RTTC - Change?

I've seen a lot of posts recently seemingly negatively remark about RTTC lacking a good taunt aura and others in the team stealing aggro - making the point of the tanker being in the team pretty redundant really. It's currently alot like when Invulns aura had been reading the wrong table. I hated having a weak taunt aura on my Invuln and it, combined with how people like to play, killed my fun dead quite often as I took my aggro control quite seriously.

I wouldn't mind seeing the debuff go on that aura as it's unmissable (unless someone tells me it's irresistable - something I'd be shocked to find out) so take that away to balance any boost in taunt magnitude and duration if possible or better still just make the tohit debuff irresistable, up the taunt magnitude and duration.

So I think it would be a good idea to see if anyone would be against such changes being asked for? If we all feel badly about the lack of a good aura then we can prolly see it changed.

I'd love to see the aura buffed. I've found some of the tips Herculea put forth in her guide regarding Aggro and WP to be a huge bonus, though. Mostly, taunt is invaluable. It refreshes quickly, and by using it liberally, things have been great.

I've also dropped some taunt enhancers in RttC--another huge difference. I think the weaker aura is the balance for having no other holes. Invul is weak to Psy, Stone has it's obvious penalties. WP is good at everything, with nice regen. It's hole is it's aura. Ways exist, just like for most things, to work around that.

Again, I'd love a buff and would never be upset with a buff, but...

Ion Flow

But nothing. Honestly, I just worded things poorly. I'm with you--I'd love a change. I don't know if I made that clear in my original post. Herculea gave some great ways to work around it, but I'd rather the fun factor not require a work around.

I'd love to see the aura buffed. Bring on the buffs!

Ion Flow

If you had proposed this a while ago, I would have whole heartedly agreed with you. Now, however, I believe a change like that would make it more user friendly, but be a nerf to maximal threat generation. The threat equation uses "RemainingTauntDuration", so I believe that a longer taunt effect (ie: Gauntlet, Taunt) would make the longer taunt duration redundant. Not only that, but RttC losing the debuff would lose the threat multiplier it caused which the longer duration couldn't account for.

This is my understanding of the extremely simplified threat equation Castle gave us and what I've experienced while playing WP. I've yet to run into a Tank that could consistently hold aggro over me, Taunting Invulns included. I've run into a few that would cause the target (a GM) to yo-yo between, but that's it. If Invincibility was stronger than I should have lost aggro. (That is not a brag, mind you - just my experience and why I'm saying what I am.)


The other complication is removing the debuff would require the removal of tohit debuff sets from being slotted into it.

As things stand right now I for one will never play WP; I firmly believe that a tanker's primary purpose is to control aggro. When a set is literally more than an order of magnitude worse than the next worst set I see that as a problem.

Let's compare aggro auras of different tanker sets.

Stone - 13.5 second duration MAG 4 taunt with a 2 second tic rate
Dark - 13.5 second duration MAG 4 taunt with a 2 second tic rate
Electric - 13.5 second duration MAG 4 taunt with a 2 second tic rate
Fire - 13.5 second duration MAG 4 taunt with a 2 second tic rate
Ice - 13.5 second duration MAG 4 taunt with a 0.5 second tic rate
Invuln - 16.9 second duration MAG 4 taunt with a 1 second tic rate
Shield - 16.9 second duration MAG 4 taunt with a 1 second tic rate
Willpower - 1.25 second duration MAG 3 taunt with a 1 second tic rate

(By the way, an order of magnitude is a factor of 10... 1.25 seconds duration x 10 = 12.5 seconds, still 1 second shy of the next lowest set, and that doesn't count the lower MAG.)


Every other taunt aura in the game has at least a 13.5 second duration and is MAG 4. That's why people refer to Willpower as having a pathetic aura; compared to every other tanker primary in the game it does. I know that it's possible to lean heavily on your secondary and accomplish the job but it's MUCH harder since your aura is doing almost nothing for you aggro wise.

I understand the thought behind it's durability... but when it's shedding aggro to scrappers and high damage blasters what's the point in durability? I haven't yet teamed with a WP tank that I couldn't easily strip aggro from with my BS/Shield scrapper. That's a problem, a scrapper shouldn't be ABLE to get aggro from a tanker unless the tanker had turned his aura off. I get aggro from a WP tank without even trying, all I have to do is get into melee range with the tank and bam, I have the aggro.

Heck, I was playing my Fire/EM blaster opposite a WP tanker and tossing Blaze+Fire Blast stripped aggro.

Is it fair that WP relies on Taunt more than other tankers in order to keep other team mates as safe?

I have said in the past, and I may of come across a little bit anti change with something similar to this myself "WP should have better gauntlet ability with QR being accessible and so not much need for the aura duration". Taunt is something I would recommend to an Icetank, Shield and Invuln tank let alone anything else that would in my opinion need to rely on taunt more. So seeing WPs pick up taunt to help with the tanking versus tohit debuffs especially perhaps is a good thing.

I did the testing. It is alot like when Invulns were looking at the wrong table. Speculating then, in a high speed pug; movement wise; not steamroll "where did they just go?" wise because we could be talking hard mobs; I might be getting a bit irate when trying to make the splash zones small, my way, mobs tight so debuffs affect all....Only to have someone else, one person, undo that attempt and bring the splash to the team who won't appreciate it, have them whatever and then have to be abit scrappy myself in trying to do a recovery but with only taunt actually working. Recoveries aren't fun for everyone, having to make a recovery is a sign of inefficient play as well usually.

I could tell people how to play, which people hate, just so I can do my job, the reason I think I am there or carry on but feel deep down that there is no point me playing a tanker if I can't redirect damage and keep it redirected the right way.

I'm thinking Mag 4 it, all tankers should be Mag 4, no scrapper should make a tanker redundant. Then up the duration enough to atleast if needed move mobs somewhere advantageous from the team, offering them range whatever. If for whatever reason RTTC should not be as high a duration as 13.5 secs to encourage gauntlet then it should atleast allow getting mobs to the nearest vantage point, say 5 or 6 secs.

I can't see a change unless this is something people do have issues with. Off and on I have seen points being brought up.

Do people really feel like their getting their ATs worth with RTTC? Is everyone consistently feeling adequate and does it suit peoples idea of fun.

I don't like losing aggro at all and generally don't because I use taunt alot anyway but for other people it maybe too weak for their playstyle.

Stone gives up damage and recharge. Invuln has weak resists to exotic damage and none to psi. Dark is weak to energy and doesn't have native -KB. Every set has upsides and downsides. WP's downside is that it has a weak taunt aura. It does everything else very well and still has full-strength Taunt and punchvoke. If it were to get a full-strength aura, then it needs to lose something appropriately important to make it less of an "everything" set (e.g. regen rate).

The lack of taunt duration mightn't help with a Willpowers regen at times or help with teams survivability. I doubt the tohit debuff would be offloaded for greater taunt duration in RttC but maybe it don't need to be. An increase from 1.25s to 5s or 13.5s might still render Willpower roughly lacking in equal terms to what other tankers lack because it's not a precise science. I can imagine people inable to tank on their terms at times not feeling like they have much of a tanker when to them tankers are about aggro control.

Yes the taunt is bad but every set has its own issues. Try using some attacks and you'll discover they'll never leave you for someone else. Solved!

There seems to be a misconception here as to how MAG effects taunts. It doesn't amplify threat or anything of the sort, it's only used as an on/off switch, just like CC. For example, bosses have MAG3 protection against holds, so a single MAG3 hold will have no effect. Two of them, however, will stack to MAG6, which surpasses their protection and stops them dead in their tracks.

That's exactly how taunt MAG works, except instead of only having 1-2 powers that apply taunt effects, Tankers have 8-9 (BU doesn't count) in their secondaries alone - AoEs even due to Gauntlet. (Not to mention Taunt, which can be enhanced to last for ~80 seconds.) The likelyhood of a Tanker being unable to surpass the taunt protection of a mob is incredibly small. If a Tanker does run into a mob that they can't bypass their protection, the chances they're not able to do it by MAG1 is infinitesimal.

I'd argue that MAG is one of the least important stats for taunts, especially for Tankers.

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CMA, for your example of the BS/SD Scrapper doesn't surprise me one bit. AAO is one of the strongest auras in the game due to having 8 different debuffs on it, not to mention the damage buff it yields. Also, unless the Tanker Taunts, I'd argue that every Tanker will lose aggro to an equal Invuln/Shield Scrapper or any Brute. The taunt durations of their auras are identical while their damage output is much higher. (In the case of Scrapper, they deal more damage than their lower threat mod of 3 reduces it. ie: ScrapperThreatMod (3) * ScrapperDmgMod (1.21) > TankerThreatMod (4) * TankerDmgMod (0.8).)

What it boils down to is that if you want aggro on your Tanker, and (Invuln/Shield) Scrappers or Brutes are on your team, you have to Taunt. That makes the weaker aura a fairly moot point, to me and my playstyle.

A longer duration on RttC would make it more user friendly with non-taunting ATs, but would not solve the issue of (Invuln/Shield) Scrappers and Brutes stealing aggro off you. Considering how debuffs affect threat computation, I wouldn't support any boost to RttC that would remove the debuff from it.

What a load of rubbish.

Taunt as you jump in. Start using AOE attacks. Nothing is peeling off you. If you are then the tank isn't taunting or is over the cap.

If I was going to make a change to RttC, it would be to add another Debuff into it to strengthen the aggro magnet effect. Even just a pathetic little -3.5% Defense Debuff which could not be enhanced would "strengthen" RttC's aggro holding potential.

Increasing the duration of the Taunt from 1.25 seconds to 1.5 seconds would also be a tremendous benefit. Why? Because 1.5 seconds enhanced by a +0 SO Taunt enhancement means 2 seconds of duration ... which is enough to double stack RttC's Taunt Ticks (which is what you want). We'd be able to go from 2 slotting Taunt IOs down to 1 slotting Taunt IOs into RttC for pretty much the same effect.

1.25 sec --> 1.5 sec = Big Buff to RttC

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

I actually did the testing with and without my mates AAO on and deemed the aura problematic and potentially fun killing for people who may see aggro control as what a tanker should be bringing to the team, leveling up and with a style of play that is not conducive to forumite min/maxers. There is no argument with anyone as I can be found stating in the past that I have kept aggro with a Willpower Scrapper before but there is a reason why people lose aggro at times. For some people these times due pugs they play in may happen more often with them than most.

With or without a scrapper with an aura aggro can be most definitely taken. The moment npcs slip out of the aura the tanker is forgotten about. In a group of 17 which you may gather like other tankers can, your aura can hit 10 last pointlessly short, your taunt will say hit 5 and your gauntlet maybe hits 10 with none of those 5 included. Keeping aggro is abit touch and go because you have to rely on mobs remaining in aura, once they're out potentially it could be that they've forgotten about you. Taunt is great but you hit 5 rechg say 5 secs or more then hit another 5 that takes time potentially some team mate does not have. Gauntlets can miss, the duration that you read may not be the duration you will see existing in game.

Willpower is in away lacking some flexibility, the flexibility to move mobs within a fight for the protection of others and to do what its supposed to ensure it does in teams.

I am taunter, I do rely on it but how much reliance on it should willpower have?

If people find it okay because they can play around it great. I was interested in those that don't who shouldn't be shy about saying they don't. I did the tests. The aura is poo.

Edit: Why PuG type team mates should pay for a Willpower's other strengths that much I don't know.