Change Confront and Assassin's Strike into a distance-closing attack

[Solvernia]

Just now, Rudra said:

Except by turning taunt into a teleport to target, whether or not it still taunts, you take away the ability to bring targets to you. As you said, not every power set has a ranged attack.

 

Examples:

A) My scrapper is running with a blaster. My scrapper is playing impromptu tank. A mob ignores me and goes for the blaster. I taunt that target, and now I am at that target and the mobs I was trying to keep away from the blaster follow me to the blaster.

 

B) My scrapper is looking at a room of death. There are multiple groups all within aggro radius of each other. My Savage Melee lacks any ranged attacks. I taunt the nearest mob, and am no suddenly in the room and everything I was trying to keep from aggroing has aggroed on me. And if I had wanted to just jump into the lot of them, I already had Savage Leap.

 

Example A would best be resolved by the blaster simply moving away from you and out of the range of the mob.

 

Example B would best be resolved by improving your build so that you can handle being at aggro cap for an extended period of time. If this is not feasible, you can always kite mobs by standing in the perception range of an enemy at the edge of the pack, then running around the corner. Sure, this could be less fun, but it's a fringe use case with plenty of workarounds and the benefits of having a gap closer greatly outweigh the drawbacks of not being able to taunt an enemy at a distance.

[Rudra]

Less fun? Like the couple of seconds it takes to close with an enemy? *sigh* I'm going to heed Widower's advice. I'm dropping out of this thread.

[Solvernia]

10 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

Why are you taking away build diversity and uniqueness between the different melee sets to accommodate something that seems to only be a problem you are experiencing, as everyone else seems to either not care about travel suppression, or found ways around it that exist in the game now.

 

Why is build diversity and uniqueness more important than personal preference and player choice? Do you think people should feel compelled to choose a powerset that they don't otherwise want to play just because it has something their preferred set doesn't? Why should people have to specifically play Elec or Savage just to have a gap closer? Why shouldn't they be able to play what they want to play without feeling weaker or less effective? Again, if your fun relies on having something that other people don't have, that's a pretty crappy way of having fun.

 

As previously stated, the handful of posters in this thread are not "everyone else".

Edited April 28, 2022 by Solvernia

[Luminara]

5 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Except by turning taunt into a teleport to target, whether or not it still taunts, you take away the ability to bring targets to you. As you said, not every power set has a ranged attack.

 

Examples:

A) My scrapper is running with a blaster. My scrapper is playing impromptu tank. A mob ignores me and goes for the blaster. I taunt that target, and now I am at that target and the mobs I was trying to keep away from the blaster follow me to the blaster.

 

B) My scrapper is looking at a room of death. There are multiple groups all within aggro radius of each other. My Savage Melee lacks any ranged attacks. I taunt the nearest mob, and am now suddenly in the room and everything I was trying to keep from aggroing has aggroed on me. And if I had wanted to just jump into the lot of them, I already had Savage Leap.

 

22 minutes ago, El D said:

Say that the devs did implement this change - that taunts as they currently exist get eliminated at the gap closing teleport is put in. What would replace that missing ranged taunt mechanic for overall gameplay? How would the content and challenges that require the use of a ranged taunt specifically to pull mobs from one location to where the player is/wants them to be get modified to work without it? Would Dwarf form Peacebringers and Warshades also have their taunt powers replaced with distance closers? What modifications would have to happen to the Treat Duration IO sets and enhancements to make sure they're still worth taking? Or would Treat Duration enhancements even still be slottable in this new power? What would happen to Scrappers who have taunt from their primary, and have it slotted, once the change was implemented and they no longer have any taunt power at all - a forced respec?

 

This would require a significant amount of gameplay changes across the board for missions, task forces, and trials, as well as respec'ing for a huge number of tank characters, and require all of Homecoming's players to adjust to the new style of default gameplay. Stepping aside from like or dislike, it just seems like way, way too much of a mechanical overhaul to feasibly implement.

 

4 minutes ago, Arbegla said:

 

1) Its not random at all, its actually about 3 seconds of not attacking iirc. I know this, because I used to PvP and travel suppression is a major feature you have to overcome to be a good PvPer, as it affects everyone, and a slow target is a dead target. Also, as @Luminara pointed out, you can easily get over 50mph combat speed, which is actually quite fast, especially in some of the smaller maps. Think the small caves, or the CoT maps. Anything above 50mph and you're going to literally be bouncing off the walls. Combat suppression is easily overcome by skillful use of attacks, 'jousting' or other movement tricks that PvPers and veteran players of City of Heroes have developed, outside of picking specific power pools and powersets.

2) As many people have pointed out, you literally can not play this game without taking some power pools. I've listed 3 of them that give you boosts to combat speed, and you've listed a 4th. That is a large number of power pools available to give you boosted combat speed, which you are required to take somewhere in your build already, due to the limited number of primary and secondary powers available to you.

3) Taunt is not useless. Many people have pointed that out. Confront, however is mostly useless, especially when you consider Taunt Auras in the secondary powers that are available to every armor set. But Taunt itself, which Brutes and Tankers have, is not useless at all. There are many uses for it, especially when handling multiple groups at once. Provoke, another power pool available, is also not useless, though it does hit less targets, and is less effective then Taunt. Would your proposal also convert Provoke into a gap closer?

4) I'm also finding it hard to understanding exactly what you're asking for, as Taunt already pulls mobs to you due to the -range modifier. Which while you agree is a thing it does, because movement speed is involved, its too slow to accurately do what you want? Do you want Taunt/Confront to work like Wormhole/Fold Space? So the mobs are instantly teleported to you? Do you want Taunt/Confront to teleport you instantly to the mobs, like Shield Charge/Savage Leap/Lightning Rod? Why would this be better/faster then what is already available via power pools like Combat Teleport, Fold Space, Speed of Sound, and Spring attack? What problem are you actually trying to solve, using real world examples in THIS game, not comparing this to other games, which I've asked specific examples for, and you haven't provided.

Certain powerset combinations already have those powers built into them as mentioned above and there are power pools that lets you decide how best to approach the mobs. Under your proposal, would Savage Melee, Elec Melee, and Shield charge have 2 'gap closer' powers? What about those who are already picking the power pools available? Do they just get a potential 3rd gap closer?

Why are you taking away build diversity and uniqueness between the different melee sets to accommodate something that seems to only be a problem you are experiencing, as everyone else seems to either not care about travel suppression, or found ways around it that exist in the game now.

 

OMG, why aren't any of you people reading?!?!?!?!?!?!?  You're just inventing problems that would be solved (for one person) by Teletaunt!!!  All you have to do to play the way you play now is waste spend a pool power selection that you would've used on something else pick up Provoke or Teleport Target or something (because forcing everyone else use pool powers is okay, as long as it's not the OP)!

 

YOU'RE NOT READING!

[Arbegla]

1 minute ago, Solvernia said:

 

Why is "diversity and uniqueness" more important than personal preference? Why should people have to play Elec or Savage just to have a gap closer? Why shouldn't they be able to play what they want to play without feeling weaker or less effective? Again, if your fun relies on having something that other people don't have, that's a pretty crappy way of having fun.

 

As previously stated, the handful of posters in this thread are not "everyone else".

 

I'm still failing to understand the actual issue at hand, as Ranged ATs also have to move towards mobs, and experience travel suppression as well. Would they feel weaker or less effective if Melee ATs could all instantly teleport to the mobs and they couldn't? What about Dominators and Blasters, who have higher DPA attacks in their melee powers then their ranged ones?

[Arbegla]

1 minute ago, Luminara said:

 

 

 

OMG, why aren't any of you people reading?!?!?!?!?!?!?  You're just inventing problems that would be solved (for one person) by Teletaunt!!!  All you have to do to play the way you play now is waste spend a pool power selection that you would've used on something else pick up Provoke or Teleport Target or something (because forcing everyone else use pool powers is okay, as long as it's not the OP)!

 

YOU'RE NOT READING!

 

You said TeleTaunt, and my first thought was Teletubbies, and now I'm scared. Teletubbies with taunt just seems like nightmare fuel.

[PeregrineFalcon]

56 minutes ago, Solvernia said:

Being locked out of taking other pool powers because you have to take Speed of Sound or Combat Teleport to have a gap closer is not fun.

It appears to me that this is the real problem as you see it. Not that there's isn't a gap closer available to you - because there is - but that you have to lose a power pool pick to take it.

 

Is that right?

[Solvernia]

12 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

It appears to me that this is the real problem as you see it. Not that there's isn't a gap closer available to you - because there is - but that you have to lose a power pool pick to take it.

 

Is that right?

 

Not only this, but the fact that Confront and to a lesser extent Taunt are just not very useful powers to begin with. They are more often than not skipped and are entirely unnecessary for the functionality of the AT. As one example of many, my SR/WM tanker does not take Taunt at all and has no problem soaking up as much aggro as the game will allow.

 

There is a perfect opportunity here to incorporate gap closers into melee powersets, solving two problems at once: removing the need to use up a power pool slot exclusively for the gap-closer and allowing a very underused power choice to be more frequently taken without interfering with any other power selections. You will still have to take the power to use it, of course, the only difference is that it now has a taunt component over the pool gap-closers that won't taunt.

 

It's not going to be a life-changing addition, of course, but very few QoL improvements are.

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 minute ago, Solvernia said:

Not only this, but the fact that Confront and to a lesser extent Taunt are just not very useful powers to begin with.

Ok, so speaking as someone whose main is a tank, I can tell you that I find Taunt to be a valuable power. I've seen many posts from others that feel the same way. Others, like yourself, prefer to tank without Taunt. It isn't a worthless power, but it usually isn't necessary, even on a tank.

 

And I'll grant you that Confront is pretty close to worthless. I've taken it before. On a broadsword scrapper. Purely because I like the animation. But yeah. Pretty much no one takes it because it's worthless.

 

So I guess that I could see changing out Confront for a "Charge to Enemy." But then what happens to Shield Charge and Lightning Rod?

[Solvernia]

30 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

Ok, so speaking as someone whose main is a tank, I can tell you that I find Taunt to be a valuable power. I've seen many posts from others that feel the same way. Others, like yourself, prefer to tank without Taunt. It isn't a worthless power, but it usually isn't necessary, even on a tank.

 

And I'll grant you that Confront is pretty close to worthless. I've taken it before. On a broadsword scrapper. Purely because I like the animation. But yeah. Pretty much no one takes it because it's worthless.

 

So I guess that I could see changing out Confront for a "Charge to Enemy." But then what happens to Shield Charge and Lightning Rod?

 

Shield Charge, Lightning Rod and Savage Leap can stay unchanged, since they're primarily damage powers with long recharges. Elec and Savage can just end up having a beefy charge and a weaker but more frequently usable charge. There's not much need to adjust anything other than Confront.

 

I'd honestly be okay with Scrappers having Confront changed to a charge (and retain the ST taunt) while Tanks and Brutes keep their 'come here' taunt. This would give Scrappers that diversity and uniqueness that people prize so much -- and maybe even give folks a new reason to play them over tanks/brutes.

 

In fact, I might just rework the thread into that.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Solvernia

[Doomguide2005]

     I personally have no issue with a "gap closure" problem.  I would miss the fun of charging headlong into a mass of 'xxx'.  Generally I just charge towards the next mob and unleash Shockwave if I'm trying to get a lot of attention and well cones suck at point blank distance.  Though, of course, I could just continue to skip Confront.  Haven't taken Confront in quite some time.  I doubt giving it a teleport function would change that though maybe I could get a giggle when I try to draw that annoying Cabal Witch (or Longbow Eagle) down to me and end up teleporting into mid air, hang for a second, before plummeting earthward into (or onto) something else.

     Sounds more like you want a movement suppression issue solution than anything else.

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, Solvernia said:

 

It's a very simple and sensible change, for the following reasons:

 

• It is not fun to slowly walk up to a group of enemies before you're allowed to use your attacks.
• It is not fun to make a group of enemies slowly walk over to you before you're allowed to use your attacks.
• It is fun to quickly close the distance so you can use your attacks as soon as possible.
• It is not fun to have to take a specific powerset in order to do this.

 

Do you disagree with any of these statements? If so, why?

 

We have powers available to avoid walking slowly towards enemies.

We have powers available to bring enemies to the player.

We have powers available to close distance to the enemy.

No specific powerset it needed.

 

I will not deny that I never take the scrapper single target taunt. It's 100% useless to me thanks to all the other available choices. This request is ridiculous.

 

Edit: Quite frankly, I'm glad there's always a power to skip in my primary. Even happier when there's more than one since I build for optimal attack chains using only 3 attacks for ST and/or AoE.

 

Edit2: I mean holy hell, slap an endred in sprint and leave it on and learn to use tab/f/attack. Jeebus christos.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Solvernia]

22 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

We have powers available to avoid walking slowly towards enemies.

We have powers available to bring enemies to the player.

We have powers available to close distance to the enemy.

No specific powerset it needed.

 

I will not deny that I never take the scrapper single target taunt. It's 100% useless to me thanks to all the other available choices. This request is ridiculous.

 

Edit: Quite frankly, I'm glad there's always a power to skip in my primary. Even happier when there's more than one since I build for optimal attack chains using only 3 attacks for ST and/or AoE.

 

Edit2: I mean holy hell, slap an endred in sprint and leave it on and learn to use tab/f/attack. Jeebus christos.

 

Confront is useless and power pool choices are limited. Speed/Leaping/Fighting/Leadership usually fill all four of them on most builds. You'd have to sacrifice one of those to take Experimentation or Teleportation, and you'd only get one useful power out of those pools, compared to the 2-3 useful powers you can take in the four aforementioned pools.

 

Adding a short range charge-attack style teleport to melee powersets would be the simplest solution to make melee characters' lives better. No need to take specific pool powers, no need to do weird build shenanigans. Just upgrade the useless single target taunt with a useful charge attack. It would be a fantastic QoL addition and help to make two ATs stand out from the rest. What's so ridiculous about it?

Edited April 29, 2022 by Solvernia

[Bill Z Bubba]

4 minutes ago, Solvernia said:

Confront is useless and power pool choices are limited. Speed/Leaping/Fighting/Leadership usually fill all four of them on most builds. You'd have to sacrifice one of those to take Experimentation or Teleportation, and you'd only get one useful power out of those pools, compared to the 2-3 useful powers you can take in the four aforementioned pools.

 

Adding a short range charge-attack style teleport to melee powersets would be the simplest solution to make melee characters' lives better. No need to take specific pool powers, no need to do weird build shenanigans. Just upgrade the useless single target taunt with a useful charge attack. What's so ridiculous about it?

 

Confront is useless. Correct.

 

Speed and Leaping both provide the tools you request.

 

You want a short range tport? Choose combat tport or whatever it's called. The rest of us that know how to play the gorram game don't need it.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Doomguide2005]

Fun facts

• 60 mph is 88ft/sec 
• That's 1.467 ft/sec
• Shield Charge 60ft range
• Combat Teleport 100ft range
• Savage Leap 70ft range
• Wormhole 80ft range

So at 40 mph you'll move ~58ft/sec

At 80mph that's ~ 117 ft/sec

 

None of those are more than 2 seconds worth of distance.

 

My scrapper moving at 40 mph will arrive before the Shield Charge (cast arcanatime 1.716 sec) carries the teammates Tanker to the same target point.

 

Pretty sure she moves faster than 40mph completely unsuppressed.

 

What's the problem again?

 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by Doomguide2005
Added info about arcanatime

[Arbegla]

15 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Fun facts

• 60 mph is 88ft/sec 
• That's 1.467 ft/sec
• Shield Charge 60ft range
• Combat Teleport 100ft range
• Savage Leap 70ft range
• Wormhole 80ft range

So at 40 mph you'll move ~58ft/sec

At 80mph that's ~ 117 ft/sec

 

None of those are more than 2 seconds worth of distance.

 

My scrapper moving at 40 mph will arrive before the Shield Charge (cast arcanatime 1.716 sec) carries the teammates Tanker to the same target point.

 

Pretty sure she moves faster than 40mph completely unsuppressed.

 

What's the problem again?

 

 

 

This is exactly my point. The instant teleport powers still have a cast time, and a target time.

 

Even with the fastest macros you have have, you're still limited by animation time. Is it really faster to teleport instantly to a group, or run up to them?

 

Either way you need to animate an attack to get their attention, and with teleport, you'll still only affect the mobs you happen to land next to.

[Outrider_01]

Some sets have range attacks built in 🤔

[battlewraith]

Okay, so I think the general consensus here is that confront is worthless on a scrapper. So let's focus on that. 

 

Is a gap closer a good idea? Yeah could be cool. Could look cool. Could free up a power pool slot and allow for some cool builds that are not currently possible. These are legitimate reasons for consideration.

 

What about the objections?

 

1. Thematic. Why would a character with say a staff be teleporting? Grow an imagination. Maybe the staff is magical or shoots out a grappling hook or something. The game is already full of weird powers that don't make a lot of sense (eg. the blaster martial arts secondary that lets you teleport).

 

2. You can achieve the same effects with power pools.

 

So what? First of all, anyone can get a crappy taunt from pools. Secondly, I might be looking to make some kooky ass build that doesn't take the pool powers that would get me this effect. What happened to the "play your own way" ethos? People that arguing that pool powers already let you build for this are basically just saying that you should share their preferences.

 

3, It's not faster.

 

Again, so what. There's a difference between the speed of a movement and the experience of using it. Also your build might have SS but no other travel power. The vertical movement from the gap closer could have a lot of utility. You might have no travel powers and want to pretend your batman scooting around with a grappling hook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Greycat]

On 4/27/2022 at 4:42 PM, Solvernia said:

No adjustment would be made here other than adding a teleport and damage component to Confront, and a teleport component to Assassin's Strike. This would make Confront actually worth taking, and give Scrappers/Stalkers an easier way to engage specific targets in melee, increasing their value and helping to diverge their playstyle from Tanks and Brutes.

 

I absolutely do not want a teleport component on those. There are times I'm using Confront to try to pick out specific targets - that does NOT mean I want to be where that target is (and in the middle of all their friends.) And there are times it'd be objectively useless, such as when I use it to taunt gates (and thus pull groups of Rikti) on mothership raids.

 

For assassin's strike, I'm *already* in melee range, I don't want to teleport anywhere.

 

You want to teleport, pick up combat teleport.

 

And no, "Every other game does it" is not valid. Every other game is not COH. So many "every other games" rely on a holy trinity of DPS/Tank/Healer to get anything done. Know what I don't tend to play for very long? Every other game.  Most other games have even more of a grind to them. Most other games seem to have you actually have to *pay* in some way (not talking microtransactions, usually) to level up. There are a lot of things "every/most other game" does I would *hate* to see in COH.

[SwitchFade]

Um, I just hit  W

 

And I'm at the next target in, say, .5 seconds....

 

Melee is fun to play and not frustrating for me.

 

Sorry, I'm going to no vote this one.

[Naraka]

11 hours ago, Solvernia said:

 

Confront is useless and power pool choices are limited. Speed/Leaping/Fighting/Leadership usually fill all four of them on most builds. You'd have to sacrifice one of those to take Experimentation or Teleportation, and you'd only get one useful power out of those pools, compared to the 2-3 useful powers you can take in the four aforementioned pools.

 

Adding a short range charge-attack style teleport to melee powersets would be the simplest solution to make melee characters' lives better. No need to take specific pool powers, no need to do weird build shenanigans. Just upgrade the useless single target taunt with a useful charge attack. It would be a fantastic QoL addition and help to make two ATs stand out from the rest. What's so ridiculous about it?

 

You are trying to solve a problem that was specifically implemented into the game by the devs. One of them being capitalizing on movement for safety (you still can but it's slower) and the other is limiting melee.

 

Melee characters already enjoy a plethora of benefits to include practically ignoring mez, often time having potent resists to debilitating debuffs and having extra potent attacks because they are more limited by range. You AREN'T MEANT to just ignore the built in limitations inherently... You have to build for it... Like taking more ranged powers from pools... Or taking certain mez powers from pools to snare enemies... Or taking certain movement powers from pools to close gaps... Starting to see a pattern?

 

The different ATs have weaknesses for a reason (with melee having the softest if limitations) and the pool powers exist to serve the purpose of helping to get over some of those weaknesses (among other uses) and at a cost.

 

Your suggestion, while it may have started with good intentions, is just power creep for power creeps sake. There is no reason melee need gap closers because they are meant to have range as their limitation. Sentinel's claim to fame is literally getting past that with none of the other downfalls so why don't you just play those?

[arcane]

8 hours ago, Greycat said:

There are times I'm using Confront 

 

*(unless you PvP in which case Taunt is so OP it’s just banned)

[arcane]

13 hours ago, Solvernia said:

Speed/Leaping/Fighting/Leadership usually fill all four of them on most builds. You'd have to sacrifice one of those to take Experimentation or Teleportation

You might have to occasionally have a not-perfectly-cookie-cutter build? How will you sleep at night

[srmalloy]

18 hours ago, Arbegla said:

2) You know, Sprint + Swift + Hurdle + Combat jumping aren't suppressed right? Also, +run/jump speed IO bonuses aren't suppressed either.

From my experience, where I see a noticeable speed change after leaving combat, Sprint does suppress in combat, just not to the same extent as SJ, SS, or Fly. What is more disturbing is inappropriate suppression -- if you have Athletic Run active, it significantly suppresses flight speed, despite having no flight component itself; both Fly and Mystic Flight suppress to well below unslotted Hover speeds with Athletic Run active, and that component of the suppression goes away if you turn it off.

[Troo]

20 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

From my experience, where I see a noticeable speed change after leaving combat, Sprint does suppress in combat, just not to the same extent as SJ, SS, or Fly. What is more disturbing is inappropriate suppression -- if you have Athletic Run active, it significantly suppresses flight speed, despite having no flight component itself; both Fly and Mystic Flight suppress to well below unslotted Hover speeds with Athletic Run active, and that component of the suppression goes away if you turn it off.

 

Exactly. If we're spending endurance the result should ALWAYS be additive never detrimental, even if gain is nominal.