Intimidate Useless

[Sanadil]

Remember each use of intimidate gives you threat equal to the highest presently on the mob plus a buffer. For example, you could have some air savant blast the vod orthons 2-3 times with chainlightning before you intimidate the first time - and then your threat on those mobs will be equal to his chains plus the buffer, or in other words, you'd have a comfortable edge over everyone who hasn't hit it yet.

That is true, but grabbing a group of mobs, that haven't been hit by anybody yet, leaves that buffer fairly low. A Cleave and few glancing blows, or firewall, would negate that initial buffer only fairly quick, and unless that person is standing on top of you, the mob is going to run to the person that did the damage, while your still on timer for intim. You'll have to chase it down or have them bring it back to you, and get the timing right on intim, radius etc, to get it back off that person. All in all, it sounds sloppy, and prone to error.

I understand where you are coming from on how this could be a good thing to a certain extent. I personally feel it won't work though. The game has been around for 5 years, not once was it really necessary at any given point, to concentrate on the same mob when trash is involved.

All of this is mute though, I'm just re-rolling to a pure hate tank, dumping SD, and investing in something other than intim, as its not needed to hold aggro with the hate method today, it won't be needed after update 9. While tanking in raids, I'll go auto attack and grab a snack, as it really won't require anything other than that to work

[MrWizard]

Correct me if i am wrong. But if the new system works as Eladrin describes... Than why are there 2 tank prestigeclasses? Intimidate won't be usefull one bit anymore, since you can hold aggro for about 2 seconds before any random character can pluck it away from you again

Intim only becomes usefull in big mobs for let's say maybe 5 seconds. Which basicly makes the intim usefull in Shavarath, coz real intimming wont be needed at lower levels.

Still: am i missing something else? coz excpet for those rare occasions, intim becomes like a drop in the ocean of DPSagro

because other than the 4 or 5 boss fights that intim is useful and desired (by some), there is 99.99999% content that intim is very useful too also.
Large groups once intimmed will stay intimmed until someone pulls them off you. Usually the group is not hitting all of them. This keeps mobs off casters and clerics easily without having to intim every 6 seconds.

not intimming every 6 seconds means my TWFing, hasted, fighter haste boosted, human damage boosted, yada yada boosted, fighter can wallop without stopping for quite a while...pure awesomeness.

face it though...boss fights are scary because a huge number of players have not learned how to make their toons survivable...or refuse to learn...or have not been able to craft the gear yet.

a fighter does not use intimidate to make himself seem mighty, it is used to help keep aggro off others because those toons are unable to handle it. And in non raid boss situations it is still very rare to have a caster that understands crowd control forcing the fighter to have to intim things...

[Sanadil]

Also, fighters will be able to shield tank, which they presently can't do very well because they don't have enoug hthreat modifier available. paladins have 50% extra, in addition to having better s/b dps in general. Fighters needed this help a lot more, as threat-tanking, shield-using fighters are basically nonexistent right now. Fighter threat tanks are twfing with mediumm-high ac, not fortresses. Those huge-ac builds are intimiblockers because they have no prayer of holding aggro with a weapon.

You might want to clarify Shield Tank as just holding a shield, and not actually using it, I'm pretty sure that's what you mean here.

[Junts]

ROFL!!!!

Sorry man but your talking about the same group of people who after 5 years still dont understand the concept of "Dont hit the fascinated/hypnoed/etc...mobs".

Love the wishful thinking i truely do, but if your expecting anyone else to care about you threat it just dont think its gonna happen out side of guild only runs.

People, even puggers, have been hitting the blue mob in vod since the raid came out. If the people you run with are too stupid to attack one mob in concert, run with smarter people. I ran dozens of pug vods when the raid was actually new and difficult and people could handle the simple task of killing the orthons one at a time.


In case you hadn't noticed, Eladrin and friends are quite glad to force these melees to care, and I would suspect that they will find some creative and painful ways to punish people from pulling aggro in that way.

[MrWizard]

While this is an absolutely ridiculous change, the idea behind it seems to be soundish; the actual frutis of the idea, however, are tragically flawed. Intimidate worked fine on a successful check; the problem was that it was useless if your target rolled a save and some saves astronomically high.

I don't see how, short of the dev responsible for this change being overwhelmingly shaken by a prior failed intimidate check and therby holding a grudge against intimitanks, anyone thought it would be a good idea to change intimidate so that it doesn't function for the entire duration of the cooldown. If they are going to go this direction, the cooldown on intimidate should be shortened to five seconds. Ideally, in my opinion, a successful intimidate check should function as it used to coupled with this new change.

Sure, if AC tanking were a viable option in all content, intimidating and hate tanking would be cool. The fact, however, remains that shield blocking is more useful to intimitanks in multiple situations. I have seen people on this thread saying that you should shield bash to raise your hate. Have any of you actually tried that? Unless there has been a change that I missed in the release notes, you don't get your blocking dr while shield bashing, so you might as well be swinging a weapon to build up real hate.

I took the shield bash feat and bought some really nice expensive shields to test it out.
I found a HUGE number of issues with shield bash. The worst was..."the shield effects do not work" in a majority of the shields tested.
Also, there are no metalline/pure good shields. You cannot generate hate if you do zero damage on a raid boss.

[Junts]

You might want to clarify Shield Tank as just holding a shield, and not actually using it, I'm pretty sure that's what you mean here.

If you think holding down the shift key in more than specialized situations (your tank died, horoth stunned you, etc) is fun, you are clearly in a small minority that both doesn't include many players and doesn't include the development team.

I couldn't be gladder that intimiblock is dead, and I used to do it: its ****ant boring and noninteractive, and its demise will improve tanking on this game tenfold. going forward.

[TDarkchylde]

Yeah, after reading over all of this, my three intimitanks are now completely useless. None relied on AC because the gear is too hard to get, consumes too many slots and the sacrifice to DPS was too high:

* A mostly Paladin intimitank relying on intense self-healing and blocking DR to mitigate damage. As a fleshy, shield-blocking is the only way she could tank Sully. The counter is higher DPS than most tanks in their DPS modes - useless now because she'd get cursed every five seconds or so, nullifying her self-heals.

* A Cleric-based intimitank that used her Aura, Bursts and quickened Heals to ensure only she'd be the one needing healing, with Masses if splash damage hit the group. No point now - no way for her to hold aggro with Intimidate being broken and the cooldown extended.

* A Sorc-based situational intimitank, using DR and quickened Reconstruct to hold aggro in emergencies (and being able to do so even in situations where healing curses fly around), as well as being a surprisingly potent Orthon tank. Considering Devils are immune to Firewall, she can't hold aggro that way. Adding an electric DoT only partially helps - as a Fire Savant (for +6 Intim), the DPS of it will be pitiful.

So where's the three +3 Lesser Hearts I'm going to need to rid them of their now useless capabilities? I'm waiting.

[grodon9999]

In case you hadn't noticed, Eladrin and friends are quite glad to force these melees to care, and I would suspect that they will find some creative and painful ways to punish people from pulling aggro in that way.

Which will punish healers more than the melees too stupid to know what they did wrong.

[IronClan]

the stalwart defender 50% hate doesn't work. so all you really gain from it is some AC which is worthless in epics.

And it's also worthless if you don't get agro... which you're not going to get while sacrificing DPS for AC gear and enhancements and feats... And it's worthless against bosses... which is the only thing you'll be able to Intim + beat on with S&B, but why wear a shield against a boss now that blocking is not viable? Much better to go DPS, once you intim him wearing a temporary shield for the bonus.

Logical deductions:
If you can't intim groups of Mobs then AC is useless against them, because you wont get much agro and don't need to avoid getting hit. If AC is also useless in Epics and against most Bosses AND you can't keep Boss agro while shield blocking; Then AC or S&B is useless under almost all circumstances (even more so than it already is). Which means those PrE's are 100% useless.

FAILING intim gives a boost to hate tanking... So hate tanks can "swap" hate gear on, hit intim, FAIL OR SUCCEED, they get a bonus to hate gen. They don't need 80 intim, they don't need that PrE... they just need a moderate Intim score, a +15 intim item and a Charisma (+6 cha and command) boost and some Hate gen items, throw a useless shield on for JUST LONG ENOUGH TO CLICK the intim hot key (for the +100% hate gen bonus while wearing a shield) and whala DPS build that hate tanks.. And their opportunity cost is 100% swapable gear that's easy to get, and 10 or 20 skill points.

Versus my Intimitank DoS Paladin's oppotunity cost: 40 - 50 Enhancement points, every gear slot filled with AC, The games acknowledged "most grindy" gear path. build points into intim and AC improving stats (loss of DPS), one hand dedicated to AC not swinging a weapon, 23 skill points, Intelligence 13 for Combat Expertise, a fighter splash for Tower shield and an extra feat for CE... And that's not getting Boss Intim numbers. Sacrfices DPS, at every turn...

Oh sure why not let the dual Khopesh hate tank be more effective than me... Makes perfect sense...

[Junts]

Which will punish healers more than the melees too stupid to know what they did wrong.

Only if they don't die.

When they die, they look like idiots, get to spend time dead, and realize they might possibly have done something wrong.

Listen, DDO players are on average older than WoW players. If WoW players can figure this out (and they have to, their whole game plays with an even more extremely punitive threat/tanking system), so can DDO players.

[Tirisha]

I can already do that. The people who benefit aren't just the lesser geared, though.

My character is built in part to optimize sword and board dps (this sounds silly, but bear with me). I have Khopesh, paladin capstone, and make sure to build all the dps gear available to me into my ac setup (eg claw set, etc) in order to maximize my base damage before the threat bonuses. This allows my character to threat tank with the present threat modifiers, but only barely and with a lot of my character expended on boosting threat in a style i use for one fight in the entire game (elite horoth).

This change isn't to heop me. It will primarily help people who want to make a truly defensive oriented paladin - one that foregoes khopesh and power attack for shield mastery's damage reduction, for more intimidate feats to go above my measly 69 intimidate, etc. Those characters, right now, have no prayer of holding aggro even with the bonuses. But they will be able to find a way to do that with this intimidate buff. This is the new generation of pointless, no-offense intimtank: you can make a threat tank with no offensive ability, and focus allyour feats on defensive abilities, and they even gave you more defensive feats (like shield mastery) to help you do that.

I won't be taking shield mastery because I do a lot of my tanking with a sword of shadow (84 ac in ce with the sword) so its just not a big enough help for me. But someone out there is gonna make a turtle build for it, and for improved shield bash, and a paladin using a silver epic chimaera's fang with all 3 denieth dragonmarks, and his dps is going to be abominable, but he will still be able to hold aggro, and right now, he couldn't do that.


Also, fighters will be able to shield tank, which they presently can't do very well because they don't have enoug hthreat modifier available. paladins have 50% extra, in addition to having better s/b dps in general. Fighters needed this help a lot more, as threat-tanking, shield-using fighters are basically nonexistent right now. Fighter threat tanks are twfing with mediumm-high ac, not fortresses. Those huge-ac builds are intimiblockers because they have no prayer of holding aggro with a weapon.

Now they do. Now a lot of my dps is overkill except for the fact that its great when I run epics with my SoS, becuase its not needed to tank.

That's a good thing, because I'm spending alot of feats on it on a feat-starved class that don't make a lot of sense with an objective of 'tanking'.

If you have the right gear and you build for it you could hate tank on a more defensive paladin or a fighter without intimidate change. It's harder with less considerate party members yes but ultimately this just makes it easier.

[Sanadil]

If you think holding down the shift key in more than specialized situations (your tank died, horoth stunned you, etc) is fun, you are clearly in a small minority that both doesn't include many players and doesn't include the development team.

I couldn't be gladder that intimiblock is dead, and I used to do it: its ****ant boring and noninteractive, and its demise will improve tanking on this game tenfold. going forward.

Each to their own. I don't agree on this point. At least I had to have timing perfect for intim to work (not everyone could do that), and was actually pushing buttons of some sort. Hate method, is grab aggro, build some hate, auto attack, and walk away. Easier than intim blocking IMO.

[grodon9999]

I couldn't be gladder that intimiblock is dead, and I used to do it: its ****ant boring and noninteractive . . .

With you so far and I agree . . . but some people enjoy it and how is that taking away from your fun?

. . .and its demise will improve tanking on this game tenfold. going forward.

Not as long as AC is useless in epics or any new end-game content, there's no reason at all to take a real tank into EDA or Chrono over barb or any other quest for that matter.

[Junts]

If you have the right gear and you build for it you could hate tank on a more defensive paladin or a fighter without intimidate change. It's harder with less considerate party members yes but ultimately this just makes it easier.

Now it doesn't matter if they are considerate.

Listen, people in this game want the fastest way to do stuff, the most efficient way to do it. Right now, they often don't tolerate ac-based tanks becasue they require head-starts and other time-consuming stuf,f and they would rather throw an extra mana pot at the problem and save the time.

Being as fast at getting aggro, or faster, tha nanyone else is a big advantage to those characters being just the most efficient way of doing the job - needs less healing, easier to keep up, holds aggro better, etc. They are too niche to make them compete with other people to do the job they're designed for.

Most players in the present DDO, on live, would never consider a tank they have to give a head-start to unless the quest is just so ahrd it demands that they do, and no quest is regularly that hard. Being able to go right into it and hold the aggro without breaking up the group's flow or slowing the quest is a huge advantage, even if its primarily psychological.

[grodon9999]

Only if they don't die.

When they die, they look like idiots, get to spend time dead, and realize they might possibly have done something wrong.

LOL - we left a pug dead on a VoD this week who kept stepping between sulu and my tank. It was kinda amusing and we hope he learned something.

Listen, DDO players are on average older than WoW players. If WoW players can figure this out (and they have to, their whole game plays with an even more extremely punitive threat/tanking system), so can DDO players.

You don't pug much on our server do you?

[MrWizard]

I tell you what.

Just for you, I will transfer to Lamannia my paladin, with his 90 ac and his ability, with intimidate and divine righteousness, to keep aggro from Shade on a raidboss while using a shield.

There are such huge threat bonuses available that you can be a shield-using tank, use combat expertise, and still keep aggro from seirous dps, even serious dps who aren't using -threat gear. The ones using +threat gear are the most dicey, but still managable. A small dps increase is a huge threat increase wehn you get up to +235% bonus threat (think about that number again). You have to do about 30% of the other person's dps to do equal threat with that kind of threat bonus, and s/b does in fact do more than 30% of someone else's output.

don't THF and S&B get the same amount of attacks (4) in a chain? Don't sword and board get the THF extra damage stuff if d-axe or b-sword? Would not a khopesh wielder crit more often than a great axe user to make up the extra strength bonus?

the big diff I see is the over buffed barb with 90 strength. That cannot be overcome, however a fighter spending turbine points and cookies and the like could get a pretty high strength?

[Junts]

With you so far and I agree . . . but some people enjoy it and how is that taking away from your fun?



Not as long as AC is useless in epics or any new end-game content, there's no reason at all to take a real tank into EDA or Chrono over barb or any other quest for that matter.

I agree that we need more content where AC is helpful, but tanks (or at least some tanks) have other advantages. I know I, for example, rarely even have to dodge the firebreath in Chrono anymore with firestorm greaves and a 43 reflex save, even without evasion.

I agree there isn't enough distinction between fighter tanks and barbs/kensai/etc, however: most of my advantages are paladin features.

And I'd really like to see more situations where I c are about my ac, certainly. But you have to do this in steps: making tanking work properly is a good precursor to making more content it works in. The way 'tank' characters have worked has been degenerate for a long time, and you need look no further than those 80 intim lailat tanks who are utterly useless at everything else to see how its helpful for them to redesign teh systems before they design the quests.

[Junts]

don't THF and S&B get the same amount of attacks (4) in a chain? Don't sword and board get the THF extra damage stuff if d-axe or b-sword? Would not a khopesh wielder crit more often than a great axe user to make up the extra strength bonus?

the big diff I see is the over buffed barb with 90 strength. That cannot be overcome, however a fighter spending turbine points and cookies and the like could get a pretty high strength?

It gets overcome when you get over triple aggro. Typically, a character will deal about 65-70% of the damage with a shield as it does wit ha good 2handed weapon. A more heavily specced dps character would obviously move both those numbers up, but not so far that it actually is more than triple the other character's dps.

[sigtrent]

Issue #1: The current build isn't working

• Intim only has a microscopic buffer so you loose agro in a single swing
• If there is a 5 second no agro change after intim I havn't seen it
• There is no indicator so you know you have the extra threat making it hard to judge

So currently the only use for intim is to let hate tanks jump into a fight and compete on an even playing field.

Now if the thing works as I think its intended, and intim can hold on its own for at least a moment or two, then what it is useful for is creating a different kind of hate tank that does less damage but uses threat to maintain control by effectively gaining hate.

As well all know, sword and shield are an effective means for raising AC, but we also know that monk/dex builds can also achieve very high AC without a shield freeing them up to use TWF which is far stronger than sword and shield for DPS.

So on one hand you can spec for lower DPS that mimics high DPS in threat
Or you can spec for higher DPS that... is just higher DPS.

Both will hold agro, both achieve good AC, but one is more effective at killing monsters than the other and is thus clearly superior as a strategy.

Sword and shield could claim that in addition to AC they have a strong blocking DR, but under this new intim/hate scheme, there really is no room for blocking while holding agro unless you are simply delaying a monster rather than beating it down. Blocking becomes a non-advantage and intimidate + blocking is essentially a Mez mechanic.

Before you had the clear choice between a DPS hate tank that was perhaps a bit less durable but more versatile, or a turtling tank that could pretty much guarantee monster control but didn't contribute as much to taking down the enemy.

Now I think there is one choice, you need to build for maximum DPS possible while retaining AC which likely means paladin/monk TWF builds. That or you more or less abandon boss control and just surround and pound as is done with bosses with no reliable agro mechanic.

I think good game design works like this....
List your objective
Create a system
Measure its results
Did you meet the objective? What were the side effects?

Of course it has to be WAI to evaluate it properly.


The bottom line for peoples characters is that if they can't reliably control agro and are not specced to do decent damage, they will become pretty useless and folks who have those characters will feel pretty bad. Nothing a lesser reincarnation can't deal with, but still its pretty irritating if you feel forced into it, not because of optimization but basic functionality.


I'd really want to know what the objectives are. Do we want agro control to be more complicated? Do we want to end intim blocking as a tactic? Do we want agro control to be less reliable? Are we trying to force DPS to run agro mitigation?

Without knowing the goals, there is no good way to evaluate the results other than personal impact or perspective.

[grodon9999]

I agree that we need more content where AC is helpful, but tanks (or at least some tanks) have other advantages. I know I, for example, rarely even have to dodge the firebreath in Chrono anymore with firestorm greaves and a 43 reflex save, even without evasion.

I agree there isn't enough distinction between fighter tanks and barbs/kensai/etc, however: most of my advantages are paladin features.

One other thing . . . is if you happen to die you'll at least be able to get aggro back.

And I'd really like to see more situations where I c are about my ac, certainly. But you have to do this in steps: making tanking work properly is a good precursor to making more content it works in. The way 'tank' characters have worked has been degenerate for a long time, and you need look no further than those 80 intim lailat tanks who are utterly useless at everything else to see how its helpful for them to redesign teh systems before they design the quests.

Got it . . . I see what your saying and I'm cautiously optimistic that Turbine might knock some of the stupid out of the end-game. If this is the start of a larger plan it might be better but we don't know the full context.