Let's see what we got first:
Global Advantages
Challenging Strikes
- Renamed to Challenge!
- Now applies flat threat over time that varies based on primary and secondary targets.
Crippling Challenge
- Renamed to Break Through.
- Threat mechanics of this power have been removed.
- Can only disable block when used against blocking targets.
- Block disabling portion lasts 10 seconds. Afterwards applies a 10 second buff that prevents the target's block from being disabled.
- Also applies a damage, heal, defense and dodge debuff when you successfully apply the block disable. This debuff can be removed if your target damages you and cannot be stacked from any source.
- If used against a non-blocking target, applies a temporary buff that prevents their block from being disabled.
And now how l propose to do following changes. First, reduce Break Through cost from 3 AP to 2 AP, because its threat generating component was removed. Second - all powers, that have it also should have Challenge! advantage too. Because of that costs 1 AP, purchasing both of them would give something sililar to old Crippling Chalenge. But, of course, this combo won't be needed for PvE, so players now may take just one Challenge! and another 2 AP spend to Rank it up for instance.
A bestial Tank for instance currently has ability #2 - Shred (Penetrating Strikes, Crippling Challenge). With changes its ability #2 will be - Shred (Rank 2, Penetrating Strikes, Challenge!). Because those combo powers always have primary target, Challenge will work with full power on bosses, making threat output close to what tanks formerly had (& it won't require workarounds like Sparkstorm, which completely don't match bestial concept). So in general it will be slight increase to damage in exchange to slight reduction to aggro, but tanking style won't differ much from old, established builds, which people got used to use.
Also, please if possible, add built-in Challenge to Vehicle Taunts, like Flashbang or Flamethrower MK 2. Currently they generate hilarious value of 1 threat/2 seconds, and it just consumes game resources, but has no visible effect on gameplay. Warning Shot's strength now might be similar to "Challenge!"'s primary target, and Flamethrower's comparable to secondary targets.
Comments
But yes, I agree that they need to add Challenge! to everything to make up for the loss of CC.
Maybe they'll add Challenge to more powers - but if they don't, it's not really a big deal. Adding Challenge to Single Target powers would actually put us way beyond where we are currently on threat.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
- Challenge does cost 1 point.
- Defensive Combo is not losing its innate threat, and when you take r3 it deals both more damage and more innate threat.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I could just add CS to a bunch of existing toons now, I suppose.
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Silverspar on PRIMUS
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The changes are still a ways off, but these concerns should be brought up now, not when it goes live.
I don't see how that is even a thing there you are considering because an AT doesn't have the freedom to make a grief build like a FF has. And the two main grief powers in cosmics have been Crippling Challenge and it's taunt and Palliate with Absolve. One of those grief tools has just been dealt with, and again a good tank never needed it to begin with. It's become a bit of a crutch for people, especially some tank builds lately, that they believe they have to have CC on every last power they have and tryhard greatly on a single super stat.
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Some ATs can potentially grief through raw damage alone.
This is just bad perception that sorry to say is wrong headed. It is up to the tank, and always has been, to be able to balance survival with damage. The only reason some modern games it's easier is because they keep ridiculously pumping up the threat generation when it didn't need to be. This is a team effort and it is the responsibility of the team, the tank to generate the threat and the DPS to control their threat.
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Tank threat isn't going to be lowered as much as you think it is - it's really debatable if it's even going to be lowered by a meaningful amount, or at all. Remember that some of the highest threat-generating tanks in the game don't spam CC.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
You can do the job with a R3 damage build with all the modifiers working in your favor. But for those building / learning / under geared / non optimal, it would be a nice addition to have. Tank training wheels. You don't take it on every power, but its there to take on powers you might want it on like bluegrass said. It could really help aggro for the new cosmic tanking where multiple taps seem to be favored over blasts and maintains (More the ST blasts, as most maintains have Challenge! already).
Short: More options are good?
This is just bad perception that sorry to say is wrong headed. It is up to the tank, and always has been, to be able to balance survival with damage. The only reason some modern games it's easier is because they keep ridiculously pumping up the threat generation when it didn't need to be. This is a team effort and it is the responsibility of the team, the tank to generate the threat and the DPS to control their threat.
There is a significant difference between dps needing to manage their threat and needing to constantly shoot themselves in the foot to the point that they'd have been better off in hybrid role.
Take my Unleashed for example. He has 260 con. He could easily do far, far more damage than he does if I hadn't put so many points into survivability (which I did for precisely the reasons you pointed out; to avoid producing too much threat).
He still routinely pulls aggro from the vast majority of tanks around. And since he's an AT, he has no way to drop aggro outside of TPs (which he takes for precisely that reason, again). So, if I've got this problem despite having built specifically to minimize it, what must it be like for people who haven't done so? It's simply unreasonable to expect every single person to build their characters in such a way.
I can also disprove your assertion that the current threat situation is how it's "supposed to be" based on the fact that player dps has massively increased over the course of the game's lifespan, yet threat gen hasn't increased nearly as much. They even had to introduce a piece of gear specifically to try and fix it.
Of course, this all assumes that the changes will in fact nerf overall tank threat gen, and do so by a significant amount (a slight nerf to threat gen wouldn't necessarily break the camel's back). I am not yet convinced this will be so, but to claim that it doesn't matter if it does is a silly argument, as threat gen is clearly already borked. That depends on what power you're using. In the case of Defensive Combo, I'm fairly certain R3 doesn't offer as much threat as CC. Heck, even Behemoth King uses CC on his def combo!
CS is what I would put on an AoE, to grab aggro from mobs.
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