Hunted down like a dog

I've complained about this happening before... it seems to happen most often to my controllers when they are freshly 50 and don't have any IO sets yet. I never could understand why my invisible controller was the first to die and that new mobs showing up on the scene would run straight past the tank and all other players for the only invisibly player in the team.... me.

I can't tell what's happening or what kind of team make up causes it. I have other teams where nothing bothers me and then you have the team from hell. I'm not saying it's the teams fault but EVERYTHING aggros on my controller.

I got my elec/kin to 50 and did ITF with 5 players at 35 so I was one of 3 players at level 50 and I (or we) had no problems at all... we smoked the ITF and we were just melting bosses as we went. Latter I did an LGTF with all 50s and now I'm the #1 whipping boy, everything goes for me ... one cast and POOF, i'm either dead out right, stunned until dead or sleeping until dead. The stuns and sleeps are like 5 minutes long and last through a whole fight of a group or mob. I went through a bucket of break free's per mission. I was totally sick of playing by the time the TF finished.

I played an ITF with my ice defender and when new mobs would aggro during the last boss fight they ALL went for me and I could super jump around the boss being completely worthless because I wasn't able to stand still long enough to cast anything with the whole map chasing like that. Mobs that should not even know that I exist yet since the first thing they should have see was the tank on the boss were chasing me.... after about 5-6 deaths your really start to hate the game.

I can't figure out why it's great sometimes and bad others. So what causes the feast for famine on the aggro .... is it just being the only buffer on the team?

the usual culprit of the aggro grabbing on trollers is the aoe (of any kind, particularly the immob since its fast charging)

best plan is to usually try to wait until the tank or brute has aggro then let loose with your mass mezzes and you will less likely get overrun

If I had to guess - and a guess is all this is - but how many controllers/debuffers did your ITF with only three 50's have?

In my purely anecdotal experience, high level tf's forming that have fewer max level characters tend to err towards the debuffing side when recruiting. TF's where it's obvious that you're going to have all level 50 characters don't tend to care as much, as level 50 characters have access to damage/debuffing/control to greater degrees and variety, due largely to APP/PPP access.

So is it possible that you were the only controller/debuffer on your all level 50 ITF, vise maybe having a 35-ish off-controller or two on the other?

Because enemies have a special hatred for debuffers that can sometimes overcome even a tank's aggro management tools. If there's more than one on the team, it gets spread around. If you're the only one.... ouch.

Ambushes spawn targeted on a specific player regardless of stealth or location. If you are the mission holder I think it's more likely to be you, but I'm not sure.

Do you do particularly high damage? If a controller has high damage, and a tank isn't the best at aggro management (Not saying this is the case.), then its not impossible for the controller to steal aggro from the tank. This is just me guessing though.

Control and debuff powers cause a lot of aggro. Make sure your Tanker or Brute did damage to the targets before you use your powers. Also, make sure the Tanker or Brute has time to herd things before you AoE immobilize. I have tanked on TFs and gotten tired of a itchy-trigger-finger controller, so I stopped taunting (and turned off my taunt aura) and let the critters kill that controller several times. If you were doing that, your deaths could have been the tank's way of telling you to stop using your powers too soon.

Also, be aware that not all Tankers or Brutes are equal. Some taunt aura powers are very weak (Willpower) and some are very strong (Shield Defense). Standard damage taunt auras are in the middle.

Also Electric Control's Conductive Aura has a range that goes all the way to the fain flickering edge of the graphic, maybe even a bit beyond. It can grab aggro before they hit a tank/brutes aura even if you are standing behind them

I feel the same as the OP. It doesn't happen often but sometimes all the ambushes seem to zero in on one particular character in the team. I've seen it happen a lot although it's only happened to me once (on my controller while buffing the team the ambush spawned and all hit me).

My most recent experience with this oddity was this past Friday. I was doing tips on my scrapper and I had the star and it was my mission. In addition to me the team contained 2 blasters and a controller.

When we did the Save a Spider morality mission the ambushes all ran past me (despite critical hits and sweeping knockdown attacks), through the withering fire of the blasters until there was nothing left but the boss of the ambush heading straight for the controller and killing him. On the second ambush - even though he is hiding out of sight and doing nothing - they run past me and through the blaster fire again to find him in his corner and kill him. None of the subsequent ambushes were any better and we all just did the best we could to kill them as fast as possible. I'm pretty sure he died at least 4 times in that one mission. He was a trooper about it but I'm positive he didn't aggro them, they spawned already aggroed on him.

My controllers with auras such as conductive and hotfeet tend to grab aggro as well. This is why my Fire/Rad and Elec/Rad went with Psi Mastery. I took Tough and Mind over Body, plus indomitable Will gives me mez protection.

My Ill/TA, Plant/Storm, and Earth/Thermal, doesn't grab aggro as well. So your auras are causing the issue. I'd say if you don't need it running, turn it off.

One thing to remember is that being invisible DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO HELP YOU. All stealth does is prevent you from being aggroed on in the first place. Once foes aggro on you, they see right through stealth.

If you are relying on your invisibility to keep foes off of you or to lessen the aggro produced by your AoEs, your best bet is to drop it. IMHO you're using it as a crutch. If you'll just drop that line of thinking and see yourself as drawing as much aggro as you actually are, you'll probably play a lot better.

As others have already said, you want to wait until the tank has actually begin attacking and drawing aggro before you move in and starting using AoE holds and immobilizes. It is likely that your immobilizes are your problem, not your debuffs, but it is probably best to hold off on them as well. It may seem crazy not to help the tank survive the alpha strike, but it takes time for even a Tanker to build up a good hold on aggro and keep you from being able to pull it off. Just because he's run into the group or even hit Taunt doesn't mean he's got all the aggro.

Even with enough time, the Tanker still can't hold more than the aggro of 17 foes. If the spawn is larger than that, or he's herding (probably not a good idea if teammates are dying) some will still peel off and come at you. You may need to be ready for that, to use your holds to take care of the problem, instead of running around and waiting for the tank to pick the aggro back up.

Also, group AI has been set up to split up among your entire team once the group has been aggroed. All it takes is a scrapper throwing the first punch, and it's like you're not even invisible anymore - some of them WILL go after you. (That said, if someone else catches them with a taunt effect, they will most likely stop paying attention to you and start pounding on the taunter)

Note : most self-stealth does apply a -threat which does help lower agro somewhat. Check the info to see if your stealth has it.

I've had this happen to me on a Mender Lazarus Task Force, on an Elec/FF controller. Note, this is on a static team that I play with, so it's always the same people week after week, and it was only on that one TF that it was a problem, never before or since. Bizarre I know.

I was not leading the TF. For some reason, every ambush (and you get a lot during the AV fights at the end) spawned with me at the top of their threat list. No matter how quickly the tank taunted them, they usually got a shot or two off at me, usually killing me because they large ambushes of +2 or +3 fifth column.

By the end of it, I had stopped using my control powers altogether, and was doing nothing but buffing people and running Dispersion Bubble. They still had it out for me. Conductive Aura was OFF.

For the last AV, I took to flying up to the ceiling before he hit each of the ambush points (every 25% health). They STILL came after me, running around on the ground unable to reach me, taking shots at me if I dared to fly low enough to be in range before they had all been defeated by the rest of the team.

Weirdest (and most frustrating) thing that's happened to me in the years I've been playing. I have no idea what caused it -- if it's an Electric Control thing (chain entity getting stuck somehow and generating threat?), or just a mission fluke.

This happens to all squishies at one time or another. Here's what I do to mitigate it, if it seems to be happening:

1) Don't be "first in." If there is a tank, or some Phantom Army, or something else, let them grab the first attention. Once the mobs have a target, go at it.

2) Stay mobile. Treat every mission like its Battle Maiden on the Apex. Stick and move. This is especially useful if you have slotted for +ranged defense. Don't stand still if they are all after you. Hiding is standing still. Run to a spot, attack, run to another spot, attack, rinse, repeat. This worked especially great on AV battles with lots of minions who are all over you. Go to one side of the AV, shoot something, wait for them to close, go to the other side of the AV, repeat. In that situation, you are dragging the weirdly-aggroed minions and lts through the AoE being spammed at the boss and you are certainly being useful because they aren't defending their boss if they are chasing you down.

3) Use inspirations.

I'm pretty sure the OP is talking about ambushes that spawn aggroed all on one person. I know I was. We aren't talking about standing mobs and how a controller can all too easily get himself more aggro than he counted on. That's a totally different kind of problem.

These are brand new enemies coming from an ambush who spawn and use their ranged alpha strike on the one person and then run past everyone else in the team to zerg the unfortunate and/or unlucky person for no apparent reason.

Where the player is standing or what auras they might be running (assuming it doesn't overlap the spawn point) has nothing to do with it.

I don't know why it happens but it does happen and giving general advice on how to avoid aggro isn't the answer because there is no real answer short of ambush-coding changes. All we can do is have sympathy for those that draw that rare short straw, loan them inspirations and be glad it wasn't us... this time.

Eh, I just know all my Dark characters hate them all equally

Edit : But the main point was, stealth does not help against any of them seeing you. You'll be seen at the same time as your unstealthed buddy.

May have been said above....but if the tank has full aggro...ie: 17 mobs angry at him...an incoming ambush will ignore him and go for someone with non capped aggro...like you.


Game mechanics go figure...

Mmm..

There are actual a few reasons beyond your control for it to be happening...

Usually there is the ambush, totally immune to the restrictions of stealth. So Stealth is absolutely no protection against being attacked.

So your second line of defense is not being very threatening or scary, but even that does not work either, its only an illusion of safety, and this is why:

The ambush will not send all of its members to the same player or target, it tends to evenly distribute the attackers among the players.

So if an ambush spawns 24 mobs, such as you could see in an ITF, that would result with 3 mobs assigned to each player, regardless of how scary you are.

Now the level of scariness does drive what is first allocated to attack whom. Typically if you have an EB, 4 Bosses, 8 LTs, and 16 Minions, the first assignment the EB would go to the highest threat level player, usually a taunting tank. Now here comes something neat and semi nice! A number of mobs from an ambush will go first towards the taunting tank up to his cap before going to another player, say 20. So from my example of the 29 mobs, the first 20 toughest mobs will go to the tank, unless the tank is already engaging the normal non-ambush mobs, wish is very typical. For illustration sakes, say when the ambush hits, the tank has 10 opponents on her, then 10 of the 28 ambush mobs goes after the tank, and the remaining 18 mobs are evenly distributed among the other players; unless there is a second taunting tank! Who would garner a fair share of the left overs. Assuming there is not a second taunting tank, then 18/7=2 (14)with 4 left over mobs; thus all players will be attacked by 2 mobs each, except the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th highest scary players who would each pick one of the 4 stragglers. If you happen to have a non taunting tank, only using their attacks inherent, they can not hold on to 20, they will be lucky to hold on to 10, so more mobs will be available to be distributed among the remaining players.

So when the ambush hits, it does not matter if you are invisible and have not even done a thing, there will 2 or 3 mobs who has your name and address.

Now what happens when you AOE, even after a tank has allegedly their aggroe? To begin with, very few tanks today actually taunt, they depend on their inherent to do it for them. While somewhat effective, its kinda weak, and very easy to steal aggroe away from them. So if the tank had a weak 20 mob aggroe taunt, and you do say a flashfire, when the effect if the flashfire expire, and if the tank/group has not killed any of them, all 20 will come after you, less those the tank can keep taunted to herself, essentially 10; thus there will be 10 very angry mobs of all colors and sizes wanting a piece of you, and just you!

My advice to you would be to encourage the group to avoid huge herding of mob groups, if the suspicion of an ambush is present. The reason for a small groups at a time, with an ambush over your head, is that there will be less mobs on the tank, and thus the more ambush mobs the tank can attract. If you have hearded a huge group, potentially the tank's allotment of 20 could already be filled and when the ambush comes around, the entire ambush will actually be dispersed amont the other 7, since the tank is at the aggroe limit.

I suggest you learn to hover and max your range defense and do the best you can to have as high AOE defense as well, so when the ambush hits, you at least have a chance to tell which mobs have your number and do something about it before the spam mez from them incapacitates you.

Hugs

Stormy