Oddities while ToTing

[srmalloy]

I have noticed two quirks while ToTing in Peregrine Island. The first one seems to be rubberbanding of the trick spawns, where one member of the spawn -- virtually always a lieutenant or boss -- will come out of the door, fade away, and then come running out the door again. It's not a respawn, because the character I was experiencing this with had two PBAoE auras tricked out with procs (Irradiated Ground and Beta Decay). and when they came back out the door, they'd still have the damage they took the first time they came out -- it's definitely the mob getting yanked back inside the door and running out again.

 

The other one is more problematic, and concerns the "just spawned protection" ToT spawns have, where if you hit them as soon as you can target them, or up to a very short time after they come out the door, they'll show "Unaffected" and take no damage (like the Fake Nemesis PFF). The problem is that this "Unaffected" state seems to only work vs. a regular attack, and sometimes persists past the mob making their own first attack. I saw this on my Rad/Rad Brute, with both Irradiated Ground and Beta Decay active; the ToT spawns would come out the door with the visual effects of both auras already applied, and in many cases already taking damage from one or the other -- yet the character's melee attacks would pop "Unaffected" over their heads. This was more common with Spirits and Vampires, but occurred several times with Sorceresses and Crones, and I had Spirits coming all the way down the staircase outside the door while retaining their invulnerability, and sometimes being able to hit my character while invulnerable. This seems to be more of a timing issue than anything else -- the server getting laggy about updating the status of a mob to make it hittable, but it's still curious that auras will do damage while the character's 'regular' attacks can't.

[Argent Aegis]

I've noticed both of these occurrences as well, but it can occur in any zone, during lower server populations as well as solo ToT.  The first quirk you mentioned doesn't seem to bother me as much since you are still damaging the spawn - it's just an oddity.  But the second one is very annoying and, to me, seems to occur more frequently with Werewolves and whatever spawns with them. 

 

The thing I observed is that it may be related to how far behind the door the mob spawns at.  When using my targeting, I notice that most mobs seem to spawn a little bit inside the building and take a moment to run out, but the werewolves seem to spawn right on the door and that is when I see the "Unaffected" state occur.  I have not seen a case where the spawn can still be that way after moving a larger distance away from that door, but I can believe it if there are some spacing issues in large ToT leagues operating at the Murder Motel in PI.  Sometimes it just gets crowded by those opening doors and I have seen spawns pop into existence immediately off to the side.  But they are usually defeated so fast that I am not certain if there was an "Unaffected" state and just wiped out a moment later by the next round of attacks.

 

So I wonder if the spawn points of each ToT encounter could be looked at and moved back to a standard point.  This may fix this oddity.  The rubberbanding, not sure about that one.

[srmalloy]

I wasn't paying attention to the 'extraneous' conditions, so other than the known presence of a ToT league hitting the 'motel' just west of the AE building, I couldn't say how heavy the zone load was, and I didn't notice if the zone state -- normal, zombie invasion, or banner event -- made a difference in either the rubberbanding or 'unaffected' prevalence. I will need to pay more attention to see if there are any correlations.

[Cinnder]

That temporarily unhittable problem was an issue back on Live as well.

[Coyotedancer]

I was duo ToTing with a friend last weekend, and we were seeing a lot of the rubberbanding. There was a lot of "Damnit, Vampire.... Make up your mind!" 😝

[carroto]

I've always taken the damage thing to be something like a temp power granted to them when they spawn.  However it doesn't immediately apply, so you can damage them before they are untouchable, but at that point they aren't targetable.  So you can damage them with auto-powers (and pets which can target them when you can't) but by the time you can target them with regular powers, the untouchable has been applied and now you have to wait for it to wear off.

[srmalloy]

With more experimentation, and moving to Kallisti Wharf to hit doors, the rubberbanding appears to be limited to lieutenants and bosses; even with the three-minion spawns, no minion ever got yanked back after coming through the door. With spawns including both a boss and lieutenant, the rubberband could be either, but the rubberbanding mob appears to always be the last mob through the door(s).

 

Amusingly, the effectiveness of filling out Irradiated Ground and Beta Decay with procs got demonstrated very effectively, with some lieutenants coming out of the door the second time at half HP or less, and in one case falling out dead because I lucked out heavily on the procs.

 

Update: With even more experimentation to get a bigger sample, the rubberbanding can occur on the last mob out the door regardless of their rank; the highest-ranking mob is generally the last one out, but not always, and when a minion is the last one to appear, they can be rubberbanded back inside the door as well.

Edited October 17, 2020 by srmalloy
update