 I just jump in and keep the aggro, but if there are 2 groups of 5-10 close enough to cause a problem I herd both together.
I have also played when another tanker was in the team, we pretty much did the same thing until we reached a part with about 3 groups together. We decided to herd them all into one as they were too close and would easily be aggro'd by the team.
I take it as it comes.. if there's a chance of another group being aggro'd then herd, if not why bother? Usually doesnt take long to finish the group anyway.
had a fun mission:
got a random invite while in Hollows (im only lvl 7) to help with a mission that was full of orange/red/purple's, so as a sk wasnt possible i let the blaster pull and then attacked... however this annoyed the leader which (after faceplanting) decided to tell everyone they wernt doing their jobs and sent a tell to me saying "a poor tanker = a tanker than does go right in and attack" so after explaing that because we didnt have a healer, i would have died with every mob, and proceeded to explain "poor leader = doesnt look at the toon levels before inviting"
my view on this is that id rather help out and kill everything, than dive in knowing that i wouldnt be able to take anyone down with me.... needless to say she put me on ignore.
At 7, aggro is seriously difficult to keep with such poo gauntlet so with that alone initially its the alpha taking. Also everyone around that level mate has similar hit points, blasters higher than you maybe able to take alphas better and if I was there i'd of read ya hit points and most likely of gone for it. If you have an aura then its easier to keep aggro but its weak in duration against plus levels.
No one maybe likely to resurrect you in every mob, its a game not a job, your not getting any fun from planting so that everyone can have theirs and a trip to hosp in every mob is -xp/time. The responsibility of peoples health bars is the whole teams imo and whoevers taking the alpha needs lucks of people with no defender/controller present. The leader is out of line imo. Alot of people think they know better, who may not even have a tank and unjustifiably decide that your no good. At 7 that's pants. Also your build is your build and only you will ever know its actual needs.
Alot of people like a good fight but they soon disappear if its too hard and if the good fight is poor xp/time, anyone faceplanting often should soon realise the leader is not a good one.
A leader needs to work to the average level of team to start imo and progressively increase the reputation after people have learn't to work together. The rep should be enough to get both good xp/time and a good fight, a good fight is getting things to a close fight in every group where you just manage to cope. People can feel like they live on the edge rather than just get trampled on (but i am one of those that see that, what maybe close for one person is close for all).
Anyway I slot the heal at those levels, it is in fact my first few slots. The resistance or defence slots do next to nothing till DOs but the rechg and heal do more. So i add the res/def slots just before I can get DOs. This makes life a bit easier cos i like being in first.
Lastly its better to make the teams yourself and tank on your terms and then try to keep teaming with the people who are happily respondant to it.
Oh and she is probably bernard from solihull aged 43, likes dominoes, darts, guiness and pork scratchings and washes once a week :P
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
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It is much easier to have to support one person as an empath than the whole team. You cant fort every one and you cant give everyone Absorb pain at the same time, you cant use heal other on every one at once and heal aura isnt that good as its not a great heal versus undebuffed high burst damage.
If i am not having to run around after every headless chicken then i have time for other things like blasts or buffs.
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Ironically I feel exactly the opposite when i am playing my (admittedly low level at 17) Empath. I love the frenetic chaos of watching the teams health bars and trying to keep track of where everyone is on the map so I can leap over and apply the heals where they are most tneeded.
My idea of team hell for my Empath is as follows:
Everthing in one neat place, me healing the Tanker who keeps the aggro so now one else ever needs the heals. Chucking out the occasional psi attack just to relive the boredom as its not really needed since the team are doing all the killing required.
Efficient? probably. Safe? probably. Bloody tedious? Absolutely!
I am i think the opposite to people in this respect. For example:
Some tanks ramp up the survivability that they can in their tank and yet want a few risks.
I dont ramp up all the survivability in my tank in order to be challenged and at risk. Admittedly there is more of a need not to deviate in order not to have anyone die but thats my way of needing people more. When i look at a person in a team with an effect like a debuff, the debuffs are essential to me and that person who made say a rad defender is very important to play to assist and they are an important key member to think about. They made a Rad defender to play a Rad defender. I am not gonna go "we got an empath so ya relegated to blasting" with whatever slots you have mustered for your level when you may have ploughed all the possible slots in your primary i am gonna get as many in those debuffs as i possibly can.
When i want the chaos challenge and risk or die 20 times in a mish i can just join any PuG for that and some of the PuGs can be better than SG teams anyway.
I got blasters, i made a trick archer to play a trick archer but if it isnt safe to lay debuffs down ill get killed. Now if its never safe, getting defeated gets tiresome. Your faceplantedness on the floor means your not useful. Your also possibly ignored as a player because no one who could is helping you, by giving you enough survivability to actually use more of the debuffs. You then could say well i'll respec and slot up my secondaries single targets more as atleast i might live but then you become a 50% effective blaster - but i have blasters already and i didnt want another one. You could say did i debuff too early? I have a tendency to know if anything is taunted or controlled and so personally wouldnt fire a debuff into free roaming +4 rikti for suicides sake so it wouldnt happen. I just think poo all thats safe to use is my 1 acc snap shot.
Some people have toons and they like to be made effective in teams with much needed assistance. I am more for people supporting and providing support to eachother than damage numbers as killing is of no interest to me but that maybe just me. I go into a mission and its like "we need the hostages" and it is preferably without force or violence. Well as things always turn out they never give up anything without a fight (swines) and resist arrest. The fun isnt in the actual fight, or seeing orange numbers but in the keeping of everyone being okay (in rl getting hit in the face or hitting people isnt nice) and to come out of something saying "how did we manage that?" is the good part for me.
Now herding isnt always essential and doesnt have to slow things down. On the really small teams i'd run in and around to get enough as spawns are small but on big teams i only have to taunt and let them all come to me. I see tanks run in and run back and have a group chasing them when they could of just taunted and hid (cos of ranged attacks) and let the mob come to them. So already you have halved the time. It only takes about 2 secs max to get a taunt pulse out from an aura and you can use a pbaoe opener to attract the rest for almost certainty and taunt will recharge by then usually for any breakers. Like i say tho herding isnt always essential as some are already grouped up as it is, out of perception range of other groups.
My main tank being invuln gets more defence from tight groups and that does matter. Blazing aura, combustion and fire sword circle on my firetank stack better. My icetanks icepatch is being used more effectively as well as icicles and ice sword circle and my stonetank is contributing to as many as she can with her effects.
Fun is subjective and boring is subjective. I bought the game to play a hero and thats it, the sole reason. If the team are all defeated the mission has failed to me cos in RL heroes dont get a second chance.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.