Battleaxe question: AoE

I see at the character creation screen most of the ability descriptions for the Battle Axe secondary have small AoE effects, 5 ft radius w/ max 5 targets for Beheader, similar stats for others.

I don't see this happening in-game. Am I missing it? I notice that Battle Axe on Brutes and Scrappers do not have the AoEs in the description. Everything is single target for them; well, until you get to Whirling Axe at later levels.

My basic question is, what is going on?

It's the taunt effect that is on all tanker attacks.

As noted: all single target tanker attacks have a "taunt splash" The radius of the "splash" fluctuates based on how much damage the attack does (rule of thumb with potentialy many exceptions.)

Cones and AoE attacks themselves don't have this "splash", insted they just taunt what they hit.

As far as Battle Axe goes, the set does actually have one ST attack that hits multiple targets: Cleave

Cleave is actually a cone, although its described and balanced as a Single Target attack. This means Cleave has no "taunt splash"

Also note: this "taunt splash" is exclusive to secondary attacks. Epic Pool powers and normal pool attacks are not affected by it (but they do taunt what they touch.)

This taunt splash is considered the Tanker Inherent and refered to as Gauntlet.

And by the way, don't feel any embarrassment over posting the question. LOTS of people have run across that and been confused. The last time somebody asked me about it, he was, in fact, looking at the Battle Axe set.

Thanks for the answers. I know Tankers have that auto taunt. I just didn't know it was described in the powers in that fashion.

Yea, got to admit, it alwasy bothered me that it displays all Gauntlet attacks as AOE in the power data screens.

Unfortunately, since gauntlet's AoE taunt effect is considered "a package deal" in the power descriptions (it's written in an inclusionary manner) for single target attacks, I don't see the confusion going away anytime soon.

In a different vein on the same topic, I think Battle Axe should have a lot more AoE in the set, especially seeing as how its incredibly End heavy it is. Playing a Shield/Axe at low to mid levels is killing me, and makes me long for the much quicker levelling of the Shield/Fire tank I have on a different server.

Axe is not any more end heavy than any other set. Every attack set in the game uses the same amount of endurance per damage point (with the exception of Claws*)

Axe "uses a lot of endurance" only because it dishes a lot of damage or because you are using AoE attacks against single-target situations.

Only "endurance heavy" attacks are Pool Power attacks and Epic Pool attacks (all have an endurance cost penalty.)

The only way to justify a request for more AoE is if the set's Single Target Damage Per second is horribly low (as is the case with Ice Melee, Frozen Aura didnt use to do damage and was buffed into an AoE attack to compensate for the set's horrid ST DPS.)

Your comparison between Shield/Fire and Shield/Axe is not invalid though. The reason you see an endurance cost difference is because Fire's secondary effect is just bonus damage that is not accounted for in the endurance cost. This damage is a random DOT, not sure but averages to quite a bit. Also add that Fire is an AoE beast.

So it's not so much as Battle Axe being endurance intensive but more about Fire being extremely endurance efficient. As payoff it has no seconday effects to mitigate damage, like knockdown, stuns or holds in any attack.

*Unless it has been fixed in the time i was away, there is at least one attack in Dual Blade that had a low-endurance-cost bug inherited by using Claws as an initial development template.

I'm sure you're right about the End/Damage ratio, but all I know is, I had to put a +3 End Red SO in each Axe attack (in addition to the normal End Red for the toggles in Shield that is common to both secondaries) in order to be able to get through a 3 or 4 person group of even con minions/Lts without having my toggles drop.

That wasnt required with Fire (mainly because multiple targets were being hit with at least 2 of the standard attacks in the chain), hence my wishing for more AoE in Axe attacks.

PS Both guys are in their mid 20s, so not all attacks are available (no AoE at all for the Axe, 2 for the Fire)

Not saying you wrong, just that you would see similar situation with any other non-fire set (unless it's claws.)

Your first experience with fire was one that is not common when compared to every other set.

Also you are comparing to a set that has a lot of early AoE and that I'll give you: Battle Axe (and also War Mace) are late bloomers on the AoE department.

I would LOVE to see some re-ordering of the set to make the big AoE available at an earlier level, but for years the devs have stated power reordering is something they will just not do due to integrity technical issues (those swaps just turn one power into another, swap enhancement requirements, and can really mess up existing builds and potentially cause expensive IOs to go missing.)