Can scrappers get a Taunt aura for Super reflexes?

[Doomguide2005]

@UltraAlt

     The first part of the response, well I guess I wasn't clear but I agree overall with you.  There's likely a large degree of annoyed and frustrated emotion behind the OP's " chasing half" of each spawn down but I've never come close to having to chase half a given spawn down.  The few runners I do see I generally don't have to chase.  Both Focus and Shockwave are ranged attacks ... so they just get whacked at distance no 'chase' involved.  Worst case my movement speeds are sufficient to readily and rapidly over take the fairly rare runners.  

 

     As this part wasn't directed at anyone specific, just the thread in general.  @Ston mentioned the AI causes foes to flee if they take 10 tics of damage and it made me think about how scrappers with taunt auras how those auras in addition to benefitting the scrapper also tend debuff.  The debuff I suspect would also cause a response to run much like damage.  The taunt is there to help counter the additional "RUN" influence of the debuff.  Maybe, I'm just guilty of thinking outloud in this case (and running out of typing time prior to work).

Edited November 2, 2023 by Doomguide2005

[UltraAlt]

15 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Both Focus and Shockwave are ranged attacks

 

For my mystic based melee characters I use the Arcane Bold (https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Sorcery#Arcane_Bolt)

I use the ranged Force of Will on the Jedi or Cosmic-based melee characters.

I don't always take a ranged attack on my melee characters. It depends on character conception.

 

22 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

@Ston mentioned the AI causes foes to flee if they take 10 tics of damage and it made me think about how scrappers with taunt auras how those auras in addition to benefitting the scrapper also tend debuff.  The debuff I suspect would also cause a response to run much like damage.

 

Yeah, I don't know.

But I wouldn't think they would run as soon as they got 10 ticks of damage. That doesn't make sense. They should at least stick around as long as the agro holds from taking the damage. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ston]

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

Yeah, I don't know.

But I wouldn't think they would run as soon as they got 10 ticks of damage. That doesn't make sense. They should at least stick around as long as the agro holds from taking the damage.

This is how it works in the code for most enemies. There are exceptions like Vahzilok zombies that will never run. But most enemies have a baseline of running away for 10 ticks of damage within a few seconds. This can be any kind of damage tick.. procs, DoT, interface, etc. For example, an attack with 2 damage types will count as 2 ticks of damage since they are separate on combat logs.

They're also programmed to run away sooner if their allies have been defeated near them or if you're higher level than them. The only way they will keep attacking you is if they're taunted or they outnumber you and you're lower on HP than them.

I have been requesting for this to be changed and I think devs are aware.

Edited November 2, 2023 by Ston

[UltraAlt]

3 hours ago, Ston said:

This is how it works in the code for most enemies. There are exceptions like Vahzilok zombies that will never run. But most enemies have a baseline of running away for 10 ticks of damage within a few seconds. This can be any kind of damage tick.. procs, DoT, interface, etc. For example, an attack with 2 damage types will count as 2 ticks of damage since they are separate on combat logs.

 

So if you are using "ticks of damage" to equate to "1 attack of a single damage type" then is unlikely that someone soloing is going to cause 10 ticks of damage with a few seconds - even with dual or multi-damage type attacks as most attacks take over 2 seconds.

 

3 hours ago, Ston said:

They're also programmed to run away sooner if their allies have been defeated near them or if you're higher level than them.

 

This would point towards why I'm experiencing this. My characters are generally fighting enemies that are always above my character's level.

 

4 hours ago, Ston said:

The only way they will keep attacking you is if they're taunted or they outnumber you and you're lower on HP than them.

 

... and, when soloing, they obviously outnumber my character until there is only one left.

 

Which leads back to the OP situation.

Based on your information they are fighting against enemies that are at least one level below them (dif set to -1 or stale missions), able to do 10 ticks of damage in a "few" sections by themselves, and have killed 1 (one) enemy.

This seems to be a non-standard situation to me.

[Ston]

6 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

So if you are using "ticks of damage" to equate to "1 attack of a single damage type" then is unlikely that someone soloing is going to cause 10 ticks of damage with a few seconds - even with dual or multi-damage type attacks as most attacks take over 2 seconds.

 

You definitely can and often do. I did a test where I used unslotted Freezing Touch on a +4 boss. Since the power does 10 ticks of damage, it always make made them run away. Even though the damage was super low. In practice, this happens all the time since interface, procs, and DoT are stacking damage on enemies often. I think it needs to be within 10 seconds.

 

If you hit an enemy with two attacks quickly and fire off 5 procs in each, they’ll run away.

 

It’s just way too sensitive. 

[UltraAlt]

17 minutes ago, Ston said:

You definitely can and often do. I did a test where I used unslotted Freezing Touch on a +4 boss. Since the power does 10 ticks of damage, it always make made them run away. Even though the damage was super low. In practice, this happens all the time since interface, procs, and DoT are stacking damage on enemies often. I think it needs to be within 10 seconds.

 

"You" is relative. Not all characters are going to have DoT damage.

Enemies running from fire attacks make sense. They will try to flee from standing on caltrops and "rain" attacks as well.

I don't think the code to be changed so that enemies will standing and fight on caltrops. Seems kind of silly to make that kind of change to me.

 

Aside from the DoT...

10 seconds does give the chance for 3 maybe 4 attacks (depending on animation time). Not all attacks do 2 damage types. I agree that most procs that would be added to a power would be for different damage type.

That seems it would rarely get to 10 ticks of damage in 10 seconds, but far more likely for some sets than others.

 

When it comes down to it, if an enemy runs away while I'm taking out their friends, then they are one less incoming damage attack that I have to deal with.

[Luminara]

37 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

So if you are using "ticks of damage" to equate to "1 attack of a single damage type" then is unlikely that someone soloing is going to cause 10 ticks of damage with a few seconds - even with dual or multi-damage type attacks as most attacks take over 2 seconds.

[honoroit]

if there was one sweeping improvement that could be made to scrapper, for me, itd be across-the-board replacement of 'confront' with (ideally) a mix of utility, aoe taunt, and various other powers in that slot --> varying by power set, and ideally thematically so.

 

or just confront >> taunt very simply.

 

as is, wasted choice, inferior to powerpool taunt.

 

Figs - scrapper who's confront power was replaced with a temp wolf summon that charges and KD.

Edited November 3, 2023 by honoroit
figs

[Rudra]

16 minutes ago, honoroit said:

as is, wasted choice, inferior to powerpool taunt.

Scrapper Confront has a 70 feet range, 11.25 second duration, and a -75% range debuff (move to you effect). Presence pool Provoke has a 60 feet range, 6 second duration, and no move to you effect. Sure, Confront is a single target ability and Provoke is a 15 feet radius with a target max of 5, but not seeing the inferiority of Confront to Provoke here. I can make mobs move to me from farther away with Confront, and they will keep doing so for longer.

 

(Edit: And if Scrapper Confront was made AoE, then what advantage would Brute Taunt have? Brute's only advantage with their Taunt is theirs is an AoE. And Tankers' advantage over Brutes, is the better move to you effect they have.)

Edited November 3, 2023 by Rudra

[honoroit]

7 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Scrapper Confront has a 70 feet range, 11.25 second duration, and a -75% range debuff (move to you effect). Presence pool Provoke has a 60 feet range, 6 second duration, and no move to you effect. Sure, Confront is a single target ability and Provoke is a 15 feet radius with a target max of 5, but not seeing the inferiority of Confront to Provoke here. I can make mobs move to me from farther away with Confront, and they will keep doing so for longer.

 

(Edit: And if Scrapper Confront was made AoE, then what advantage would Brute Taunt have? Brute's only advantage with their Taunt is theirs is an AoE. And Tankers' advantage over Brutes, is the better move to you effect they have.)

 

it wouldnt matter, youd just have better mov herding.

 

the brute is more rovust, so theres an 'advantage'.

 

id rather have a low duration rushing wolfy 🦊 fox summon, instead of confront.

[Rudra]

20 minutes ago, honoroit said:

 

it wouldnt matter, youd just have better mov herding.

 

the brute is more rovust, so theres an 'advantage'.

 

id rather have a low duration rushing wolfy 🦊 fox summon, instead of confront.

The Brute having a higher resist cap and HP base has no bearing on the Taunt/Confront debate. Tankers get the best Taunt. Brutes get the second best. Scrappers get Confront which is the third best version of Taunt. And anyone can grab Provoke from Presence if they so desire. So if a Scrapper player thinks Provoke is better than Confront? They can take it. It has no prerequisites and is even available earlier than Scrapper Confront.

 

If you would rather have a wolf or fox summon instead? Suggest a pool power that has pets. (Though I guarantee the pets won't keep up with Controller/Dominator pets or Mastermind pets. Which is how it should be. Probably have the long recharge of the Soldier of Arachnos pets with a limited duration per summon. [Edit: And may even be limited to Underling status.... Who knows.] You can still propose it and see what happens though.)

Edited November 3, 2023 by Rudra

[Doomguide2005]

If all it takes is 10 tics in a 'short' period of time I'm surprised in some ways I don't get (notice?) more runners especially once I get into Incarnate abilities.  Between procs, (Interface) Reactive, (Hybrid) Assault and DoT attacks the number of tics occuring fairly quickly is probably higher than i think or aware of occurring 

[A.I.D.A.]

I'm fairly certain they start to run at a certain HP%, and it has nothing to do with number of damage instances taken.

[Rudra]

What about the enemies, including EBs and AVs, that just up and run away even when they take no damage and no enemies have been injured in their group? You know the ones I'm talking about, right? The ones that you drop a Darkest Night on them, or throw a Tar Patch under them, or any other debuff, and they turn tail and run to who knows where without ever even taking a single point of damage or having any part of their spawn take so much as a single point of damage.

[Ston]

40 minutes ago, A.I.D.A. said:

I'm fairly certain they start to run at a certain HP%, and it has nothing to do with number of damage instances taken.

 

HP% is a factor, but it is directly tied to ticks of damage taken. I can link the Ourodev code later. Other factors are rank, level difference, number of allies alive/defeated. 

 

You can test this with Freezing Touch on any enemy. Or even spamming Brawl/Boxing + Interface DoT. Enemy will eventually run away even if they have 95% HP left.

[Doomguide2005]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

What about the enemies, including EBs and AVs, that just up and run away even when they take no damage and no enemies have been injured in their group? You know the ones I'm talking about, right? The ones that you drop a Darkest Night on them, or throw a Tar Patch under them, or any other debuff, and they turn tail and run to who knows where without ever even taking a single point of damage or having any part of their spawn take so much as a single point of damage.

Going to guess this is covered by the portion of the Threat equation called "AI Mod" or perhaps buried in a similar value in a similar equation related to "Run/Avoid/Afraid". This value is largely unknown per the wiki article and I'm just throwing that out for thought.

[A.I.D.A.]

11 hours ago, Ston said:

 

HP% is a factor, but it is directly tied to ticks of damage taken. I can link the Ourodev code later. Other factors are rank, level difference, number of allies alive/defeated. 

 

You can test this with Freezing Touch on any enemy. Or even spamming Brawl/Boxing + Interface DoT. Enemy will eventually run away even if they have 95% HP left.

 

Interesting. Probably a poor design choice on the part of Cryptic back in the day. Imagine being demoralized enough to flee a fight with 90% of your HP left, because you took 1 damage, 20 times. Not to mention dual-typed powers probably also count as two 'ticks' in that framework.

 

I think it's important that enemies start to run away when things turn against them -- it's that tiny little extra bit of immersion preserved, rather than the lone gangster fighting to the end while surrounded by his dead buddies.

 

That being said, it would be even more immersive if fleeing enemies would either flee toward a mission exit, and despawn if they reach it, essentially having escaped / fled the scene, or toward other groups of enemies (possibly also sharing their threat table with those enemies and causing agro).

 

In any case, my general experience with runners has been that if one does manage to get away, they do eventually come back later while I'm fighting a different mob group.

Edited November 4, 2023 by A.I.D.A.

[UltraAlt]

5 hours ago, A.I.D.A. said:

Interesting. Probably a poor design choice on the part of Cryptic back in the day. Imagine being demoralized enough to flee a fight with 90% of your HP left, because you took 1 damage, 20 times. Not to mention dual-typed powers probably also count as two 'ticks' in that framework.

 

It's functioning the same way as running way from caltrops, ice patches, freezing rain, etc.

The persistent damage is the trigger to run away from  the source of the damage.

 

I think it makes sense. 

 

Not all scrapper primaries have DoT.

 

To some extent, thinning out the crowd so you have less to fight at one time is a benefit.

 

Same goes with the scrapper challenge/confront/etc. (it is named different things in every scrapper primary - at least many of them) is a single target pull to allow a scrapper to draw enemies out of a crowd and defeat them one at a time. It is a matter of distance and LoS (Line of sight) - like any other pull, if others notice, they might respond.

 

I know that many players seem to only want to use one tactic these days: Bull-in-the-china-shop aka steam-rolling - these aren't really tactics - they are just charging in and "Hulk smash." There is no attempt to take advantage of the terrain, dividing an enemy mob, or picking off the members of a mob that are most helpful for the opposing force.

[Sakura Tenshi]

On 11/1/2023 at 12:19 PM, Ston said:

Yep, Evasion is a taunt aura on Brutes/Tankers: https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=tanker_defense.super_reflexes.evasion&at=tanker

I don't think every Scrapper set needs taunt aura. I think the game just needs to fix the terrible AI feeling engine that forces enemies to run away if they take 10 ticks of damage within a certain amount of time.

 

This would be nice, though in some cases it does make sense for the enemy to flee melee, most noteably it's an AI feature with Mook Hitmen who use sniper rifles. I think most normal snipers from other mobs similarly try to avoid being stuck in melee with a player too.

 

Just in general, AI improvements could be useful but it's probably one of the harder things to fix.

[Rudra]

2 minutes ago, Sakura Tenshi said:

 

This would be nice, though in some cases it does make sense for the enemy to flee melee, most noteably it's an AI feature with Mook Hitmen who use sniper rifles. I think most normal snipers from other mobs similarly try to avoid being stuck in melee with a player too.

 

Just in general, AI improvements could be useful but it's probably one of the harder things to fix.

No. Snipers have no movement ability. That is why no matter what you do to them, they stand their ground and die. Throw an array of DoTs on them including caltrops and every debuff in the game on them, and they will not move. They will not flee from battle, they will not pursue your character, they will not shift to get an angle to be able to shoot at your character, they will not move at all except to turn in place. Because they can't. Mook Hitmen are actually lieutenant class mobs, not sniper class mobs. So they can run away, and are coded to maintain range most times.

[twozerofoxtrot]

On 11/2/2023 at 7:43 AM, FupDup said:

I also think that there should be a generic taunt aura added to the Presence Pool as a tier 2 ability (need 1 prereq to pick it up).

 

 

Personally I love this and it probably deserves to be its own thread. 

 

Considering how superfluous Intimidate is compared to either Pacify or Invoke Panic, this would add a lot to the 'pickabilitiy' of the Presence Pool. It doesn't even have a to be a strong Taunt Aura. Mag 2, with a tohit check. That seems fair.

It would open up tons of options besides just giving "scrappers taunt auras," including but not limited to doubling up on taunt auras with AT combos that already run them for a glueball build.

 

And no, I'm not just hyping this idea up cause that's exactly what I want to do with my SR tank that has Unrelenting as a combat heal option.

>.> 
<.<

 

 

Edited November 6, 2023 by twozerofoxtrot
it's vs. its. It's tricky.

[Rudra]

8 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

Considering how superfluous Intimidate is compared to either Pacify or Invoke Panic, this would add a lot to the 'pickabilitiy' of the Presence Pool. It doesn't even have a to be a strong Taunt Aura. Mag 2, with a tohit check. That seems fair.

As long as you are not talking about taking Intimidate away in exchange for the taunt aura, sure. I actually took and use Intimidate on my Blaster. (Edit: Invoke Panic is useless to my characters because I have to be in their midst to use it. Intimidate lets me hover at range and make someone leave me alone until I'm ready for them.)

Edited November 6, 2023 by Rudra

[Wavicle]

On 11/1/2023 at 11:36 AM, BlueValkyrie said:

SR is a fun powerset, but I've found it to be annoying on scrappers due to its lack of Taunt aura.  Evasion gives taunt for brutes and tanks but not for scrappers or stalkers; and when soloing its annoying as hell to chase down half the enemies your fighting as they go running randomly throughout the map. 

 

Even Energy Aura gets a taunt, and a stealth, which can be a little hypocritical. 

There's nothing "hypocritical" about it. What a bizarre misuse of the word.

Energy Aura's Taunt aura is Entropic Aura, which increases your recharge PER ENEMY IN RANGE.

ALL Scrappers with auras that boost per enemy in range also have Taunt. Those without don't. That is the rule, and they should stick to that rule. If you want a Scrapper with a Taunt aura there are options to do so. If you want a Scrapper WITHOUT a Taunt aura there are also options to do so and SR is one of those.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Wavicle

[FupDup]

4 hours ago, Rudra said:

As long as you are not talking about taking Intimidate away in exchange for the taunt aura, sure. I actually took and use Intimidate on my Blaster. (Edit: Invoke Panic is useless to my characters because I have to be in their midst to use it. Intimidate lets me hover at range and make someone leave me alone until I'm ready for them.)

Yes, what I am proposing is simply adding a sixth power choice to the pool that requires 1 prerequisite. You can keep using the other existing powers in it with no changes. 

[gameboy1234]

On 11/1/2023 at 11:36 AM, BlueValkyrie said:

SR is a fun powerset, but I've found it to be annoying on scrappers due to its lack of Taunt aura.

 

 

I agree with other folks that SR is, thematically, a set that should avoid lots of aggro rather than attracting it.  That said I've felt for a while that Taunt should be made more available for players who want it.  I think perhaps something like both the radius of the Taunt power as well as the number of folks it can hit should be enhanced by adding Taunt IOs.  The Taunt powers as well as Confront and Provoke should work this way (so tankers don't get left out, and I think Confront is always single target, so it'll have to start with at least a small radius and a small number of initial hits).  This would give folks a lot more options for choosing how they want their powers to behave.