Presence Power Pool - Provoke

[dukedukes]

The entire Presence pool could probably use a rework or rebalance but for this topic I'll focus on Provoke. My stance is Provoke is drastically weaker than melee taunts, it's still usable but I think it could receive a bump in effectiveness in one way, but first I'll show a comparison:

 

• Provoke uniquely (for taunts) requires an accuracy check in pve.
• The Melee_Taunt AT value (this modifies your taunt duration) on characters you would take this power on (non-melee) is quite low, the taunt duration is only 8.24 seconds compared to 23.1 seconds for a scrapper taunt or 41 seconds for tankers. Even Sentinels get this awful duration.
• 10ft less range than melee taunts
• No -range reduction. Melee taunts apply -75% range, so when you taunt most mobs will run straight to your face.

 

The first 3 downsides listed can be improved with slot investment, which is great. I think power pool powers should require more investment to be feasible to use. Let's talk about the -range though: melee basically just get their taunt power for the -range, and Provoke doesn't get a lesser version of this, it doesn't get -range at all.

 

My suggestion is to give this power a lesser version of the -range debuff, somewhere between 25% to 50% -range.

 

I'll address the main argument against this change. A ranged player could Provoke and stay at a far distance from the target to never get attacked, this is a good argument! My counterpoint to this is this is possible anyway with enough +range, Provoke then would only enable this strategy in smaller areas where you can't stand far enough away.

This change would improve the usability of Provoke for the general use purpose of why you would taunt in the first place: to get mobs to run to you. Currently with Provoke to get mobs moving you have to move very far away beyond their range or line-of-sight. Having to move away less would make the power much more usable, but still appropriately weaker than melee taunts.

[Uun]

2 hours ago, dukedukes said:

No -range reduction. Melee taunts apply -75% range, so when you taunt most mobs will run straight to your face.

Provoke is an AoE taunt. Only Tanker and White/Black Dwarf taunts provide AoE -range (Tanker -range is -100%). While Brute taunt is AoE, its -range applies only to the primary target. Scrapper taunt and -range are both single target. Asking for a pool power to provide AoE -range that brutes and scrappers don't get in their primaries is unrealistic.

[FupDup]

5 minutes ago, Uun said:

Provoke is an AoE taunt. Only Tanker and White/Black Dwarf taunts provide AoE -range (Tanker -range is -100%). While Brute taunt is AoE, its -range applies only to the primary target. Scrapper taunt and -range are both single target. Asking for a pool power to provide AoE -range that brutes and scrappers don't get in their primaries is unrealistic.

Provoke aside, it would make sense for Brutes to have the AOE -range too because they're lumped in with Tankers into the tank role (based on res/hp caps, -healing cap, armor set design, punchvoke & taunt auras...). 

[dukedukes]

3 minutes ago, Uun said:

Provoke is an AoE taunt. Only Tanker and White/Black Dwarf taunts provide AoE -range (Tanker -range is -100%). While Brute taunt is AoE, its -range applies only to the primary target. Scrapper taunt and -range are both single target. Asking for a pool power to provide AoE -range that brutes and scrappers don't get in their primaries is unrealistic.

Maybe it varies between mobs but tanker -range is 75% when applied to its target, probably due to some -range floor on the mobs attribute sheet. This is what I see using the power analyzer anyway.
 

Brutes taunt does apply the -range to nearby targets but you're right about scrappers taunt being single target. Scrapper taunt is also a 3 second recharge vs 10 seconds for everyone else, so scrappers taunt is situationally more efficient (taunting 2+ stragglers not near each other). Scrappers aren't tanks so the suggestion wouldn't hurt their identity much. Scrappers do also get the lovely auto-hit behaviour.
 

The suggestion asks for a marginal improvement toward the core purpose of why anyone would use taunt in most scenarios. A 25% or 50% reduction would require extra effort to make it work, you'd certainly have to make up the difference in range by moving your character to kite the taunted mob where you want it to be, so the disadvantage implied by Provoke being a power pool power would still apply.

[Uun]

21 minutes ago, dukedukes said:

Maybe it varies between mobs but tanker -range is 75% when applied to its target, probably due to some -range floor on the mobs attribute sheet. This is what I see using the power analyzer anyway.

You are correct that the range floor is 25%.

 

 

23 minutes ago, dukedukes said:

Brutes taunt does apply the -range to nearby targets

Nope. Brute Taunt -range effect has a 0 ft radius vs. 15 ft radius for the taunt effect. 

 

[dukedukes]

2 minutes ago, Uun said:

Nope. Brute Taunt -range effect has a 0 ft radius vs. 15 ft radius for the taunt effect. 

Apparently Brute taunts are all over the place, I never play them so that's news to me. I tested with Fiery Melee and it reduces range for all targets.

[dukedukes]

IMO Brutes should reduce range for all affected targets. It would be unfortunate to select a primary based on the taunt behaviour.

[Uun]

7 minutes ago, dukedukes said:

Apparently Brute taunts are all over the place, I never play them so that's news to me. I tested with Fiery Melee and it reduces range for all targets.

A quick check indicates that 8 of the 22 brute primaries lack the -range radius restriction. I doubt this is intentional and is likely a bug or an oversight.

[dukedukes]

16 minutes ago, Uun said:

A quick check indicates that 8 of the 22 brute primaries lack the -range radius restriction. I doubt this is intentional and is likely a bug or an oversight.

It could be. I posted a bug for this, hopefully it doesn't nerf a future characters taunt.

 

[Rudra]

4 hours ago, dukedukes said:

My stance is Provoke is drastically weaker than melee taunts,

Well, power pool powers are supposed to be weaker than primary/secondary set versions. Then you also have the considerations others have already posted. So to me, Provoke looks to be pretty well balanced between Taunt and Confront, with only the accuracy check making it weaker. And again, as a power pool selection, it is supposed to be weaker.

[Super Atom]

5 hours ago, dukedukes said:

The entire Presence pool could probably use a rework or rebalance

 

i dunno about entire. the taunt could be better by adding half -range values from normal taunts based on AT and like idk just make all but unrelenting available right away so you just take whatever two you like and we can move the fuck on

[tidge]

I like the Presence pool, but the big problems are IMO:

 

1) The first three powers are orthogonal to each other, and you must take two of them (to get the 4th or 5th)

2) Aside from a casual chance at doubling up a single-target with 2 different Fears, there is no synergy to the powers

3) Intimidate and Invoke Panic are both first selectable at level 14 (no reason to force delay of Intimidate so long IMO)

[FupDup]

Presence could really use a toggle taunt aura as a 6th power choice, being a T2 option (only need 1 prereq first). So then people could do something like Provoke + Aura + Unrelenting for example. 

[dukedukes]

2 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Well, power pool powers are supposed to be weaker than primary/secondary set versions. Then you also have the considerations others have already posted. So to me, Provoke looks to be pretty well balanced between Taunt and Confront, with only the accuracy check making it weaker. And again, as a power pool selection, it is supposed to be weaker.

I have pointed out power pools should be weaker, Provoke passing the boolean state of being weaker is too simple of an argument. I listed four weaknesses and pointed out many of them make sense. The question is about scale or how much weaker the power should be.

 

Let's exhaust the steps to complete a taunt pull for two characters:

Tanker

1. Maybe move to target but probably not

2. Press Taunt

3. Very rarely some enemy types may have gigantic range, moving 10 ft could do the job in most cases I suspect

 

Provoke

1. Likely move to target as you could be positioned anywhere and have shorter range, not the middle of a pack like a tanker

2. Press Provoke. Because you are closer and with lack of -range the targets may attack you immediately which slows the pull

3a. Move 30-80 ft away from where you want the mob to run to. There is a big cost involved in this movement as you may not be able to use some powers effectively at your new position

3b. Maybe you block line of sight if it's feasible. This position may prevent you from using powers on any enemies til the taunted target reaches its destination but this isn't always the case. The best case is very similar to a tank! It doesn't always work out this way though

4. Wait however many seconds til the enemy reaches the destination. Depending on pathing this could be your entire taunt duration or more in really bad cases. Pathfinding can suck

5. Move back to where you would prefer to be

 

I still use Provoke and may be the only person who does but the dance I do to make it function is a bit much. I'm cool with jumping through hoops to make it work, I'd just like the hoops to be a bit closer together. Please compare this process to the abomination that is Fold Space.

 

37 minutes ago, Super Atom said:

 

i dunno about entire. the taunt could be better by adding half -range values from normal taunts based on AT and like idk just make all but unrelenting available right away so you just take whatever two you like and we can move the fuck on

The pool looks dated, the ST fear CD seems too big, Unrelenting's stats are nothing special for its uptime though the rez is cool. The AOE fear is fine. If there were a rework I'd like to see a toggle, I don't really care what it does in terms of debuff, damage, etc, but it should have a radius that pulls mob aggro like a taunt aura with or without taunt, much like poisons Venomous Gas pulls aggro on nearby targets.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, dukedukes said:

Let's exhaust the steps to complete a taunt pull for two characters:

Tanker

1. Maybe move to target but probably not

2. Press Taunt

3. Very rarely some enemy types may have gigantic range, moving 10 ft could do the job in most cases I suspect

 

Provoke

1. Likely move to target as you could be positioned anywhere and have shorter range, not the middle of a pack like a tanker

2. Press Provoke. Because you are closer and with lack of -range the targets may attack you immediately which slows the pull

3a. Move 30-80 ft away from where you want the mob to run to. There is a big cost involved in this movement as you may not be able to use some powers effectively at your new position

3b. Maybe you block line of sight if it's feasible. This position may prevent you from using powers on any enemies til the taunted target reaches its destination but this isn't always the case. The best case is very similar to a tank! It doesn't always work out this way though

4. Wait however many seconds til the enemy reaches the destination. Depending on pathing this could be your entire taunt duration or more in really bad cases. Pathfinding can suck

5. Move back to where you would prefer to be

 

I still use Provoke and may be the only person who does but the dance I do to make it function is a bit much. I'm cool with jumping through hoops to make it work, I'd just like the hoops to be a bit closer together. Please compare this process to the abomination that is Fold Space.

Let's simplify it and look at what the powers do.

 

Confront: ST, autohit, -range.

Taunt: AoE, autohit, -range.

Provoke: AoE, hit check.

 

Provoke sits nicely between Confront and Taunt. It hits more targets than Confront, letting the player grab the attention of more foes in a single try, but does not cause the targets to move to the character and can miss. The move to the character is nice, but not crucial to the ability to get mobs' attention. Especially since you can draw the mobs to you by using Provoke and then moving behind cover so they have to move to you to be able to target you because of being provoked. Confront has to target every target you want to pull off a friend individually. It being an autohit with a really fast recharge is great, but it falls behind in being ST. Taunt targets an area while being autohit, but only draws in the targeted mob. I'm not going to be able to change your mind, of that I am fairly certain. However, being able to affect multiple targets with a single use of the power at the expense of a hit check seems quite fair to me to sit between Confront and Taunt. With the -range being nice and all, but not critical to ATs that don't already specialize in drawing in enemies. And those ATs have either Confront or Taunt available to them.

 

Edit: Now lets say provoke is given a -range component as well. Even with a hit check required, it stomps Confront. It does so because improving accuracy is ridiculously easy. So now a pool power will hit more targets than a primary power, draw them in to the character, and only has an easily countered hit check requirement. Why ever bother with Confront when Provoke is now so much better than it?

 

Edited Friday at 07:50 PM by Rudra
Edited to add missing punctuation.

[dukedukes]

I thought about the specific -range value that could work well. There's a possibility of using @Super Atoms suggestion of basing it on an AT value but at the low end ~37.5% would be good as this will be reduced by purple patch to around 25% vs +3. This is around the value I expect would prevent an immediate counter-attack after provoking in most cases, and the out-range distance would still require you to extend yourself a good ways away from where you want the mobs, but close enough so you can try to be useful in other ways while waiting for the mobs to kite over. This would make the power more useful but still laborious to use.

 

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Even with a hit check required, it stomps Confront. It does so because improving accuracy is ridiculously easy

 

Auto-hit has value, especially for utility powers. I think a lot of people would give something up for an auto-hit power. Consistency has value.

 

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

The move to the character is nice, but not crucial to the ability to get mobs' attention. Especially since you can draw the mobs to you by using Provoke and then moving behind cover

 

I only consider taunt useful as a grouping tool, the use cases for simply holding aggro as a non-tank are too slim to consider. Preventing runners (inefficiently), helping a teammate who got too much attention, I can't think of much else. I've used provoke on AV's to help squishier players when we lack a tank but that's about it. Yes you can corner pull and sometimes this works out great, other times not so much. I went into detail on this describing my pull process. I have this power often and because of the lengthy and inactive pull process it heavily limits if the power can be used.

 

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Provoke sits nicely between Confront and Taunt

 

I see scrapper taunt as not being applicable to the same scenarios, I wouldn't use it more than a couple times a fight. If I see a boss on the outskirts I'll go ahead and taunt them in. A bunch of Lt's and minions? I wouldn't. It's a weaker version of the tankers taunt mainly expressed through its limited use cases.

 

Provoke is also a weaker version of tankers taunt, but looking at Provoke as a weaker version of a power of a weaker version of power (provoke < confront < taunt) isn't necessarily the frame of reference I would use to look at this problem, I would instead look at Provoke as a different and distinct weaker version of taunt. The Provoke I'm proposing in my suggestion would absolutely not be used by a scrapper or any melee because it isn't enough -range. If they tried to use the power the mobs would stop very early, the scrapper would have to run away from all the other enemies for the taunted mob to close in, that's not going to happen. Melee need larger range reductions, they can't compromise so much on every single use of the power.

 

The suggestion still leaves Provoke as a power requiring you to perform several other actions to effectively use it as a grouping tool, it is better than scrapper taunt in some ways and worse in other ways. Both would be separate and distinct weaker versions of the tankers taunt. 

 

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

With the -range being nice and all, but not critical to ATs that don't already specialize in drawing in enemies

This is a point I care about quite a bit, which is AT identity. I wouldn't want Provoke to dominate Taunt or get close to its effectiveness, that's why Provokes other three weaknesses are fine, I just think it needs a small range reduction to make it usable in more scenarios than it is now. If the devs value -range highly enough even at lower values then so be it, that's up to their judgement, I can only raise the suggestion and I'm fine with disagreeing on perceived value.

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, dukedukes said:

I thought about the specific -range value that could work well. There's a possibility of using @Super Atoms suggestion of basing it on an AT value but at the low end ~37.5% would be good as this will be reduced by purple patch to around 25% vs +3. This is around the value I expect would prevent an immediate counter-attack after provoking in most cases, and the out-range distance would still require you to extend yourself a good ways away from where you want the mobs, but close enough so you can try to be useful in other ways while waiting for the mobs to kite over. This would make the power more useful but still laborious to use.

 

 

Auto-hit has value, especially for utility powers. I think a lot of people would give something up for an auto-hit power. Consistency has value.

 

 

I only consider taunt useful as a grouping tool, the use cases for simply holding aggro as a non-tank are too slim to consider. Preventing runners (inefficiently), helping a teammate who got too much attention, I can't think of much else. I've used provoke on AV's to help squishier players when we lack a tank but that's about it. Yes you can corner pull and sometimes this works out great, other times not so much. I went into detail on this describing my pull process. I have this power often and because of the lengthy and inactive pull process it heavily limits if the power can be used.

 

 

I see scrapper taunt as not being applicable to the same scenarios, I wouldn't use it more than a couple times a fight. If I see a boss on the outskirts I'll go ahead and taunt them in. A bunch of Lt's and minions? I wouldn't. It's a weaker version of the tankers taunt mainly expressed through its limited use cases.

 

Provoke is also a weaker version of tankers taunt, but looking at Provoke as a weaker version of a power of a weaker version of power (provoke < confront < taunt) isn't necessarily the frame of reference I would use to look at this problem, I would instead look at Provoke as a different and distinct weaker version of taunt. The Provoke I'm proposing in my suggestion would absolutely not be used by a scrapper or any melee because it isn't enough -range. If they tried to use the power the mobs would stop very early, the scrapper would have to run away from all the other enemies for the taunted mob to close in, that's not going to happen. Melee need larger range reductions, they can't compromise so much on every single use of the power.

 

The suggestion still leaves Provoke as a power requiring you to perform several other actions to effectively use it as a grouping tool, it is better than scrapper taunt in some ways and worse in other ways. Both would be separate and distinct weaker versions of the tankers taunt. 

 

This is a point I care about quite a bit, which is AT identity. I wouldn't want Provoke to dominate Taunt or get close to its effectiveness, that's why Provokes other three weaknesses are fine, I just think it needs a small range reduction to make it usable in more scenarios than it is now. If the devs value -range highly enough even at lower values then so be it, that's up to their judgement, I can only raise the suggestion and I'm fine with disagreeing on perceived value.

Confront and Taunt serve the same purpose. Confront lets the Scrapper pick who they want taunted while Taunt lets Tankers and Brutes just grab everyone. (Being able to draw your selected target as opposed to the entire spawn does not make Confront weaker. It makes more tailored to the concept of the Scrapper.) Choosing to ignore Confront for the sake of buffing Provoke, choosing to ignore Scrappers because you only care about Tanker identity, just means you are choosing to step on Confront. Any -range is a useful tool when you want to draw targets in for any reason. Confront lets you spam the ability to draw in while Taunt tries to do it all at once. Provoke lets you currently draw attention away from others without stepping on Tankers, Brutes, or Scrappers' identities as provocation specialists. Adding 37.5% -range to Provoke still means Provoke can yank up to 5 targets from 60 feet away to come to the character while Confront can only pull 1 target from 70 feet. Autohit is a nicety, but a high accuracy still means you are going to draw at least 3 of those 5 targets just from Streakbreaker every time. And without even trying to go for recharge, you can be throwing that Provoke every 5 seconds. Those mobs didn't come all the way to you? Okay, hit Provoke again and have them finish coming to you. Or move the maybe 10 or 15 feet difference to them and drop them.

[dukedukes]

10 hours ago, Rudra said:

Confront and Taunt serve the same purpose. Confront lets the Scrapper pick who they want taunted while Taunt lets Tankers and Brutes just grab everyone. (Being able to draw your selected target as opposed to the entire spawn does not make Confront weaker. It makes more tailored to the concept of the Scrapper.) Choosing to ignore Confront for the sake of buffing Provoke, choosing to ignore Scrappers because you only care about Tanker identity, just means you are choosing to step on Confront. Any -range is a useful tool when you want to draw targets in for any reason. Confront lets you spam the ability to draw in while Taunt tries to do it all at once. Provoke lets you currently draw attention away from others without stepping on Tankers, Brutes, or Scrappers' identities as provocation specialists. Adding 37.5% -range to Provoke still means Provoke can yank up to 5 targets from 60 feet away to come to the character while Confront can only pull 1 target from 70 feet. Autohit is a nicety, but a high accuracy still means you are going to draw at least 3 of those 5 targets just from Streakbreaker every time. And without even trying to go for recharge, you can be throwing that Provoke every 5 seconds. Those mobs didn't come all the way to you? Okay, hit Provoke again and have them finish coming to you. Or move the maybe 10 or 15 feet difference to them and drop them.

These distances are too big for melee to use it, it's definitely not a 10 to 15 feet adjustment, that's what a tankers -range gets you. We're looking at a distance of 60 feet with 25% -range in an average case to do an out-range pull instead of 80 feet right now. The suggestion is a marginal improvement, I don't consider this overreach. The large movements are still necessary, a 25% -range slightly lowers the distance and should (not always) allow for you to still be in range of other targets so you're not sitting on your hands during the pull. Melee would prefer any other version of taunt.