Problem with holding aggro with TW/Stone Armored Tank

I posted this yesterday in the Tanker Consolidated thread:

Quote:

Originally Posted by KnightofKhonsu This weekend (Saturday & Sunday) I had my TW/Stone (23) tank in a mission with another Brute (24) (TW/Reg) and a Scrapper (24) (Claws/Reg) and my tank could hardly put down any foes in the numbers and/or time my teammates were doing. Fact is, I had to keep hitting taunt to keep them fighting me, or they would turn on the brute and scrapper. The more important thing is all of us were using standard IOs, no specially crafted IOs sets. Compared to the other two, my damage was incredibly low. This really disappointed me. Based on my experience from this weekend alone, there is a huge disparity between a tanker, brute, and scrapper in damage delivered on targets. Additionally, my tank's ability to hold aggro with the brute and scrapper was bad too. That should not have been the case. As far as I know, stone armored tanks are supposed to have the best ability in keeping aggro. That did not happen. I would not have said a thing about it if it just happened one or two times. This happened all day long on both Saturday and Sunday.

Last night this became even more apparent. While doing Synapses’ TF, I found myself chasing targets instead of them coming for me, even after using my taunt. Moreover, if I entered the spawn area first, taunted and engaged, those enemies around me stayed long enough for me to do def swing, titan swing, crushing blow, follow through, ending with a def swing. Then those not closes to me, ran off to engage the others behind me.

The makeup of our TF included 2 brutes, a scrapper, defender, MM, and another 2 tankers. All of the brutes and tankers either had invulnerability, WP, and one other stone armored tanker too who had TW too. However, he did not stay long with us because he kept being killed for some reason. It got to the point that when I taunted a group of enemies coming towards, they ignored me and ran towards the others. This happened all night long. At the end of the TF when we faced Babbage, I kept his attention or brought it back to me when he turned toward the others. I'm a bit frustrated with this. I do not have this problem with my Shield/Mace tank. He charges in, I do not have to taunt him, the all jump him.

It was my belief that a Stone Armored tanker's ability to hold aggro or be the biggest threat for enemies to attack. My quest is that if this is the case, why then cannot I hold aggro or get enemies to stay or come my way. Even my teammates noticed this. If this is what I have to expect from this AT with SA/TW, he is going to be a liability where teammates end up getting face planted because of his inability to keep the enemies facing him.

Therefore, last night I decided to load up my taunt with perfect zinger and will do the same with titan sweep too. I had regular IOs enhancing the powers. Can anyone give me some pointers here before I get to the point and just delete the toon out of frustration?

First off, while Stone Armor Tankers have a decent aggro aura, it is not one of the best. Invuln and Shield have longer durations, which help a lot, and Ice Armor has two aggro auras, of which one contains a decent amount of debuffs.

But let's take a closer look at the Threat formula:

Threat = Damage * DebuffMod * AT Mod * AI Mod * RangeMod * (TauntDurationRemaining * 1,000)

So let's get rid of the three items that are either the same or we don't know much about: AT Mod, AI Mod and RangeMod. That leaves us with:

Threat = Damage * DebuffMod * (TauntDurationRemaining * 1,000).


Obviously, within this formula, the TauntDurationRemaining * 1,000 should end up being the highest value. At level 23, Taunt has a duration of 29.4 seconds, and the various Gauntlet effects from attacks has a 6.26 second Taunt. You aggro aura, Mud Pots, has a 6.26 second duration Taunt, does 4.6 fire damage, and has a handful of debuffs. Crushing Blow on a level 23 Tanker does 46.08 damage and has a debuff.

So let's take a look at some values of Threat:

- Un-Taunted Mob hit with Crushing Blow: 46.08 * 2 * (6.26 * 1,000) = 576,921 Threat

- Taunted Mob his with Crushing Blow: 46.08 * 2 * (29.4 *1,000) = 2,709,504 Threat

- Un-Taunted Mob hit with Mud Pots: 4.6 * 6 * (6.26 * 1,000) = 172,776 Threat

- Taunted Mob hit with Mud Pots: 4.6 * 6 * (29.4 * 1,000) = 728,640 Threat


So as you can see, Crushing Blow on a Taunted Mob has a HUGE advantage over the other sources of aggro. This is because of the large Taunt Duration of Taunt, and the higher damage of Crushing blow over Mud Pots.


Now, let's compare those values to a similar Brute with, say, 100% Damage buff from Fury (should be easy enough to maintain, even at those levels). We'll make him a TW/Stone Brute, just to compare apples to apples here. His Taunt values are the same. He does 86.4 damage with Crushing Blow and 8.6 with Mud Pots.


- Un-Taunted Mob hit with Crushing Blow: 86.4 * 2 * (6.26 * 1,000) = 1,081,728 Threat

- Taunted Mob his with Crushing Blow: 86.4 * 2 * (29.4 *1,000) = 5,080,320 Threat

- Un-Taunted Mob hit with Mud Pots: 8.6 * 6 * (6.26 * 1,000) = 323,016 Threat

- Taunted Mob hit with Mud Pots: 8.6 * 6 * (29.4 * 1,000) = 1,517,040 Threat


So, a similarly-outfitted Brute can generate almost twice the amount of Threat that a Tanker can if they use similar powers. It is because of their potentially higher damage output, and the fact that their AT mods and Taunt duration values are the same.

Edit -> In short, loading up Taunt with TauntDuration enhancements is the best way to go, along with making sure that you are slotting up attacks for damage as well.

1. If you're losing Threat to a Brute or Scrapper... don't worry about it. They're a Brute or Scrapper and they'll deal with it. Worry about it if the Blaster is grabbing agro from you.

2. You don't have to "lock down agro" of 100% of a spawn. Just enough for the other teammates to survive. Nothing aggravates me more than a Tanker spamming Taunt when what's left is not really a threat to survival... how about just joining in the killing at that point, bub? It's like a 'healer' spamming heal when everyone is already healed up.

3. You 'steal' agro by having twice the Threat level as current top threat. So, it pays to go first forcing agro stealers to have to generate twice the Threat you do in order to steal.

4. Always try to combine Taunting powers with damage since they're multipliers of each other. Just doing one alone is a recipe for losing agro.

Working on Aett_Thorn's advice yesterday, I went head and replaced all but a few standard enhancements with IO sets. I made sure that I put Obliteration in Mudpots and included it in Defensive sweep. Perfect Zinger in Taunt and Titan Sweep, and new defensive sets Serendipity for Rock Armor and Crystal Armor. Additionally, I am using Impervious Skin with Stone Skin and Brimstone Armor that I'll eventually upgrade to Aegis. Lastly, for Follow Up, I am using Pounding Slugfest.

The net results I was able to hold aggro a heck of a lot longer and pull off enemies from teammates in trouble and even pulled them off our brute leader. When I add additional slots to Taunt & Titan Sweep, I will be able to tweak the taunting ability even further.

We were engaged in Citadel's TF and all had much fun. I did notice that as long as I ran around without sprint engage (even though I have an endurance slotted) my endurance stayed in a comfortable range of 66% or higher, even with Mudpots on. Thank goodness for all the regeneration bonuses or I'd been face planted a few times.

I tried importing the build so I could post it here; however, the program requires updating for TW. I wanted another PoV on what I have done. I could not do that. I hope that they will update the program to allow TWs. Anyway, just wanted to let you know and thank you all for your help.