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I think this is a case of my frustration with CoH's threat system manifesting itself.|
Originally Posted by Nihilii
Sarrate, I usually find your posts insightful but I don't think you're making a lot of sense here. To me, your argument essentially boils down to "I don't mind the weaker aggro in RttC because I stack other aggro tools on it"... Tools that aren't available to the AT the topic is about.
Thing is, a scrapper with just AaO/Invinc will hold most aggro without needing any special effort. The same scrapper with RttC will have to work at keeping that aggro. Whether scrappers having ridiculously strong aggro auras in AaO and Invinc is intended or not is irrelevant, the point is RttC is significantly weaker. |
Thing is, I don't have a problem with a Scrapper having the ability to hold aggro over other squishier ATs. I don't even have an issue with Scrappers holding aggro over Brutes/Tankers if the Scrapper is making a special effort and the others aren't. As it is, however, it's come to the point I don't trust Tanker's inherent threat generation over Brutes/Scrappers - I consider Taunt mandatory (and if the Brute is Taunting as frequently, they'll beat the Tanker).
So, how does that play into RttC? Well, I assume Tankers who want to hold aggro are going to be using Taunt anyways, so RttC's duration gets washed out. For Brutes, again, it gets washed out by "GauntletLite" (and Taunt, if they use it). All that's left is Scrappers, whom I think should be weaker at threat generation than the other two ATs.
I wouldn't complain if its duration was increased by a few seconds just so that it wouldn't expire on itself, but because of how damn powerful Taunt effects are (1000x amplification per second), it doesn't really need to be much longer than that.
If it were me, I would have made taunt auras shorter duration than they are now, depending on ATs (to account for the threat mod and damage differential). Maybe 4-5s for a Scrapper, for example. That's long enough for a Scrapper to easily out threat squishy ATs, but short enough that they won't swamp Tanker threat.
When Willpower came out some people complained about the weak aura.
I considered Quick Recovery a means to attack more offsetting the problem.
The additional debuff in the aura does moot, may as well not be there.
Years later after seeing more and more posts on the problem, I asked unbiasedly about it with a new thread to see whether or not something could be done on the issue but it all went quiet and some people used it to turn it into as if I had the problem. Sods. I was just being unbiased.
Being done with the issue, I can hands on heart with a level 50 willpower scrapper since the beginning just say attack more, atleast herd fast and aim to kill fast with aoes. Get ahead of your friend(s), atleast leave them behind with something they can handle to finish off.
I've always had confront on all my scrappers, its better than mickey mouse presence, well slotted can comfortably cater to holding at least 2 level 54 AVs, beats travel anyday..but only if tactics were unrevisible and a spare place existed would I take something from presence pool. Not likely.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Fair enough.
I can agree that tankers should be best at generating aggro just using the one same power as an identical scrapper version, and 4-5s on scrapper auras would make more sense.
That said, there's lots of overlap between ATs in this game, for example it doesn't strike me as very fair or balanced that my Fire/SS tanker can outdamage my scrappers while also retaining superior mitigation and aggro control. Admittedly that's a specific combo, just like the specific issue with scrappers being possibly too good at aggro control is mostly limited to Shield and Invul.
It seems balance is getting worse and worse. With incarnate powers being essentially the same, ATs that offer multiplicative effects or have particularities that you can't get through incarnates benefit so much more. That they force us to go through large teambased content is kind of a copout to me - in a smaller group, individual minmaxers can potentially break stuff if the game isn't balanced, whereas you can hide many balance issues by designing encounters requiring a bunch of people. Don't get me started on the amount of autohit unresistable damage and mezzes thrown around, if there's one thing that can say "we don't know how to balance our game so we're going to ignore most of its established rules" better than this does, I don't know what it is. 
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As I was typing my response, that exact 'blurriness' came to mind. I'd say the effects of high Brute/Scrapper threat has a bigger impact on Tankers than a high damage Tanker has on Scrappers. When a Tanker out damages a Scrapper, it doesn't change how Scrappers operate. It doesn't effect their damage or playstyle; also, being out damaged in a team setting can be harder to see (it's not like CoX has damage meters or anything).|
Originally Posted by Nihilii
That said, there's lots of overlap between ATs in this game, for example it doesn't strike me as very fair or balanced that my Fire/SS tanker can outdamage my scrappers while also retaining superior mitigation and aggro control. Admittedly that's a specific combo, just like the specific issue with scrappers being possibly too good at aggro control is mostly limited to Shield and Invul.
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When a Brute/Scrapper out threats Tanks, however, it's very visible it forces them to alter their playstyle/build or settle for being a Bruising bot, invalidating their defensive focus.
[edit: Note: Having multiple Tankers can have the same effect for those not tanking... except the 'main tank' is already providing Bruising.]
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Originally Posted by Nihilii
It seems balance is getting worse and worse. With incarnate powers being essentially the same, ATs that offer multiplicative effects or have particularities that you can't get through incarnates benefit so much more. That they force us to go through large teambased content is kind of a copout to me - in a smaller group, individual minmaxers can potentially break stuff if the game isn't balanced, whereas you can hide many balance issues by designing encounters requiring a bunch of people. Don't get me started on the amount of autohit unresistable damage and mezzes thrown around, if there's one thing that can say "we don't know how to balance our game so we're going to ignore most of its established rules" better than this does, I don't know what it is.
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1) The gap between "survivable" and "squishy" characters is gigantic. For example, an Invuln Tanker at the hp cap (ie: DP up) can soak a 20,000 damage attack and still have 42.8% of their hp left. A Blaster at the hp/res caps will go from full to 1hp on a 6,424 damage attack. Heck, a Scrapper can 'only' take 9,600. To make things even more complicated, some Tanker sets are squishier than others (like Ice, which doesn't have much inherent res). This makes trying to build encounters that are challenging to Tankers would just obliterate others, while making them dangerous to a Blaster would tickle Tankers. The auto-hit / unresistible damage is a way to make it more dangerous to everyone.
2) I'm starting to think that base values are becoming very devalued and caps are becoming more important. This is for two reasons. First, as we get stronger Incarnate Abilities (and new IO sets), out performance keeps going up. This could be damage (Musculature, Judgement, Lore) or resistance (PVP IO, Barrier, Cardiac), etc. Secondly, when CoX went from teams to leagues, they increased the availability of buffs. They increased that again with AoE buffs (which was good for QoL, don't get me wrong, I have a Kin).
I'll be honest, I keep looking at everything and can't help but think that Brutes have the best mix of damage, survivability, and utility (threat gen stronger than Tankers) of all the melee classes. Certain sets will be stronger on different ATs (like Shield on Scrappers), but in general, Brutes seem favored. This hurts because I can't divorce myself from thinking about balance, I keep seeing the writing on the wall for some of my characters. (It also gives me indecision on which characters I should play/focus on.)
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I'm running a DB/WP Scrapper with my husband's Fire/Fire blaster and it's been loads of fun. The trick is for you (the DB) to attack first and let the mob gather to you before your running mate fires anything. Basically, I run into mobs executing Weaken or (now that i have it) Sweep combo and by the time the combo finishes, he's launched his attacks and the result is very few hospital trips. I can hold most of the aggro so the few that break off are no problem for him. It isn't really necessary to pull a combo attack, tho it does help, but your goal is to get most of the aggro at the beginning of the battle. We're lvl 36 now and we're running +1/+3 or something like that.|
Originally Posted by StephanieB
Hey All,
Well, I'm playing with a more squishy toon (mine is a DB/WP Scrapper) and I understand that RTTC can take taunt SO's and such. Are they wasted slots if I use them that way? I really need to get stuff off the other toon and if she tosses an AoE that hits NPC's too far away she gets clobbered. Any ideas on what I can do? |
It's a strategy that works well for us, so I thought I'd share. Depending on your playstyle, it may or may not work for you.
Certified: Altaholic as defined by Memphis_Bill since 2005
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Sarrate, I usually find your posts insightful but I don't think you're making a lot of sense here. To me, your argument essentially boils down to "I don't mind the weaker aggro in RttC because I stack other aggro tools on it"... Tools that aren't available to the AT the topic is about.
Thing is, a scrapper with just AaO/Invinc will hold most aggro without needing any special effort. The same scrapper with RttC will have to work at keeping that aggro. Whether scrappers having ridiculously strong aggro auras in AaO and Invinc is intended or not is irrelevant, the point is RttC is significantly weaker.