Rise to the Challenge - Anti Taunt

[Eclipse.]

Need additional people to test/confirm, but started having serious issues holding aggro with my WP tank, even if all I do is use the taunt skill.

Assumption is that this is due to a 'flee' mechanism being triggered by Rise to the Challenge. Basically It will hold aggro ~ok~ unless I move away from the critter, at which point it will [if I'm solo] flee across the map, or [if I'm in a team] randomly latch onto another team mate to attack. This 'fear'/'flee' reaction seems to overpower even the actual taunt skill. Several other people witnessed it when doing an RSF w/ my tank, and I've tested it some outside of that and seen similar reactions.

[Heraclea]

Mobs under debuffs apparently will behave quite randomly at times.  Willpower's Rise to the Challenge has a debuff effect (-tohit) and a very brief taunt effect, much shorter than some other tanker taunt auras.  I suspect the debuff from your aura was outlasting its taunt effects.  Ran a Numina a few days ago with a TW/WP scrapper and no real tank.  I could not hold aggro on the scrapper when my big AoEs were down.  Jurassik took off down the hall as if feared.  I did not slot RttC for taunt on the character; it is slotted for extra debuffs (Dark Watcher's Despair) and is not slotted for taunt. 

 

This is 'normal' if annoying behavior for debuffed mobs.  Tossed a smoke bomb at a Rikti Assault Drone during a zone event on a blaster.  Soon as it started to go down it took off towards God knows where. 

[Redlynne]

http://web.archive.org/web/20140821075850/http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/power.php?id=Tanker_Defense.Willpower.Rise_to_the_Challenge

 

Look at the Activate period of the toggle.

Read the 1 second duration.

 

Lood at the Taunt duration of the toggle.

Read the 1.25 second duration on a MAG 3 Taunt.

 

Question for the audience.

If you increase the Taunt duration by +60% (or more, preferably) ... what happens?

 

Spoiler

Answer: You start stacking a MAG 6 Taunt every 1 second, instead of a MAG 3 Taunt every 1 second, thanks to the overlap of Taunt effects courtesy of the increased Taunt duration.

 

[Eclipse.]

10 hours ago, Heraclea said:

Willpower's Rise to the Challenge has a debuff effect (-tohit) and a very brief taunt effect, much shorter than some other tanker taunt auras

1 hour ago, Redlynne said:

If you increase the Taunt duration by +60% (or more, preferably

Indeed, perhaps it should be brought inline with Against All Odds, which has a 13.6x longer duration  while also being a higher magnitude.

 

That is a really wide discrepancy between those 2 [both debuff based] taunt auras. Looking at other skills (Unyielding, Evolving Armor ) it seems like Willpower is really out of alignment, or was at the time of that webarchive. SR's taunt aura seems to have similarly low duration, but doesn't have the debuff effect to enduce flee. Can we confirm these numbers are accurate for Homecoming and maybe bring them in line, at least for tanks?

As is my WP tank is basically an anti-tank.


I know on live there was a point when Rise to the Challenge was overly aggressively taunting and was too good compared to other skills, seems at some point it swung hard in the other direction.

 

[Heraclea]

For reasons I have never really understood, WP has a much less strong Taunt aura than any other tanker sets.  Some are even stronger in that the aura does damage, and as a result invokes Gauntlet.  It used to be that WP was the only outlier here; now Super Reflexes has joined it. 

[Redlynne]

The WP and SR taunt aura powers are consistent with intentional design decisions made by Paragon Studios prior to shutdown in 2012.  Yes, they're an outlier relative to the counterpart powers in other primaries that do the same function ... but that was something done deliberately by Paragon Studios.  It's not an "error" (per se), nor is it a bug.  Those two powersets are intended to function "differently" in this regard compared to other powersets.

 

Working As Designed AND Intended.

[Eclipse.]

4 hours ago, Redlynne said:

Those two powersets are intended to function "differently" in this regard compared to other powersets.

 

Interesting, so 'differently' in this case is just straight worse?

 

[Haijinx]

they kind of work as long as no one else with a better taunt aura shows up lol

 

That said if your a tank and a brute wants some aggro off you for fury, youll be more popular \0/

[Riverdusk]

Would be curious if you slotted a taunt enhancer in it, whether or not it'd fix the issue for you.

[Redlynne]

38 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

Would be curious if you slotted a taunt enhancer in it, whether or not it'd fix the issue for you.

You mean ... slot Taunt enhancement into a Taunt Aura power?

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Redlynne

[Myrmidon]

A Taunt enhancer or two will clear up your problem.

On live, Castle gave us the option of either leaving the lower aggro effectiveness  in Rise to the Challenge or have Willpower nerfed a tad. Since he wasn’t burned at the stake, guess which one we picked?😁

[Haijinx]

I made a WP/SS tanker on the day WP came out.

I thought it was the coolest set ever.  Finally I could tank stuff and my Toggles wouldn't drop in like 3 seconds 

 

Since you couldn't team with Brutes blueside the weak Taunt aura was never really noticeable.  Sure another Tanker would strip aggro off you but that was no big deal, 

 

 

[Heraclea]

Its failings are most obvious in situations where, say, a dominator roots all the mobs in place before you can bundle them.  On an Invulnerability tanker mobs that you passed by would stay interested in you for a bit when they became unstuck.  On a Willpower tanker, not going to happen.

 

Willpower is God's gift to scrappers and sentinels; On brutes, depends on what you want to do with your brute; on stalkers I don't have enough experience to say.  When it was introduced: it was one of the few tanker primaries with a sustain power that wasn't on a very slow click. This was so big a novelty that I rolled several willpower tankers.  Their shortcomings soon became fairly obvious.  Holding aggro on a Willpower tanker was more work, and expectations had to be lowered.  The advice in the old guide I wrote still holds good.  But I came to the opinion that powers that just work without being fussed at are better.  And there are several tanker primaries with sustain powers as good or better (Bio and Rad are the ones I've tried.)  Those sets are also good to excellent for holding aggro.  Willpower no longer holds its advantages exclusively, and as such I'd recommend something else that's just as fun, almost as tough, and tanks better.

[Haijinx]

Stamina being inherent now also makes Primaries with no Sustain a lot easier to live with, no annoying climb to 20

 

That and IOs that let you partly patch PSI holes.  

 

Still, if tankers are less necessary at incarnate levels, that would also suggest having a good taunt aura as a Tanker is also less necessary.   

[Myrmidon]

5 hours ago, Heraclea said:

on stalkers I don't have enough experience to say. 

Hera, Willpower on a Stalker is what Regeneration wishes it could be. 😁

[Eclipse.]

On 9/12/2019 at 7:14 PM, Riverdusk said:

Would be curious if you slotted a taunt enhancer in it, whether or not it'd fix the issue for you.

 

I do have it slotted w/ taunt...5 slot set + 1 taunt .

 perhaps my issue is also that I'm running Titan weapons and the 2 combined are just unable to hold aggro despite my best attempts due to the slower attack speeds, and I'm not entirely sure how strongly Gauntlet works with PBAoE/Cone powers

Edited September 15, 2019 by Eclipse.

[Haijinx]

TW is kind of slow out of the gate so you aren't getting the gauntlet in as soon as some sets perhaps.