Single Target Aggro control fail.

navar

Hey guys, I need some serious advice when it comes to single target aggro control. I am rolling mainly with Might. I have CS in my Vicious Cyclone, CS in my Shockwave, and CC in my Defensive Combo. I go with Constitution, Strength and Recovery as my main and secondary. I am level 37 and I am using the complete Armadillo set. I hold AoE aggro like nobody's business. I keep mobs tight against my character and the DPS has no problems AoEing the mobs down. But...

When I get to the main boss at the end, I have issues with hard hitting DPS stealing my aggro. Once they take it, I struggle real hard to get my aggro back. I read up on everything I could find on these forums, but most info I found is VERY out dated.

I am rolling with a Metal Brute type theme so keep this in mind, which is why I am going through the Might tree. Any help would be very appreciated. This whole aggro control system this game has is driving me crazy. I don't like losing aggro.

superalfgorn

First of all, I assume you are using the Tank role for bonus threat or Hybrid+Protector Spec Tree. If not you are losing a lot of threat potential.

Also to keep threat you need damage. So if you are running IDF instead of Enrage you might have a problem.

If those two issues are solved, then I guess you need to go in first to grab aggro right away and then to spam Defensive Combo (bearing CC) like there is no tomorrow. Possibly keep an active offense ready to further boost the damage at the beginning of the fight with the chance to redo it before the fight is over.

As for power selections one of the best melee powers for tanking is Devour Essence+CC. It is a high damage maintain beraing CC and has a self heal component.

flowcyto

Srsly, its not easy for most tank builds to hold against an optimized dps or dps/hybrid these days- unless you use the same powerful dps moves and maintains they do. At this point in the game, you shouldn't build a tank solely around the hopes of holding threat all the time; unless you build in a limited # of ways, that won't happen. Blame poor ability balance, cd cycling, On Alert player power creep, and CC/CS's unscaling threat values for this.

The sole exception is Defense combo. Use it more for bosses, and consider picking up Bulwark in the Protector tree and staying in the hybrid role. Else, dunno what to tell ya- maybe get more crit/crit severity, str, or offense for a bit more dmg. The retaliation/guard + Haymaker combo is also good for Might tanks to make up for lost time when blocking. Also consider that you aren't fully lvl 40 yet- once you swap to real lvl 40 gear you'll likely see a nice stat increase overall.

If I have to be honest, Might tanks have some of the least problems doing their roles these days, but it is still possible to run into aggro issues even w/ them.

navar

superalfgorn wrote: »

First of all, I assume you are using the Tank role for bonus threat or Hybrid+Protector Spec Tree. If not you are losing a lot of threat potential.

Also to keep threat you need damage. So if you are running IDF instead of Enrage you might have a problem.

If those two issues are solved, then I guess you need to go in first to grab aggro right away and then to spam Defensive Combo (bearing CC) like there is no tomorrow. Possibly keep an active offense ready to further boost the damage at the beginning of the fight with the chance to redo it before the fight is over.

As for power selections one of the best melee powers for tanking is Devour Essence+CC. It is a high damage maintain beraing CC and has a self heal component.

I do use Enrage and I am currently in Tank Role. Would Hybrid give me more aggro control due to higher DPS numbers? Also, Devour Essence goes way out of the theme I am rolling with, but it is not anything I would not be willing to pick up if something doesn't change soon. I am more desperate to maintain aggro against some of these crazy high DPS guys than keeping my theme.

navar

flowcyto wrote: »

Srsly, its not easy for most tank builds to hold against an optimized dps or dps/hybrid these days- unless you use the same powerful dps moves and maintains they do. At this point in the game, you shouldn't build a tank solely around the hopes of holding threat all the time; unless you build in a limited # of ways, that won't happen. Blame poor ability balance, cd cycling, On Alert player power creep, and CC/CS's unscaling threat values for this.

The sole exception is Defense combo. Use it more for bosses, and consider picking up Bulwark in the Protector tree and staying in the hybrid role. Else, dunno what to tell ya- maybe get more crit/crit severity, str, or offense for a bit more dmg. The retaliation/guard + Haymaker combo is also good for Might tanks to make up for lost time when blocking. Also consider that you aren't fully lvl 40 yet- once you swap to real lvl 40 gear you'll likely see a nice stat increase overall.

If I have to be honest, Might tanks have some of the least problems doing their roles these days, but it is still possible to run into aggro issues even w/ them.

I do have Bulwark, but I have been in full Tank Role this whole time. So the common thing I am seeing here, is going Hybrid Role holds aggro better than Tank role due to Bulwark? Something seems wrong about that...in a design manner of speaking, heh. I'll give that a try though.

vitalityprime

I used to rely on Defensive Combo, until I gained more insight into how threat works in this game. (Thanks to Kenpo and Caliga)

If you have a heavy hitter like Haymaker...that should be your main threat generating attack for single target.

If you have a leap...put CC on that instead of Defensive Combo. Since you are, more-than-likely, always going to leap at your enemy at least once, whether you have CC on it or not.

superalfgorn

The shortcomings of the Tank role have been discussed several times here and there in the Forums. Yes the existence of the Bulwark spec basically negates the need for Tank role, unless you are shooting for super-high HP with CON PSS, CON spec and Bulwark+Tank role...

Since you already have the right specs try the hybrid role without changing the build (that seems solid) and see how it goes.

Keep in mind tha going hybrid you lose some HP but gain much better self-healing so that should compensate.

EDIT: the post above is right, put CC on the leap and remember to leap periodically for the continuous re-applicacion of CC!

flowcyto

Yeah the tank role is in need of a buff or change, but that's a bit beside the point.

You'll fare better threat-wise in the hybrid role w/ bulwark just cause you also deal more overall dmg in the hybrid role while having the +threat stat scaling from the tank role.

navar

I know when I play my DPS, anytime I pull aggro off the Tank, I immediately use my Block ability until I drop threat. Problem is, most of these DPS guys don't do that. They just keep blasting away and I can't get aggro back for the life of me. Just did a couple test runs in Hybrid Role, and lost threat to a DPS Power Armor character. It took longer for him to take it from me, but in the end, he took it and there wasn't much I could do to get it back. I really wish this game had a taunting system more like CoH used to have. I never lost threat in that game, heh.

flowcyto

therealwraiven wrote: »

I know when I play my DPS, anytime I pull aggro off the Tank, I immediately use my Block ability until I drop threat.

Well yeah, that's the other issue w/ this game that can't really be resolved w/ the FF system and the random grouping system in place (meaning you can get 5 tanks, 5 healers, no healers, etc- game doesn't care it just throws 5 players together for alerts), no reliable threat control, as well w/ the large power creep overall that happened w/ On Alert.

Bosses can't be made to hit hard enough to be a threat to all non-tanks that they don't want to pull aggro or to pull and not block; it would be unfair to the FF and random grouping system if they did make it more punishing (cause what if you did get plopped into a group w/o a tank?). So, that means you'll get optimized FFs that can dps in spades and have self heals and tank cds to be able to live even through aggro from Gravitar.

Ugh, I just went on an OT rant- sorry. But yeah, its just the state of the game right now. At this point, don't get too upset about not holding aggro all the time- only if that's happening frequently would I look into the build and not ur teammates.

navar

I just adjusted my build a bit. Placed my CC in Mighty Leap, picked up Devouring Essence, replaced Energy Shield for Retaliation and picked up Haymaker and both advantages Damage boosts for it. Gonna role a few tests and see how it goes. Wish me luck.

crypticbuxom

My tank without using the protector role and without having to use any CC attacks (you really only need 1 power with this), full charging R3 Haymakers dominates agro holding with minimal effort. All you need is to make the most of your Str stat and Offense (your spec trees and an offense mod or two).

If by then you lose agro to someone who has more dps than even that and they are squishy, then it becomes their problem if they don't want to tone it down enough for you to reget it. But if you want to maintain your agro, use a CC adv power every few Haymakers.

williamkony

flowcyto wrote: »

Well yeah, that's the other issue w/ this game that can't really be resolved w/ the FF system and the random grouping system in place (meaning you can get 5 tanks, 5 healers, no healers, etc- game doesn't care it just throws 5 players together for alerts), no reliable threat control, as well w/ the large power creep overall that happened w/ On Alert.

Bosses can't be made to hit hard enough to be a threat to all non-tanks that they don't want to pull aggro or to pull and not block; it would be unfair to the FF and random grouping system if they did make it more punishing (cause what if you did get plopped into a group w/o a tank?). So, that means you'll get optimized FFs that can dps in spades and have self heals and tank cds to be able to live even through aggro from Gravitar.

Ugh, I just went on an OT rant- sorry. But yeah, its just the state of the game right now. At this point, don't get too upset about not holding aggro all the time- only if that's happening frequently would I look into the build and not ur teammates.

I imagine a hard-hitting boss without a tank could be tons of fun! Would necessitate using the environment to attain victory. ^^ Dodging behind obstacles when you have their attention, popping out for occasional potshots... It would make the fight feel a lot more active.

On-topic... I'm often able to hold threat against bosses with measly ol' Rebuke as my threat-generating power. To my knowledge, you apply a 10-second constant threat generating debuff on the enemy by using Challenging Strikes, so I make sure to tap my CS power every once in a while (Lead Tempest, in my case). My best weapon for holding threat, though, is to make sure my ally DOESN'T. For that, I've taken Palliate with the Absolve advantage. It's a pretty long cooldown, unfortunately, and so only works if there's just one high-DPS character outpacing my threat generation unless it's a reeeally long fight, but I can throw Palliate on them to wipe all of the threat they've generated, often leaving me as the target.

This is on a character that isn't really focused exclusively on tanking, so you may have even better results. Palliate probably isn't much of a match for your theme, but its animation is very, very minor, and it's only used every 1-2 minutes, so it shouldn't really get in the way visually.

flowcyto

Well yeah, there is always the 'forced aggro dump on someone else' option via palliate/absolve (which is hilarious, btw), but to me that's more of a band-aid than a real fix to a problem. I mean, its def theme-fitting for a tanking using primarily Celestial abilities, so I can't begrudge that, but I'd try to build for aggro w/o needing to cast it on other players when building outside that theme.

williamkony

flowcyto wrote: »

Well yeah, there is always the 'forced aggro dump on someone else' option via palliate/absolve (which is hilarious, btw), but to me that's more of a band-aid than a real fix to a problem. I mean, its def theme-fitting for a tanking using primarily Celestial abilities, so I can't begrudge that, but I'd try to build for aggro w/o needing to cast it on other players when building outside that theme.

If it works, it works. :P I don't generally need to use it, but it's there if I have to. I play all three "trinity" roles, though, and can make good use of it in all three, so it's not there exclusively for tanking purposes.

flowcyto

That is true; the spell w/ adv is versatile and can be utilized by all roles for a reason- just for a tank all those reasons will be for other players.

However, my analogue is that I instead get rezes on all my toons- even the tanks (and yes, even they have gotten use out of them XD). So I shouldn't really criticize (still think its a band-aid, though ).

williamkony

flowcyto wrote: »

That is true; the spell w/ adv is versatile and can be utilized by all roles for a reason- just for a tank all those reasons will be for other players.

However, my analogue is that I instead get rezes on all my toons- even the tanks (and yes, even they have gotten use out of them XD). So I shouldn't really criticize (still think its a band-aid, though ).

Well, every good survival pack needs a first aid kit, and band-aids are part of that. :P

flowcyto

yeah, just wish that survival pack included a better tanking/aggro system ><

navar

I think part of the problem, is that Crippling Challenge only lasts for three seconds. On top of that, there are a lot of DPS people out there who use it for PvP, which means they are also pulling taunt.

First, I think CC should last a solid ten seconds, and I think CC should act as an aggro drop for ten seconds for DPS and support role, while acting as a Taunt for Tank role. Hybrid role, it should do nothing at all...no aggro drop, nor aggro gain.

If they could do that, then they would have themselves a pretty decent aggro system.

vitalityprime

therealwraiven wrote: »

I think part of the problem, is that Crippling Challenge only lasts for three seconds. On top of that, there are a lot of DPS people out there who use it for PvP, which means they are also pulling taunt.

First, I think CC should last a solid ten seconds, and I think CC should act as an aggro drop for ten seconds for DPS and support role, while acting as a Taunt for Tank role. Hybrid role, it should do nothing at all...no aggro drop, nor aggro gain.

If they could do that, then they would have themselves a pretty decent aggro system.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

If someone else is using threat generating tools...then it shouldn't matter if they take agro from you.

CC is really not that critical to "holding" agro. (not when it's used on low damaging attacks like Defensive Combo and Mighty Leap)

During static fights...such as most Soul Siphons...I only use CC once, when I first leap at the target. If the enemy doesn't knock me back or run away, I won't use Leap again.

oniganon

Hm. I would've thought Def Combo with CC would be plenty. All that you'd need then is to boost the damage of it through things like warden spec/mastery and some debuffs like Demolish or Rising Knee.

As I understand it, CS is the one with a cooldown, while CC adds threat to every attack so it works best on maintains like Devour Essence and tap combo attacks such as Def Combo.

williamkony

oniganon wrote: »

Hm. I would've thought Def Combo with CC would be plenty. All that you'd need then is to boost the damage of it through things like warden spec/mastery and some debuffs like Demolish or Rising Knee.

As I understand it, CS is the one with a cooldown, while CC adds threat to every attack so it works best on maintains like Devour Essence and tap combo attacks such as Def Combo.

To my knowledge, Challenging Strikes applies some threat to every hit, but also applies a debuff that generates 2000 (I think) threat over 10 seconds.

navar

Well, placing it on Defensive Combo was killing me. So here is what I ended up doing. I placed CC on Mighty Leap, placed 4 points in the damage of Defensive Combo to raise the natural threat level, and placed 4 points in Haymaker.

I start with Mighty Leap, Use Defensive Combo for two combos, then unload with Haymaker.


The Result is EXTREMELY satisfying. Those Bosses seem to really hate a fully charged Haymaker.

oniganon

I don't understand why. The DPS of Haymaker isn't much better than Defensive Combo.

aiqa

oniganon wrote: »

I don't understand why. The DPS of Haymaker isn't much better than Defensive Combo.

On knock immunes haymaker does the best dps of any single melee charge attack.

flowcyto

Yeah Haymaker gets a 50% *final* (not affected by DR) damage boost to knock immune targets on full charge- combine w/ retaliation/guard's boost from a recent block and the damage is crazy for a tank. Its one of the few reasons people can still tank by damage these days instead of by threat (which is wrong, imo, but what can ya do).

Like I said before, Might has some of the least threat problems of tank builds these days- Glacier/Ice (cold snap + hard frost + avalanche) and PA being others (ofc TGM and LA -based tank builds as well.. basically anything that's ridiculous on a dps will be the same on a tank).

aiqa

flowcyto wrote: »

*snip*

There are much much more powers that do more then enough damage to hold threat. Almost every melee set has a really high dps single target attack.

flowcyto

Yeah they do, but all of those powers (rightfully so) lack a CC adv. Melee is more tightly balanced than ranged in general in this game; I'll give the old devs credit on that one.

It would be more balanced in a game where some abilities weren't so much higher base dmg than others simply because of cost and later unlock reasons, though (or in TGM's case, because the devs didn't finish what they set out to do). Then damage-tanking would be more in its rightful place: filling in for a pure tank when there isn't one, and being a decent dps otherwise. Now its like, take the tank's job and do way more dmg (and more healing in the hybrid role).

I guess I'm too old-fashioned for champ's FF system, but I really do like conventional tanking- where its all about threat, and damage is a tertiary concern that's not essential to the role.

navar

flowcyto wrote: »

Yeah they do, but all of those powers (rightfully so) lack a CC adv. Melee is more tightly balanced than ranged in general in this game; I'll give the old devs credit on that one.

It would be more balanced in a game where some abilities weren't so much higher base dmg than others simply because of cost and later unlock reasons, though (or in TGM's case, because the devs didn't finish what they set out to do). Then damage-tanking would be more in its rightful place: filling in for a pure tank when there isn't one, and being a decent dps otherwise. Now its like, take the tank's job and do way more dmg (and more healing in the hybrid role).

I guess I'm too old-fashioned for champ's FF system, but I really do like conventional tanking- where its all about threat, and damage is a tertiary concern that's not essential to the role.

I'm the same way...agreed 100%

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superalfgorn

Honestly Tanking only by DMG or only by threat is a bit meh. The current system is interesting, if you focus too much on defense/self-heal you do not get enough damage and lose threat.

Unfortunately there are some powers that step out of bounds and screw the system...

flowcyto

I'm not saying dmg shouldn't be a concern at all- tanks still gotta kill things on their own too- but pitting it as important (or more) than threat shatters the paradigm of what a tank is about (at least to me).

But yeah, tighter ability balance would fix half of the equation, at least. Sad, cause it is some outliers and not in most abilities (that means re-balancing would likely involve some large nerfs or some large power creep).

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navar

gradii wrote: »

if tanks did really crappy damage who'd play tanks? would be so sloooow to level.

Tanks did horrible damage in CoH/CoV, they were played quite a bit.

aiqa

therealwraiven wrote: »

Tanks did horrible damage in CoH/CoV, they were played quite a bit.

I would agree builds with defense passives doing much lower damage compared to builds with offense passives, but only if there is a big difference in survivability too. With CO being the way it is, you can make high dps builds that can tank gravitar without to much trouble.

A way to do that could be to reduce damage bonus from forms and add more damage bonus to offense passives. And to reduce health gained from CON and add a health bonus to defense passives.

flowcyto

aiqa wrote: »

A way to do that could be to reduce damage bonus from forms and add more damage bonus to offense passives. And to reduce health gained from CON and add a health bonus to defense passives.

That's.. actually a neat idea. Con is already in extremely high demand (will be even more when/if they implement the Rampage alert revamp), and practically everything else has to be hit by the DR in this game, so I think it would be a fair change.

Self-healing is still kinda outta control along w/ cycling tank cds, but making the shared AO/AD cd not affected by cd reduction would help keep that in check a bit more, and make tanking a bit more strategic and less about piling on heals/cds as FF.

colonelwing

No clue about others, but i get aggro if i dps as hard as i can. I find high and constant spike damage to be the best way to get and keep aggro. I never lose aggro, i always get aggro etc. that way.

I am Blade AT, if it matters.

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flowcyto

Tanks getting better threat (and the tank role being more useful) wouldn't break CO's hybrid/FF system- it would just allow people that want to tank more freedom in picking builds that can compete in aggro w/ optimized DPS and dps hybrids. Just as w/ re-balancing abilities, creating more variety isn't a bad outcome at all for stomaching some changes.

In order to really stymie the freedom of the FF system in this game, they have to make some pretty sweeping game-play changes that frankly are not likely to ever happen, so I doubt you have anything to worry about on that front.

mcgarnackle

therealwraiven wrote: »

Tanks did horrible damage in CoH/CoV, they were played quite a bit.

That's not entirely true about tank damage in CoX. Some of the best farming builds were tanks (ie: able to take a pounding but also able to dish out great damage) and that's not counting brutes.

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aiqa

gradii wrote: »

her suggestion would be the opposite of variety. have you even thought about what that would do to hybrid characters?

You could still make hybrid, if I really wanted hybrids to be nerfed I would have proposed the health and damage bonus buffs to be added to roles in stead of passives (though that is maybe a better way to do things). And since you apparently haven't noticed, CO is a trinity game, "get over it". There has been a tank, a damage, and a support role in CO since the game was first released, all with their default trinity gameplay perks. Hybrid builds are by no means the be all and end all option, just one of four. Even the name hyrbid, just means it is a hybrid of trinity elements.
With non of those changes would you be limited in creating your (hybrid) builds or playing through any content, it would just make your passive choice more meaningful, which adds variety.

flowcyto

gradii wrote: »

her suggestion would be the opposite of variety. have you even thought about what that would do to hybrid characters?

Actually, it would affect health stacking of *all* non-tanks- that's dps, healers, and any hybrids not using a defense passive- since its a change to slotted passives and not to roles themselves. It'd make Con-stacking less of a thing for everyone to do. But since its a DR it'd mostly affect those going all out w/ Con.

If you gear more moderately and/or more suited to the role, you won't run into it. A Blade AT slotting 2-3 extra Con mods on top of his/her normal dps gear prob wouldn't see any change from as it is currently, for ex.

With the same change, however, offense passives start to actually matter more, and that could help hybrids just as it helps dps roles.

kenteko

CoH tanks could tank explicitly because of punchvoke. Punchvoke was an absolute train wreck of a mechanic and should never, ever be replicated because it created a situation of over reliance (and more importantly, hosed over "tough" DPS characters). While the latter part won't happen in CO, "brain dead easy tanking" is not exactly any different then what we have now, it's just the opposite side of the spectrum.

All tanking needs is a tank role that isn't a giant pile of garbage and an integration of CC/CS into the actual role itself. When you start to skip CC/CS with some powers out of a lack of need and sit in hybrid for the higher damage, even without Bulwark, you begin to lose sight of the whole point of the mechanic.

That and I'm pretty sure CO has the trainwreck that is the anti herding code in too, so a full hate/threat revamp is in dire need.

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flowcyto

Eh, its not a bad alternative- diff methods to the same type of end, but I think diminishing Con would be better than just nerfing its overall return. I mean, most things in this game already diminish as is, and I think its a robust mechanic to prevent extremes in stats giving too much benefit.

aiqa

flowcyto wrote: »

Eh, its not a bad alternative- diff methods to the same type of end, but I think diminishing Con would be better than just nerfing its overall return. I mean, most things in this game already diminish as is, and I think its a robust mechanic to prevent extremes in stats giving too much benefit.

The biggest difference is the direction you would like the game to take. If you think the game is really difficult so builds without CON need a buff, and you like all builds to get more generic, then blademaster's idea works better. If you think players are strong enough as is, and can take a nerf or two without making things impossible or even remotely difficult, and like your passive powers to make a big(ger) difference, mine works better.

navar

mcgarnackle wrote: »

That's not entirely true about tank damage in CoX. Some of the best farming builds were tanks (ie: able to take a pounding but also able to dish out great damage) and that's not counting brutes.

Only Fire Tanks could achieve that...and they not only sacrificed their Resistance and Defense, but they also sacrificed their knock resistance as well. They were pretty squishy and Fire Tanks weren't much use beyond farming Ninjas.

flowcyto

aiqa wrote: »

The biggest difference is the direction you would like the game to take. If you think the game is really difficult so builds without CON need a buff, and you like all builds to get more generic, then blademaster's idea works better. If you think players are strong enough as is, and can take a nerf or two without making things impossible or even remotely difficult, and like your passive powers to make a big(ger) difference, mine works better.

yeah, I'd prob pick the harder ceiling vs the stronger floor option here. Due to this game's large power creep, the high-end needs to be kept in check more than the low-end needs a boost at this point in time- imo. At least the change would be neutral to the low end non-tanks, so they could do something diff to help them (if they really need to).

bludskarr

In my opinion, tanks and healers are still very secondary in the game. Alerts just don't provide the content for team play we really need. Maybe if they ever get around to the lair pass they've been mumbling about for a while now they can take some time to balancing out roles better.