Taunt and Confront

Do you play melee at all? Do you take Taunt or Confront (whichever applies to your AT)? Because I'm betting most of you would say "no." Of course, I don't mean to say that Taunt and Confront are bad powers. That's a debate that's too long in the tooth to touch on, and I'm typically on the side of "take it and use it," but the point remains that a great many people see Taunt/Confront as a "skippable" power and a free power pick. Sure, steps were taken to lessen this feeling when Castle gave these powers a 75% range debuff, and it does help somewhat, but the fact remains that even the current powers team seems to regard the power are superfluous. We get Street Justice with its awesome combo system, but Taunt/Confront are excluded. We get Titan Weapons with its creative momentum system but Taunt/Confront are excluded. And I have to wonder... Why?

Let's step back for a moment and think about this a bit more positively. Say we wanted to make Taunt/Confront a legitimate part of people's "attack" toolkit, but we didn't just want to copy the same power to every set. Suppose we wanted a type of Taunt/Confront that would work with the "personality" of the set it were in. What would that look like? It's easy to say, for instance, let's just let Taunt/Confront build combo levels, but this puts Brutes and Tankers at a distinct disadvantage since their AoE Taunt is on a much longer recharge than a Scrapper's Confront, so what else can we do? Give it a secondary effect, such as Dark Melee debuffing accuracy and Fiery Melee causing a small DoT or something? I mean a Dual Blades Stalker has Placate as part of their combos but a Dual Blades Scrapper doesn't have Confront in any combos, so there ought to be something we can do.

I admit, I don't really have a lot to go on here, which is why I'm not posting in Suggestions - I have nothing concrete to suggest, nor do I really know if there's any merit to even going here. What I do want to say, however, is that I do take Taunt/Confront on all of my characters and I... Kind of want to feel less silly for doing so.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I always take it on tankers (but not until I get SOs). I usually skip it on Scrappers. Brutes I take on a case by case basis.

I don't see any real need for change though.

I usually take Taunt on my Tankers. I'd almost never take Confront unless I was out of other palatable power choices at a given level.

Even if it's just Confront, what I'm saying is that this power sort of feels like it doesn't mesh well with the sets it's in. Build Up is only partially in the same situation, largely because it's a more abstract notion of "you focus your power to hit harder." This actually brings up something I forgot to get into in my previous post: The concept of taunting itself.

Honestly, I've never liked the concept of taunting as a means of controlling aggro. Sure, some super heroes have been known to influence others like that (most notably Spider-Man, I believe), but to have pretty much all melee characters do that is... Weird. I get that the point is to leave it vague in terms of exactly what we're doing, but I'd still like to see Taunt/Confront take on the aspects of the powerset that it's in visually. Weapon sets have the advantage here, as the taunt animation makes use of the weapon, most notably with a right-handed weapon and a shield where you bang the weapon on the shield. That's always cool. But non-weapon Taunts are just... A beckon.

What else could it be? Well, how about some physical effect that's actually an irritant? Think of Johnny Storm setting someone's butt on fire, as an example. It's not a terribly damaging attack, but it's annoying enough to make that someone want to punch him in the teeth. Even Build Up "looks like its set," with Earth Melee Build Up manifesting rocks, Electric Melee Build Up manifesting as electricity arcs and so forth. Hell, even Hide tends to take on aspects of the power set it shows up in, at least in terms of taking on the look of the set's more prominent auras.

Taunt/Confront just feel like placeholders, powers which exist for no real concept reason and only because... Well, a Tank is supposed to hold aggro. It's seems entirely meta-game with no real attempt to fit it into the the actual kayfabe side of the game. Even if Confront, say, isn't the greatest of powers, making it look less meta would be a huge step.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I used to joke that when on my stone tank, I could pull mobs out of instances. I took provoke and challenge as well as slotted some taunt in my attacks. A viable option if you want to skip taunt IMO. Tough luck for your scrappers though.

I still usually take it on my tanks

Have never ever taken confront on my scrappers.

I take Confront on Scrappers that have weapons AND a cool animation. Some of them are bit naff, but stuff like Staff, DB and TW have cool animations. And only if I need a power pick to fill a slot, something that doesn't need Enhancing. On tight builds, I skip it.

Taunt? Never skipped. Tanks are for herding every bit of aggro you can ("Hit me! I said HIT me! You call that a punch> My Granny can punch better than you, and she's dead!") and Brutes, well....Damage, damage, more damage, aggro, damage ("BROOT SMARSH!!")

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I can't justify it on many builds. It's a situational power that does little for the person taking it and I find even less appeal in it if I have a ranged attack because that serves the same purpose and deals damage. On a Tanker or Brute, I don't think it should even cost them a power pick.

And one way of looking at it with the upcomming pool changes: Why should I take Taunt? Why didn't you take the Presence pool placate?



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Huh. I'm more likely to take Confront on a Scrapper than Taunt on a Brute, just to deal with runners. (And I usually take Taunt on a Brute, with my Staff/Dark Brute being the only exception so far, and even that is only "so far")

I've only seriously played one Tanker so far, my L50 Stone/Stone, and he has Taunt despite also having a ranged attack.

I guess what I'm saying is that, while not a top priority for me, I do take Taunt/Confront on my melee-ers.

I always take Taunt on my tanks, Brutes sometimes if I have room and never take Confront on Scrappers.

I like taunt as it is useful at pulling larger mobs together and grabbing stray agro. I don't like tanking on my Brutes so don't feel the need to take it. Similar with Scrappers and because it is single target I don't see it as worth it.

I like Taunt because it doesn't need any additional slots to be useful, but can be slotted up for some nice set bonuses. I usually end up just Perfect Zinger: Chance of Psi Damage in there so it becomes an occasional AoE damage power that is autohit and doesn't require any endurance. I've defeated Paragon Protectors through their God Mode powers like that before

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger Quote: 16. Has Paragon Studios redefined "player" to require your mouse to subscribe separately from your keyboard? If your mouse has greater processing power than your gfx card, the answer is yes.

My tanks and brutes all get taunt and I LOVE the power myself. I have taken confront on a few scrappers but respected out of it for other powers.

Always take it on brutes and tanks. Best aggro tool available.

Well I don't play tankers, not enough damage.

Back when I played brutes I never took it, there was always something more important to take. And then I figured out why I hated brutes (Fury) and stopped playing them.

None of my scrapers take it. Always something better to take. And honestly my scrapers are either dead or moving to the next spawn, I don't have time to taunt.

In fact the only character of mine that has ever taken a taunt is the AOE one from presence. My Bot/FF with the soft caped pets took that one because she also took lots of KB from FF and APP, Force Bolt, Repulsion Bomb/Field, Power Bolt, Energy Torrent, Explosive Blast.....

Four or six slotted IO sets give nice Defense to Melee/Smash-Lethal so yes, I do take it on builds. The power itself is nice to "Reset" combat and has a substantial -Range debuff too, nothing wrong with that at all.

always take taunt on my tanks
I put in the proc with the disorient chance so it's not always just aggro control

distracting foes is common in comic book teams

but I would like to see confront be a single target "mark". Scrappers would confront a tough foe and get bonuses against it, but could only have one foe confronted at a time.

give it the flavor of picking your target and dueling

I have never skipped taunt on my brutes, it's just too useful. Solo it helps me snag runners or pull the ranged enemies closer. On a team it helps me soak up aggro to build more fury. Oh, and I guess it helps my teammates live longer, whatever.

if you are soloing a tanker you are doing it wrong, simple as that

tankers are for teams
brutes and scrappers are for solo

heal other is a useless power when soloing, that does not mean it should be removed or altered