Idea: Gravity Armor & Gravity Melee discussion

[Joshex]

this idea is far from finalized most of this first post will be talking about the potential of the sets.

So, the idea originated when I thought about a tank that instead of having a Taunt power, had a PBAoE (point blank Area of Effect) attract power, leaving taunting to the power of inherent Gauntlet, essentially anything hit by the attract power would be taunted over time. I'm thinking both Gravity Aura and Gravity Melee could have such a power, calling one Black Hole and another Gravity Well. I had an idea that One of these should be non-damaging akin to Taunt, probably in the Gravity Melee set, where the variant in Gravity Aura/Armor would be damaging not just using attract, but also applying powerful Smashing(Crushing) and Negative damage over time.

the question here is how this should be applied, Perhaps this should be a Click-type PBAoE power, activated for some given amount of time, kinda like Fire armor's Burn, but in Smashing Negative and with Attract. I'm thinking it should have 2 fields, one Wide AoE ring which is Attract only, and a central ball that when enemies touch it deals Superior DoT Smashing Negative. This way it's not completely unfair in PVP where players who have attract resistance or protection can get out of the damaging area.

Gravity Aura or Gravity Armor, would have some very powerful KB/KD/KU, Attract, Repel, Hold, Immobilize and TP Protection/Resistance.

I'm not sure if it would have much Mez protection at all. perhaps paired with a power that grants a PBAoE debuff, a "Wormhole" which redirects effects to enemies and saps end, speed and recharge, granting the Gravity aura character +recovery, +speed, +recharge and some minor amount of Mez Protection or Resistance.

the sets are all about slowing down and pulling your enemies in and causing -fly and -jump and boosting your own -recharge to make your attacks faster.

The set does not provide much Resistance, it'd be mostly about Defense, though we might be able to think up 1 or 2 limited Resistance powers, limited in that they probably don't provide much res to (All), or provide basic res to energies+fire and Smashing Lethal.



White hole: so theoretically some have hypothesized that while a blackhole intakes all matter and nothing can escape, a white hole is the otherside of the black hole, like a wormhole connects them and the white hole spits out everything, light, matter and even time. so bringing this into a gravity set, this would be a self buff +Regen, +Recovery, +Speed, -Recharge. I thought of using Whitehole as a last power which would grant Self Rez Untouchable 30 seconds, then it could be a passive boost at other times just for owning the power.


another power I thought of which would likely be in the Aura set, would be "Increase Gravity", it's not really an attack as it does no damage, but it works much like mudpots in stone armor adding -speed to the enemy and yourself as a PBAoE aura, but also adding a -fly -jump and -def to all, including self. it sounds counter productive, but given that most of your armor and attacks boost your speed and recharge rate, you can take it, but this is a way to slow down enemies even further.


some other ideas to incorporate

Orbit: a defense power, that attempts to cause attacks to miss you, where orbit could not just apply +Def (All but Psionic). but causes attacks that miss you to circle you and hit the first enemy they come in contact with delaing some portion of their original damage.

Revolution: another defense power, though this time a simple +Def (Smashing, Lethal, Energies)
I thought of calling Revolution "EM Field" like the earth has an EM field arround it which deflects energies, fire and smashing lethal to some extent. perhaps this should be a Def&Res power not sure.

Event Horizon: this would grant some self-buff and an enemy debuff based on the number of enemies nearby, probably self +Recovery, +Regeneration, foe: -recovery -regeneration.


Gravity melee probably should have a "Meteor Strike" power, which TP AoE's the player down onto a given point dealing superior Smashing damage +Knockback initially then leaving a field which deals moderate Fire DoT for some amount of time.

other elements I came up with are:
chain powers:
for the melee set essentailly Magnetic Chain, or Magnetic Gearing, which would be a Melee-Chain Minor Damage Negative debuff power with Foe: -Speed, -Def, -Rech, -Recovery, self: +speed +rech +def +recovery which could hit upto 5 targets. probably the second to last power in the set.

and maybe an Radiation Wave attack, Melee Chain dealing High Damage Negative to upto 5 targets.

I don't really have enough Ideas to build a whole aura/armor set. and right now it's just a basic idea and needs more discussion.

[Redlynne]

So, the idea originated when I thought about a tank that instead of having a Taunt power, had a PBAoE (point blank Area of Effect) attract power, leaving taunting to the power of inherent Gauntlet, essentially anything hit by the attract power would be taunted over time.

A Tank Without Taunt is going to be a Failure as a Tank.
Here's why (including link to the wiki page):

Calculating Threat

While the complete formula isn't known, nor do players know most of the minimums or maximums, Castle posted the following in a thread on the Official Forums:

Threat = Damage * Debuff Mod * AT Mod * AI Mod * Range Mod * (TauntDurationRemaining * 1,000)

Definitions of terms used, and their known values:

Damage
    This is the final damage a power will cause, not the base damage of a power.
Debuff Mod
    This is a value created by the Devs to represent the fact that Mobs don't like being debuffed. Values range between 1 and 2, but on most powers, the value is a 2. This means that with two attacks that cause the same damage, but one has a debuff and the other doesn't, the one with the debuff will generate up to twice as much threat.
AT Mod
    This is the value assigned to each AT, described in the table below.
AI Mod
    This is a value that is unique to each Mob type. We do not know many value for this variable, but we know that they, in theory, could have a very large range of values.
Range Mod
    In general, attacks in melee have a higher modifier. However, we know very few specifics about this value.
TauntDurationRemaining
    Pretty self-explanatory. This is the remaining duration of any Taunt or Taunt-like effects the character has on the enemy.

Many of these values have a floor. However, it is unsure what the floor is for each value. It is likely set to 1 for a minimum possible Threat rating from this formula of 1, but that is just a guess.

Tanker Secondaries ALL have a Taunt type power that does 3 things (in PvE at least).

• Mag 4 Taunt for 41s
• -100% Range debuff for 20s

[li]Range: 70ft, Endurance cost: 0[/li][/list]
[/list]
That high magnitude and duration are what allow Tankers to "pull aggro" from others.

The high magnitude is required to affect Bosses. Stack the power to affect Elite Bosses and up.
The Range debuff is what forces Foes to move towards the Tanker ... and if they can't (Ditch Strategy against the Avatar of Hamidon, Hover Taunting against Maelstrom, Corner Pulling, etc.), then the Foe AI can be "foiled" by the fact that they can ONLY attack a Tanker who is "out of range/reach" which then prevents them from attacking.



Starting from a premise of weakened/no Taunt power is what relegated Willpower to "also ran" status for many years, due to the fact that Rise to the Challenge was designed to have a lower Mag (3 instead of 4, so needed to be 2x stacked to work against Bosses) and had a 1.25s duration on a 1.0s activation ... meaning you needed +60% Taunt enhancement (minimum) to extend the duration to 2.0s in order to double stack the Taunt Aura effect of Rise to the Challenge enough to have an effect on Bosses.

It was POSSIBLE to compensate for this drawback, but doing so required 2 enhancement slots be dedicated to the purpose of bringing Rise to the Challenge "up to par" for a Tanker PBAoE Taunt Aura.



Now you're suggesting repeating that mistake with a Gravity type armor+melee powerset, on the assumption that the Threat generated by Attract+Punchvoke will be "enough" to compensate.

I can tell you, right now, that it won't ... especially because you're saying the Attract power(s) should be non-damaging. Look at the Threat formula cited above. Zero damage adds ZERO Threat, because damage is a multiplier factor.

Additionally, if all you're doing is adding Gauntlet (Mag 4 Taunt for 14.96s) to DAMAGING ATTACKS (another strike against non-damaging powers, since they won't invoke Gauntlet), you're looking at a short Taunt duration (~15s) as a side effect of using damaging powers. In a lot of circumstances, that's sufficient ... but in Main Tank applications, it can be woefully inadequate.

For example:
My SR/MA/MP Tanker build for Redlynne uses a common Taunt: 50+5 IO in Warrior's Challenge (the Martial Arts "taunt" power). This gives the power a 41*(1+0.424*1.25)=62.73s duration for my Taunt power. This is 4x the duration of Taunt duration from Gauntlet (punchvoke). Therefore, a One Slot Wonder™ Taunt power will EASILY override the "attention/aggro-grabbing" power of Gauntlet alone ... because of how Threat is calculated (see above).

TauntDurationRemaining * 1,000 from Gauntlet = 14,960
TauntDurationRemaining * 1,000 from Taunt enhanced with 1x 50+5 common IO = 62,730

There's a REASON why Tankers who assume they can "just get by" on Gauntlet alone CANNOT hold aggro away from a Tanker with an (actual) Taunt power.
I know, I've DONE IT ... on an 8-man Tanker Tuesday on Virtue server running an ITF.

I was playing an Ice/Ice Tanker, told all 7 of the other Tankers that my build "inhaled aggro like a wind tunnel" and that they wouldn't be able to pull aggro off me. There was, of course, some good natured ribbing before the ITF started ("yeah right" and "we'll see" and so on).

Once we got into the ITF, it quickly became apparent that ALL THE AGGRO BELONGED TO ME ... because of the damage aura (Icicles) and slow aura (Chilling Embrace) stacking on everything around me. But then, I also had the actual Taunt power ... and apparently, none of them did (so they were built more like Scrankers, really).

Occasionally, one of them (the Team Lead) would try to break away from the pile surrounding me to get aggro from the next group. I'd see it, target one of the Foes they were trying to pull the aggro of, cast taunt ... and that fresh pile would just run right past them to make a beeline for joining the mosh pit around my Ice/Ice Tanker.

NO ONE on that ITF run was able to pull aggro away from me for more than a few seconds.
Even the Team Lead was crying that he couldn't get ANY aggro ... on an 8-man Tanker Tuesday run through ITF. For the entire run, my Ice/Ice Tanker was the MAIN ATTRACTION ... and everyone else were just my "groupies" for dishing out DPS, making them Scrankers.

When we got done, basically none of the other Tankers could believe what had just happened.
8 Tankers ... but only 1 "real" aggro magnet ... who wasn't any of them.

And because Ice/Ice Tankers are best played with a Scrapperlock/Brute type mentality (gotta keep "feeding the beast" of Energy Absorption in order to keep Defenses up, much like with Rage type mechanics), I was just a steamroller of destruction, while everyone else was just along for the ride (because they couldn't get any aggro away from me). So everything turned into HERD & (Cold) BURN for the entire run, and the most $Target Rich Environment™ was to be found around my Ice/Ice Tanker, who was more of a "flypaper build" (pull them in, get them stuck, they can't get away).



This is why I say that I know what you're reaching for ... but it won't work out the way that you're thinking it might (or even ought to).

The reason why Ice Armor is such a strong aggro magnet is because it has a debuff (Chilling Embrace) AND and damage (Icicles) aura power that are meant to be used concurrently, which then magnify the amount of Threat generated by the Tanker very efficiently, while also making retreat/escape from the effects of those auras much more difficult (making them more "sticky").

Non-damaging powers that Attract won't be able to compete with that combination, let alone rival it.



And now I want to rebuild my Ice Tanker on Rebirth ... thanks a lot.

[Joshex]

A Tank Without Taunt is going to be a Failure as a Tank. Here's why (including link to the wiki page):Quote Calculating ThreatWhile the complete formula isn't known, nor do players know most of the minimums or maximums, Castle posted the following in a thread on the Official Forums:Threat = Damage * Debuff Mod * AT Mod * AI Mod * Range Mod * (TauntDurationRemaining * 1,000)Definitions of terms used, and their known values:Damage    This is the final damage a power will cause, not the base damage of a power.Debuff Mod    This is a value created by the Devs to represent the fact that Mobs don't like being debuffed. Values range between 1 and 2, but on most powers, the value is a 2. This means that with two attacks that cause the same damage, but one has a debuff and the other doesn't, the one with the debuff will generate up to twice as much threat.AT Mod    This is the value assigned to each AT, described in the table below.AI Mod    This is a value that is unique to each Mob type. We do not know many value for this variable, but we know that they, in theory, could have a very large range of values.Range Mod    In general, attacks in melee have a higher modifier. However, we know very few specifics about this value.TauntDurationRemaining    Pretty self-explanatory. This is the remaining duration of any Taunt or Taunt-like effects the character has on the enemy.Many of these values have a floor. However, it is unsure what the floor is for each value. It is likely set to 1 for a minimum possible Threat rating from this formula of 1, but that is just a guess.Tanker Secondaries ALL have a Taunt type power that does 3 things (in PvE at least).

• • Mag 4 Taunt for 41s
  • -100% Range debuff for 20s
• Range: 70ft, Endurance cost: 0

[/list]
That high magnitude and duration are what allow Tankers to "pull aggro" from others.

The high magnitude is required to affect Bosses. Stack the power to affect Elite Bosses and up.
The Range debuff is what forces Foes to move towards the Tanker ... and if they can't (Ditch Strategy against the Avatar of Hamidon, Hover Taunting against Maelstrom, Corner Pulling, etc.), then the Foe AI can be "foiled" by the fact that they can ONLY attack a Tanker who is "out of range/reach" which then prevents them from attacking.


And now I want to rebuild my Ice Tanker on Rebirth ... thanks a lot.

well, I hear what you're saying, I had proposed that the Attract power on Gravity Aura would do Significant Damage and that it would be DoT, so you'd also get a taunt over time from gauntlet which would build-up to rather significant values.

the other attract in the Gravity Melee set however could be an issue as you described, I think I said it would apply debuffs -speed -rech -def -fly -jump, so that should up the agro, but perhaps it would need some damage as well to avoid a 0 multiplier, Minor DoT maybe. but in my initial idea; I thought the player could slot a chance for damage into it(like Perfect Zinger chance for Psi damage, this could cause Taunt to work without other powers as well), or rely on dealing damage with other powers to cause the threat calculation to work.

it is still my understanding that the Taunt power does no damage, so that should be a 0 modifier as well (without other attacks dealing damage), that could mean slotting a perfect zinger chance for psi damage in taunt could keep EBs from running all over the map when hit with taunt.

I could see these gravity based attracts having a range debuff, especially black hole which could slap on a range - 100%
blackhole is slated to deal Attract + Superior DOT Smashing/ Negative, debuff speed, rech, def, fly, run, and range, +gauntlet's taunt (Mag 4 Taunt for 14.96s) stacked every tick(roughly 3 seconds from what I've been told) 14.96/3 = 4.97666...7, so it'd build up to a taunt of 4*4=16 at default and with a slight taunt enhancement it'll add 20 taunt.. the power is slated to be limited in duration, like Burn, so like 120 seconds?

so it's calculation would look like (100 + (8.35*13)+(8.35*13))= 116.7 initial damage (317.1 cumulative damage), with a debuff of 2 stacking over time, and a powerful -range modifier, then (4 taunt(*14 seconds (56) *1000) initally this would be 116.7*2*AT Mod *AI Mod * 100 (range modifier) *(14*1000) = ALOT of agro.

now these are not final numbers, these are just me pulling values from other powers and modifying them to superior damage, leaving the same amount of ticks as burn, with an initial damage of superior.



However, again this is basing this off of [Taunt] doing no damage, which means that Taunt powers require the player to attack a target with other powers for the Taunt magnitude it applies to count. this was the same idea with Gravity Well in the melee set idea, dealing no damage only debuffs +attract, -speed, +rech, -def, -fly, -jump, -range, it would require the player to use other attacks to make the agro calc work in their favor, they can't just turn this on and expect everything to attack them. instead, it will however pull everything to them via attract, and drag enemies with them should they move while the power is active. but if another player dealing damage came close; the enemies would prioritize that target if the Gravity Well caster did not attack the enemies.

I mean please do correct me if I'm wrong, and please do modify my idea and propose a fix.

[Redlynne]

However, again this is basing this off of [Taunt] doing no damage, which means that Taunt powers require the player to attack a target with other powers for the Taunt magnitude it applies to count.

You are correct that the Tanker Taunt powers deal no damage natively.
However, in the absence of other attacks having dealt damage, the Taunt power still winds up being relatively overwhelming in terms of Threat Priority.

As cited in the article on Threat that I linked to, it's perfectly possible for values of each parameter to have a floor (such as 1 for multiplication purposes) ... in which case, attacks which deal no damage still accrue some non-zero amount of Threat.

Also, the way that I'm reading the Threat article ... the Taunt duration remaining factor (which decays over time) would seem (to me, anyway) to rely on whatever Taunt has been applied to the $Target by you, including through use of other powers, not just exclusively the Taunt duration applied by the power being cast.

So if you've taunted for a 62s duration and then follow up 2s later with a damaging attack, the duration remaining multiplier will be based on 60s from the Taunt, rather than on 15s from Gauntlet. Do you see where I'm going with that? This means that the effects of a(n actual) Taunt "linger" longer and are therefore stronger at gaining/holding aggro than mere "punchvoke" via Gauntlet. In other words, Tanker Taunts are somewhat literal Threat Multipliers when it comes to gaining and holding aggro.

This is why I say that dropping a "proper" Tanker Taunt type power from a Tanker secondary completely would both break precedent AND be a mistake in terms of aggro management potential.

[Joshex]

However, again this is basing this off of [Taunt] doing no damage, which means that Taunt powers require the player to attack a target with other powers for the Taunt magnitude it applies to count.

You are correct that the Tanker Taunt powers deal no damage natively.
However, in the absence of other attacks having dealt damage, the Taunt power still winds up being relatively overwhelming in terms of Threat Priority.

As cited in the article on Threat that I linked to, it's perfectly possible for values of each parameter to have a floor (such as 1 for multiplication purposes) ... in which case, attacks which deal no damage still accrue some non-zero amount of Threat.

Also, the way that I'm reading the Threat article ... the Taunt duration remaining factor (which decays over time) would seem (to me, anyway) to rely on whatever Taunt has been applied to the $Target by you, including through use of other powers, not just exclusively the Taunt duration applied by the power being cast.

So if you've taunted for a 62s duration and then follow up 2s later with a damaging attack, the duration remaining multiplier will be based on 60s from the Taunt, rather than on 15s from Gauntlet. Do you see where I'm going with that? This means that the effects of a(n actual) Taunt "linger" longer and are therefore stronger at gaining/holding aggro than mere "punchvoke" via Gauntlet. In other words, Tanker Taunts are somewhat literal Threat Multipliers when it comes to gaining and holding aggro.

This is why I say that dropping a "proper" Tanker Taunt type power from a Tanker secondary completely would both break precedent AND be a mistake in terms of aggro management potential.

This does sound like a conundrum, if only for taunt duration. 60 seconds is of course better than 15 seconds. When I think about this specific power though, we need to consider that it will be a PBAoE aura which lasts for upwards of 120 seconds, casting strong speed debuffs, and "Taunt over Time" every time the hitroll tick comes up it will apply a new 15 second taunt if the power hits. theoretically that would give it a maximum taunt duration of [the aura duration] + 15 seconds, instead of 60 seconds.

now true, there's a chance it can fail to hit targets on every new tick, which would result in lost threat and agro if it continues to fail to hit for 4 ticks. But given that not many enemies have Attract proctection, they'd be unable to move away anyways, which would expose them to continuous ticks of hitrolls which could apply another mag 4 taunt for 15 seconds, at any point until the power drops.

The key here is it attempts to apply Taunt mag 4 (15 seconds duration) every 3 seconds, this can Stack, causing upto 4 or 5 times the base magnitude Mag 16-20, the last of which will then drop from the enemy potentially 15 seconds after the power duration has ended.

so if the aura lasts for 120 seconds, you essentially are potentially able to hold agro for 135 seconds with the one power cast. further more anything that touches it during it's duration will hitroll for mag 4 taunt (15 seconds) ever 3 seconds for as long as it's touching.


At least this is the hypothetical idea, It's completely untested, and you would know better. what do you think about the concept of Taunt over Time?

[Redlynne]

what do you think about the concept of Taunt over Time?

I think you're approaching the Taunt duration issue from the wrong perspective.
Let me give you two alternatives, with one difference, to illustrate the problem.



PBAoE Aura has an activation time of 4 seconds and invokes Gauntlet Taunt factor for 15s on each activation.
Test run time: 60s
Activations: 15 per minute

• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s

PBAoE Aura has an activation time of 4 seconds and invokes Gauntlet Taunt factor for 15s on each activation.
Test run time: 60s
Activations: 15 per minute
Cast Taunt ONCE (60s duration) and then run the same test to prove the difference.

• Taunt Duration Remaining: 60s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 56s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 52s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 48s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 44s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 40s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 36s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 32s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 28s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 24s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 20s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 16s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s

Do you see the difference in pattern?

If it's just the Aura invoking Gauntlet, the Taunt Duration Remaining will never exceed 15s. It keeps getting refreshed (to 15s) but it never "stacks" in a way that can exceed 15s.

Conversely, casting Taunt (60s) ONCE and then letting the duration run down while Aura continues invoking Gauntlet, the Taunt Duration Remaining will eventually wind down to a minimum of 11-15s (when getting really fine grained and granular about it) as the Aura keeps refreshing the "floor" minimum value. But the only way to make the Taunt Duration Remaining exceed 15s is to use a power with a longer Taunt duration.



Now think of it in terms of 2s intervals and recasting Taunt every 10s (to keep the math simple). The Taunt Duration Remaining will start to look like this:

• Taunt Duration Remaining: 60s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 58s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 56s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 54s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 52s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 60s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 58s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 56s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 54s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 52s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 60s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 58s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 56s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 54s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 52s

Compare that Taunt Duration Remaining "pattern shape" to what a PBAoE Aura using Gauntlet (exclusively) to invoke a Taunt effect is going to look like in the same 2s interval of activations.

• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s

What's important is not the "mag stack" ... aside from using that to determine if the Taunt "takes effect" (just like with other Mez powers). Once the Mez Condition: Taunt = YES in the boolean sense, the next question is how much duration remains on the effect.

Mag cannot be modified by enhancements, but Taunt duration can be increased by enhancements ... but you can't put any enhancement slots into Gauntlet.



Hope that helps explain the "shape" of the problem I've been trying to highlight for you.

[Joshex]

what do you think about the concept of Taunt over Time?

I think you're approaching the Taunt duration issue from the wrong perspective.
Let me give you two alternatives, with one difference, to illustrate the problem.



PBAoE Aura has an activation time of 4 seconds and invokes Gauntlet Taunt factor for 15s on each activation.
Test run time: 60s
Activations: 15 per minute

• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s

PBAoE Aura has an activation time of 4 seconds and invokes Gauntlet Taunt factor for 15s on each activation.
Test run time: 60s
Activations: 15 per minute
Cast Taunt ONCE (60s duration) and then run the same test to prove the difference.

• Taunt Duration Remaining: 60s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 56s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 52s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 48s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 44s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 40s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 36s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 32s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 28s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 24s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 20s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 16s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s

Do you see the difference in pattern?

If it's just the Aura invoking Gauntlet, the Taunt Duration Remaining will never exceed 15s. It keeps getting refreshed (to 15s) but it never "stacks" in a way that can exceed 15s.

Conversely, casting Taunt (60s) ONCE and then letting the duration run down while Aura continues invoking Gauntlet, the Taunt Duration Remaining will eventually wind down to a minimum of 11-15s (when getting really fine grained and granular about it) as the Aura keeps refreshing the "floor" minimum value. But the only way to make the Taunt Duration Remaining exceed 15s is to use a power with a longer Taunt duration.



Now think of it in terms of 2s intervals and recasting Taunt every 10s (to keep the math simple). The Taunt Duration Remaining will start to look like this:

• Taunt Duration Remaining: 60s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 58s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 56s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 54s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 52s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 60s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 58s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 56s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 54s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 52s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 60s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 58s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 56s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 54s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 52s

Compare that Taunt Duration Remaining "pattern shape" to what a PBAoE Aura using Gauntlet (exclusively) to invoke a Taunt effect is going to look like in the same 2s interval of activations.

• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s
• Taunt Duration Remaining: 15s

What's important is not the "mag stack" ... aside from using that to determine if the Taunt "takes effect" (just like with other Mez powers). Once the Mez Condition: Taunt = YES in the boolean sense, the next question is how much duration remains on the effect.

Mag cannot be modified by enhancements, but Taunt duration can be increased by enhancements ... but you can't put any enhancement slots into Gauntlet.



Hope that helps explain the "shape" of the problem I've been trying to highlight for you.

then it could stack both magnitude and duration, or just stack taunt duration. essentially additive/cumulative taunt over time; that way it'd look like this (providing it hit every tick, never missed) for one minute:
(time at tick from power activation: seconds duration remaining)
0: 15
4: 26
8: 37
12: 48
16: 59
20: 70
24: 81
28: 92
32: 103
36: 114
40: 125
44: 136
48: 147
52: 158
56: 169
60: 180

This would end with 3 minutes of taunt duration remaining after the aura falls. Again this is if it passed hitroll on every tick and the target stayed in the effected area around the player(which is aided by Attract -speed, -fly, and -jump).

to be honest 3 minutes of duration is kinda overkill, so it might be fair to set some cap. especially considering the recharge time of the power, will likely be less than the duration of the power + potential max taunt duration

60s+180s = 4 minutes of the enemy being taunted.

I can't imagine this non-damaging power having a 4 minute recharge time. Essentially it would be very easy to perma-taunt. Which means we probably need to tone it down somehow. Increase the amount of seconds per tick for the power, or cast it once every 2 ticks.

your thoughts on that are appreciated.

[Redlynne]

then it could stack both magnitude and duration

Except that's NOT HOW IT WORKS ... as I just finished explaining and demonstrating to you.

Q: If you have a 12s duration and a 15 second duration remaining ... how much duration do you have remaining?
A: 15 seconds remain (the highest value) ... NOT 27 seconds (the combined value).

Until you understand this point, you are going to continue to reach the wrong conclusions with confidence.

[Joshex]

then it could stack both magnitude and duration

Except that's NOT HOW IT WORKS ... as I just finished explaining and demonstrating to you.

Q: If you have a 12s duration and a 15 second duration remaining ... how much duration do you have remaining?
A: 15 seconds remain (the highest value) ... NOT 27 seconds (the combined value).

Until you understand this point, you are going to continue to reach the wrong conclusions with confidence.

I see, so you can't add them, the game isn't built to allow that. that's fair.

according to mids, different sets have different durations of Taunt at default, battle axe has a 41 second taunt while electrical melee has 81 seconds. these numbers give us the goal, either 41 to 81 seconds

what we could do is leave taunt alone, and put in a separate +Attract -speed -rech -fly -jump -range - def power. which really wasn't the goal, but would be more standard.

Or we could just make the attract + taunt duration the same right from the bat. no taunt over time. but then I'd have to argue reasons for why one melee set has a different taunt than all the others, with more to it than just a taunt. I suppose I had been trying to do just that.

or we could makethe attract aura only in the armor set, and allow most gravity melee attacks to apply PBAoE attract for some small amount of time.

so of these 3 ideas, or any other options you could think would be acceptable, what do you think is the best option for such a set?

[Redlynne]

I see, so you can't add them, the game isn't built to allow that.

Correct.

When you have multiple status effects of the same type, they "layer" on top of each other (in parallel) rather than "chain" together (sequentially).

The boolean condition of whether the status effect "does anything" is determined by the total mag ... the "thickness" of the layers, if you will. This is why 2x stacking is useful in order to generate sufficient mag "depth" to affect $Targets. Mag 2 will only affect Minions, but Mag 2+2 affects Minions, LTs and Bosses, for example.

Each effect runs for its duration independently.
Some powers have stacking limits (limit 1 or limit 4 or limit 8 being the most common), where reapplying the effect overwrites the previous application, discarding any remaining duration of the first application in favor of a "refresh" from the second application. This is often times annotated in the descriptions of powers as being Does Not Stack From Same Caster (or words to that effect).

In other words, you can't think about this problem in terms of simple addition (like you were doing), instead the proper frame is something more akin to TETRIS (kinda sorta, but the analogy is decidedly imperfect).

what we could do is leave taunt alone, and put in a separate +Attract -speed -rech -fly -jump -range - def power. which really wasn't the goal, but would be more standard.

Taunt is the -Range power. It is pretty unique in that respect, for all Tanker and Brute+Scrapper Taunts ... to "force" Foes to reposition themselves closer to the caster of the Taunt. Taunt in primary/secondary powersets will include -Range, while the Presence Pool: Provoke power for taunting does not.

To be honest with you, I think you would probably be better off (conceptually) starting with Ice Armor as a foundational basis/starting point and then modifying Ice Armor: Chilling Embrace such that all of the Slow effects of Ice into being more of a -Speed (fly, jump, run) and -Range debuff. Add +Attract but lose the -Recharge effect. Exchange the -Damage effect for a -Regeneration effect on all affected Foes. The real challenge though would be working out some way to run the Endurance Cost that doesn't "bankrupt" the blue bar too reliably ... one way would be to impose a Max 10 Targets limit on it, along with a limited PBAoE radius.

That gives you a "pull them in so they can't get out" type of PBAoE Aura.

If you want to get EXTRA fancy, could set up the power such that it has "overlapping bands" of effect that add up as Foes get drawn in closer.

20ft radius = 25% effect
16ft radius = 25% effect
12ft radius = 25% effect
8ft radius = 25% effect
You then let all of those effects stack with each other concurrently. So what you wind up with is:
20ft radius: 25% effect
16ft radius: 25+25 = 50% effect
12ft radius: 25+25+25 = 75% effect
8ft radius: 25+25+25+25 = 100% effect

This would then let you do things like setting up each range band as being "equivalent to mag 1" in status effect terms (for purposes of illustration), such that Minions are affected (mag 1+1=2) at 16ft radius ... Lieutenants are affected (mag 1+1+1=3) at 12 ft radius ... and Bosses are only affected (mag 1+1+1+1=4) at 8ft radius. So you get a sort of "layered wedding cake" type of effect behavior out of the power (at the expense of 4x the server computation overhead, which might be a deal breaker, but this is just Blue Sky™ wishful thinking at this point).



Continuing that idea, you can exchange Ice Armor: Icicles for something more akin to a Warshade's Orbiting Death power ... except that instead of doing a (single) PBAoE damage effect like Orbiting Death does, set it up as a PBAoE that does Grant Power to up to Max 5 Targets which causes affected Foes to generate an 8ft PBAoE of damage around themselves for a single damage pulse. So Gravity Armor: Tidal Disruption toggle turns into a power that does more PBAoE damage the more Foes you have around you (up to 5), since they're each generating their own damage aura around themselves while in your "orbit" and close enough to be affected.

Way the power behaves is that the more Foes cluster around you, the more damage they deal to each other as your gravity power "tears them apart" and sends bits of debris swirling around, which become "impactors" under your control that slam into your Foes. Basically, they start "breaking up" under the tidal effects of your gravity power and even rocks and pebbles from the ground turn into "death by a thousand cuts" type missiles that deal harm to your Foes ... such that the more Foes around you, the more debris being generated, the more damage they take from being "trapped" in orbit around you, getting "shredded" by the gravitic tidal forces.



Other ideas that come to mind for a Gravity Melee powerset would be something akin to a Gravity Whip power.

If the Foe is "distant" (more than 20ft) then it rapidly pulls them towards the caster. This is a "move them" rather than a "move you" type of power.

If the Foe is "close" (10-20ft) then it does minor damage and a Knockdown.

If the Foe is "too close" (under 10ft) then it does major damage and a big Knockback (think Force Field: Repulsion Bolt of mag 11+ type knockback).

This then sets up the opportunity for a "pull/push" type of behavior that can "juggle" the positioning of a Foe. From far away, it pulls them in, and from close up it pushes them away.

A really wild alternative for this kind of a Gravity Whip power would be to not make it a single target, but a 30º 40ft Cone attack. Reason why a Cone would be especially good is because Cones can be enhanced for Range (meaning the 40ft base radius can go up!). Additionally, it's also possible to use the "Hop & Pop" move with Cone attacks by melee oriented ATs, such that you jump up vertically so as to "aim" the Cone DOWN below you at your selected $Target. With enough height on the jump for the "Hop & Pop" you can catch multiple Foes clustered around your position on the ground using a Cone that is cast while up in the air during your jump. That way, if you don't want to make a big Knockback against a single Foe with Gravity Whip, you can just jump UP above 10ft from your $Target and get the minor damage+knockdown effect instead on a larger number of Foes that were herded up around your position on the ground.

I learned the "Hop & Pop" move while playing Ice/Ice on a Tanker so as to turn Frost (a 10ft 90º Cone, Max 10 Targets) into something of a "poor man's PBAoE" attack against all the Foes that clustered up around me. Adding Range enhancement to extend that range to ~16ft 90º Cone did wonders for increasing the number of Foes I could hit with Frost when doing the "Hop & Pop" move (no need for Combat Jumping). Was remarkably effective at dealing damage and stacking Slows onto stuff, keeping them "trapped" in close against my Ice/Ice Tanker (where all the damage and debuffing was happening).

[Joshex]

I see, so you can't add them, the game isn't built to allow that.

Correct.

When you have multiple status effects of the same type, they "layer" on top of each other (in parallel) rather than "chain" together (sequentially).

The boolean condition of whether the status effect "does anything" is determined by the total mag ... the "thickness" of the layers, if you will. This is why 2x stacking is useful in order to generate sufficient mag "depth" to affect $Targets. Mag 2 will only affect Minions, but Mag 2+2 affects Minions, LTs and Bosses, for example.

Each effect runs for its duration independently.
Some powers have stacking limits (limit 1 or limit 4 or limit 8 being the most common), where reapplying the effect overwrites the previous application, discarding any remaining duration of the first application in favor of a "refresh" from the second application. This is often times annotated in the descriptions of powers as being Does Not Stack From Same Caster (or words to that effect).

In other words, you can't think about this problem in terms of simple addition (like you were doing), instead the proper frame is something more akin to TETRIS (kinda sorta, but the analogy is decidedly imperfect).

what we could do is leave taunt alone, and put in a separate +Attract -speed -rech -fly -jump -range - def power. which really wasn't the goal, but would be more standard.

Taunt is the -Range power. It is pretty unique in that respect, for all Tanker and Brute+Scrapper Taunts ... to "force" Foes to reposition themselves closer to the caster of the Taunt. Taunt in primary/secondary powersets will include -Range, while the Presence Pool: Provoke power for taunting does not.

To be honest with you, I think you would probably be better off (conceptually) starting with Ice Armor as a foundational basis/starting point and then modifying Ice Armor: Chilling Embrace such that all of the Slow effects of Ice into being more of a -Speed (fly, jump, run) and -Range debuff. Add +Attract but lose the -Recharge effect. Exchange the -Damage effect for a -Regeneration effect on all affected Foes. The real challenge though would be working out some way to run the Endurance Cost that doesn't "bankrupt" the blue bar too reliably ... one way would be to impose a Max 10 Targets limit on it, along with a limited PBAoE radius.

That gives you a "pull them in so they can't get out" type of PBAoE Aura.

If you want to get EXTRA fancy, could set up the power such that it has "overlapping bands" of effect that add up as Foes get drawn in closer.

20ft radius = 25% effect
16ft radius = 25% effect
12ft radius = 25% effect
8ft radius = 25% effect
You then let all of those effects stack with each other concurrently. So what you wind up with is:
20ft radius: 25% effect
16ft radius: 25+25 = 50% effect
12ft radius: 25+25+25 = 75% effect
8ft radius: 25+25+25+25 = 100% effect

This would then let you do things like setting up each range band as being "equivalent to mag 1" in status effect terms (for purposes of illustration), such that Minions are affected (mag 1+1=2) at 16ft radius ... Lieutenants are affected (mag 1+1+1=3) at 12 ft radius ... and Bosses are only affected (mag 1+1+1+1=4) at 8ft radius. So you get a sort of "layered wedding cake" type of effect behavior out of the power (at the expense of 4x the server computation overhead, which might be a deal breaker, but this is just Blue Sky™ wishful thinking at this point).



Continuing that idea, you can exchange Ice Armor: Icicles for something more akin to a Warshade's Orbiting Death power ... except that instead of doing a (single) PBAoE damage effect like Orbiting Death does, set it up as a PBAoE that does Grant Power to up to Max 5 Targets which causes affected Foes to generate an 8ft PBAoE of damage around themselves for a single damage pulse. So Gravity Armor: Tidal Disruption toggle turns into a power that does more PBAoE damage the more Foes you have around you (up to 5), since they're each generating their own damage aura around themselves while in your "orbit" and close enough to be affected.

Way the power behaves is that the more Foes cluster around you, the more damage they deal to each other as your gravity power "tears them apart" and sends bits of debris swirling around, which become "impactors" under your control that slam into your Foes. Basically, they start "breaking up" under the tidal effects of your gravity power and even rocks and pebbles from the ground turn into "death by a thousand cuts" type missiles that deal harm to your Foes ... such that the more Foes around you, the more debris being generated, the more damage they take from being "trapped" in orbit around you, getting "shredded" by the gravitic tidal forces.



Other ideas that come to mind for a Gravity Melee powerset would be something akin to a Gravity Whip power.

If the Foe is "distant" (more than 20ft) then it rapidly pulls them towards the caster. This is a "move them" rather than a "move you" type of power.

If the Foe is "close" (10-20ft) then it does minor damage and a Knockdown.

If the Foe is "too close" (under 10ft) then it does major damage and a big Knockback (think Force Field: Repulsion Bolt of mag 11+ type knockback).

This then sets up the opportunity for a "pull/push" type of behavior that can "juggle" the positioning of a Foe. From far away, it pulls them in, and from close up it pushes them away.

A really wild alternative for this kind of a Gravity Whip power would be to not make it a single target, but a 30º 40ft Cone attack. Reason why a Cone would be especially good is because Cones can be enhanced for Range (meaning the 40ft base radius can go up!). Additionally, it's also possible to use the "Hop & Pop" move with Cone attacks by melee oriented ATs, such that you jump up vertically so as to "aim" the Cone DOWN below you at your selected $Target. With enough height on the jump for the "Hop & Pop" you can catch multiple Foes clustered around your position on the ground using a Cone that is cast while up in the air during your jump. That way, if you don't want to make a big Knockback against a single Foe with Gravity Whip, you can just jump UP above 10ft from your $Target and get the minor damage+knockdown effect instead on a larger number of Foes that were herded up around your position on the ground.

I learned the "Hop & Pop" move while playing Ice/Ice on a Tanker so as to turn Frost (a 10ft 90º Cone, Max 10 Targets) into something of a "poor man's PBAoE" attack against all the Foes that clustered up around me. Adding Range enhancement to extend that range to ~16ft 90º Cone did wonders for increasing the number of Foes I could hit with Frost when doing the "Hop & Pop" move (no need for Combat Jumping). Was remarkably effective at dealing damage and stacking Slows onto stuff, keeping them "trapped" in close against my Ice/Ice Tanker (where all the damage and debuffing was happening).

I like these ideas, I think some sort of mix of these ideas could be interesting. I didn't have much time to reply today, though I did attempt to write up a reply, but there's alot to unpack and consider before giving a proper reply. Just in case you were waiting, it'll be another day or so. just to be courteous.