question about taunt

A tanks inherent: Gauntlet makes ALL your attacks into taunts, and taunt itself is not the most useful save against AVs and GMs.

Taunt is best used as a ranged taunt and as a range debuff to encourage foes to gather closer. Or as a tool against scattered foes as it has a 15 ft radius.

the formula is:

Damage * AT mod (4 for tanks) * AI mod (no info) * range mod (no info) * debuff mod (apparently usually 2 if a debuff is present) * taunt duration *1000

so taunt works out as follows if you take out the AI mod and range mod we have no info for:

1 (minimal damage modifier) * 4 * 2 * 41 secs (lvl 50) * 1000 = 328,000 threat

while jab works out as follows:

30.25 * 4 * 1 * 13.5 * 1000 = 1,633,500 threat.

Attacks with damage AND a debuff effect are even more effective.

Also, you'll want to put a chance for damage proc in your taunt as soon as you can find/buy/beg one. The reason is, if your damage procs and does even, say 30 damage, you just multiplied your threat 30 times.

Also, I'd suggest a taunt enhancement in every AoE power if you can fit it in.

However, Jab only has a little more than a 3 ft radius for its threat, meaning it's less likely to hit is maximum 5 targets while Taunt has a 15 ft radius making it more likely to hit.

The problem is in recharge and animation time.

Jab has a recharge of 2 seconds and an animation time of about 1.07 seconds.
Taunt has a recharge of 10 seconds and an animation time of about 1.67 seconds.

However, Taunt is very useful against AVs and GMs because it has a better accuracy against such targets than gauntlet does, much better.

As such for common situations its best to cycle through targets and attack a different target each time you make an attack so you can spread out the gauntlet effect as wide as possible.

Tanker Basics Guide

Really depends on who you ask.

For me it depends on who you team with. One of the components of aggro in CoH is damage. It's possible for several blasters, scrappers, and controllers to generate enough AOE tick-damage to gain aggro off a taunt-less tank just based on attacks alone, never-minding any other stacking aggro modifiers such as debuffs or other taunt auras.

Another component of aggro is the to-hit and accuracy ratings. Tanks generate additional aggro by attacking. However, if they can't land attacks, they are unable to build off of gauntlet. You can witness this case-in-point in action by running a Katie Hannon Task Force. Have the tank just use melee attacks, and no taunt, when fighting Mary. Blaster, defenders, and controllers launching attacks from outside of Mary's hurricane will almost immediately gain Mary's attention.

Another component of taunt is duration. Taunt effects only last for a certain amount of time. This can be important to remember when multiple mobs may have been pre-aggroed, which means they've been attacked or been alerted by a taunt aura or other method, but have been alerted after aggro-cap has been reached. Mobs that are pre-aggroed will seek the nearest target, even if the target is stealthed. This can be seen on both the Imperious Task Force Towers, in which tanks or brutes can alert several mobs, but only contain aggro from one or two mobs, and in the Dr. Quarterfield task force.

If your playing a tank with a damage aura, you can pretty much get away without putting taunt on auto since gauntlet, and thus your taunt, will build against success attacks of your own PBAOE.

If you are playing a tank whose taunt aura does not contain a damage component, such as willpower, invuln, or shield defense, you'll more than likely need to keep taunt on auto against even basic mobs to retain aggro control.

My own personal playing style differs between tanks. On my ice, stone, and willpowers, I'll generally auto-taunt. On my fire, I'll auto-healing aura and just hit taunt manually.

Taunt's accuracy check only applies in PvP. Against NPC's it is auto-hit.

but gauntlet's isn't, 100% is much better than sometimes. Gauntlet is only auto-hit against normal foes, Elite Bosses and lower.

But normally, Gauntlet is better than taunt....assuming you rotate targets and don't make the mistake of focusing on one target at a time (scrapper's job).

Eh, more complicated than that. If there are foes at range, Taunt can usually be better than running over to them. But yes, most of the time you can get more mileage from attacking a lot and keeping your aura going.

and rotating targets.

there is a place for taunt, however, and I don't suggest skipping it.

it is the only range you are CERTAIN to have access to for one thing, but it is slow and comparatively weak.

I have to disagree with your assesment of Taunt vs Gauntlet, for holding aggro, Taunt is much more potent. What your above calculations aren't considering is that the "taunt duration" is the "remaining taunt on the target," not "taunt duration of the power." In other words, if you taunt, then immediately use Jab (for ease of calculations, I'm using 0s activation for Taunt/Jab):

30.25 * 4 * 1 * 41 * 1000 = 4,961,000 threat

That is base, as well. Compare that to ED softcapping taunt enhancement for both Jab and Taunt:

Jab Alone
30.25 * 4 * 1 * 26.325 * 1000 = 3,185,325 threat

Taunt + Jab
30.25 * 4 * 1 * 79.95 * 1000 = 9,673,950 threat

Now consider that the difference between those two doesn't factor in damage enhancement (widen the gap) and it is an extremely low damage attack. A heavy hitting attack, such as KO Blow, would have a much wider gap. Since Taunt's duration is so long you benefit from the heightened threat generation for a long time from a single application.

If you absolutely must hold aggro on something, Taunt has no peer.

I've played Tankers with exceptionally potent aggro management out of the box (Ice/SS) and extremely poor (WP/Fire), and in neither case would taunt enhancement in AoEs significantly add anything, imo.

Gauntlet is a little bit tricky. The way Gauntlet works is all attacks are entered as AoEs, but specific aspects of the powers (basically everything except the taunt) are set to have a radius of 0, or only the targetted mob. For example:

Power A
Radius - 5ft
Taunt (Gauntlet)
Damage - 0ft radius
Knockdown - 0ft radius

When Power A is used, it has a tohit check not only on the primary target, but all targets within the radius (up to the cap of 5). So Gauntlet is not autohit.

Further, there is another check made. Is the target a normal mob (minion, lieutenant, etc) or a 'raid' mob (AV, GM, etc)? If a normal mob, the taunt is applied. If it is a raid mob, it has a second accuracy check.

Gauntlet is actually pretty disappointing. There are two cases where it fails: AVs/GMs and competing taunt effects. The first case is problematic for obvious reasons, especially against uplevel AVs such as those found in the STF. If you don't have Taunt, they'll stop looking at you very quick.

The second involves other Tankers, Brutes, and Scrappers with taunt auras (Invuln / Shield). I have out aggroed many, many Tanks with my DM/Invuln Scrapper. Since both ATs deal more damage, the only way a Tanker is going to hold aggro over them (Brutes + taunt aura Scrappers) is by sheer taunt duration superiority - which Gauntlet doesn't provide.

Not only that, but your aggro aura is doing the majority of the work for holding aggro anyways. If a non-AV mob is under the influence of your aura, then a non-taunting teammate will essentially never pull aggro from it.

This is a hard question to answer because it depends on the situation:

*) Don't need it at all - Doing simple missions with a team that doesn't include a taunt-aura Scrapper. Your taunt aura + AoEs will likely be enough.

*) Need it occaisionally - A map with some quirks. Ambushes, multiple mobs that are close by, ranged mobs (using Taunts -range debuff), etc.

*) Use it all the time - You're teamed with Brutes/taunt-aura Scrappers, fighting AVs, or you're WP.

Even in the last category, I'd hesitate to say "everytime it's up," because sometimes you know something is coming up that you want to save it for. For example, you see NPC text for an incoming ambush. If you just spam it, it may be down when the ambush hits, so holding off temporarily would be wise.

Also, knowing when you'll need to use it proactively (Brutes/taunt-aura Scrappers) is much better than using it after you lose it. In order to take aggro from someone, you need to generate double the threat of the current aggro holder. So, if you have 1,000 threat, someone stealing aggro from you would need 2,000. In order to take it back from them, you'd need 4,000, quadruple what you currently have. This also means that if you're the first person in a spawn, you'll have an easier time holding aggro than if you come in in the middle of a fight.

I'm guessing most of these answers are WAY more detail than you need or want.

Firstly, yes, Taunt *CAN* be used over and over to generate aggro. It does not have any diminishing returns.

No, you should probably not be a 'taunt bot'. The only time that's really called for, in my opinion, is when fighting a REALLY powerful enemy that can obliterate your teammates if you lose aggro for even a second. Very few enemies are that nasty. Most of the AV's in the Statesman Task Force are that bad. A handful of others, here and there.

A lot of the time, just punching stuff ('Gauntlet' effect - sort of a mini-taunt when you hit anyone) and having your taunt aura running will be enough. Some taunt auras are better than others.

Some of the time, these things will not be enough. A scrapper with a taunt aura who is doing decent damage can pull aggro off you. Of course, he can probably survive it.... for a short time.

Personally, I don't use Taunt much in most situations. It just isn't needed . . . oh, 80+ percent of the time. The only time I'll use it a lot is when fighting something really tough - then I'll put it in my attack chain. Taunt, 3 or 4 attacks, Taunt again.

Which is because you need TWICE the threat of another player to pull aggro off of him.

You're exactly right... I can appreciate the effort people put into theorycrafting but this is what I was looking for. I realize that it's not entirely necessary in CoX but as a tank I want all the baddies on me. I realize it's just a game but when I'm playing I look at whatever AT I'm playing like my job and I take pride in doing it well. I want people to not have any room to say "that guy sucked" lol. Plus I've seen tanks run in grab a few baddies and not really pay attention to aggro loss and have things running around to hit the blasters or whatever. I want the blaster or scrapper on my team to be able to go full bore in terms of damage without having to worry about getting smacked around because I'm not holding aggro.

Theorycrafting aside I joined a blind invite team that I shouldn't have (see my signature lol) I knew it was a bad idea but I wanted to tank for a team and thought why not? I would taunt to pull then if there were more than 5 mobs target one of the "loose" ones and taunt again when it was up. I didn't put it on auto or anything but used it more frequently than I've noticed and got exactly what I wanted, surrounded taking all the damage. However this was a blind invite so inevitably it happened... people starting going in different directions and we eventually wiped and half quit lol.

LOL I'm actually hoping not to see it anymore or at least not too often. It's one of the things that made WoW less and less fun. People doing everything they could to calculate the best theoretical damage. There's actually a tool that someone made for WoW that you could enter the specific boss fight, class and spec and party make up to tell you what you're DPS should be based on the info you provided. People would do that and then make adjustments to make it as high as possible with no consideration given to actually ya know, ENJOYING the game lol.

On the other hand, playing a game with little to no detailed information is no fun either. Believe it or not, back around release, City of Heroes was extremely secretive with any kind of detailed information. I'm not talking about cryptic behind the scenes stuff like taunt mechanics, but basic information like how much damage a power deals. All we had to go on was power descriptions like "high damage." Wait, was "superior damage" more or less than "extreme damage"? Why is a Blaster "medium damage" attack dealing as much as my "heavy damage"?

The premise was that the devs didn't want to bog down the player with numbers - none of that theory crafting nonsense. Just pick up the game, pick powers that sounded cool and go. You wouldn't believe how much confusion the lack of good information caused; it was very frustrating. What did people do? Try to figure out what was going on.

Having access to numbers and theorycrafting is very helpful. Someone is having end issues but is only slotting toggles for end reduc? We can show how to brind end under control and why slotting attacks for end reduc is better than slotting toggles. Someone wants to make an AV soloing Tanker, but currently can't out damage their regen? We can calculate dps well enough to help them achieve their goals. In this case, we can explain the nuances of taunt mechanics and explain why Tankers have problems holding aggro off, say a Shield Scrapper. (One of the harder feats for a Tanker to do, imo.)

That's not to say I don't think theorycrafting can go too far, it can. In CoH, I think it's at a pretty happy medium. If you want to know the nitty gritty about how something works, you can get some pretty in depth details. However, if you have no interest in it, it isn't thrust upon you like it is in other MMOs. Personally, I don't have much use for attack chains for AV soloing, etc. So, for the most part I ignore it. I do keep the information in the back of my mind if we're ever in a situation where I want to deal as much damage as possible. (Say, against Reichsman on the Khan TF.)


It's much easier to ignore numbers in this game than others, and people are generally respectful of that if you let them know upfront.


(Btw, while it's obvious you have no interest in it, some people actually find it very interesting/fun. I suspect you can guess which side of the fence I'm on. )

(Wow, this was a lot longer than I originally intended. Oops..)

That is another look at it I suppose, I hadn't really considered that as I'm still not at a point that I've concerned myself too much with doing max damage or whatever. My highest lvl toon is my fire/fire blaster who just hit 32 yesterday so who knows that may change.

The term alone scares me only because it (strictly opinion to follow) ruined WoW. Whether you wanted to do PvE or PvP you pretty much had a very specific build/gear set that you were expected to have and in some cases some PUG leaders would drop you if you didn't adhere to them.

e.g. I have always played "blaster" type classes, black mage in FFXI, mage in WoW... as a mage in WoW you were expected to have a very specific build based on the gear you happened to have and as your gear got better your theoretical DPS would increase with a different spec and you were expected to adhere to that. Some guild masters were very lenient with this as long as your dps averaged a certain figure but it made the game so much more about watching a damage meter than actually getting into why you were killing the massive dragon or whatever happened to be in front of you.

I do understand the benefit of it however, as you pointed out I have no interest in it... for now at least

Oh, one more thing worth mentioning - while I said I don't use Taunt that much, I only have 1 tank WITHOUT Taunt and 3 tanks WITH Taunt. In my opinion, it's often useful and, on rare occasions, vital.

This. Although, for most of the PvE game, I've found that I use Taunt more for the -Range aspect of it than for the actual taunt.