Please don't add taunts to gap closers (templar)

fred4 · September 21

Watching a YouTube video, I share a rising anger at just how misplaced adding a taunt to a gap closer is. Pulls are different. You're unlikely to use a pull unless you're an actual tank. Gap closers, however, are fun to use in easier dungeons, during open world events (vents, geysers, Harrowstorms), and most of all in Infinite Archive. Explosive Charge is useful as an AOE interrupt, there. So you're telling me, if I go into the Archive as a templar DD with a tank partner, I will now be taking away taunt from my tank? The same will happen when inexperienced players use that skill in a dungeon. That's just stupid. Thoughts?

ADarklore · September 21

I agree and this was my initial concern as a solo player, because I love using Explosive Charge as a gap closer. However, as a melee class, I expect to be taking some aggro because there is no AoE taunt. So naturally some enemies will attack you even with a tank companion.

The reality is, if you command your tank companion to attack first, I don't believe you can steal aggro until their taunt expires (if I understand how it works). Otherwise, if it does, then attack first, and then they come in afterward and activate their taunt, and they should pull aggro back from you. I'm not a group player so I don't know how taunt works since I've never focused on taunting enemies.

I don't understand why ZOS is suddenly focused on TANKS all of a sudden. I don't know how many class skills they've changed over the past year and claimed it was to specifically help "tanks"... yet I've not see any threads where tanks were complaining. So it's almost like some made-up excuse to make changes that THEY want to make, but claim it's to help players who are complaining, when they're not.

fred4 · September 21

ADarklore wrote: »

The reality is, if you command your tank companion to attack first, I don't believe you can steal aggro until their taunt expires (if I understand how it works).

No, that is not how tank works. Tanks can steal the taunt from each other at will, X number of times in a row, back and forth, until eventually the target becomes taunt immune.

Stealing taunt is a requirement for mechanics in some (vet) trials, where the 2 tanks are deliberately forced (by ZOS) to swap targets.

Accidentally gaining taunt on a marauder in Infinite Archive could get you killed instantly.

Can you work around it? Sure. What's galling is merely how random and counter-productive this change is. Yes, lightweight templar tanks for normal / easy dungeons are a thing, but those are already served well by the Tormentor set, which is actually rather good to single bar with resistances carrying to the other bar.

Vet Dreadsail Reef is an example where you might like the gap closer taunt in serious content. However would you choose a templar tank, if playing at that level? If you play multiple classes: No. See more, below.

Charge does not replace Pierce Armor, because Pierce Armor grants ~9K penetration, the tank's main job. An actual tank will almost always have the latter on their bar anyway, since the combination of taunt + Major Breach + Minor Breach + (if you're using it) Master's 1H+Shield is far superior than putting, say, Charge + Elemental Susceptibility + Power of the Light together. 3 seconds, 3 skill slots, is not an alternative to Pierce Armor, 1 skill, 1 second. Even a gap closer + Pierce Armor is only 2 seconds, if you have to have that gap closer.

I don't understand why ZOS is suddenly focused on TANKS all of a sudden. I don't know how many class skills they've changed over the past year and claimed it was to specifically help "tanks"... yet I've not see any threads where tanks were complaining.

Actually, and this is the irony, tanks have been complaining about templar or rather not using the class in high-end content. At the more difficult levels of the game, those where you truly need a tank (player - not companion), what players look for is mainly group utility. ZOS' changes don't address that at all. At best, what they do, is address templar tank from a role-playing perspective. That's not entirely wrong. I love taunting with a gap closer sometimes. My main issue is that this is already possiblle (with Tormentor) and that having the control of wearing that set, or not, is better than permanently having taunt married to both morphs of the gap closer. I'd be OK, I think, if they only put it on Toppling Charge, but left Explosive Charge alone. The AOE interrupt from the latter is quite unique and situationally useful. You IMO want DDs to be able to run that without a taunt.

code65536 · September 21

This is one of those "who in Oblivion asked for this?" changes.

I can guarantee you that adding a taunt to their gap closer will not make someone go, "oh, I want to tank on a Templar now". Addressing the lack of a health-scaled heal would go much farther than making this change that nobody asked for.

Blackbird_V · September 21

code65536 wrote: »

This is one of those "who in Oblivion asked for this?" changes.

I can guarantee you that adding a taunt to their gap closer will not make someone go, "oh, I want to tank on a Templar now". Addressing the lack of a health-scaled heal would go much farther than making this change that nobody asked for.

I got you! Predicting this update next!: Due to popular demand, blazing shield will now pull all enemies within 1m of you to you after a 4 second delay!

Vaqual · September 21

It adds a nifty way to proc tremor scale and theoretically brings some possible taunt-trigger set synergies without slotting (another) dedicated taunt, but that feels really pointless now that pulls have a taunt and the undaunted taunt is so strong.

I also feel that this is mainly annoying for non-tanks, especially since it is on both morphs.

For the people who are going from a tormentor setup to this, this of course frees up a lot of resources.

valenwood_vegan · September 21

Yeah it's such a weird change. Who asked for this?

At least just add the taunt to one morph... isn't that the point of having morphs?

Just_Attivi · September 22

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Yeah it's such a weird change. Who asked for this?

At least just add the taunt to one morph... isn't that the point of having morphs?

No, you will be a templar tank and you will like it! you can play any way you like, as long as it is the way we want!

code65536 · September 22

Vaqual wrote: »

For the people who are going from a tormentor setup to this, this of course frees up a lot of resources.

People didn't use Tormentor because it turned gap closers into taunts.

People used Tormentor because it turned AoE gap closers (Explosive Charge and Lotus Fan) into AoE taunts.

Removing the ability to AoE taunt using Tormentor basically killed that set.

If someone at ZOS thought, "our stats show people using Tormentor, so adding a taunt to a gap closer is a great idea", then they didn't understand why people used Tormentor.

(To be clear, I am not advocating for an AoE taunt. I'm just saying that if this change was inspired by the use of Tormentor with Explosive Charge, then they missed the point of why those two things were originally paired.)

Vaqual · September 22

code65536 wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

For the people who are going from a tormentor setup to this, this of course frees up a lot of resources.

People didn't use Tormentor because it turned gap closers into taunts.

People used Tormentor because it turned AoE gap closers (Explosive Charge and Lotus Fan) into AoE taunts.

Removing the ability to AoE taunt using Tormentor basically killed that set.

If someone at ZOS thought, "our stats show people using Tormentor, so adding a taunt to a gap closer is a great idea", then they didn't understand why people used Tormentor.

(To be clear, I am not advocating for an AoE taunt. I'm just saying that if this change was inspired by the use of Tormentor with Explosive Charge, then they missed the point of why those two things were originally paired.)

The old functionality of tormentor is beside the point here. Functionally you trade a 5-piece for the bar slot/gcd of another taunt, retaining the benefits and passives that come with focused charge. I am not saying that it is better than other taunt setups, it is just one way of doing it. For people who liked taunting with gap closers this is close to a free 5-piece bonus freed up. I am not defending the change and I also acknowledged the clear downsides of it, but it is a net power injection, if you take the sum of effects, passives, GCDs (and for that matter set bonuses) + resources spent into consideration.
You do not have to explain to me the advantages of the other taunts.

Anti_Virus · September 22

Make sun fire and it’s morphs taunt instead, that skill is useless anyways and would make more sense for tanks to use

code65536 · September 23

Vaqual wrote: »

For people who liked taunting with gap closers

Ummm......

My point is that I would wager that "people who liked taunting with gap closers" either don't exist or are vanishingly few in number. Which is why the old behavior of the Tormentor set is relevant, because I suspect that the only reason people actively chose to use that set (what I mean by "actively chose" is that I'm excluding people who wear it because they're new to the game and they just put on whatever they picked up from a beginner dungeon--and yes, I've once encountered someone who was stealing taunt from me and subsequently dying because they were new and that's what they happened to have and didn't realize what they were doing) was because of its AoE taunt and NOT because people think that taunts on gap closers is a fantabulous idea.

The more important thing, though, is "people who don't want taunt on a gap closer" most likely significantly outnumber "people who liked taunting with gap closers".

Vaqual · September 23

code65536 wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

For people who liked taunting with gap closers

Ummm......

My point is that I would wager that "people who liked taunting with gap closers" either don't exist or are vanishingly few in number. Which is why the old behavior of the Tormentor set is relevant, because I suspect that the only reason people actively chose to use that set (what I mean by "actively chose" is that I'm excluding people who wear it because they're new to the game and they just put on whatever they picked up from a beginner dungeon--and yes, I've once encountered someone who was stealing taunt from me and subsequently dying because they were new and that's what they happened to have and didn't realize what they were doing) was because of its AoE taunt and NOT because people think that taunts on gap closers is a fantabulous idea.

The more important thing, though, is "people who don't want taunt on a gap closer" most likely significantly outnumber "people who liked taunting with gap closers".

You are absolutely overvaluing the weight of that one sentence in my statement, without actually engaging with the content. I don't know how much more I can acknowledge that this is a benefit to an outlier setup. A niche option, but technically a buff by adding an entire focus script worth of power, if it is more clear in these terms. You are not helping me understand something here.

code65536 · September 23

Vaqual wrote: »

A niche option, but technically a buff by adding an entire focus script worth of power, if it is more clear in these terms.

Yes, it's a buff to a niche use case. And if it was just a buff to a niche use case, that'd be fine.

But it's a buff to a niche use case that gets in the way of other less-niche use cases.

(And looking at the bigger picture, it's a buff that does nothing to address the shortcomings of the class as a tank.)

Vaqual · September 23

code65536 wrote: »

But it's a buff to a niche use case that gets in the way of other less-niche use cases.

...as I also acknowledged right in the beginning...

Wandering_Immigrant · September 23

Vaqual wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

For people who liked taunting with gap closers

Ummm......

My point is that I would wager that "people who liked taunting with gap closers" either don't exist or are vanishingly few in number. Which is why the old behavior of the Tormentor set is relevant, because I suspect that the only reason people actively chose to use that set (what I mean by "actively chose" is that I'm excluding people who wear it because they're new to the game and they just put on whatever they picked up from a beginner dungeon--and yes, I've once encountered someone who was stealing taunt from me and subsequently dying because they were new and that's what they happened to have and didn't realize what they were doing) was because of its AoE taunt and NOT because people think that taunts on gap closers is a fantabulous idea.

The more important thing, though, is "people who don't want taunt on a gap closer" most likely significantly outnumber "people who liked taunting with gap closers".

You are absolutely overvaluing the weight of that one sentence in my statement, without actually engaging with the content. I don't know how much more I can acknowledge that this is a benefit to an outlier setup. A niche option, but technically a buff by adding an entire focus script worth of power, if it is more clear in these terms. You are not helping me understand something here.

But it's a niche option that's actually disruptive to group play as it leads to your tank darting around the room taking all the taunted mobs with them. This is likely to lead to people hating getting grouped with Templar tanks in pugs and certainly won't be cause for organized groups to choose a Templar over any other class.

A gap closer taunt especially makes little sense on Templar in particular since they excel most when standing in their sacred ground. My main tank I use is a Templar, I've been running with her for years. I literally stand in the middle of the room like a statue pulling everything toward me while in the safety of my focus and ritual circles. That's the strength of Templar tanks and if they want to see Templar tanks used more that's where they should focus.

Something like this: Applying a taunt to enemies standing within your sacred ground causes them to take [X] more damage from all sources, this effect is increased by [X%] every 2 seconds the enemy remains taunted and within your sacred ground stacking up to [X] times. Very simple and would be very effective at making Templar tanks more desirable.

acastanza_ESO · September 23

I could understand if they put the taunt on just one morph (Toppling charge), if they really want to make this an option for Templar Tanks to have a gap closer taunt, but putting it on both Topping and Explosive charge, when Explosive is clearly meant to be a damage focused morph, is just a bad call.

Vaqual · September 23

Seems like recognizing the potential benefit made me the official representative for this change. reading comprehension is 0/10 in this thread.

Wandering_Immigrant · September 23

Vaqual wrote: »

Seems like recognizing the potential benefit made me the official representative for this change. reading comprehension is 0/10 in this thread.

There is no real benefit, any Templar who wants to use charge for the protection or interrupt or even the off balance can already do so, regardless of this change they should still be using puncture for the breach since Templar doesn't have major breach in their toolkit. And even if they did, or sourced breach from somewhere else, that's still additional bar space taken up which completely negates what you say is the benefit.

The only thing this change does is confuses new players who want to tank on Templar and see that Templar has a built in class taunt so think that's what they should be using as their main taunt.

Well, thinking about it there's one benefit. We'll be able to fake tank on a Templar DPS more effectively than we could on other classes now. I mean, theoretically with this change I can now queue as tank on my pvp build and be fairly effective, so there's that.

Vaqual · September 23

Wandering_Immigrant wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Seems like recognizing the potential benefit made me the official representative for this change. reading comprehension is 0/10 in this thread.

And even if they did, or sourced breach from somewhere else, that's still additional bar space taken up which completely negates what you say is the benefit.

This is the part where you are wrong because you are only thinking inside the box. But I really have no appetite to discuss this anymore, because nobody here seems able to take an argument at face value and instead confuses it with the idea that I somehow favor this change.

Wandering_Immigrant · September 24

Vaqual wrote: »

Wandering_Immigrant wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Seems like recognizing the potential benefit made me the official representative for this change. reading comprehension is 0/10 in this thread.

And even if they did, or sourced breach from somewhere else, that's still additional bar space taken up which completely negates what you say is the benefit.

This is the part where you are wrong because you are only thinking inside the box. But I really have no appetite to discuss this anymore, because nobody here seems able to take an argument at face value and instead confuses it with the idea that I somehow favor this change.

Outside the box how like having someone else in group responsible for breach? That's fine if you're composing your own groups, and if you have a group of players in your circle who are ok with that type of free thinking then that's great and good for you I love outside the box thinkers. This change still doesn't synergize with Templar tanks or improve it in any way though. And most of us don't have the luxury of a group like that anyway, we just want our Templar tanks that we love to be accepted by the wider player base so that we can use them instead of being asked to change class. Instead we get an update that's going to turn Templar into the meme tank making it even harder for us to be accepted.

Vaqual · September 24

Wandering_Immigrant wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Wandering_Immigrant wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Seems like recognizing the potential benefit made me the official representative for this change. reading comprehension is 0/10 in this thread.

And even if they did, or sourced breach from somewhere else, that's still additional bar space taken up which completely negates what you say is the benefit.

This is the part where you are wrong because you are only thinking inside the box. But I really have no appetite to discuss this anymore, because nobody here seems able to take an argument at face value and instead confuses it with the idea that I somehow favor this change.

Outside the box how like having someone else in group responsible for breach? That's fine if you're composing your own groups, and if you have a group of players in your circle who are ok with that type of free thinking then that's great and good for you I love outside the box thinkers. This change still doesn't synergize with Templar tanks or improve it in any way though. And most of us don't have the luxury of a group like that anyway, we just want our Templar tanks that we love to be accepted by the wider player base so that we can use them instead of being asked to change class. Instead we get an update that's going to turn Templar into the meme tank making it even harder for us to be accepted.

With all due respect, you are arguing on a counter point that you made up by yourself. Do you expect a response? Where is this going?
Do you want me to explain conceptionally where I see the benefit in a free bar slot? Do you want me to explain how major breach can be maintained?

Don't get me wrong. Opinions can be challenged, that is fair. But do you realize that I don't have an opinion on this? I see the proposal, I am trying to make sense of it and I am looking for opportunities. I see a chance in this, but I am aware of the downsides. It is literally written here. You are just trying to dunk on a random bystander. This is seriously perplexing.

fred4 · September 24

Wandering_Immigrant wrote: »

A gap closer taunt especially makes little sense on Templar in particular since they excel most when standing in their sacred ground.

All tanks usually stay still, because that (also) helps the DDs do damage with their ground AOEs.

A gap closer taunt definitely has niche use cases, especially one with an interrupt. Think of vCR - Z'Maja teleporting - or of the first boss in vDSR. It's not uncommon for (newer) tanks (in PUGs) to mess up the tank swap mechanic. Using the gap closer to get to the other side, taunt, and interrupt the boss, in case they start channeling their "let's kill everyone" attack, all with a single skill in a single GCD, that's definitely a quality of life improvement for budding tanks. It's only that it's a "nice to have". Once you've learnt the fight, you'll probably slot other skills to help the group do more damage.

At the more beginner level, it will help tanks keep up with and get ahead of DDs rushing in dungeons. When I was pugging nDSR, before I graduated to vet, I also used that method to keep the group alive in one particular trash pull. Was it necessary? No. Just satisfying. That said, this was with Tormentor and Stampede. It was the AOE taunt that really made that playstyle, e.g. that enabled the tank to protect the group by gaining taunt on everything.

I'd have no problem with Toppling Charge taunting. It can be a fun playstyle, even if the lack of an AOE taunt has reduced it largely to role-playing.

FionaFlute · September 26

I dont love the idea of a taunt on gap closers, but you probably shouldn't be using a gap closer as a dps in pve anyway.