Let's talk about TAUNT

[Frost]

Right guys, again sorry for being the one to bring this on. But we need to take a look into this matter if we are to make this game fun.

Untill the global launch taunt was not adressed I think because we had such a small player pool and a lot more broken mechanics that it was hidden behind them. Now we have a large pool and broken mechanics are fixed, so other things that need attention now came to light.

Taunt was designed to prevent some toons to use their power skills, be it a heal, cleanse, or a big hit. It's a form of "soft" crowdy control, wich does not prevent damage, but prevent the enemy of using powers. It's a very interesting and cool concept and almost every game of the genre has it. But, for PvP it becomes a very powerfull mechanic since it depends a lot of how powers are used.

For the matter, let's take a look at the top taunters: Mummy Eddie and Sentinel soulless Demon. mummy Eddie has 45% chance of taunting with burden of the Damned, with no power cost. SSD has 55% chance of taunting when fully sharded, with no power cost. Both are AoE, and both have a lot of health and endurance. Add talismans like freeze or stun or even blind in the mix...

Much like F'n'Chuck'Prisoner'Norris they are not a problem if alone, but this is (Sparta!) LotB, and of course they are paired togheter in a lot of deadly combos. For example I saw a team with Mummy and two SSD and a GGS, blind/freeze/stun/void talismans. Guess who went second round? In my last days climbing I saw like 90% of the teams had Mummy, and SSD is climbing in popularity too. I myself have a setup wuth Mummy and SSD, and if I go first I get all enemies taunted 90% of the time.

Of course you can set some teams that do a ton of damage in normal attacks, but those teams are most of glass-cannons that are dead at the end of the first enemy round. And most teams depend on power moves to ensure victory, be it casting Endure, healing, fury, etc.

Much like Freeze party PvP now is becoming a Taunt party, and it's better to have this adressed sooner than later.

Problem of "tunning" (nerfing) taunt is that it will make OP toons even more OP. Look at F'n'Chuck'Prisoner'Norris: right now the only possible counter to him is Taunt, be it with Mummy, SSD or AoS power move. Just think if Taunt is "tunned"?

Again I now (Houston) we have a problem, but I still don't know how we can "fix" it. What are your ideas?

[BillLion]

Agreed. Like others I've adapted to the game. But it's boring and frustrating.

[BillLion]

In fact I was just talking to another player offline and we we're mumbling about how we have some really cool/rare eddies that could/should be amazing in PVP, but they sit on the sidelines as almost everybody uses a common mummy eddie...

[scott-5496]

I come and go with these sorts of debates to be honest. I have not lost an attack against anyone this week if I have gone first - regardless of SSD or taunt/freeze heavy teams. I have lost sometimes to teams when going second but only a couple. If you add in a Prisoner to the defenders then that also causes me pain - but to honest I get my ass handed to me every now and again like everyone else and that is the nature of these games.

I am just not sure about changing things too much - players have taunters and freeze tactics and it is up to others to try to beat it. Maybe like some of the chat around Prisoner we need to think about using the Party Cost aspect a bit - but again what is fair here. Others may look at my attack and see how lucky I have been with a HH, Prisoner and Warrior Troll (I got two of those in one lucky RNG weekend!) and they would be correct. I look at teams I play against and thin how much I would like a Red Bat, a Pharaoh or a maxed out GR (man does that guy cause me grief with his multiple hit attack - he is about the only one that can wipe out one of my guys in one round!).

I am just not sure how best to tackle this as folk who have sharded freeze/taunt teams will be annoyed about it, just like I would be if they nerfed my Prisoner or Troll. It really is quite tough to pick on an nerf key toons I think. Maybe something more global like party cost might work - I am not sure how much it goes to at max just now but I think I am 63 party cost and not sure I have seen anyone higher than that (?) There may be a way to have say Skill Shards adding to the cost so that would level things out a bit....again not sure as folks who have got more shards than me would be annoyed about that too (saying that I just got my shard achievement today at last after reaching 70!).

I am sure others will chime in on this but I am just not sure there is an easy way to fix any of the 'OP' issues that are out there?

\m/

[konstifik]

When attacking, there are good ways to counter taunting defending teams. As so many other strategies, the options are hampered if the defending team also has The Prisoner or, to a little lesser extent, a toon with Siege passive.

To me, this mainly boils down to The Prisoner, again. Taunting in itself is not a problem. Taunting plus The Prisoner is a problem. Removing The Prisoner would make PvP a lot more balanced.

[mjmxiii]

Instead of NerFing the Prisoner, they should give certain chars "Boss" status... Ability to be team leader and is either immune to or disables Passive Aggression. All playable "Boss" chars should have this ability.

[Ancient Mariner]

agree, i also noticed a lot of players putting the Mummy Eddie and the Sentinel soulless Demon in their team...and infact i usually avoid to fight those because it's ridiculous how often you can't control your troopers, with the high chances to be taunted, also cause the AI always makes the Mummy use the same ability which taunts enemies :/

[Fister]

Its been written over and over again how op prisoner/red troll combo is. Sorry, after 10 days of PvP I don't see that. Beat them regularly.

Its all about what toons you meet them with and what chipsset (talismans) ☺

Imo prisoner need no nerf bat.

And then the taunt. Sure it is no fun getting cought in a mummie/ssd taunt fest. Tried it myself. But they can be countered. Hellhound is a obvious choice here. ☺

Just my 2 cents

Cheers

[slauki]

Its been written over and over again how op prisoner/red troll combo is. Sorry, after 10 days of PvP I don't see that. Beat them regularly.

Its all about what toons you meet them with and what chipsset (talismans) ☺

Imo prisoner need no nerf bat.

And then the taunt. Sure it is no fun getting cought in a mummie/ssd taunt fest. Tried it myself. But they can be countered. Hellhound is a obvious choice here. ☺

Just my 2 cents

Cheers

how can the hellhound help you, when the enemy has a prisoner or a siege ability character?
i agree, that the taunt itself is not the problem because there are countertactics for it (even a prisoner in a vacuum is not a problem).
but the combination of certain characters is a big problem.

and the last trend is that many players have very similar defenses. this makes PVP kinda boring. more variance would be great. unfortunatly there are only very few creative defenses out there, because the standard approach works so good.
mummy/ssd/prisoner or siege and troll are very common combinations among the top 50 players (with the mandatory voids on the troll or another random char). this similarity is hurting the game, because many cool characters are not used, since they are ineffective. so even if taunt is not op it hurts the game because it limits you options and the variety of the game. playing the same defense over and over again is just another form of monotone grinding.

a good party cost system could help us a lot, but i'm afraid that it's not that easy to implement, because much analysis is needed to make it work in a good way.

[Frost]

... is that we have a lot of cool Eddies in PvE with a lot of cool stuff, but they are never seen in PvP. I never saw a team with a SoL Eddie, nor a Samurai. I only see Mummy, GR, some CR and Pharao, and very rare a Viking.

The problem is Mummy? The Taunt? The AI? The talismans?

Also, the problem with heavy taunting teams is when you go second. As I said it's soft CC, but if you can't control your toons in any way there are very few toons that can survive more than two rounds being taunted. Imagine that with talismans...