Aggravating Guide about Aggro

There's nothing wrong with it because it is completely correct. Every power that a tank casts is a taunt. You pop it and the mobs/boss comes for you to the exclusion of everyone else = taunt. The only powers that operate even a little differently from the rest are the single-target attacks that override the typical taunts so tanks can separate mobs/bosses.

There's no aggro race, no threat per second to worry about, as a tank in DCUO. Don't over complicate this because it's not difficult to understand. Problems arise when "experts" overthink the system and make the mistake of thinking it is more complex than it is.

Very well done.

This × 1000

Especially the second part

My understanding was there there were 4 different taunt characteristics that a power can have for the tank:

Power | Taunt PBAoE around User | Taunt PBAoE around Target | Single Target Taunt on Target |
Passive (buff/shield/etc) | X | | |
Active (attack power) | X | X | |
Single Taunt (Stone etc) | X | | X |
Mesmerizing Lasso | X | X | X |

Edit: forgive the atrocious formatting.

Thank you.

This is incorrect. But, you are on the right track as far as categorizing. I found the infographic I had been working on long, long ago. I'll add it, and put a copy below.
Mesmerizing Lasso, nowadays, is a single taunt, it just happens to be in the iconics.
PBAoE is a self-centered AoE. The PB stands for Point Blank.

No need to fight. Absolix, I think, was just pointing out that the tooltips are inconsistent, and was giving feedback that I might run into trouble later with people who notice the difference between the game's messaging and my messaging. It was constructive, and I'll keep it in mind if a hardhead comes along. The feedback did lead to the Quick Definitions section that I was on the fence about.

Good ideas. Non-tank pets that taunt definitely should have a piece.

It's not meant to be a tanking guide. I did my best not to stray too far from the subject of hate and aggro when discussing things that distract an NPC from the person with aggro. So, I'm not going to get into feints and counters. If an NPC is granted immunity by successfully countering a player, that might be worth mentioning, though.

Even though I've listed the single taunts (which I did mostly because of Mesmerizing Lasso), once I get to a stopping spot, I want it to be a relatively maintenance-free guide. So, a list of detaunts for all powersets would be a bit over the top. And, I'm not sure that it would be all that helpful, compared to explaining the mechanics. I don't know why so many powerset guides start by reiterating all the power trees (unless they have side comments about the powers' usefulness, or other details like base damage and cast time).

Please explain what you mean by tank powers that actually detaunt. Are you talking about self-encasements (hibernate, clown box, and the like)? I should mention those. Are you talking about how Winter Ward can be broken sometimes? I believe Ice Elemental no longer stops the aggro timer forcing a tank to re-establish.

YAY UNDRLINE!!!

In my head, this sounded like standing up and cheering Thank you.

Added piece about pets that have tank abilities. Added some information to taunts about self-encasments.

Im just going to sit here and wait for a certain person to post a 3 year old video and claim hardlights are tanks...

Well, that was the final impetus for creating a guide that I had been meaning to do for a long time. Good things can come from bad stuff like that sometimes.

oh i agree, i work alone at night so watching someone completely get trolled so bad they wanted to threaten people made work fun

Well yeah, I'm talking about things such as Envelop and how Winter Ward currently is. Might be useful to explain that those moves actually drop you down the hate table.

I'm not 100% sure that that infographic is correct, I've seen it before myself that lasso has different taunt characteristics than Stone et al, which was the primary point of my horrible chart. If you lasso Granny Goodness in DWF, adds around her will also be taunted. Using stone I've never seen that occur. Perhaps the infographic shows what is intended to occur, but my gameplay shows that Lasso either by design or error behaves differently.

NPCs gain immunity if they have a Breakout Profile. That varies depending on the NPC and slightly different for bosses in instances. Bosses in duos or solo can be controlled.

What also varies is when they breakout which varies from 2 seconds on some NPCs to 8 seconds on others. Minnions are usually controllable for longer periods. In nearly all cases, there is a countdown from when the first CC effect lands that starts a timer and then the NPC breaks out. So a tank pulling the NPC is what would start the countdown, all other control effects will register until the timer is up then the NPC will gain immunity and that immunity also varies in length. You can fit more than 2 control effects from either powers or weapons depending on when the NPc is programmed to breakout. Matches usually breakout early in between 2 and 4 seconds.

Not all NPCs have a breakout profile which means they can be controlled over and over by a tank's knocked down/back/juggle/pull/root. A majority of Tank control effects don't actually apply the stun effect. In Ice's case they encase. (NPCs without breakout profiles can be controlled for long durations per CC effect only by controller powers that inflict any of the 4 control effects that apply long duration CC. Even powers that can stun in the Iconics tree don't stun as long as powers that come directly from Controller powersets with stuns)

Also, if a NPC is encased first, by any player of any role, and the tank pops any power to taunt while the NPC is encased, the NPC will not register the taunt because any encasement is treated like an object and it shells the npc. The sources are in my sig.


The player base has become really casual so your simple answer to "So, how do opponents get immunities?" is that it depends if they have breakout profiles or not. if they do, they can be controlled and have immunity for a short amount of time. If they don't, you can control them repeatedly.

Lasso should be a single taunt, and work the way I have described. If not, then it's broken. Try to capture some video, and submit it to the Issue Tracker (tinyurl.com/DCUObug)

Edited to include Breakout Profile. I linked back to your guides as well. Also added the part about encasements to the taunts section.

As far as i knew, Lasso/Fireball/Stone/Etc...all are single target "super taunt", but the AoE taunt works the same as any other regular single target power. I mean...4 adds, you target and hit 1 with the super taunt, but the other 3 will be regularly taunted aswell.