Intimidate Useless

[Lifespawn]

I'm glad I didn't invest any time into making the perfect DR based shield-blocking intimitank. Phew, dodged that bullet.

Kinda sad though. Shield-blocking DR-focused intimitanks are not useful at all with these changes, and although I don't have one myself, I really like that they have a niche in the current game. Even if you made the buffer 10x modified intimidate score, there are many DPS focused builds that would crush through that buffer in 2-3 seconds, maybe less with a rapid string of crits. Perhaps a buffer of 100x modified intimidate score would help retain some kind of viability. Either way, the buffer needs to be significant!

If the objective of the intimidate change was to prevent people from shield blocking bosses while holding agro and not contributing directly to DPS, thus trashing some very interesting niche builds, then CONGRATULATIONS! Mission accomplished.

i unfortunately did put that effort in 120 shrouds 6 double upgrades passing up tomes to do it epic kund shield both slots used to help intim epic claw gloves epic brawns spirit i'll have to see if shield blocking and intiming while using dot's and maybe some polar rays will keep aggro if not i'll have to try to lesser into something else.

[The_Phenx]

A successful use of the intimidate skill should now set your threat with the monster equal to the highest threat opponent plus a small buffer based on your (size modified) intimidate skill. You should also gain a short duration +50% threat multiplier to all attacks (melee, ranged, and spells) for a short period after successful intimidation that stacks with all other threat modifiers. If you are using a weapon and shield, the buffer and threat multiplier are doubled (and the threat modifier lasts longer).

This is going to be HUGE for hate tanking. My halfling thanks you.

Sword and board ... intim... switch to twf ... ok guys come beat on him

+30% from claw +100% for 12s from intim... not that I had a whole lotta trouble hodling aggro before but now its a shoe in.

Is thre threat mod on a timer on the hotbar?

[Rawel_San]

<snip>
If your allies are attacking the monster, it'll be difficult to retain aggro while standing there shield-blocking, unless your DPS are taking some of the burden of threat management onto themselves. (Which we find desirable, by the way!)
<snip>

So you've intentionally taken one of the most niche, hard to gear and painful to level builds with one of the worst
dps styles (S&B) and intentionally destroyed it after making a PRE for it? And you're happy about it?

This just offends me and I don't even have an (S&B) intimitank.

[chester99]

Yes, thanks for the clarification. I understand the goal appears to be to make S&B a viable strategy, but what does this do to shield-blocking characters? Are we going to be able to maintain aggro without dealing damage?

Is there any chance that if a character intims something and then stands there shield blocking that the game would just auto-uninstall? I think that would really max the player experience, what with damage being reduced to exactly zero.

[Rawel_San]

Please stop talking about the 12 secs as if that's guaranteed hold time. That's just the time you get an extra 100% to
your threat. If you're not attacking a wizard will get through 80*2=160 threat in about 5 secs meleeing.

This is ofcourse assuming that threat=(threat modifier)*damage dealt to monster. I haven't seen this clarified
anywhere.

[sephiroth1084]

So you've intentionally taken one of the most niche, hard to gear and painful to level builds with one of the worst
dps styles (S&B) and intentionally destroyed it after making a PRE for it? And you're happy about it?

No, they just made the characters who choose to sit around pressing the intimidate button while blocking reevaluate their life choices and consider using a weapon.

My first character in DDO was an attempt at an AC tank.
My second character in DDO was an AC intimitank.
My first reincarnation of a character in DDO was from a weak AC intimitank to a hybrid AC-hate/intimitank.
My second reincarnation of a character in DDO was from a strong AC-hate/intimitank to a very strong AC-HATE/intimitank...

And I'm perfectly happy with the changes.

For every build thread I've seen with someone trying to build an intimitank, I've advocated leveling up in Strength and picking up Power Attack and Improved Critical, if not also one of GTWF or GTHF. The better players/character builders have made similar suggestions, while those who have chosen to take the narrowest possible outlook and turn that into their character's one and only function are in trouble now.

Building around a single strategy is usually a bad idea. Building around a single strategy that ignores your other inherent strengths is a bad idea. Building around a single strategy that is really only very useful in 1% or less of the content is a pretty terrible idea.

Building around a single strategy that ignores your inherent strengths and that is really only very useful in 1% or less of the content was a downright foolish idea, and now those people are complaining about their bad decisions coming back to bite them in the ass. The good news is that if you have already ground out the gear to be an effective intimiblocker, you probably are most of the way to being an effective hate tank and just need a few feat swaps or a Lesser Reincarnate to fix any major issues.

[sephiroth1084]

Please stop talking about the 12 secs as if that's guaranteed hold time. That's just the time you get an extra 100% to
your threat. If you're not attacking a wizard will get through 80*2=160 threat in about 5 secs meleeing.

Yeah, I don't know where people keep getting that notion. I think Eladrin, or another dev, mentioned that the lock time for intimidate is 5 seconds, while the hate multiplication duration is either 6 seconds or 12 depending on whether you are holding a shield or not. The cooldown is 15 seconds. That means that simply intimidating, you can only hope to hold a monster's aggro for maybe 1/3 of a fight unless no one else is attacking after you intimidate. Slightly more if that buffer somehow is more than 5 seconds' worth some someone else's DPS, but I doubt that that would ever be the case.

[PresentTense]

Is there any chance that if a character intims something and then stands there shield blocking that the game would just auto-uninstall? I think that would really max the player experience, what with damage being reduced to exactly zero.

Fine, you take the aggro. But don't expect any heals - that was me, too.

Not all tanks without a dps mode are one-trick ponies. There have been several people who have posted here about sorc tanks, cleric tanks and favored soul tanks. Sure, we can all just lesser into evokers or healbots, but that's not the point. If that buffer isn't enough to hold aggro, a lot of current original builds are going to die, and I don't think the buffs to S&B are enough to create new original builds. We'll just see lots and lots of hate tanks.

[MrWizard]

Is there any chance that if a character intims something and then stands there shield blocking that the game would just auto-uninstall? I think that would really max the player experience, what with damage being reduced to exactly zero.

maybe he is saying it is time for one trick ponies that solely go for dps and cannot take hits to 'pony' up and get some dr/ac and be able to handle some aggro in a raid...

[Kaeldur]

Fine, you take the aggro. But don't expect any heals - that was me, too.

Not all tanks without a dps mode are one-trick ponies. There have been several people who have posted here about sorc tanks, cleric tanks and favored soul tanks. Sure, we can all just lesser into evokers or healbots, but that's not the point. If that buffer isn't enough to hold aggro, a lot of current original builds are going to die, and I don't think the buffs to S&B are enough to create new original builds. We'll just see lots and lots of hate tanks.

I see merit in your point and while I worry about it myself, we, as players, have always been creative and managed to make original builds around whatever rules are given to us. It might indeed kill those cited builds, unfortunately, but could bring us new builds. I'm not saying I'm in favor of the new Intimidate, because I haven't even tested it yet (neither has anyone else if it's not WAI - which I hope is the case).

[sephiroth1084]

Not all tanks without a dps mode are one-trick ponies. There have been several people who have posted here about sorc tanks, cleric tanks and favored soul tanks. Sure, we can all just lesser into evokers or healbots, but that's not the point. If that buffer isn't enough to hold aggro, a lot of current original builds are going to die, and I don't think the buffs to S&B are enough to create new original builds. We'll just see lots and lots of hate tanks.

And all of those but bards are getting improved DoT effects that will work vs. just about every boss in the game and will likely be enough to retain aggro.

The one real problem with the dev's logic is that they expect the non-tanking players to manage some of their own aggro, which simply doesn't occur with any sort of frequency even in guild/channel runs, let alone PUG groups. Normally, if a group has to choose between managing their aggro by letting the lower DPS character tank, or going all out while letting the high-DPS, high-HP barbarian or fighter tank, they choose the latter. Even having established my tank as being quite excellent and more than capable of tanking content effectively, and with little lead time, Ferrumrym often gets passed over for a character with more HP and DPS. ToD is a special case, because it has a fairly hard minimum HP point at which anyone below that is almost guaranteed to die, and anyone not far above it is at great risk, but there are other places where it's an issue as well.

[Junts]

Yeah, I don't know where people keep getting that notion. I think Eladrin, or another dev, mentioned that the lock time for intimidate is 5 seconds, while the hate multiplication duration is either 6 seconds or 12 depending on whether you are holding a shield or not. The cooldown is 15 seconds. That means that simply intimidating, you can only hope to hold a monster's aggro for maybe 1/3 of a fight unless no one else is attacking after you intimidate. Slightly more if that buffer somehow is more than 5 seconds' worth some someone else's DPS, but I doubt that that would ever be the case.

There is no lock time.

There's just you being permanently ahead. if you suck at threat, you can't tank anymore unless people don't really dps ever.

On the other hand, you can now recover from having died as a threat tank, which was previously nearly impossible.

[Bowser_Koopa]

I understand hiding behind your shield and spamming intimidate wasn't the most 'fun' thing in the world but it sure felt good to stand in front of a boss and just dare him to try to take you down with all he's got and still be left standing after he tossed everything at you and the kitchen sink too (sure the healers helped make this happen too) but it was a viable strategy it was fun for me and I enjoyed it.

I ran off of a hybrid of the "Big Rock Candy Mountain" build I swung my khopesh's when I wasn't intimidating a boss I contributed too. But now the other side of the coin for my favorite toon seems to be in peril.

Can we perhaps instead of removing "hiding behind your shield" institute some way to attack from behind your shield? Get some passive dr from holding a shield even? There has to be some alternative to make shields attractive other than getting AC and not using their other function of preventing damage too.

[Jacoby]

Don't overreact or anything...



Obviously it was a bug. But that didn't stop two knee-jerkers from neg repping this comment. Thanks.

Uhm... knee jerkers? I'm still waiting for the repeater fix? For like 6 years now.... I posted bug reports for the fear spell when it was broken in two updates ago and guess what... It's still bugged.

[sephiroth1084]

Can we perhaps instead of removing "hiding behind your shield" institute some way to attack from behind your shield? Get some passive dr from holding a shield even? There has to be some alternative to make shields attractive other than getting AC and not using their other function of preventing damage too.

The Shield Mastery feat is being changed to grant either 10, 15 or 20% DR vs. physical damage when holding a light, heavy or tower shield respectively.

[sephiroth1084]

There is no lock time.

There's just you being permanently ahead. if you suck at threat, you can't tank anymore unless people don't really dps ever.

On the other hand, you can now recover from having died as a threat tank, which was previously nearly impossible.

Oh really?

A monster that has been intimidated will not reevaluate targets on its own for at least five seconds. (If someone forces reevaluation, then it will occur as expected.) Monsters that select targets randomly should still target the intimidator.

[quityourjobs]

With the feat changes to Shield Mastery, including 20% damage reduction before DR, not to mention their AC, I don't see why these tanks wouldn't be able to just swing away with their 100% threat bonus (stacking with everything else) and generate enough threat to hold onto a boss until Intim comes back around, while maintaining great defensive stats.

Doom?

[quityourjobs]

Uhm... knee jerkers? I'm still waiting for the repeater fix? For like 6 years now.... I posted bug reports for the fear spell when it was broken in two updates ago and guess what... It's still bugged.

How is this relevant? Nobody was talking about the repeater bug.

[Coldin]

I understand hiding behind your shield and spamming intimidate wasn't the most 'fun' thing in the world but it sure felt good to stand in front of a boss and just dare him to try to take you down with all he's got and still be left standing after he tossed everything at you and the kitchen sink too (sure the healers helped make this happen too) but it was a viable strategy it was fun for me and I enjoyed it.

I ran off of a hybrid of the "Big Rock Candy Mountain" build I swung my khopesh's when I wasn't intimidating a boss I contributed too. But now the other side of the coin for my favorite toon seems to be in peril.

Can we perhaps instead of removing "hiding behind your shield" institute some way to attack from behind your shield? Get some passive dr from holding a shield even? There has to be some alternative to make shields attractive other than getting AC and not using their other function of preventing damage too.

You can attack from behind your shield by taking the Improved Shield Bash feat. You can now get 20% physical damage reduction just by holding a shield by taking the Shield Mastery feat.

[Bowser_Koopa]

The Shield Mastery feat is being changed to grant either 10, 15 or 20% DR vs. physical damage when holding a light, heavy or tower shield respectively.

I must of missed that somewhere I'll have to look into that.

Still a bit worried about this change over all however like I said I really enjoyed the idea of 'forcing' the mobs into a state that all they could think about was must smash Bowser however possible. Even if at times it was boring the idea that I could take everything they had via another method besides 1000's of hp's....not that I didn't have my fair share of HP's too.