I really want to roll an Ice Tank but...

Hmmm...and like I just stated, even then, aggro can be stolen, as it was taken from me quite easily.

Yep, my Ice tank is capped for Smash/Leth and Neg/NRG. Oh well, I was hoping a debuff might lower their chances to hit me (whether AV, Boss, LT, or minion) by even just a little bit more.

If you are capped, then you shouldn't have much of a problem. I'm not sure if it was up to date, but I recall someone saying a +4 AV will still only have ~10% chance to hit on capped defenses.

Yeah Seven Tankers can be messy because they could all rely on eachother to cover up any aggro loss. I TA'd with all kinds of team make ups and rarely got aggro. It might be the order of powers I used + timing. Not every tankers aura is autohit and some tankers require a settle in time within which mobs are either tight or a PbAoE gauntlet is used.

What was you fighting? You'll have two Mag 4 auras slightly less in duration than AAO but 1 Mag higher. Taunt with an 80 sec duration with which should make AAO look like junk. I will go play my Ice/Ice with a Shield later or sometime this week and see if there is any hope of it stealing aggro. Getting aggro due to lack of thorough consolidation and maintenance is another thing.

Correct, the +4 AVs you face in the STF have a 10.5% chance to hit a defense capped character, compared to a 7.5% chance for an even con AV. Note that Lord Recluse himself is an exception while his towers are up, he has an additional +20% if I recall correctly, total 30.5%, but any tank tackling him had better be very prepared (good build/insps/etc.) or have very good support, hes designed as a tank killer. Your advantage is that Ghost Widow won't be likely to hit with her haxxor hold or her heals, which helps a lot in that fight.

A bigger worry might be things like the Quartz emanators the DE drop, which gives them huge tohit bonuses, on the order of 50-100% which completely negates any defense. Tohit buffs are somewhat more common in the high end game then resist debuffs, though conversely resist based sets can suffer badly from defense debuffing which you are protected against, and against things like sappers which you can laugh at. Overall, probably no worse "holes" in your protection then any other tank has. Tough is good for any tank who wants to tank harder content.

This was against a single target (Romi), all by himself, no ambushes. And Romi just liked the shield scrapper better than my Ice Tanker.

Didn't pay attention untill the last mission 4 of the ITF, and we were fighting Romi.

I had the taunt toggles going (CE and Icicles), using taunt when it was up, and laying in with the single target attacks (Ice Blast, Freezing Touch, Ice Sword, and Epic Ice Hold).

Sometimes he'd turn his attention back to me, but he was pretty fond of the Shield Scrapper (who I think was Fire Melee).

That's very peculiar, indeed. I've held aggro off Tankers, Brutes, and Scrappers using a similar tactic on my WP/Fire (heavily slotted Taunt, used on cooldown and dps in between.) In fact, I've held aggro off all four Patrons on the STF against a Shield Scrapper before.

There are only two possibilities I can think of:

1) The Fire/Scrapper's damage output (being Fire/Shield of all things) was just outstripping yours (being Ice Melee and dropping an offensive attack for the hold) by a larger amount than your threat multipliers could compensate for... but you had far more debuffs being applied than the Scrapper. (Not sure if debuff threat multipliers stack or not.)

2) He was using Confront.

Very peculiar...

Is your Taunt fully slotted for Taunt?

It was 6 slotted with level 25 or 33 Mocking Beratement (i'd have to go back to see what level I used for it). If they were all level 25, that puts it at 86.2% Taunt enhancement. If all level 33, it would of been at 94%.

CE is just slotted with an ENDRED. While Icicles is slotted for damage (3 Cleaving Blows, 3 Eradications...basically for the E/N Defense).

OH! I was also throwing in Frozen Aura every now and again, because it's well AWESOME! But still, yeah, the basically keeping aggro. No idea if they had confront though, but then, I pulled Romi to the grass, and was taunting first, so I would think that wouldn't matter.

Perhaps it was just the out damaging of me. I don't have GIS in my build.

Shield Charge carries a 13.5s Mag4 Taunt effect that - combined with Fire Scrapper damage, melee range, build up & AAO - could've easily grabbed aggro. It's easy to get SC cycling at 33s or less (I have one planned build that hits around 25s), so the Scrapper could've grabbed aggro fairly often, too. Follow up with GFS & Incinerate and you've got a combo that, to my knowledge, is the best blueside aggro-grabber in the game. And that's without factoring in any potential crits.

Well, a single debuff can double threat generation, so if debuff threat multiplications stack (2x for one debuff, 4x for two debuffs, etc), then the Scrapper would've had to be dealing 2 to 4 times as much damage as BrandX.

[edit: If debuff threat multiplication doesn't stack, then they were even in that regard.]

The taunt on Shield Charge is inconsequential - Against All Odds has a longer duration, so that's the one that would be used in the equation. BrandX's Taunt duration should be in the 77-81 second range. (That's 4.5 to 4.8 times the threat multiplication.) Not only that, but Scrappers have a lower threat mod than Tankers too.

I've seen Shield Scrappers steal aggro from Tankers all the time, but it's usually ones who a) don't have Taunt b) aren't using it enough or c) don't have it slotted well enough. This is the first case I've heard of someone using a very well slotted Taunt, dealing damage (even if at Ice Melee standards), and failing to hold aggro.


BrandX, out of curiosity, whats Taunt's recharge in your build?

4.96 seconds - 5.16 seconds...so roughly 5 seconds.

No one else was stripping aggro away from Romi. What just suprised me about it was that it was happening. I was under the impression that Ice Tankers were the one tanker who could rely on CE to keep aggro off everyone.

And something I remember, was the scrapper being off in the distance, taking on a Cyclops, being surrounded myself, I clicked on the Cyclopes and taunted it multiple times, and it still stuck on the Scrapper.

This is expected. The Scrapper was generating exceptionally high threat (taunt from AAO while dealing damage) and the only threat you were generating was through Taunt. While it has a long duration, that alone won't let you pull agrro. (Keep in mind that there is a range modifier for threat, too. Generally, the farther away you are, the lower the mod.)

Nope. Chilling Embrace, while one of the stronger auras, isn't good enough all by itself to counteract Brutes and Shield/Invuln Scrappers. Using this equation:

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

Tanker
Threat = 0.8 * 2 * 4 * (AI Mod) * (Range Mod) * (13.5 * 1,000)
Threat = 86,400 * (AI Mod) * (Range Mod)

Scrapper
Threat = 1.2 * 2 * 3 * (AI Mod) * (Range Mod) * (16.875 * 1,000)
Threat = 121,500 * (AI Mod) * (Range Mod)

This is a very simple example, but illustrates why 'DPS' ATs with taunt effects will steal aggro from a Tanker without Taunt. With Taunt:

Threat = 0.8 * 2 * 4 * (AI Mod) * (Range Mod) * (80 * 1,000)
Threat = 512,000 * (AI Mod) * (Range Mod)

The Scrapper would have to be dealing roughly 4.2 times as much damage as you were. (So if you did 47.6 dps, the Scrapper would need to deal 200 dps - which may be easier than I originally thought since the Romulous fight has plenty of AAO fuel).

(Btw, good luck if you run into a Taunting Brute. Assuming 50% Fury and an 80s Taunt, they'd be pumping out 723,000.)

---

Actually, I did think of one other possibility - were you buffed by any stealth effects that include a -threat mod (de)buff that the Scrapper didn't have (ex: Super Speed)? If you did, that'd be giving up your threat mod advantage, lowering you from ~512,000 to ~384,000. The Scrapper would only need ~3.16 times your dps to out threat you.


NOTE: These are simple examples/calculations, and likely not entirely accurate. I don't know it debuff threat multipliers stack, this doesn't count threat generated by CE's faster pulse rate, threat decay, etc. They'll give you a ballpark idea, not high precision results.