Forced Attacks reduced to 5 seconds

[Lashmore]

In the preliminary Patch Notes for 12.1 we have been told Forced Attacks will have a reduced timer from 10 to 5 seconds.

At current my force taunts force the enemy to attack for 15 seconds - then there's 15 seconds of working every skill possible to maintain the aggro - mostly doable occasionally an issue depending on stun/silenced or what not.

Now I note that they increased the amount of threat Guardians generate from any self heals, consider we can literally block ever second vs a group for a self heal in blue-line I suppose it could baalnce out threat generation without as much of a requirement to rely on forced taunts + shield bash/taunt etc.

My thoughts, with the legendary elgacy for forced taunt duration + self heal threat, is the reduction of forced attack duration a concern? Or a balance?

[RJFerret]

I was figuring it was so quests in Battles weren't so ridiculously easy due to taunts as now.

[ArcticAurora]

At present, I have a Fray of 20 second duration on a 10 second CD and a Challenge of 20 second duration on a 30 second CD. With Fray alone I can presently keep 2 single targets aggro-locked on me with the taunt alone, no damage needed, all while up to a maximum range of 50m. This would seem to make things a little less easy-mode and make you a little smarter with your skills.

I see the tank heals generating threat as more of a buff to Wardens and Cappy tanks. Any bonus to a Guard would seem incidental and not the primary focus of the change. My blue-line guard's passive healing will benefit, but that's more of a collateral change than targeted.

[Balehill]

I have found the issue is not holding 1 or 2 guys, its trying to hold aggro when a wave of adds come and challenge is down 1/3rd the time (20 sec force/30 sec cd). Blue line with my shield dropping the enemies b/p/e to 0 constantly I do not do enough damage to hold a large group of mobs and there isn't anything I can do to outpace the dps. Plus all force taunts put you at 20% ahead, which is great on the guys your behind on, but kills you on the guys you actually do have a good hold of, making it easier to lose them. We will see what happens with the update. Most likely I will be stuck dpsing watching captains tank. On the plus side, there is no content that really needs a tank, so hopefully this is resolved before that comes out.

[bunny.hu]

After U12 I was happy with guardian DSP at last, but disoriented on the tank line. We have 2 force aggro skill, fray for 2 target constant aggro and the challange with 10s no aggro hole (with legacy + jew setbonus). Any other "old classic tanking" skill just waste of power. Really. I try all my knowledge to tanking without fray/challange like some weeks ago, but it is simple impossible to hold adds against a 40-50K champ DSP. Tanking now is dumb, I can watch TV or whatever meanwhile tanking. Just push 2 skill when the CD gone. Boring. Its working fine, if not, there is nothing to do.
I have shield skills without any aggro info about it. We lost all aggro generating possibility or just simple no information how its working.

And now, we lost our force aggro. ATM the cappy better tank than a guard or warden. Actually a cappy + dps solve close everything. Do not need tank or heal. Or CC. I give up and close my 3 years old main class, the guardian. That class simple dead end. No enjoy to play, no challange to play and no content really need. Our skilling still slow. The DPS better than in past, but far from the other class include for example mini ... a healing class. And we cannot hold aggro after 12.1.
I do not know what the turbine want. But his way definately a wrong way.

[oaceen]

taunts build actual threat, so there's literally not need for the forced attack at all, especially since we have a 15s forced taunt on a 10s cooldown.


i'd much prefer if fray the edge just did damage or 'threat' like it used to, so that i could use it rotationally as a threat builder and FM kickstarter instead of just for the forced taunt. we already have a single-target taunt that we don't use: engage. just lower the cd, increase the range, and swap any traits that affect fray the edge (like the increased distance) to engage. we have challenge already for the aoe taunt.

[psyclum]

really bad idea considering how the mobs are in HD. they often come in trickles and die too fast for you to build up any aggro. so basically the ONLY thing that works are forced taunts. even then, you have tripwire blocking the use of forced taunt so sometimes you cant even stop that troll once it's ran over a tripwire. as is. there is NOTHING on guardians arsenal that can stop a sapper, and soon we wont be able to stop a good number of commanders/trolls if this change goes through...

[oaceen]

really bad idea considering how the mobs are in HD. they often come in trickles and die too fast for you to build up any aggro. so basically the ONLY thing that works are forced taunts. even then, you have tripwire blocking the use of forced taunt so sometimes you cant even stop that troll once it's ran over a tripwire. as is. there is NOTHING on guardians arsenal that can stop a sapper, and soon we wont be able to stop a good number of commanders/trolls if this change goes through...

almost every enemy in BBs have no aggro table whatsoever. i suppose that's really the only reason to have any forced taunt component, even if some don't even respond to that.

dropping from 5 to 10s does absolutely nothing though as things die way before it wears off, and a troll can be perma-taunted anyway even if the taunt duration on fray the edge was only 1s, because the taunt duration legacy and jewellery set bonus still gives +10s.

[Imladion]

It seems to be a nerf aimed specifically at Guardians. I'm not sure why it's being considered and I would honestly love to know why. If it's because of Epic Battles, I think that's rather unfortunate. Guardians barely have any role in Epic Battles as it is, force taunts are really the only thing that keeps the class relevant. If it's for other PvE content, it's even more unfortunate. Multi-target force taunts are really a Guardian's only reliable way to generate snap threat at the beginning of a large pull.

Defender of the Free relies so heavily on buffing its force taunts that it's very, -very- strange to see them nerfed so quickly. To say nothing of the fact that they're -all- being nerfed across the board, indiscriminately.

The saddest thing about it is that it's really new Guardians who are going to suffer most. Players with increased taunt duration from gear won't be hit as hard as the guy who rolls one up fresh after this change and wonders how he's supposed to hold threat on 8 or so targets while the rest of the party goes insane with all of its shiny new AoE. I'm honestly not convinced that five seconds of guaranteed threat is enough to build up enough of a lead against the souped-up DPS we see now.

So, really, this just seems like all tanks are being nerfed in all content because some tanks are actually tanking more than Turbine would like in Epic Battles. Imho, if the problem is in Epic Battles, the solution needs to be in Epic Battles.

This change should be reconsidered.

[psyclum]

almost every enemy in BBs have no aggro table whatsoever. i suppose that's really the only reason to have any forced taunt component, even if some don't even respond to that.

dropping from 5 to 10s does absolutely nothing though as things die way before it wears off, and a troll can be perma-taunted anyway even if the taunt duration on fray the edge was only 1s, because the taunt duration legacy and jewellery set bonus still gives +10s.

till you start thinking about the content you have to tank. the world is great if you ONLY have to tank ONE troll... not quite how the event works in game is it? try to pull a few trolls in a 6man or 12man when they are putting a beat down on the statue then maybe you'll know what i'm talking about.

[oaceen]

It seems to be a nerf aimed specifically at Guardians. I'm not sure why it's being considered and I would honestly love to know why. If it's because of Epic Battles, I think that's rather unfortunate. Guardians barely have any role in Epic Battles as it is, force taunts are really the only thing that keeps the class relevant. If it's for other PvE content, it's even more unfortunate. Multi-target force taunts are really a Guardian's only reliable way to generate snap threat at the beginning of a large pull.

Defender of the Free relies so heavily on buffing its force taunts that it's very, -very- strange to see them nerfed so quickly. To say nothing of the fact that they're -all- being nerfed across the board, indiscriminately.

The saddest thing about it is that it's really new Guardians who are going to suffer most. Players with increased taunt duration from gear won't be hit as hard as the guy who rolls one up fresh after this change and wonders how he's supposed to hold threat on 8 or so targets while the rest of the party goes insane with all of its shiny new AoE. I'm honestly not convinced that five seconds of guaranteed threat is enough to build up enough of a lead against the souped-up DPS we see now.

So, really, this just seems like all tanks are being nerfed in all content because some tanks are actually tanking more than Turbine would like in Epic Battles. Imho, if the problem is in Epic Battles, the solution needs to be in Epic Battles.

This change should be reconsidered.

i know verizal said something about it in the beta forums but said that it wasn't in the timeline for him to push out when HD went live, that it would have to wait until 12.1
i don't recall (or he didn't give) an explanation for it, but it's been a consideration since beta, at least.


by the way, all forced taunt skills give you a 20% lead in threat over the current highest aggro holder; basically how engage worked before. the shorter duration doesn't really affect threat generation since all forced taunts have the 'threat catch-up' attached already.
it's a problem in BBs though, since most things don't actually have aggro tables. that's why they go back to what they were doing when the forced taunt wears off. i wish they would just give the stuff aggro tables. it's really confusing why they just pick a target and attack it until one of them dies.

till you start thinking about the content you have to tank. the world is great if you ONLY have to tank ONE troll... not quite how the event works in game is it? try to pull a few trolls in a 6man or 12man when they are putting a beat down on the statue then maybe you'll know what i'm talking about.

i'm sorry, but dropping from 20s to 15s of forced attack duration on a 30s cooldown is seriously not the end of the world. i would barely even call it a nerf as it will almost never make any appreciable difference.
if your fellowship and the rohirrim NPCs can't kill the trolls in the time it takes them to go up the ramp, get to the statue, and then 15s seconds of attacking you instead of the statue, it's not the taunt duration that's the problem. usually trolls are dead before they even get to the statue at all.

[Imladion]

i know verizal said something about it in the beta forums but said that it wasn't in the timeline for him to push out when HD went live, that it would have to wait until 12.1
i don't recall (or he didn't give) an explanation for it, but it's been a consideration since beta, at least.


by the way, all forced taunt skills give you a 20% lead in threat over the current highest aggro holder; basically how engage worked before. the shorter duration doesn't really affect threat generation since all forced taunts have the 'threat catch-up' attached already.
it's a problem in BBs though, since most things don't actually have aggro tables. that's why they go back to what they were doing when the forced taunt wears off. i wish they would just give the stuff aggro tables. it's really confusing why they just pick a target and attack it until one of them dies.




i'm sorry, but dropping from 20s to 15s of forced attack duration on a 30s cooldown is seriously not the end of the world. i would barely even call it a nerf as it will almost never make any appreciable difference.
if your fellowship and the rohirrim NPCs can't kill the trolls in the time it takes them to go up the ramp, get to the statue, and then 15s seconds of attacking you instead of the statue, it's not the taunt duration that's the problem. usually trolls are dead before they even get to the statue at all.

It's good to know that this isn't some panicky, impulsive knee-jerk response, at least. I certainly agree about the aggro table. It's strange to me that DPSers can DPS enemy mobs at full efficacy, but tanks can't build real aggro and healers can't reliably heal NPCs.

As I said before, though: I'm not really worried about the impact of this change on well-equipped Guardians. What concerns me is how new Guardians will be able to handle large pulls. This is a nerf that's easy for veteran characters to ignore but will be severely hobbling for new characters... and I'm not sure what the point of a nerf like that is.

[oaceen]

It's good to know that this isn't some panicky, impulsive knee-jerk response, at least. I certainly agree about the aggro table. It's strange to me that DPSers can DPS enemy mobs at full efficacy, but tanks can't build real aggro and healers can't reliably heal NPCs.

As I said before, though: I'm not really worried about the impact of this change on well-equipped Guardians. What concerns me is how new Guardians will be able to handle large pulls. This is a nerf that's easy for veteran characters to ignore but will be severely hobbling for new characters... and I'm not sure what the point of a nerf like that is.

i'm sure that the crux of the problem is guards being able to force taunt something forever when no other tank can, which this change doesn't even fix.

there are two main problems: fray the edge taunts on a 10s cooldown, and we have a fifteen second taunt duration (even after the change).
no other class in the game even comes close to this. honestly, this is a much bigger nerf to every other class than it is for guards. we're going from 20s to 15. they're going from 10 to 5, and none of them have a taunt on such a short cooldown.

lower level guards are still have a huge advantage over other tanks because of fray the edge and once they start using LIs, can double their force taunt duration with the belt legacy.

i don't think they considered clearly the ramifications of having extra force taunt duration for guards (on the jewellery set bonus and as a legacy) or giving us a third taunt and on such a short cooldown, let alone how these things interacted together. i honestly wouldn't be surprised if this is the last time we see a set bonus that affects force taunt duration and if the current legacy changes to something else.

[psyclum]

i'm sorry, but dropping from 20s to 15s of forced attack duration on a 30s cooldown is seriously not the end of the world. i would barely even call it a nerf as it will almost never make any appreciable difference.
if your fellowship and the rohirrim NPCs can't kill the trolls in the time it takes them to go up the ramp, get to the statue, and then 15s seconds of attacking you instead of the statue, it's not the taunt duration that's the problem. usually trolls are dead before they even get to the statue at all.

well I guess what it comes down to is this. if this goes through, a number of the guardian population will stop playing their guardian. and whether they are ok with that result is up to them. basically, this game isn't on its "growth" stage... new gamers aren't LOOKING to get into a game as old as lotro and if they wanted an RPG, there are plenty of others out there that they can sink their time into. if they lose people from this, they lose people that would likely not return.

it's good that YOU feel it's not the end of the world. but YOU are not the only guardian in LOTRO. call me a bad player, but I need my 10 second forced taunt to do what i need to do. call it a habit of raid tanking in EQ1. there is no such thing as too much aggro when it comes to tanking.

[Verizal]

I do want to address this a bit and say that forced taunts were never intended to be the primary means of tanking. If anything, they should be viewed more as the "Oh ####" button of aggro generation, which is why we threw the modified threat catchup mechanic onto all of them. I realize that things are still in kind of a crazy state of balance with DPS right now, but we are actively ironing out the numbers to allow the comparatively low damage of tanks to still generate enough aggro to hold threat over dps roles. Again, we do not want tanks feeling as though they need to spec for damage aside from personal preference.

Although not in the initial release notes (as it went in as a last minute change - it will be in the finalized notes), we have further increased aggro generation with tanks, and have further amplified the threat catch up mechanic to place a larger gap between tanks and the highest threat target.

[Krysstofur]

I do want to address this a bit and say that forced taunts were never intended to be the primary means of tanking. If anything, they should be viewed more as the "Oh ####" button of aggro generation, which is why we threw the modified threat catchup mechanic onto all of them. I realize that things are still in kind of a crazy state of balance with DPS right now, but we are actively ironing out the numbers to allow the comparatively low damage of tanks to still generate enough aggro to hold threat over dps roles. Again, we do not want tanks feeling as though they need to spec for damage aside from personal preference.

Although not in the initial release notes (as it went in as a last minute change - it will be in the finalized notes), we have further increased aggro generation with tanks, and have further amplified the threat catch up mechanic to place a larger gap between tanks and the highest threat target.

So ... Taunts are not meant to be a guard's primary means of agro, and you have adjusted the taunts upwards to compensate for their lack of non taunt agro.
Maybe I'm being dim, but that seems contradictory. I have a stupid question but, have you tanked with Champs, RKs & Hunters lately? When a taunt wears off, the mob turns. Taunts are all Guards have, even a full blown OP guard is viewed at best as a having moderate to LOW DPS.

we do not want tanks feeling as though they need to spec for damage, <hillarious. I can spec all the DPS I want into a guard but it will never be (or compete with) a DPS class.
I'd guess most all guards know there is little usefullness in trying to get agro with DPS for them.
I wish this dev post made feel better about the future of the guard class, but it doesn't.

[Verizal]

So ... Taunts are not meant to be a guard's primary means of agro, and you have adjusted the taunts upwards to compensate for their lack of non taunt agro.

Sorry, let me clarify. Forced Attacks are not meant to be any tank's primary means of aggro.

[usernamealreadyinuse]

I do want to address this a bit and say that forced taunts were never intended to be the primary means of tanking. If anything, they should be viewed more as the "Oh ####" button of aggro generation, which is why we threw the modified threat catchup mechanic onto all of them. I realize that things are still in kind of a crazy state of balance with DPS right now, but we are actively ironing out the numbers to allow the comparatively low damage of tanks to still generate enough aggro to hold threat over dps roles. Again, we do not want tanks feeling as though they need to spec for damage aside from personal preference.

Although not in the initial release notes (as it went in as a last minute change - it will be in the finalized notes), we have further increased aggro generation with tanks, and have further amplified the threat catch up mechanic to place a larger gap between tanks and the highest threat target.

One of the biggest issues I've run across is not so much about the amount of threat that I am generating, but more to do with the amount of mobs that I can apply that threat to. We used to have a pretty reliable way to hold aggro on 10 targets by traiting litany master. In HD we really only have 1 skill per line that can get to that many targets but the content is no different. Pretty much every instance in the game is going to have a situation that has more mobs in the pulls that what our base threat skills are able to reach. I often find that as soon as my challenge runs out, several mobs turn to hit the champs/hunters. If there are more mobs than my challenge can hit, I will most likely never get aggro properly on the mobs that escape my challenge.

Yellow line can kind of get by with maxing melee aoe targets and challenge targets, but if you're going to make those legacies more or less necessary for aoe tanking, you should really look into lowering their cost. Melee aoe targets costs north of 300 points to max out, I would love to see both these legacies made slightly cheaper. Giving a passive boost to melee aoe targets/war chant so that they can be brought up to 10 targets would not be a terrible idea either. Blue line suffers a bit more with no way to increase shield taunt and with litany being moved to a cooldown ability. I would suggest that you look into buffing shield taunt target limit and perhaps giving us back a T1 block chain aoe cry

[Wyvernclaw]

Verizal I have a few things you may want to look into I'm afraid.

First off the amount of resists that we get from our taunt skills I have 10 targets on challenge and I would say half of them resist without fail. A lot of people would say get more finesse but seeing as that is on DPS spec gear and we are tanks who are really supposed to specialise in the defensive armour this obviously goes against what you earlier said about not forcing us to wear dps stuff.

Second point is the defender of the free trait that gives us tactical mitigation from guardians ward is totally useless as we cap it with just our vit and armour. Infact with the block and parry rating I have the whole concept of guardians ward is now pretty pathetic thinking about it.

Third point is although our ability to hold aggro on 1 or 2 targets is pretty good our multiple tanking is luke warm at best shield taunt is far too weak which leaves us reliant on challenge which you are saying you do not want, I will honestly be very happy to not be relying on challenge for AoE aggro but when that leaves us with shield taunt as our only other option well I can understand why my fellow guardians are so concerned. My suggestion is the challenge the darkness trait increases the targets on shield taunt as well as challenge, also give us another AoE aggro skill that works on 10 targets. Seeing as Defender of the Free is both the old tanking lines in one it needs to be able to perform well in both survival (which it does well) and also multiple target (which it fails miserably on)

I hope this makes sense I don't feel well.

[Sezneg]

One of the biggest issues I've run across is not so much about the amount of threat that I am generating, but more to do with the amount of mobs that I can apply that threat to. We used to have a pretty reliable way to hold aggro on 10 targets by traiting litany master. In HD we really only have 1 skill per line that can get to that many targets but the content is no different. Pretty much every instance in the game is going to have a situation that has more mobs in the pulls that what our base threat skills are able to reach

Real shame that there are no support classes in this game capable of taking these extra mobs out of the fight with some sort of control mechanic used on the crowd...

Oh.

[oaceen]

call me a bad player, but I need my 10 second forced taunt to do what i need to do.

well, thankfully you have fifteen then.

I do want to address this a bit and say that forced taunts were never intended to be the primary means of tanking. If anything, they should be viewed more as the "Oh ####" button of aggro generation, which is why we threw the modified threat catchup mechanic onto all of them.

my only question with this is: how does fray the edge fit into this?
is its primary function the 'oh crud' for threat catch-up or is it for kickstarting FMs?

another, related note. with fray the edge being ranged and on such a short cooldown, i don't think i've ever used engage since the update. (this is just a feedback sentence, not really a question)

Although not in the initial release notes (as it went in as a last minute change - it will be in the finalized notes), we have further increased aggro generation with tanks, and have further amplified the threat catch up mechanic to place a larger gap between tanks and the highest threat target.

any word on skill animations? i feel like this is the biggest thing holding back threat generation for guards right now.

[usernamealreadyinuse]

Real shame that there are no support classes in this game capable of taking these extra mobs out of the fight with some sort of control mechanic used on the crowd...

Oh.

CC works really well and can be quite entertaining for the CC classes when the content is designed with the use of CC in mind. Something like Orthanc or OD trash (back when it was hard) for example. Having to cc random mobs out of a skirmish wave because your tank has arbitrary target limits imposed on them is a little bit silly.

[Jullandar]

any word on skill animations? i feel like this is the biggest thing holding back threat generation for guards right now.

That's my concern as well. Right now all the "emergency" agro skills are taking 2+ seconds execute and the guardian in general is feeling extremely sluggish in that sense. Challenge has always been extremely slow to execute, but I don't remember Fray and Engage being the same.

From my experience, right now it's harder to grab agro in the blue line than yellow line (major factor being War Chant and higher AoE DPS).

Edit: Cataclysmic Shout is another skill which is so utterly and painfully slow. Most of the time I want to use it, the target dies before the skill actually decides to execute and I'm back to square one. On the other end of the scale we have the champion, who is extremely fluid nowadays and a joy to play because the skills just work when you press them.

[RicardoFurriel]

What content is out there that needs "tanking"?

[Krysstofur]

That's my concern as well. Right now all the "emergency" agro skills are taking 2+ seconds execute and the guardian in general is feeling extremely sluggish in that sense.
&
the target dies before the skill actually decides to execute and I'm back to square one.

I find it hard to execute taunts with effect at all in any BB.
The taunts have become very slow to execute, even Fray which used to be quick.