Don't use caltrops...?!?!

The latter.

I guess... I could totally accept someone saying that they prefer I don't do trops, and possibly even agree, depending. In this case, I think they were doing more good than harm. On the other hand, when I pointed out that they were a source of mitigation and were only going down AFTER the tank had fully acquired hate, I was told "not a request". Yeah, whatever. I will totally take orders from you when you're paying my $14.95 a month.

I tend to feel that, unless the team is dying as a result of someone's actions, it's pretty much up to them how to play. I once told a fire/dark corruptor I was duoing with that he should maybe use his heal sometimes. He was really enthusiastic when I told him dark miasma was an amazing set and he should start using it. (He had, pretty much, the powers you take if you make it to level 20 and always pick from your primary if you can or else your secondary.) But I just told him that I found most people did it, and it seemed useful. I didn't make a fuss about the next 15 minutes during which he didn't heal me. And hey, by the end of the mission, he even did once, I think because everything else was recharging.

I don't see the benefit of using caltrops when they are in this nice little clump in the center of all your other debuffs, being taunted and ready to be nuked.

In a team situation you don't want to chuck your 'trops willy-nilly. It can split up groups and make killing them off take longer.

If the tank wants to herd, wait till they're packed around him and drop the 'trops on one side of the mob. This way they're more likely to try and flee into the rest of the mob than if you simply drop them on top of the group as a whole (which can scatter them).

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I'm more interested in the tactics question than in "validation".

The conclusion I've come to at this point is that both the tank and I were probably wrong. The tank was missing the point about scattering vs. gathering -- the scattering effect wasn't affecting herding, because everything was already herded. However, I was probably over-estimating the utility of the mitigation trops provide. It sounds like people tend to view trops more in terms of controlling movement of mobs than in terms of the mitigation produced by the fear. I was mostly thinking in terms of the mitigation effect, and disregarding the movement as irrelevant; I didn't figure anything would move far enough for it to make any difference. So I was looking at mitigation and maybe a bit of free damage; sounds like I should think more about the effect trops have on where things go, not just whether or not they're attacking.

lol @ herding tanks

The only tanks I've got a taunt aura on so far are elec/ (very slight end drain) and dark/ (where I think it's just damage, no other effect). But yeah, that makes sense -- keeping things near the tank is probably good if the tank can take the punches.

I've got a slightly biased view, because I mostly play at low levels, where a lot of players are squishier than they will be later.

Invulnerability and Willpower are both good examples. Invulnerability gets defense from it's aura ranging from 9% with one enemy to 24% defense with ten (assuming ED capped slotting). Willpower gets most of it's regeneration from it's aura (even with just two enemies in range the aura makes up two thirds of it's regen) plus it applies a to hit debuff to all enemies in range effectively increasing it's moderate defenses.

Ahh, good point, hadn't thought of that. This was an SD tank, though. But I was definitely not thinking about that, and I should have been. WIN! I get information that will allow me to play better.

Now see, a true tanker won't tell you to stop using caltrops.



They'll just turn their taunt aura off.

Keep in mind that caltrops especially shouldn't be used on certain enemies. Mainly, Warwolves. They are mostly immune to the slow effect and run very quickly so the Fear will send them running huge distances before it drops.

Once I was playing a tank, and I wasn't the lead tank. Lead tank was herding to this corner and all that and then we would all attack. He then asked me not to attack because "I was stealing his aggro".

I respect the requests of teammates... if they're dumb requests that leave me not having fun, I'll quit at the end of the mission... although usually in those cases, I don't have to quit because the team breaks up naturally anyway.

Caltrops specifically... I know all those little 1s may seem like it's a big deal... but in reality, you're not doing a lot of damage with them... it'd take 3-4 applications of caltrops to kill a minion.... that's like 2 minutes. Most teams kill a spawn in about 20-25 seconds... trops would not notably improve that time. People may argue against my logic, but seroiusly ... that blaster next to you is throwing fireballs into that spawn every 5 seconds. Like it or not, your 'trops aren't doing squat compared to that. 'Trops is, however, good for slowing movement... if the tank prefers to not have it, thats his choice... let him decide how he's going to do his job. Personally, I'd say the best use of the power is to throw the trops between me and the herd, so if a runner does break away, it's gotta cross the trops to get to the ranged fighters.

In my expierience, trops are a great power to use for damage mitigation and to help a team from levels 1 to 25 or 30. But once people start getting enhancements slotted and building up their survivabilty on their own, caltrops become obsolete.

See, if I'd been on a squishy and ToTing, making my wolves run off while ToTing would have been annoying. (By "mine" I mean the ones that come out of the door when I click.) Why? Well, they're aggro'd on me. Unless someone actually taunts them (with the power Taunt or one of its clones) they're probably going to flee out of range of lesser taunt effects, like auras. Any aura or similar taunts will likely wear off since they can't be refreshed on a distant foe. Now there's this wolf at range shucking boulders at me. When they're +3 (which is standard on a team of 8), that can be unpleasant. How unpleasant can depend on the team composition and my build - if I'm defense softcapped an/or DR capped, there's lots of healing or grantable mez protection around it's probably a minor inconvenience. If the team is less support-rich it can hurt a lot.

You know, I'd noticed that wolves sometimes ran back and hit someone, but I hadn't figured out why. Now it makes sense. (It was easy enough to resolve, we just killed them faster, but...)