Why are Thermal shields aggro-magnets?

I've been playing a couple of thermal characters recently (Mastermind and Corruptor), and I've not noticed anything different about their aggro, ambushes or otherwise. The Corruptor only really gets aggro when I over-AoE (Rad primary, so lots of AoE to throw out there), while the Mastermind only gets aggro when I hit Provoke (otherwise I can happily sit with pets on aggressive while I buff and heal the team with almost nothing choosing to attack me, even with the occasional Crack Whip and Fireball). That's on full teams, and earlier today a team of four.

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Originally Posted by Bright Try telling Siege that. All I know is he instantly went from looking at the tank and brutes to specificly flattening my defender, and the one and only thing I did was shielding the melee people.

My understanding of how Taunt works is that if they were doing pretty much *any* damage at all, you wouldn't have been able to out-aggro them - even if buffs generated aggro - due to the extent to which Taunt modifies aggro values. Just being in the team that's fighting the spawn makes you a valid target, even if you did nothing, but it shouldn't be able to override taunt+damage. So if you were attacked, it seems that it is either a) a bug, b) you misinterpreted some aspect of the situation, or c) there's something else at work, perhaps something specific about Siege e.g. he's coded to switch targets randomly sometimes, or resist taunt, or somesuch. I've never attracted his attention on my own shielding characters - and that includes a Mastermind who spent a few trials buffing the entire league, before the shields went aoe (and whom I've taken on leagues since they did go AoE, again without AV aggro of any kind).

(for whatever it's worth, I'm personally convinced that Longbow Nullifiers will switch targets to a squishy specifically to use Beanbag, regardless of aggro/taunt, before going back to whoever should have their attention for the rest of their attacks)

Only thing I can think of is that it's not the shields, but the debuffs - at least if that thermal corr is over 35.

Monitor your threat and see what happens, perhaps? (Combat attributes monitor - see guides below.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

Its possibly what Bill is hinting at. If the shield are granting a decreased agro number, possibly because mobs would rather go after someone who isn't visibly shielded, and since the bubbler can't buff him/herself, then it stands to reason that the agro will fall to the caster.

If the decrease hits a floor and more bubbles won't drop it more, then 2 bubblers in a team with other chars will both have the floored agro magnet chance as the others in the team and all will feel the same.

Or, perhaps it is just thermal that grants the negative agro bonus (if it exists) and other types of bubbling do not.

Or perhaps the thermal powerset has a low Wi number in comparison to some of the other sets in play at the time.

I think there is still a number of variables that need to be excluded before making a conclusion as to why this phenomenom is occuring.

-Fuegocito