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Not sure I understand your point completely, but I wanted to point out Taunt is a targetted-AoE power.
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Originally Posted by Lady Sunflash
Hrrrm. I'll have to make some major alterations to my build to fit in Taunt; I have a few concept powers. I was assuming the big problem for threat would be AoE, not single target. I just don't know what to lose... I like having three AoEs, I need three attacks for a chain, rrr.
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Ohsh-.|
Originally Posted by Clouded
Not sure I understand your point completely, but I wanted to point out Taunt is a targetted-AoE power.
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It IS. I keep thinking it's the same thing as Confront. ('cause I'm used to Taunt being a ST power in other games.) Wow.
I've just posted my latest build here in the workshop. I threw out Energy Torrent (sadface) to get Taunt. Opinions very much wanted.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=274874
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For tanking, it's a good idea to remember that AoE attacks are, in fact, AoE. Sure those 20 or 30 council goons aren't going to hurt my Inv tank with their Polly Pocket assault rifles, but I've seen team mates, even scrappers, vaporized by AoE splash damage. A good strategy is to move to the rear of a mob as you grab their attention to aim the aoe away from the team. I tend to taunt near the front of the mob while jumping over them to the back.
They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!
@Starflier
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Hehe... Polly Pocket Assault Rifles. ^^|
Originally Posted by Starflier
For tanking, it's a good idea to remember that AoE attacks are, in fact, AoE. Sure those 20 or 30 council goons aren't going to hurt my Inv tank with their Polly Pocket assault rifles, but I've seen team mates, even scrappers, vaporized by AoE splash damage. A good strategy is to move to the rear of a mob as you grab their attention to aim the aoe away from the team. I tend to taunt near the front of the mob while jumping over them to the back.
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I had not considered this one at all, thanks.
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This is extremely well-stated. |
Originally Posted by Emberly
All this is my own opinion and doesn't represent the gospel or anything. When I say "tank" I mean the person who is actively trying to keep the enemy's attention, not the Tanker archetype. I have learned that there are a great number of ATs that can tank.
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Nicely played! (golf claps)
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Originally Posted by Lady Sunflash
Hehe... Polly Pocket Assault Rifles. ^^
I had not considered this one at all, thanks. |
In my opinion, "Tanking" in CoH is all about battlefield awareness.
A GOOD tank, I mean a really good tank, is all about the player. You have to be able to read the ebb and flow of the entire combat space.
A tanker is not about ending fights. A tanker is about starting fights, and most importantly, PACING.
This is why the 'impatient scrapper' is so often mentioned in the tanker forum. Somebody who throws off your battlefield rhythm is very disruptive to a tanker who is in zenspace, calmly wading through the chaos, reducing the enemy.
The realllly good tankers have learned how to integrate such elements into their larger battlefield awareness:
A difficult example: On a not-so-strong team, you have one really tough scrapper/brute who is perfectly able to handle whole spawns by themselves, but rather than haring off on their own (which is simple to deal with, let them go) they keep on dragging back aggro to the squishies.
This is often a player trying to be helpful: They are on a toon so beefy they see no threat in the mobs, even though the squishies are often not that zesty and will die under their attentions.
In that case, a GOOD tanker knows to relinquish battlespace initiative and go into reactive mode: intercept the incoming, taunt, mitigate, absorb aggro, and keep the team moving.
This is tough to do.
Few tanks LIKE being in reactive mode, as it is limiting, but in that sort of example, it will still WORK.
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<.<|
Originally Posted by mauk2
In my opinion, "Tanking" in CoH is all about battlefield awareness. A GOOD tank, I mean a really good tank, is all about the player. You have to be able to read the ebb and flow of the entire combat space. A tanker is not about ending fights. A tanker is about starting fights, and most importantly, PACING. This is why the 'impatient scrapper' is so often mentioned in the tanker forum. Somebody who throws off your battlefield rhythm is very disruptive to a tanker who is in zenspace, calmly wading through the chaos, reducing the enemy. |
>.>
They talk about me that much over there? Dang.
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The realllly good tankers have learned how to integrate such elements into their larger battlefield awareness: A difficult example: On a not-so-strong team, you have one really tough scrapper/brute who is perfectly able to handle whole spawns by themselves, but rather than haring off on their own (which is simple to deal with, let them go) they keep on dragging back aggro to the squishies. This is often a player trying to be helpful: They are on a toon so beefy they see no threat in the mobs, even though the squishies are often not that zesty and will die under their attentions. In that case, a GOOD tanker knows to relinquish battlespace initiative and go into reactive mode: intercept the incoming, taunt, mitigate, absorb aggro, and keep the team moving. This is tough to do. Few tanks LIKE being in reactive mode, as it is limiting, but in that sort of example, it will still WORK.
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It's true that you don't need a tank, but when you have a good one, everyone has more fun. And this is a game, it's supposed to be fun.
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
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Ahah, I was thinking of higher end gameplay. There is another wrinkle with taunt effects - their durations scale up as you level. To make things more complicated, there are two different tables for how they scale.|
Originally Posted by Lady Sunflash
The lowbie one.
Tanker was Stone/Stone - I ran into spawns first. I'd have threat and the tanker would take it after arriving about 5 or 6 seconds later. Spawns lasted around... I really don't have a good estimate. |
For example, standard taunt effects (auras, gauntlet/g-lite) have a duration of 1.00 x Melee_InherentTaunt. At level 5, that would be 1.36 sec, but by the time you reach level 50, it would last 13.6 sec. That's a growth of 10x.
Taunt, however, has a duration of 20.0 x Melee_Taunt. This table scales from 1.09 to 2.05 - a growth of 1.88x.
Attacking alone would not be able to keep taunt duration up on the target, especially with the broken attack chains everyone has at those levels. Threat decay (which never has been explained to us) seems to be very unforgiving of this.
What I suspect was happening is the Tanker was running Mud Pots (Stone Armor's aggro aura, available at lvl6, but can be retained exemplaring down to lvl1) and that was what was responsible for your threat issues. Your EA brute gets Entropic Aura at lvl10, which should make a considerable difference, especially since it pulses faster and is auto-hit.
Sarrate, a friend of mine in-game who is generally very knowledgeable had it out with me saying that I'm barking down the wrong tree because he insists my threat will always be worse than a tanker's - and I know we discussed otherwise on that, but he's also claiming that EA's going to make a terrible tank for durability.
My counterpoint was that for EA's flaws, I've seen /fiery tank, and even the amazing offense in burn isn't enough in incarnate trials to quickly down things. You're depending on your HP, your self-heal, and what IO defenses and resistances you managed. We went back and forth for a while - I sincerely think that when you include Power Siphon, I'm going to have more than suitable survivability, but I wouldn't mind some reassurance.
There are better Brute primaries than KM and there are better Brute secondaries for tanking, but that doesn't matter. EA is an easy softcap with some resistance and a +regen buff, while KM has a -Dmg debuff, so the combo should work fine. The key is having "enough" survivability, not having the most. If you want to get into theorycrafting the best possible Brute for tanking, that's an entirely different argument, but your KM/EA will be fine.
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Energy Aura was... *ahem* thought to be subpar for a long time. It was recently buffed. Even before the buffs, I found my Claws/EA brute (at level 40) had similar if not better survivability to my WM/SD brute at around the same level range (subjective opinion). Nobody cries about Shield Defense being squishy, do they? |
Originally Posted by Lady Sunflash
Sarrate, a friend of mine in-game who is generally very knowledgeable had it out with me saying that I'm barking down the wrong tree because he insists my threat will always be worse than a tanker's - and I know we discussed otherwise on that, but he's also claiming that EA's going to make a terrible tank for durability.
My counterpoint was that for EA's flaws, I've seen /fiery tank, and even the amazing offense in burn isn't enough in incarnate trials to quickly down things. You're depending on your HP, your self-heal, and what IO defenses and resistances you managed. We went back and forth for a while - I sincerely think that when you include Power Siphon, I'm going to have more than suitable survivability, but I wouldn't mind some reassurance. |
Where I would have a question would be how well you can hold agro on lots of targets. My WM/SD doesn't have taunt, but I "tank" just fine in the Incarnate trials because Against All Odds (aka AAO, my "taunt aura") pulses so quickly that I get the attention of whatever's around me (and if I need the attention of something not around me, I can move to it). In addition, my WM/SD has lots of cones/aoe and one really heavy hitting melee attack. If I've absolutely GOTTA have the attention of something really quick, I pop buildup and smack it as hard as I can and it comes back to me within a couple hits (as long as whoever I'm trying to pull agro off of doesn't taunt/isn't an attacking tanker or occassionally /SD scrappers).
Kinetic Melee may have some issues in that department that you'd need to shore up with taunt. I don't know how effective the taunt aura in Entropic Aura is (haven't played my Claws/EA enough after the changes to find out). Also you won't have buildup for the instant damage/threat, you'll have to ramp up. And lastly, Kinetic Melee has only two AoEs and one of those has knockback in it which is a bit of a drawback. So, you'd need taunt to be able to overcome that.
To paraphrase Clint Eastwood, "A Tank's gotta know his limitations". Learn the specific limitations of your Kin/EA and I think you'll be fine. My guess is that you'll want taunt- it certainly makes life easier and would get around the limitations in your powersets (lack of AoE threat).
Also, bear in mind that whatever you select, if you're tanking, there's the rest of the team. That scrapper over there is (hopefully) going after the hard targets and maybe soaking a little bit of agro you can't get a hold of- keeping it off of the defender, who's already buffed your defense or resistance. Or the other defender who's busy debuffing resistance (making the fight shorter). Or the blaster who's mowing down masses of minions so they can't make you die the death of a thousand cuts. It's a TEAM. Everybody contributes to the success.
To your friend's point that your threat will always be worse than a tanker's. Who cares? If you're on a team with a tank, why would you want to pull threat off them (on a regular basis)? If its you, a tank, and a team full of squishies, your goal should be to keep stuff of the squishies. The tank's not going to get in over his head, and if he does, it will probably take some time.
Example- Last night I was on my lowbie Stone/Fire tank. I joined a team with a blaster and a defender. Did just fine, I'd hop in take the brunt of the punishment, the defender debuffed the mobs and the blaster did his thing. An Ice/Kin tank joined the team. Once we got rolling, one of us would hop in and take as much of the agro as we could while the other would sop up the rest. Worked just fine and we survived pulling multiple spawns worth of Arachnos (who are particularly nasty on low level tanks- lots of Psi damage and Fire/Toxic damage). Part of the fun of this game, as opposed to others, is that different team compositions play very differently. As long as you can look at the team and figure out what the strengths are and then play to those strengths almost any team can work.
Wow, I wrote a book. Bottom line- play what you like- but try to learn what your limitations will be and either play within them or find a band-aid for them. Hope that helps.
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I'm level 30. I just tanked a bunch of level 45 mishes at 0/x8 (effectively 1/x8 since I had to be SKed.) I feel like a god.|
Originally Posted by Valorin
Energy Aura was... *ahem* thought to be subpar for a long time. It was recently buffed. Even before the buffs, I found my Claws/EA brute (at level 40) had similar if not better survivability to my WM/SD brute at around the same level range (subjective opinion). Nobody cries about Shield Defense being squishy, do they?
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Where I would have a question would be how well you can hold agro on lots of targets. My WM/SD doesn't have taunt, but I "tank" just fine in the Incarnate trials because Against All Odds (aka AAO, my "taunt aura") pulses so quickly that I get the attention of whatever's around me (and if I need the attention of something not around me, I can move to it). In addition, my WM/SD has lots of cones/aoe and one really heavy hitting melee attack. If I've absolutely GOTTA have the attention of something really quick, I pop buildup and smack it as hard as I can and it comes back to me within a couple hits (as long as whoever I'm trying to pull agro off of doesn't taunt/isn't an attacking tanker or occassionally /SD scrappers). Kinetic Melee may have some issues in that department that you'd need to shore up with taunt. I don't know how effective the taunt aura in Entropic Aura is (haven't played my Claws/EA enough after the changes to find out). Also you won't have buildup for the instant damage/threat, you'll have to ramp up. And lastly, Kinetic Melee has only two AoEs and one of those has knockback in it which is a bit of a drawback. So, you'd need taunt to be able to overcome that. |
The KB is fine to me - I use it as a form of mitigation/control, I haven't grabbed Taunt yet, that'll be a few levels more. Instant damage just means I have to run in a few seconds earlier.
I'm very much fond of Kinetic Melee with Energy Aura, I think the two pair well excellently for brutes - I survived the Clockwork King in large part thanks to Siphon Power, and I'll have it up more and more as I get to higher levels. I don't even think of it primarily as an offensive CD, I think of it as a defensive CD, and I begin it whenever I am anticipating trouble soon.
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Glad you're liking the combination! I use Shockwave (Cone with KB) on my Claws brute frequently as well. If you aim for a wall or corner and then run in and hit your PBAoE you can really put a hurting on stuff. Also, if you're above the mobs and use a knockback power, it will become Knockdown (or at least they'll be knocked back less far). Kind of a handy trick once you learn it. As long as you're thoughtful about what you're doing, it works out fine.
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Originally Posted by Lady Sunflash
The KB is fine to me - I use it as a form of mitigation/control, I haven't grabbed Taunt yet, that'll be a few levels more. Instant damage just means I have to run in a few seconds earlier.
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By the way, if it helps, my quest for threat knowledge started in the I6/I7 days where I was constantly ripping aggro from Tankers (who didn't liberally use Taunt) with my DM/Invuln Scrapper (who didn't have Confront). If Scrappers can cause threat issues, then Brutes are worse... and they get Taunt instead of Confront.|
Originally Posted by Lady Sunflash
Sarrate, a friend of mine in-game who is generally very knowledgeable had it out with me saying that I'm barking down the wrong tree because he insists my threat will always be worse than a tanker's - and I know we discussed otherwise on that, but he's also claiming that EA's going to make a terrible tank for durability.
My counterpoint was that for EA's flaws, I've seen /fiery tank, and even the amazing offense in burn isn't enough in incarnate trials to quickly down things. You're depending on your HP, your self-heal, and what IO defenses and resistances you managed. We went back and forth for a while - I sincerely think that when you include Power Siphon, I'm going to have more than suitable survivability, but I wouldn't mind some reassurance. |
I haven't played EA on a Brute, my experience comes from playing it as a Stalker before the buffs. Having said that, I'm personally not a fan of predominately defense based sets for tanking. The reason is twofold:
1) Defense is cheap and much easier to acquire (inspirations, IOs, buffs, etc). So having a lot of it lets you hit the soft cap faster, but after that you're a bit stuck.
2) It's susceptible to burst damage. I really dislike not being able to judge if I'm in trouble or not. I could be at 60% hp and get hit by a couple hard hits at once and fold.
I don't want to be a downer or to push you away from a character you enjoy, but I also can't bring myself to be dishonest with my concerns. (I have an Ice Tanker and this is what got me to stop playing her many Issues ago.)
On a different note, I've seen you mention Power Siphon as a defensive tool many times now; it's actually a purely offensive one. Kinetic Melee attacks debuff damage all the time, not just when PS is active. All PS allows is for them to generate stacking +dmg buffs on you.
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Stop.|
Originally Posted by Lady Sunflash
I'm level 30. I just tanked a bunch of level 45 mishes at 0/x8 (effectively 1/x8 since I had to be SKed.) I feel like a god.
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This. See this? THIS is what makes City so freakin' awesome. No other game is expressly designed not to make you feel merely heroic, but to make you feel SUPER HEROIC.
I was helping some F2P'rs in Help the other day, and some guy was whining about how 'slow' it felt.
After asking, he admitted he was level 4. (moron)
However, he does have a point: Many other games (cough, wow, champs, DCUO, etc) are MUCH more frenetic. The attack pace is higher, the animations are more frenzied, it's just faster.
Why?
Because City is designed to make you feel not heroic, but SUPERHEROIC.
In WoW, or most other games, it is rare to be fighting more than 4-5 bad guys at once. In City, the aggro cap per toon is 17 and many tankers STILL gripe that it's too low.
However, with that much going on, faster animations would be...silly. Heck, you can't keep track of whats going on NOW in a big fight. City of Heroes is designed for huge, epic battles, 50, 70, 100+ bad guys at a time.
I like it that way, but it is very very different from most other games out there. F2P'rs should be given a little warning:
It's different in the City.
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| I don't even think of it primarily as an offensive CD, I think of it as a defensive CD, and I begin it whenever I am anticipating trouble soon. |
(!)
Interesting, I did not know that. Will the damage penalty stack from multiple sources? If so, I am strongly considering replacing Concentrated Strike for Quick Strike, although it would be a significant loss of threat. Do you have any thoughts? The flavor text of Power Siphon led me to believe otherwise.
I see and hear your concerns about defensive tanks, Sarrate; after experiencing a few Houdini deaths, I altered my build accordingly. I'm now packing 31% S/L Resist, a meager 4.1% F/C, 26.7% Energy Resist, 14.8% Negative Energy Resist, 17.9% Toxic Resist, and 25.9% Psionic Resist. During Overload, I can basically consider all of these numbers higher by 44%. Will that be sufficient?
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CD = Cooldown.|
Originally Posted by mauk2
Stop.
This. See this? THIS is what makes City so freakin' awesome. No other game is expressly designed not to make you feel merely heroic, but to make you feel SUPER HEROIC. I was helping some F2P'rs in Help the other day, and some guy was whining about how 'slow' it felt. After asking, he admitted he was level 4. (moron) However, he does have a point: Many other games (cough, wow, champs, DCUO, etc) are MUCH more frenetic. The attack pace is higher, the animations are more frenzied, it's just faster. Why? Because City is designed to make you feel not heroic, but SUPERHEROIC. In WoW, or most other games, it is rare to be fighting more than 4-5 bad guys at once. In City, the aggro cap per toon is 17 and many tankers STILL gripe that it's too low. However, with that much going on, faster animations would be...silly. Heck, you can't keep track of whats going on NOW in a big fight. City of Heroes is designed for huge, epic battles, 50, 70, 100+ bad guys at a time. I like it that way, but it is very very different from most other games out there. F2P'rs should be given a little warning: It's different in the City. ...CD? |
This game is incredibly slow and boring combat-wise until mid-levels, so personally... he has a point there. In the two months i've played this game, this is only the second character I've gone "wow, I feel awesome!" and most of the rest were incredibly frustrating to play - even if I was successful, the game felt awkward. This game definitely has its design issues, and I would not have stuck around as a new player if it were not for the RP and costume creator.
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Yes, the damage debuff will stack from multiple sources. Keep in mind that the higher tier powers tend to have longer durations than the lower tier ones. I think Quick Strike's lasts 4s and Concentrated Strike is 8s.|
Originally Posted by Lady Sunflash
Interesting, I did not know that. Will the damage penalty stack from multiple sources? If so, I am strongly considering replacing Concentrated Strike for Quick Strike, although it would be a significant loss of threat. Do you have any thoughts? The flavor text of Power Siphon led me to believe otherwise.
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[edit: I haven't done any math, on this, but I don't think QS would help your survivability noticeably over the killing/stunning power of CS. With enough recharge you'll keep the debuff up anyways.]
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Originally Posted by Lady Sunflash
I see and hear your concerns about defensive tanks, Sarrate; after experiencing a few Houdini deaths, I altered my build accordingly. I'm now packing 31% S/L Resist, a meager 4.1% F/C, 26.7% Energy Resist, 14.8% Negative Energy Resist, 17.9% Toxic Resist, and 25.9% Psionic Resist. During Overload, I can basically consider all of these numbers higher by 44%. Will that be sufficient?
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Sorry, I can't be more helpful - my characters tend to either have more layered mitigation (Invuln, WP) or resistance heavy (Elec, Fire).
Well, at what point can EA be considered layered? It has as much resist as my FA did on anything not Fire (and those somehow tank trials), it's softcapped to a bunch of stuff, has a pretty quick heal and moderate (450%) regen.
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?? |
Originally Posted by Lady Sunflash
This game is incredibly slow and boring combat-wise until mid-levels,
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'Mid Levels?'
What exactly do you mean by that? 20? 25? 45?
Honestly, hitting 50 gets you maybe a quarter of the way done with a high-end toon. Having the time in the low levels to figure out the mechanisms strikes me as a good thing.
If you think it's so slow and terrible, go play a fast-twitch shooter, because that is emphatically what this game is not, and that sort of game may suit you better. Also, CO has an excellent character builder, if you can handle the toon models over there.
Lastly, you can level from 1-15 in about two hours running sewer trials. I'm really not seein' this boring slowness issue.
If it feels slow, yer doin' it wrong.
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| In the two months i've played this game, this is only the second character I've gone "wow, I feel awesome!" and most of the rest were incredibly frustrating to play - even if I was successful, the game felt awkward. |
Interesting. So what two toons did ya like?
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| This game definitely has its design issues, and I would not have stuck around as a new player if it were not for the RP and costume creator. |
And yet, here you are.
Trust me, it gets RIDICULOUSLY zesty at the top end.
Tanker was Stone/Stone - I ran into spawns first. I'd have threat and the tanker would take it after arriving about 5 or 6 seconds later. Spawns lasted around... I really don't have a good estimate.
Really, there are 4 different tiers of threat generation (also simplified)
1) Playing a character with no taunt effects.
2) Playing a character with taunt effects in the 13.5s range (Gauntlet, Gauntlet-lite, most aggro auras)
3) Playing a character with the Taunt power (~41s).
4) Playing a character with the Taunt power, slotted (~80s).
Someone with no taunt effects won't compete with someone who has them. Someone with just taunt effects won't compete with someone with a well slotted taunt. When two characters are on the same tier, then many times, the difference is damage output. (Debuffs also play a factor, which is why debuff ATs tend to draw a lot of attention to themselves.)