Taunt aura for all scrapper secondaries?

[Oysterhead]

3 hours ago, BrandX said:

Energy Aura with it's +Def PBAOE, may like a taunt aura to keep enemies close.

 

Energy Aura does have a taunt aura for scrappers. its about as bad as they come, 2.25 seconds, just above Willpower, but exists. (Energy Aura on scrapper also get +recharge per enemy in range, which may be why they have it?)

[Riverdusk]

2 minutes ago, Oysterhead said:

 

Energy Aura does have a taunt aura for scrappers. its about as bad as they come, 2.25 seconds, just above Willpower, but exists. (Energy Aura on scrapper also get +recharge per enemy in range, which may be why they have it?)

 

Which is one thing I've always said would be fine.  Just make the scrapper taunt auras all weak ones.  As long as they are strong enough to prevent 10 critters all deciding to high tail it to the 4 corners of the universe at the drop of a hat.  I've played both energy aura and willpower scrappers and the level of their taunt has always felt perfectly fine for a scrapper's needs.  In fact if a brute or tank join the team I'm happy to let them out taunt me.  I just hug the tank and smash.

[Deuce Spade]

2 hours ago, Haijinx said:

So no one wants to give up taunt auras for scrappers, ok.  Some want more taunt auras for other scrappers.  Whatevs.  But what about Brutes?  Seems like BS from their standpoint. 

 

I generally hate power creep.  But if you are going to have it anyway, deal it out fairly.   

 

Gotcha, we're talking past each other about two different things then. FWIW, I don't consider additional scrapper taunt auras power creep, just a quality of life upgrade.  Chasing runners sucks.

[BrandX]

4 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

 

And bio with its +res per enemy aura.  All the scrapper secondary's that have taunt auras now tend to have them for good reason.

 

Which is why I'd say, make it dependent on the Defense Set.  Regen and SR for instance, aren't a set that needs it for survival.  Close or far away, the survival is the same.

 

Fire Armor is the one where I guess one could argue either way.

 

Dark Armor could possibly as well, but if they're mezzed they're not exactly running away.

[BrandX]

3 hours ago, Oysterhead said:

 

Energy Aura does have a taunt aura for scrappers. its about as bad as they come, 2.25 seconds, just above Willpower, but exists. (Energy Aura on scrapper also get +recharge per enemy in range, which may be why they have it?)

 

Yup.  

[nihilii]

6 hours ago, Haijinx said:

So no one wants to give up taunt auras for scrappers, ok.  Some want more taunt auras for other scrappers.  Whatevs.  But what about Brutes?  Seems like BS from their standpoint. 

I don't play scrappers without taunt auras.

I don't play brutes anymore. My scrappers are stronger. I try a brute every now and then, then quickly go back to a scrapper. Often a /bio scrapper, to add insult to injury.

What happens if, tomorrow, scrapper taunt auras are normalized to 3-4s (down from 15s for some powersets) and spread over all scrapper secondaries?

My scrappers are suddenly LESS powerful relative to brutes. Brutes now hold aggro significantly better. This is a desirable outcome!

 

The scrappers I don't play now become a worthy choice compared to the scrappers I do play. Also a very good outcome.

The scrappers I don't play *also* start having more of an aggro edge compared to their stalker counterparts. Arguably yet another good thing (although personally, I think stalkers need a slight bump as well... but let's not get into that too much).

 

So:

- better balance with brutes

- better balance within the AT

- better balance with stalkers

 

What's not to like?

[Heraclea]

7 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

 

Which is one thing I've always said would be fine.  Just make the scrapper taunt auras all weak ones.  As long as they are strong enough to prevent 10 critters all deciding to high tail it to the 4 corners of the universe at the drop of a hat.  I've played both energy aura and willpower scrappers and the level of their taunt has always felt perfectly fine for a scrapper's needs.  In fact if a brute or tank join the team I'm happy to let them out taunt me.  I just hug the tank and smash.

Aye, with the scrapper taunt auras I notice the fact that it is there a lot more than I notice the fact that it is weak.  It's really only an issue when I am soloing, including when I am doing the scrapper thing and soloing team spawns on one corner of the big defeat-all map.  The auras on Willpower and Energy work just fine; the mobs stay in melee range and that's all I want. 

 

OTOH, my tauntless scrappers all tend to build for stealth and are mission completionists rather than mob murder machines.  A taunt aura would break them.

 

The problem armor sets are Fire, which needs a taunt aura to make Burn viable; and Energy Aura, which for some incomprehensible reason has both a taunt aura and stealth in the secondary.  I still think Energy is fairly strong, but the self-breaking stealth makes no sense.

[tidge]

12 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

 

On the taunt aura issue, the main issues I have with scrappers and taunt auras are:

 

1.  That a pool power taunt (provoke) is more useful than the scrapper primary power taunt (confront).  

2.  That dealing with runners is a huge QoL issue for me (and I think many others).  It isn't even about "power", it is about runners in this game being a PITA (and UNFUN) to deal with while playing a melee class.

 

I agree with the above (because if you want to 'taunt' one your probably want to 'taunt' more), but there is a tiny fraction of content where Confront is superior to Provoke: Confront doesn't require a ToHit check (AFAIK, I never take it!... well maybe once on a VEAT) so Taunt/Confront is superior for keeping the aggro of enemies like Lord Recluse.

 

I'm a 100% with the comment about Runners being a PITA, and not just for Melee. Runners are one of the two reasons why I was against the range in range for Fast Snipes (the other reason is that for Blasters, the nerf to Fast Snipes screwed up the range hierarchy for attacks).

[Hew]

3 hours ago, Heraclea said:

The problem armor sets are Fire, which needs a taunt aura to make Burn viable;

You do realize that was _intentional_, right? Because maybe, just maybe, rooting things as a scrapper with a higher damage mod in a burn patch doing more damage isnt in the best interests of AT balancing and is a bit the antithesis of a always-on damage at? Tanks tend to park. Brutes, something between park and some run. Scrappers? All run. Scrapperlock is real, and the AT design decisions that drive scrapperlock are also real. Intentionally setting up a circumstance where a scrapper _just sits there_ so burn can burn is just bad.

[nihilii]

12 minutes ago, Hew said:

You do realize that was _intentional_, right?

It was intentional, like Invulnerability and Dark Armor toggles being mutually exclusive, Unyielding rooting you... There were many questionable choices made intentionally in the early design of the game. Most were rectified, some were not.

 

Although to an extent, the Burn design choice *was* rectified too... It used to make enemies actively run away from you.

 

To see great engineering in early powerset quirks is rationalisation after the fact. Starting in I7 or so, with Dual Blades and Willpower... yes, you can argue engineering took place.

 

Before that? The balance veered a lot more towards whatever Jack Emmert thought was cool on a conceptual level.

Edited June 16, 2021 by nihilii

[Deuce Spade]

57 minutes ago, Hew said:

You do realize that was _intentional_, right? Because maybe, just maybe, rooting things as a scrapper with a higher damage mod in a burn patch doing more damage isnt in the best interests of AT balancing and is a bit the antithesis of a always-on damage at? Tanks tend to park. Brutes, something between park and some run. Scrappers? All run. Scrapperlock is real, and the AT design decisions that drive scrapperlock are also real. Intentionally setting up a circumstance where a scrapper _just sits there_ so burn can burn is just bad.

My scrapper's burn does 316.8 in MIds, vs. 282 for my tank vs. 264 for my brute.  All with the same full set of Obliteration, all without any incarnates enabled, and the brute has zero fury.  I'm not seeing a game breaking imbalance here, except when you figure in the fact that two ATs can keep mobs in the burn patch and one can't.

 

Follow up question - if scrappers are intended to always move and never park, why do they have Burn?

Edited June 16, 2021 by Deuce Spade

[BrandX]

2 hours ago, Deuce Spade said:

My scrapper's burn does 316.8 in MIds, vs. 282 for my tank vs. 264 for my brute.  All with the same full set of Obliteration, all without any incarnates enabled, and the brute has zero fury.  I'm not seeing a game breaking imbalance here, except when you figure in the fact that two ATs can keep mobs in the burn patch and one can't.

 

Follow up question - if scrappers are intended to always move and never park, why do they have Burn?

 

Because they didn't have Fire Armor in the beginning.  It was strictly a Tanker Secondary.

 

That said, it could be considered defensive.  They run.  They're not attacking you.

[Koopak]

I'm not against minor taunt auras like EA's something weak. However i do think that for powersets that aren't dependent on nearby enemies for durability, it should cost something. I've debated suggesting a taunt aura to the Presence Pool but i haven't done so yet because of the weird effects that proposes for other ATs. Blankers? I don't think it'd be a serious issues since most other ATs, even with optimal slotting, struggle to have the durability to handle a big pack of +4 mobs, but yeah it could be a problem.

I main a Katana/Regen Scranker essentially, and make use of Provoke and Melee Radial to hold aggro for my team. So you can see why i want a taunt aura but heres my concern.

90% of people here arguing for taunt auras are doing it under the argument "runners suck" which, i agree. However this is a solo mindset, and we should not make changes solely based on the solo experience when they impact the group experience. So let me ask the question, is it okay for all Scrappers to be able to hold aggro for a team? If not, what we really need then, is some kind of "anti run" mechanic, a psudo taunt. This would probably require more effort on the devs part though, but i seem to recall some flags that dictate if a mob runs, perhaps they can make a power that just flips that flag?

Edited June 16, 2021 by Koopak

[tidge]

For the record: I have no issues with the AI that allows enemies to run... my in-game annoyance with runners is two fold, with an added third annoyance due to (I think) client-server mechanics:

1. Some of them will run VERY far away. I find this most annoying on 'defeat all' or 'defeat a particular spawn'.
2. Some of then will run/fly away at speeds that would be impossible for a player to achieve thanks to movement suppression.
3. The mechanics of 'follow (F)' can make it such that a player can get just close enough to an enemy mob to stop moving, but still be too far away for a melee attack.

[hejtmane]

I think we should have taunt auras on every set if they get rif of all taunt auras from scrappers I just quit the game I am not a tanker and I hate the brute play style.  Now I think they should be the same across the board strong and not weak but still under tanks and brutes.

 

The hard issue is where to put it I said the presence pool since the pool is useless anyways and you can have it scale by AT etc.

 

Do they move all taunt auras to the primary eliminating  the ST taunt  aura in the primaries make them all toggle paoes with same mag etc and endurance cost and remove all taunt auras out of the secondary ?

 

I don't know what the answer is but those are the suggestion I can come up with.

[Deuce Spade]

5 hours ago, BrandX said:

 

Because they didn't have Fire Armor in the beginning.  It was strictly a Tanker Secondary.

 

That said, it could be considered defensive.  They run.  They're not attacking you.

Yeah, I was here in the beginning too.  The answer still doesn't make much sense to me.  Other powersets have been proliferated with changes based on the AT they were going to.  There's no reason that couldn't have been done if scrappers weren't meant to burn offensively.

 

The burn-as-defense idea is how some blasters use it, but they have ranged attacks to kill the runners.  If my scrapper makes them run away with burn so they don't kill me, I have to chase them into melee range where they - wait for it - can kill me.  Many can also kill me from range once they stop running and I'm still chasing them.  That sounds like a poorly designed defensive power, and if that had been the design, it would be.  It would also be the second come-back-from-defeat power in the set, which is at least one more than any set should have.  Burn as a defensive power on a scrapper would make about as much sense as taunt on a blaster - a power that in most cases would make the game more difficult.

 

Of note, blasters also sometimes take bonfire and burn the flopping mobs.  I haven't noticed their higher damage scale with burn breaking the game either. 

 

There is no good reason /fire scrappers shouldn't have a taunt aura.  All of the arguments against in this thread have boiled down to "don't go there" or "that's not how it is" or "that would break another AT" or similar, and none of those arguments have any merit, at least that has been demonstrated here.  Many of the reasons given why some scrappers *do* need a taunt aura, including powers that require mobs around the scrapper to work, also apply to /fire.

[SwitchFade]

I'll go with No, for the win, Bob!

[BrandX]

1 hour ago, Deuce Spade said:

Yeah, I was here in the beginning too.  The answer still doesn't make much sense to me.  Other powersets have been proliferated with changes based on the AT they were going to.  There's no reason that couldn't have been done if scrappers weren't meant to burn offensively.

 

The burn-as-defense idea is how some blasters use it, but they have ranged attacks to kill the runners.  If my scrapper makes them run away with burn so they don't kill me, I have to chase them into melee range where they - wait for it - can kill me.  Many can also kill me from range once they stop running and I'm still chasing them.  That sounds like a poorly designed defensive power, and if that had been the design, it would be.  It would also be the second come-back-from-defeat power in the set, which is at least one more than any set should have.  Burn as a defensive power on a scrapper would make about as much sense as taunt on a blaster - a power that in most cases would make the game more difficult.

 

Of note, blasters also sometimes take bonfire and burn the flopping mobs.  I haven't noticed their higher damage scale with burn breaking the game either. 

 

There is no good reason /fire scrappers shouldn't have a taunt aura.  All of the arguments against in this thread have boiled down to "don't go there" or "that's not how it is" or "that would break another AT" or similar, and none of those arguments have any merit, at least that has been demonstrated here.  Many of the reasons given why some scrappers *do* need a taunt aura, including powers that require mobs around the scrapper to work, also apply to /fire.

 

Well, I said I was for it in the case of Fire Armor, as part of it's said defense is more damage to kill quicker.

 

However, they're busy running away, so they're not attacking, you can keep beating on the one staying in the fire or pick the one to chase down and finish off, before they either attack from range or run back and attack you.  So, the run away from your burn is still valid, even if you don't like it.

 

The only thing I really see keeping them in Burn Patch, is maybe, more fire armor scrapper fire farmers.  😛

[Sgt. Terminus]

Minority opinion likely here but I do play a lot of fiery aura scrappers and I do like the benefits of not having a Taunt aura.  Fire is really squishy for a scrapper and it does give a break sometimes when  I bite off more then I can chew, and  need  to hit healing flames.   Also they don't run right away, so  find a way drop them before they do or hold them some way.    Not everyone wants to just sit there have everything run to them to mash there 3 or 4 buttons, using macros to combine inspirations, and post there their clear times etc..      If I do want to do that, I just roll a brute.   Chasing after runners is a very comic book thing to me anyway and we have all these cool travel powers to use.  Besides they all do come back eventually.   Of course I like melee cones too so I should really be ignored :)

[Riverdusk]

1 hour ago, BrandX said:

 

Well, I said I was for it in the case of Fire Armor, as part of it's said defense is more damage to kill quicker.

 

However, they're busy running away, so they're not attacking, you can keep beating on the one staying in the fire or pick the one to chase down and finish off, before they either attack from range or run back and attack you.  So, the run away from your burn is still valid, even if you don't like it.

 

The only thing I really see keeping them in Burn Patch, is maybe, more fire armor scrapper fire farmers.  😛

 

Not sure how well scrappers would do with 75% fire resist.  I never farm though, so maybe it could be pulled off.   Might also be able to do it already the old school way and go with ice/fire, them flopping on an ice patch tends to keep things from running off as well as attacking less.  Don't see too many bothering with that even now though.

[BrandX]

2 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

 

Not sure how well scrappers would do with 75% fire resist.  I never farm though, so maybe it could be pulled off.   Might also be able to do it already the old school way and go with ice/fire, them flopping on an ice patch tends to keep things from running off as well as attacking less.  Don't see too many bothering with that even now though.

 

I don't farm much, but when I do, I use an Ice/Fire Brute and I don't use the Ice Patch really.  I may have dropped it a couple of times, but I don't recall it being because of defense.  

[SmalltalkJava]

It would be nice if it was just a teeny tiny taunt effect,  Just enough to keep the mobs from zip-lining away as you pummel them.

[Aracknight]

I'd like it if scrappers had a taunt effect.  It should be light, and not something that would take aggro away from a tank or brute, but it should be good enough to keep mobs in melee range when soloing.  While you can cope with minion/LT runners with ranged epic pool powers, not everyone takes those.  I'm also pretty sure if we think hard enough, we can find thematic reasons for all secondaries to have them.  SR's, for example, could be that the bad guy gets enraged because HE JUST CAN'T HIT YOU.

 

However, while I would rather have one added, I believe that I am firmly in the camp of "Every secondary gets one, or none of them do."  I'm sure that many of you can refute this position with many cogent arguments, but that's where I'm at on the subject.

 

PS: Upon further review, someone had the idea for a taunt aura in the presence pool.  That might be best for everyone.  If they want it,  invest in it.  If they don't, don't.

Edited June 19, 2021 by Aracknight

[arcane]

On 6/15/2021 at 6:57 PM, Deuce Spade said:

Brutes have a 90% resistance cap.  They will be able to do things scrappers can't, regardless of taunt aura.  That's true of the brute/scrapper sets that share taunt auras now.  I'm mystified by the "if you give that to scrappers, what will brutes have?" line of thought.

That is not enough. Because what does it do for Ice Armor, Energy Aura, or Graniteless Stone Armor? Basically zero. That’s not a good answer.

[arcane]

I would rather have Scrappers get zero taunt auras. But if all Scrappers were given taunt auras, I can absolutely guarantee you they would become superior to Brutes for active farming (not for AFK farming - Brutes would remain ideal there). I already skip Healing Flames on my Brutes because they’re invincible in fire farms. But if you’re actively farming and either picking up Healing Flames or using a couple Respites now and then? 75% fire resistance is absolutely plenty for surviving a swarm of baddies in a fire farm. We know that for a fact because I already have 3 “squishy” AT builds set up with fire shield and capped fire defense, and they can do the meteor map or whatever at zero risk too. So literally the only reason /Fire Scrappers aren’t already meta for active farming is the lack of a taunt aura. If it DID happen, I’d be making the switch in a heartbeat. But yeah, no need for that to happen.

TBH you can make any AT with access to Fire Shield capable of surviving endless roaming fire damage spawns at +4x8.

 

Edited June 19, 2021 by arcane