Single pullsChallenge vs. Teleport Foe

Playing around with my new elec/elec blaster. Fun.

How do Challenge and Teleport Foe compare tactically as single-target pulls?

TP Foe *can* alert the others around the target.
TP Foe is... touchy on LTs.
TP Foe, however, can be used around a corner/behind a wall, and gives you a few precious moments of alone time to introduce that special someone to your fist/sword/fire/ice/otheworldly energy/tentacle in a very personal way before their friends show up, if aggroed.

Not sure about challenge. Never take it.

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Just a heads up though, Challenge will be getting replaced by a single target placate power in Issue 24 so don't get attached to it.

I've mentioned it in other threads, and petitioned it in-game. "We will submit your report to Quality Control, where it will join other tickets in a black hole, a region of spacetime where gravity prevents anything, including light, from escaping."

I'll say it again here: Something in the game mechanics, ESPECIALLY IN THE MOB AI MECHANIC, has changed drastically since the game launched.

Back in the days before COH, I played (the original) Everquest. My main was a bard. Among the many game skills that playing bards required, being able to "pull" was one of the big ones -- just like in COH before the "zerg" mentality took over here, it was often extremely beneficial to be able to pull minions and whatnot away from the big bad boss so you didn't have to fight entire spawns at once.

It took a certain trial-and-error knowledge to learn things like "pull the ones at the edges first" and "some bad guys [like LT's] have bigger aggro radiuses than others [minions] and won't come as quietly -- ie. you'll pull 'doubles' and 'triples' instead of 'singles.'" Luckily, my learning curve was accelerated by the teachings of some longer-time players of bards, and I got REALLY good at pulling.

Then came COH. I took Taunt on my first scrapper and was thrilled to learn that pulling and aggro worked EXACTLY the same here as it did in EQ. I got really good at pulling here, too, with everything from scrappers with Taunt, to blasters and my Kheldian, and even with Tanks using temp powers or vet rewards like Blackwand -- no knockback like with the Nemesis Staff! (Tank Taunt isn't single target, which is why it's not as useful for pulling.) I surely wasn't the first person to learn about "tele-pulling" through walls with Teleport Foe and creative camera angles, but I was the first one in my first supergroup to know about it!

And I became really good at pulling in COH. I taught a lot of other people the difference between "snipe and just stand there and get your butt blasted" and "snipe and run and BREAK LINE OF SIGHT so they chase you." If I'd known about keybinds, I'd have had ones that said "RUN, FORREST, RUN! BREAK LINE OF SIGHT ALREADY!!!" And ones that said "Pull from the edges, not from the middle," and "Ohmigod, don't even TRY to pull the boss out of the middle of that big spawn first," and "Be far enough out of range that they have to chase you before they fire back, so they don't alert their buddies." [And yes, those last two might be a bit long for a text keybind. ]

Then, one day, something changed. It was about the same time that mobs started returning fire -- at range -- even before our attack animations finished, let alone hit them. You'd go to Taunt, or snipe, and suddenly a couple three bad guys are blasting back before you can even move! You can't even use Teleport Foe on a minion on the edge of the pack -- through a wall -- without the whole spawn coming after you any more, either, which makes no sense.

Aggro and strategic pulling are BROKEN now. Well, maybe not "broken" exactly, but they're not working as they did for the first two or three years of the game. I strongly SUSPECT that the way it worked "before" was "as designed," and that the way it works now isn't -- and I really, REALLY wish they'd fix it!

Quote:

Originally Posted by SinisterDirge You need a very, very high accuracy to pull bosses and such.

I was gong to say "you need a very, very high accuracy in Teleport Foe to pull bosses and such," but I didn't know that the Presence pool Confront also takes accuracy enhancements -- so I'm guessing they work the same way. That's the nice thing about scrapper/brute primary and tank secondary Taunt powers -- they're auto-hit!

Veering wildly out of "pulling" and into Taunt mechanics, but I thought that a Taunt IO would be more useful for taunting a villain off a fellow player.

But that gets into the whole "Threat" mechanic, and the entire "Attacks made after the Taunt is applied have their Threat multiplied by 1,000 * Duration (where Duration is the duration of the Taunt effect)" formula. http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=293421

But for all of that to work out, you gotta hit 'em with the Taunt first.

While TP Foe has its advantages (as Memphis pointed out), I'd never bother with Challenge vs. Zap.

Zap (the Electric Snipe) works well for pulling a single enemy.
No, it doesn't work every single time, but I'm not sure that anything does.

I have the most success when I fire my snipe from maximum range AND I back farther away AS SOON as I fire the shot (preferably around a corner or behind an object and out of line of sight of the enemies).

Just my two cents!

Challenge, definitely.

Eldorado- I don't seem to have too many problems pulling stuff. No more than two weeks ago, I pulled no less than 40 rogue PPDs (two different groups stacked, I suppose), without more than 3 coming from each pull - most often, either 1 or 2. My own tactic is to pick a long range attack, queue it, target the closest mob, get to the edge of the attack range quick and immediately jump back as it goes off (so the animation plays during the jump and I end up about 100, 120 feet away from the mob). Ideally, I break line of sight and make sure none of my teammates are around as well.

I used to use tp foe with my MM's and I only got good results from targeting minions after slotting 3 acc's (pre lvl 24 after that it wasn't necessary).


Edit: And I used it around corners.

TP Foe has an effect called Residual Ether which has a 50% chance to Taunt. So, even if you attempt to TP Foe an even level Boss or AV (which you can't) you can still have a 50% chance to 'hit' with the Taunt and they'll come running. The Taunt is a 10 foot sphere, so any very nearby foes will also be taunted. Not to mention if the spawn has any AI alerting each other to being attacked.

TP Foe can have its range extended so far, that you're out of most foe's perception range, which is also the point at which they'll stop pursuing if you didn't do damage to them. Thus you can be so far away that you can TP a foe and even if the others are alerted, they won't come running. This is especially true if you're on another level (up a ramp, e.g.) where pathing makes you seem farther away according to their AI, or, if you're around a corner and out of the line of sight.

What I've noticed, and I don't know if this is related to what Eldorado is talking about, is that if I shoot at a target and hit him, he reacts after my attack hits him. If I shoot at a target and miss, then the enemy reacts the split second I activate my power. This is weird and annoying to me -- First, why would they know they're under attack sooner if I miss them vs. hit them? Second, it's just bizaare that enemies will return fire on me while my opening attack is still animating, and before I've actually shot anything at them.

On the other hand, one of the things I love about this game is that I don't have to worry about pulling one mob at a time. That's not a playstyle that particularly appeals to me.

I've noticed that with AoEs like Judgement and such. I'm at max range, click the power... then the dudes all start attacking before the animation goes off! Then they all die, of course, but still. Disconcerting!

I'm not disputing your experience - just offering a solution I've found to be working in the current game.

What you call jumping through hoops is, and has always been, my baseline playstyle. :shrug:

Teleport Foe has a range of 200 feet and an accuracy of 1. If you can get enough +acc bonus on that and get to the edge of the range (A lot of set up I know) it can be a evil little trap. Thats what I enjoy about CoH/CoV, if pushed you can really find these neat out of the box situations. A /Traps Blaster could line the entire way to the pulled mob with enough hate to clear a spawn, in theory. And the poor Sapper or Super Stunner that is TP'd? ah, good times.

I had teleport foe on my dark tank which was my 2nd character ever. That was 4 years ago. It was a great way to pull which my friend and I did constantly after several wipes trying to take on spawns in the early levels vs CoT and Vahz.

As a vet now I just have to remind myself that we had no inventions, no money, very little enhancement to speak of, no endurance, no real knowledge of the enemies, no endurance, no extra vet attack powers to extend our early level attack chains, no endurance, very tiny inspiration trays (we were sub-25 for a LONG time), and a healthy desire to never die and accumulate too much debt. It was a different time then and I became an expert at pulling.

Teleport foe will work reliably with an accuracy or two to pull any minion and lieutenants up to a certain + above you (I forget what). It never works on bosses except to aggro them and any lesser ranks around them. It seemed to me like the little aoe taunt went off about every 3rd or 4th pull. The best part of it was that they couldn't shoot you until they were in your face if you did it from around a corner which I always did.

But I eventually respeced out of TP Foe (once I managed to complete a TV trial which is a whole other story) because once I got to be a certain level, with enough money to get knockdown protection IO's and other goodies, it just wasn't needed any longer. If I want to pull now (it IS appropriate in some cases despite what most people seem to think) I just use a ranged temp power - the bow from croatoa is my favorite but I usually use my blackwand. My wife still swears by TP Foe on some of her characters though.

And I agree. I've noticed that mobs now shoot at you as soon as you trigger an attack instead of after the effect hits them. That's a relatively new "enhancement" and pancakes if your attack is a hold or stun because they get a chance to hit you unless they weren't facing you to begin with. So we get to be heroes by hitting people in the back LOL