ZemX

Non-pool placate powers have a 5s window now where even getting hit doesn't cancel the hide, so it should be a guaranteed hidden attack follow-up no matter what happens with aggro or your defense level. The remaining 5s of Hide after that can be spoiled by getting hit though.

The staff in those pics is quite similar to the Carnival of Light staff you can choose in Staff Fighting. Bio seems the closest thing to that armor but I'd second giving Rad a look. Rad has a couple nice AoEs in it you can proc up for more damage, and Ground Zero looks very anime to me, especially if you slot it with knockdown. For added effect, use Teleport to get to the center of a big spawn and then hit GZ. You'll be floating a few inches off the ground, throwing your arms out... and everybody falls down in a radial blast of energy. It's just cool. Rad does have the spinning ping-pong balls animation on armor toggles you can't get rid of. You can tone down the ground effect on the taunt aura by using the very dark left side of the Bright Radiation palette. Dark blue looks like cool blue smoke on the ground.

Hmm... not quite sure about that. It appears to also redirect to Gauntlet Proc Aura which applies un-enhanceable 14.96s taunt mag 4 to all targets. A bit odd. I haven't played Willpower specifically but in my experience taunt auras are fine to hold the mobs near you assuming you're also attacking them with AoE and single-target powers. At least this works for me on Tankers. I only use ranged Taunt to grab aggro at a distance. Not to taunt mobs already next to me. I think taunt auras that also apply several debuffs are especially good at holding aggro because each of those debuffs also adds significant threat which is multiplied by the taunt. Faster pulsing auras naturally accumulate threat faster too. There is some variability in activate periods for auras in different sets.

This. Debuffs are pretty much the only reason I keep the power monitor mini-window up. Last Hit Chance, Recovery, Regen, Any defense, Any resistance, damage bonus, recharge bonus. I might take an extra defense or resist depending on the character but one is usually enough since debuffs tend to be -def(all) or -res(all). For resist, I like having my two or three lowest resistances shown if I know the rest are capped.

It's a lot weirder than that. Most people assume taunt is like an AI override. i.e. That it makes an enemy attack you for a certain length of time (the duration of the taunt). But this is not how it works. What keeps an enemy focused on you is a value called "Threat". Think of each NPC as having its own enemies list ranked by who it thinks is the biggest threat to its existence. Everyone who has attacked that NPC gets on the list and starts racking up Threat points as they attack, debuff, control, etc. Person with the highest threat number wins that NPC's attention. The taunt effect is essentially a multiplier. For the person who has put a taunt on that NPC, everything they do while that taunt lasts has its threat value multiplied. This is how a Tanker who does much less damage than a Blaster can still keep the attention of the NPC. It's like hitting for 10 damage and having it hate you like you just hit it for 1000 damage. The weird part is that multiplication factor is based on how much time is remaining on the taunt. So hit them with Tanker 41 second Taunt ranged power and then Brawl afterwards will do many many times more threat than hitting Brawl again just before the Taunt expires. If that makes sense. Happily, this is all pretty much irrelevant and only matters when you're teamed with another person who is ALSO taunting. And I don't know about you, but that doesn't usually concern me all that much. I'd only consider using Threat set IOs if I was looking for a particular set bonus or for a proc. Otherwise, don't need them. Taunt, even unmodified, is such a large threat multiplier that nobody is stealing aggro from you in most normal situations. Maybe if a Blaster has been blasting at some AV for a while and you're late to the fight trying to catch up on threat... I dunno. Like I said, never bother with it and never have trouble holding aggro on a team.

It's not trying to be deceptive. The game calculates recharge assuming all current buffs/debuffs will go on forever. It can't really work any other way. You might think it could get a better estimate if it takes into account the remaining duration of all those buffs/debuffs but that wouldn't work in all situations either. Buffs/debuffs that are toggles or AoE ground patches, for example, only debuff you as long as the toggle is running or as long as you stay within the AoE of that debuff. The game can't know that. Nor can it know what new buffs/debuffs you will be hit with in the future. So it doesn't try to guess. Hell, my Rad Armor tanker gets a +recharge boost based on how many enemies are standing nearby, so my total recharge bonus can change by the second. All that said, in order to understand what you're seeing, you need to include the power monitor in your screenshot like @Maelwys has (showing Recharge Time Bonus and the breakdown below it) to see how many and how strong each of the debuffs are. One, or even two, cryo rounds can't slow you as much as you're seeing. So yeah, UI display bug or you're getting hit by more and/or stronger debuffs than you realize.

I go between Everlasting and Excel depending on my mood. Wouldn't say either is "home" since I'm good transferring my tanks wherever I need them.

Unless you want to believe the game has malfunctioned in a way nobody else has experienced, the only reasonable explanation is that what you're saying didn't happen or that the circumstances of what happened are different than you remember. Three cogs cannot zero your endurance. They probably can't even overcome your natural recovery rate meaning you could stand there forever and not be drained. Like I said, people face hundreds of these things, including higher level LTs and Bosses during the Synapse TF which was just recently the weekly strike target. This would be noticed if it were happening. It's not happening. This was essentially your opening question: Are debuffs worse now than they used to be? Answer: No. They are not. Edit: To clarify, endurance drain IS a thing people experience running the Synapse TF but only because they are facing nonstop hordes of these things as they have to clear out map after map of all Clockwork enemies. If merely 3 of the minions could zero someone's endurance, the TF would be practically unplayable, if not literally so.

Then definitely play a tanker first and you will have the benefit of knowing how to play a controller/dom without pissing off the tanker. 🤪 Also... welcome!

I think this one has many uses but isn't used often enough...

*sigh*. No, they didn't. The ranged power Cogs have is called "Charged Bolts" and it drains all of 1 endurance. Each shot. Not 100%. One... endurance point. Uno. Even if they were max level 20 and +3 to you that would only go up to 1.33 endurance each. So four endurance total from a volley of 3 level 20 Cogs. Unless you went INTO that fight with 14% of your max endurance left, there is no way you are sitting at 10% after they shot you. If they could drain endurance anywhere close to as good as you claim, Synapse's TF would be a bloodbath. That said, Malta Sappers are the minions who can do this. Their Sapper Overload power drains 20 end/s for four seconds. But it's kind of also the ONLY thing they can do and everyone knows it. They don't live long if the heroes know what they are doing.

I think a whole team of Kin Melees might just drive me insane with those sound effects. Neither set really stacks anything up either, except maybe the disorient in KM. I know it's not your fave, but Rad Melee could be interesting in a full group. Lots of damage patches and the Contaminated mechanism works no matter who applied the status. So, e.g. you can hit someone and apply Contaminated and then someone else can hit them for the burst AoE damage or the siphon healing.

No way you're talking about a random street spawn in Steel. They are at least 20 levels below you. They can't put a scratch on you let alone debuff you that badly. Purple Patch says all of their attacks and debuffs are at 1% of their original strength when used against you. Sure you didn't run into someone else's ambush that was much higher level than the ordinary thugs in Steel?

Derp. Yeah. I have edited the post so hopefully it makes a bit more sense.

On anyone intending to tank for a team or solo extensively at high difficultly levels, I'd say yeah shoot for 80% at least. I think that can be reduced down a little for high-defense characters since they enjoy the benefit of simply being missed by most debuffs, only being hit by auto/aura/ground type debuffs. Or for anyone that ISN'T going to be the focus of all attention.

Can't say I've checked EVERY one of the buffs I add from the station, but any time I've looked right afterwards, the timer is at 1:30:00 on the power.

Not the point I was making. I am talking about what you can do to avoid or reduce the effect BEFORE it lands. The game does provide counters. You're not using them. It has. There's been no real change to how debuffs work since Live, so far as I am aware. If you didn't notice it before you either don't remember it or you were playing characters who had some innate slow resist or simply better defense so as not to have so much slow stacked up on them. Or you're being more aggressive these days going after +4 enemies (which can sometimes be +5 if you are below level 50) or something. Almost everything an enemy does to you is amplified if they are that much higher in level. No. Slow isn't considered a mez, so breakfrees offer no protection or resistance to it. Use defense insps instead to avoid getting hit as much. As has been pointed out, no way are you slowed this much by a single minion. It's gotta be several stacked slows on you. If the enemy you're fighting has a slow aura, try to stay clear of them or mez them to disable it. I get that this game, like any game, can be frustrating, but I guarantee you there is really no such thing as a "nothing you can do"(*) situation in this game or EVERYBODY would be complaining about it. (*) Within reason, obviously. I'm not saying you can solo the Kronos Titan with a level 1 Blaster or anything.

He is fond of this particular complaint, but always wrong about it. Many, if not most debuffs, are carried by attacks that need to hit you. So first line of defense against them... is defense. Doesn't mean none will ever hit you but it greatly reduces the odds they'll stack on you if only 1 in 5 or 10 hits you. Second, specific debuffs can have specific resistances. Recharge debuffs are countered by recharge debuff resistance, a.k.a. slow resistance. Two easiest places to get this are (1) Winter's Gift: Slow resistance IO. One slot, 20% resist to slow. Goes in a travel power. (2) The SG Base empowerment station can give you a temporary 20% boost for 90 minutes to slow resistance (and a lot of other useful things too, like say... endurance drain resistance, recovery boost, etc.) Cost you a bit of minor salvage each time. Aside from this, slow resistance is found in Winter Set ATOs which are, admittedly, very expensive. Slow resistance is also found in some armor sets and powers. I've got a bit in my Rad Armor tankers for example and I build much more on top since I get hit by everything (no defense). It is possible to attain 100% slow resistance and be affected only by unresistible slows, of which there are very few in the game. Endurance drain is countered by endurance drain resist, which isn't super common or available in IO sets. But you can increase endurance and endurance recovery. Having powers that restore endurance is nice too. Recovery serum temp power from START vendor. etc. etc. Solutions abound, in other words. He just needs to look for them.

In my experience it is rare that throwing out a Taunt doesn't cause a mob to turn right around and come after me. I've seen it happen that they just keep running... but I can't say I've seen it happen a lot. And I'm pretty sure I am not confusing it with mobs that are chasing after teammates... unless their pathing is just REALLY confused.

Don't know that much about them. Any chance they have self buffs for toHit or something like that? Don't know what else would explain not seeing a ton of misses in the combat log. They should be missing you more than hitting you otherwise.

There isn't a run-away mode, I think. There's an NPC status called "Afraid" which causes them to run. Afraid has a magnitude though and I think enough taunt can still maintain a lock on the mob. Generally, Tanker/Brute taunt (especially taunt auras) are really effective at preventing runners. You still see it sometimes, but it's pretty rare. A good place to see high mag Afraid in action is to go taunt a Longbow Eagle. They have a melee AoE power called "Positioning" which has an 8ft radius but doesn't affect any of its targets. Instead it only affects the caster, causing them to flee for 3 seconds with 10000% Afraid status. It's a neat little hack to cause them to flee from melee range and then continue attacking at range and they do so even when taunted. Important side point: Afraid and Terrorize are different. In the beginning, powers that cased fear caused Afraid status. So mobs could run away when feared. That was quickly discovered to be counter-productive, so they were re-coded to Terrorize, which just makes them tremble in place. But people still think it has something to do with making mobs more likely to run. I think that's probably not true since the original Live devs went to the trouble to STOP mobs from doing that when feared in the first place. There's yet another NPC status called "Avoid". It just causes mobs to run out of damaging fields like Rain of Fire and the like. i.e. It just causes them to avoid an area since Avoid is typically very short duration (e.g. 0.75 seconds). Once a mob moves out of range of the Rain power, it's not being hit by Avoid anymore either. I do think Afraid can be bugged because I have seen stuff just take off despite multiple taunts and then run clear across a map, seemingly. Just recently on an All-Tanker MSR, we had U'Kon immediately take off and run all the way to the edge of the ship before stopping to fight. It was weird. There was certainly no lack of taunting there. Romulus often does something similar on the ITF.

The people that are on those low pop servers CHOOSE to be there. If they wanted to, they could hop over to Excelsior. They haven't, so apparently the low population isn't a problem for them. Why do you think it's okay to force them to merge with another server just to make your team building easier?

Joking aside, it's also very practical on a team tanker for two reasons (1) The knockdown momentarily stops the mobs from attacking so it's a great way to save someone who is suddenly overwhelmed by an ambush or something. It not only hits them with a bit of heal, but it knocks all their attackers on their asses. (2) The knockdown is great visual communication to the team of what you just taunted and that it's safe for them to engage. I love it when I see a Kin zip in and fulcrum shift them all when they're still picking themselves up. It's just a really nice opening shot.