Taunt aura

[Brutal Justice]

Is there any evidence that the afraid mechanic has been changed from live?   You can see all over the old forums people talking about runners with fiery aura scrappers and burn.

 

 I would guess the mechanic is exactly the same you’re just dealing so much more burst damage with all your current power creep that the afraid mechanic is getting triggered much more fequently and with higher magnitude.  

 

 

[Brutal Justice]

Actually, here is a link and screen shot for comparison.  

https://web.archive.org/web/20120906193325/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=291155

 

Is Linea_Alba the same @Linea?

 

Notice in 6/11/2012 they expected the top end builds to be between 360 and 400 dps.  Now it’s 600dps!  Holy power creep Batman!   No wonder stuff is fleeing so much.  That’s how the afraid mechanic works.  

[Stormwalker]

43 minutes ago, Brutal Justice said:

Actually, here is a link and screen shot for comparison.  

https://web.archive.org/web/20120906193325/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=291155

 

Is Linea_Alba the same @Linea?

 

Notice in 6/11/2012 they expected the top end builds to be between 360 and 400 dps.  Now it’s 600dps!  Holy power creep Batman!   No wonder stuff is fleeing so much.  That’s how the afraid mechanic works.  

 

Nope, because it doesn't just happen at high level or with high-end builds.

 

It happens throughout the entire level range, and even with characters who have crappy builds (I should know; being relatively new to Homecoming, I don't exactly have huge amounts of inf yet, so I have been leveling characters in low-budget builds constantly since I started here a few weeks ago).

 

The difference between leveling my Claws/SR and DB/SR, who lack taunt auras, vs. my Energy Melee/Energy Aura, DB/WP, and Kinetic Melee/WP, who have taunt auras, is dramatic.

 

EDIT: In fact, let me go so far as to point out that my Electric/Electric blaster had Chernobog (an Elite Boss) fleeing from me at level 12 (EDIT: Actually, I think she was level 11 at the time.  She's level 12 now).  Which, since she's a blaster, utterly trivialized that fight.  Which is broken in an entirely different way.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Stormwalker

[Linea]

9 hours ago, Brutal Justice said:

Notice in 6/11/2012 they expected the top end builds to be between 360 and 400 dps.  Now it’s 600dps!  Holy power creep Batman!   No wonder stuff is fleeing so much.  That’s how the afraid mechanic works.  

Proc Builds have been exploited and perfected since then.  The non-proc high-recharge (heavy armor) version of Angel runs 400 dps, and that's on revamped EnM.

[Brutal Justice]

10 hours ago, Stormwalker said:

 

Nope, because it doesn't just happen at high level or with high-end builds.

 

It happens throughout the entire level range, and even with characters who have crappy builds (I should know; being relatively new to Homecoming, I don't exactly have huge amounts of inf yet, so I have been leveling characters in low-budget builds constantly since I started here a few weeks ago).

 

The difference between leveling my Claws/SR and DB/SR, who lack taunt auras, vs. my Energy Melee/Energy Aura, DB/WP, and Kinetic Melee/WP, who have taunt auras, is dramatic.

 

EDIT: In fact, let me go so far as to point out that my Electric/Electric blaster had Chernobog (an Elite Boss) fleeing from me at level 12 (EDIT: Actually, I think she was level 11 at the time.  She's level 12 now).  Which, since she's a blaster, utterly trivialized that fight.  Which is broken in an entirely different way.

I didn’t say it doesn’t happen.  It’s a mechanic that has existed for a very long time.  If you assassin strike and one shot a guy standing next to his buddy, the buddy flees.  That’s how the mechanic works.  Specific things trigger it.  

 

Sapping endurance triggers it.  Your elec/elec blaster is sapping and dealing lots of damage, que afraid.  

 

Large spikes of damage trigger it.  Instantly defeating guys triggers it.  Debuffs trigger it.  Generally anything that would logically demoralize them and cause them to flee for their life triggers the afraid mechanic.  

 

Those scrappers with burn in 2012 were causing flee.  They weren’t even triple procced like they are today.  It doesn’t require top end builds to trigger afraid. It’s not new.  It’s the same.  

 

Fight a couple purse snatchers on the street.  90% of the time one will run.  Always have.  Every group has one or two guys with low afraid thresholds.  

 

The final Romulus fight used to be tough.  It was fairly common to struggle and even fail that fight.  These days it’s much more common for him to go down in less than a minute and his support nictus to get wiped out just from collateral damage.  Que afraid!   

 

400 dps was considered THE top end.  Now it’s 600 and those 400s are much more prevalent.  I would fully expect a 66% damage increase to cause at minimum 66% more flee.  

[Stormwalker]

10 minutes ago, Brutal Justice said:

I didn’t say it doesn’t happen.  It’s a mechanic that has existed for a very long time.  If you assassin strike and one shot a guy standing next to his buddy, the buddy flees.  That’s how the mechanic works.  Specific things trigger it.  

 

Sapping endurance triggers it.  Your elec/elec blaster is sapping and dealing lots of damage, que afraid.  

 

Large spikes of damage trigger it.  Instantly defeating guys triggers it.  Debuffs trigger it.  Generally anything that would logically demoralize them and cause them to flee for their life triggers the afraid mechanic.  

 

Those scrappers with burn in 2012 were causing flee.  They weren’t even triple procced like they are today.  It doesn’t require top end builds to trigger afraid. It’s not new.  It’s the same.  

 

Fight a couple purse snatchers on the street.  90% of the time one will run.  Always have.  Every group has one or two guys with low afraid thresholds.  

 

The final Romulus fight used to be tough.  It was fairly common to struggle and even fail that fight.  These days it’s much more common for him to go down in less than a minute and his support nictus to get wiped out just from collateral damage.  Que afraid!   

 

400 dps was considered THE top end.  Now it’s 600 and those 400s are much more prevalent.  I would fully expect a 66% damage increase to cause at minimum 66% more flee.  

 

You're missing my point.

 

Runners happened on live, but never to the degree that we see here, not just in high-level characters or high-end builds, but throughout the level range and even in low-end builds that don't do significantly more damage than on Live.  I have seen excessive runners even with characters that are slotted with DO's!  Something has been changed, and the flee behavior is broken.

[SomeGuy]

12 minutes ago, Stormwalker said:

 

 

Runners happened on live, but never to the degree that we see here, not just in high-level characters or high-end builds, but throughout the level range and even in low-end builds that don't do significantly more damage than on Live.  I have seen excessive runners even with characters that are slotted with DO's!  Something has been changed, and the flee behavior is broken.

 

 

I noticed it too. You aren't alone.

[Brutal Justice]

Nah.  Pull up some videos from the old days and you’ll see runners in every mob they face.  So long as they aren’t locked down.  

 

Everyone at at every level does significantly more damage than they used to.  You have SOs from the start now.

[Stormwalker]

59 minutes ago, Brutal Justice said:

Nah.  Pull up some videos from the old days and you’ll see runners in every mob they face.  So long as they aren’t locked down.  

 

Everyone at at every level does significantly more damage than they used to.  You have SOs from the start now.

 

I never had problems with Elite Bosses running away in the old days (not counting Nemesis, who always runs after he puts his forcefield up, but he's a special case).  I never had the Kronos Class Titan run from me in the old days.  I sure as hell never had an Elite Boss run away from a level 12 blaster in the old days!

 

And as noted, I have seen this kind of thing in characters that were slotted entirely with DO's.  You don't believe me because you don't want to believe me, but it's true, and I'm not the only person who is seeing it.

[Galactiman]

This must have been introduced in the i24 beta, because it's happening on other servers as well. Either the original devs changed it on purpose or it was a bug in the beta that no one has bothered to fix.

[Stormwalker]

16 minutes ago, Galactiman said:

This must have been introduced in the i24 beta, because it's happening on other servers as well. Either the original devs changed it on purpose or it was a bug in the beta that no one has bothered to fix.

 

It could have been before that, as far as I know.  I was on hiatus from the game (I did that pretty regularly, to keep from burning out) at the time that they announced they were closing it down.  Think I missed Issue 22 and 23 entirely.  But during the time that I was actually playing on Live, it was never as bad as it is on HC, at any level or in any build.

 

To put it in other terms, I never felt the lack of a taunt aura on Live.  Didn't feel that much difference between my characters that had one and those that didn't.  Sure, there were runners from time to time, but it never felt like a problem on Live.  On HC, I actively miss the presence of that taunt aura anytime I don't have it.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Stormwalker

[SomeGuy]

5 hours ago, Galactiman said:

This must have been introduced in the i24 beta, because it's happening on other servers as well. Either the original devs changed it on purpose or it was a bug in the beta that no one has bothered to fix.

 

HC devs did it. It wasn't a thing on Beta. At least this iteration. The original devs DID add more of a flee mechanic, but that was a long long time ago (think when Going Rogue went live).

[Apparition]

1 hour ago, SomeGuy said:

 

HC devs did it. It wasn't a thing on Beta. At least this iteration. The original devs DID add more of a flee mechanic, but that was a long long time ago (think when Going Rogue went live).

 

Bingo.  IIRC, this behavior was added in the last few issues of live IIRC.  I have the suspicion that those attributing it to Homecoming didn’t play much the last two years or so of live.

 

 I also have the feeling that it was intentional.  For example, Director 11 terrorizes himself to make him flee.

[Marshal_General]

It makes you wonder why we spend so much effort slotting defenses up when all we need is a debuff toggle and some running shoes.

 

Drop a toggle on an AV and chase him down!

[Sovera]

On 8/9/2022 at 4:38 PM, Marshal_General said:

It makes you wonder why we spend so much effort slotting defenses up when all we need is a debuff toggle and some running shoes.

 

Drop a toggle on an AV and chase him down!

 

Been toying with the idea of a FA Scrapper/Stalker with the very idea that dropping Burn is actually a defensive since mobs will stop hitting me to scatter.

[DyingLegacy]

On my widow, I use that electric shackles aoe immobilize patron power to compensate for not having any kind of taunt aura.  It works pretty well.  I just use it in my attack rotation and it keeps enemies rooted so they can’t run.