The Presence Pool needs parameters love

No, melee characters get much better Taunt powers in their main sets. The taunt powers in Presence are mostly intended for non-melee characters who can be made tough enough to Tank, Masterminds, Crab Spiders and certain support sets are the ones who really use them, not melee characters.

That's an interesting idea. Balance-wise I think opening up all of the pool for free might be a bit to good for some of the pools. Most of the 4th pool powers are either not particularly popular anyway or are in sets where taking the pre-reqs makes sense anyway. The two powers I can see this being a potential issue with are Weave and Invoke Panic.

Weave is already regarded as being useful enough that a lot of people take at least one or even two power they won't use in order to get it. Boxing/Kick aren't particularly useful since most characters have access to better main powers anyway and while a lot of people use Tough it's not really that strong and I've seen a decent number of builds on the forum where it was being taken with no intention of being used.

Invoke Panic isn't in quite the same situation but with no pre-reqs it does become an easy way for someone to pick up a bit of AoE control.

I don't think the change you propose would break the game, but it would definitely be a noticeable buff for characters.

I disagree. Power pools are intended to round out characters and get them additional powers not available in their main sets. Making them weaker than standard powers makes a lot of sense in terms of balance since it avoids devaluing the primary/secondary powers. I do agree that the fear powers could use a buff, but they should still be less powerful than fear powers in regular sets.

Yeah there is some sense there. Challenge is a pretty limited power so removing that could be a convenient way to improve the pool. I think I'd still keep Invoke Panic as the second power though giving:

Level 6 Powers: Provoke and Intimidate
Level 14 Power: Invoke Panic
Level 20 Power: An AoE Confuse

Sold.

;P

I really, really hate getting Taunt to get to the Fear stuff.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Just a thought pulling out of the air, what if instead of a AoE Confuse, a PBAoE debuff.

Awe
Toggle: PBAoE

Casting Time: 1.32s
Recharge: 8s
Endurance: .32
Range: 10ft
Max Target:10
Effect: - 3.75% to hit Debuff for 5.96s
Effect: - 3.75% Defense Debuff for 5.96s

The Concept... if your got that much "presence" about you, or Awe. Then it would be hard for people to bring themselves to swing at you (to hit debuff), and would be in Awe of your power, so they would be easyer to hit as well (Defense Debuff).

A double debuff like this might intice people to go into the presence tree, and considering it takes 2 other power choices to even get here. it would still not make it into all biulds.

I like it. More Fear the better.

And no problem. It's a Tier 9 of mine.

Pretty cool idea!

The Presence Pool was around long before Crabs and Masterminds. At launch most Tanks didn't even have a taunt aura, (I got lucky and picked Inv/, which did). Also, Taunt was single target. Tanks by and large almost had to take Provoke to hold aggro. Later, Taunt was changed to an auto-hit AoE, thus making Provoke optional, as it should have been.

Today other AT's have figured out ways to use it, but its original intent seemed to be for the melee set. I can't fathom the devs in the early days believing a Blaster would want a taunt. But then, after their first pass at an inherent for Blasters, who can say?

Huh, I did not know that about Tanks (way before my time). Thanks.