A Plea to Reduce the Cost of the Undaunted Taunt for 1.6

Personofsecrets · February 2015

I haven't been too fond of the changes moving forward to 1.6. I'm troubled as I see the game taking the direction of Diablo 3. A system of minute and infinite level ups along beside gear that drops with randomly rolled traits was a nightmare worse than Praxin Dourare's that I'm glad to have left behind.

Though I am willing to deal with those design flaws, I am absolutely dreading 1 thing and that is the change to the magicka cost Undaunted taunt.

I only tank and have experience in all of the trials and VDSA. As of now I have no problem keeping my resources balanced, but with 1.6, if nothing changes, this balancing act will drastically change. Please see the graphic that explains this issue below.

As I show, the proportion of the magicka cost taunt compared to my total magicka pool nearly doubles for 1.6 compared to live. What is more peculiar about this is that the magicka taunt on live costs, proportionally to respective resource pools, only slightly more than the current stamina based taunt. What is even more strange is that the stamina based Pierce armor skill does not change in the proportion of stamina that it costs with respect to my stamina pool when going from live to 1.6.

Yes, the skill did change, but not very significantly. Though the new magicka cost taunt has an instantly cast synergy, as opposed to the current channeled cast, no tank that I have talked to about this change is happy about trading more magicka for that updated synergy. A few players thought that the synergy change was great because everyone hates misclicking radiate, but when I told them how much more the new magicka taunt will cost they understood how the tradeoff is not worth it.

Please do whatever you have to in order to make the current long range taunt cost a similar proportion of resources as the future long range taunts. I shouldn't be using more magicka than Green Dragon Blood consumes in order to cast a single long range taunt. Basically doubling the cost of the long ranged taunt is dangerous because tanking is such a crucial part of the game. Having such an expensive taunt is especially dangerous in content like Sanctum Ophidia or Veteran Dragon Star Arena which demands the repeated use of the magicka cost taunt while it is in competition for magicka with Extended Chains and Green Dragon Blood.

madangrypally · February 2015

I agree. Greatly reduce inner fire and its morphs resources cost.

While they are at it also give all taunts a secondary pvp benefit.

Example:
Inner Fire: Same tooltip as above though with much reduced cost.

Suggestions:
1: If target of the taunt attacks anyone else other then the taunter they deal reduced damage. Or give them Minor or Major Maim
2: Target is disoriented for a time if attacking anyone but the taunter.
3: The taunt has a high damage explosion component that explodes if the target attacks anyone other then the taunter.
4: Taunts receive a debuff that reflects a portion of damage dealt back to attack on all targets besides the taunter. IE: An attack with the taunt debuff will suffer damage based on damage he deals.

C0pp3rhead · February 2015

I've talked to several tanks who are very worried about this same issue. As a healer, I depend on my tank to keep the heat off me, and my tank depends on me to keep him/her alive. I understand that a long range ability should be slightly more costly than a short range one with the same effects. However, over twice the cost is excessive. While the synergy is much better now, it does not warrant such obscene increase in cost. Please lower the cost. Thank you.

Navaya · February 2015

On live puncture cost 160 stamina and inner Fire 237 magicka. Inner Fire cost 1.48..x more than puncture. (with 5heavy and 2 light)

On PTS Puncture cost 1508 stamina and Inner Fire 4149. Inner Fire cost 2,75...x more than puncture.

On live I have never ever had any problem with keeping up my sustain, I very rarely even have to use potions (in DSA Vet for an example). Also the tanking stats you linked in your picture is a bit miss leading, you have way to low stamina and magicka and way to much hp.

However I haven't tried tanking yet on pts so can't really say much for the sustain there. But I agree that the cost should be lower, make the cost difference same as on live at least.

Gyudan · February 2015

Reading the tooltip of Inner Fire's Synergy always made me laugh. I wonder who came up with that magnificent design.

The increased cost makes taunting large groups of mobs very difficult without caltrops. I'm not looking forward to tanking vet dungeons or DSA at all.

Personofsecrets · February 2015

C0pp3rhead wrote: »

I've talked to several tanks who are very worried about this same issue. As a healer, I depend on my tank to keep the heat off me, and my tank depends on me to keep him/her alive. I understand that a long range ability should be slightly more costly than a short range one with the same effects. However, over twice the cost is excessive. While the synergy is much better now, it does not warrant such obscene increase in cost. Please lower the cost. Thank you.

What is also interesting is that pierce armor is a powerful debuff that would help dps without someone having to use a synergy.

Navaya wrote: »

Also the tanking stats you linked in your picture is a bit miss leading, you have way to low stamina and magicka and way to much hp.

I'm happy with my hp stat.

I can see how this makes my proportions different than other peoples proportions, but it is still odd that that the undaunted taunt costs so much more for 1.6 when compared to something like pierce armor.

eliisra · February 2015

Personofsecrets wrote: »

What is also interesting is that pierce armor is a powerful debuff that would help dps without someone having to use a synergy.

Oh, and no one wants that stupid synergy in the first place. Playing dps or heal, I get extremely frustrated with Radiate, always pops up and starts to channel when I'm trying to pick up another(important) synergy. That's just not what synergy from a tank skill is suppose to do, destroy my dps rotation or force me to furiously hit cancel so I can heal again lol. It should rather add some sort of instant buff for the group.

The increased cost of Inner Fire also seems unreasonable. Even more dangerous for a non-DK tank, since they also lack chains or a pull for the ranged adds. As a healer, that will be super squishy in LA in 1.6, this bothers me a lot.

DeLindsay · February 2015

I wish you luck OP, we've been complaining about the stupidly increased costs of many of the abilities in 1.6 like Ring of Preservation that nearly tripled in cost and it's all fallen of deaf ears. ZoS just doesn't care, I mean it's not like any of them actually play the game they created anyway.

Mantic0r3 · February 2015

eliisra wrote: »

Personofsecrets wrote: »

What is also interesting is that pierce armor is a powerful debuff that would help dps without someone having to use a synergy.

Oh, and no one wants that stupid synergy in the first place. Playing dps or heal, I get extremely frustrated with Radiate, always pops up and starts to channel when I'm trying to pick up another(important) synergy. That's just not what synergy from a tank skill is suppose to do, destroy my dps rotation or force me to furiously hit cancel so I can heal again lol. It should rather add some sort of instant buff for the group.

The increased cost of Inner Fire also seems unreasonable. Even more dangerous for a non-DK tank, since they also lack chains or a pull for the ranged adds. As a healer, that will be super squishy in LA in 1.6, this bothers me a lot.

I thought they changed the synergie? Its not supposed to channel any longer and is overall quite usefull.

Anyway ranged spot is very important and way too expensive right now

as are alot of the skills outside of class&weapon skills

DeLindsay · February 2015

Gyudan wrote: »

Reading the tooltip of Inner Fire's Synergy always made me laugh. I wonder who came up with that magnificent design.

The increased cost makes taunting large groups of mobs very difficult without caltrops. I'm not looking forward to tanking vet dungeons or DSA at all.

I actually didn't even think of it from that perspective. If you add Vigor at Alliance War Rank 10 (PvP Rank 24) it looks a lot more like ZoS is trying to force Players to PvP. The nerfs to Hirelings in 1.6 is forcing Players to complete the Crafting Writs (which just about everyone hates) so it's not much of a stretch that the ability cost increases are a way to force PvP. As a NB who MS's Tank/Healer the changes to some ability costs are ridiculous. I probably will never again be able to use Ring of Preservation while Healing as it eats up like 80% of my Stamina with a single cast.

agabahmeatshieldb14_ESO · March 2015

I agree that the cost is too high, for both morphs. It would be really nice to see this reduced.

Nobody uses this ability for the synergy or the damage over time component. If reducing the cost required removing one of or both of those parts of the ability, I can't see anyone complaining.

Reducing the cost to ~1500 Magicka or Stamina, even if it loses the synergy or damage over time, would be much, much better.

Personofsecrets · March 2015

Mantic0r3 wrote: »

I thought they changed the synergie? Its not supposed to channel any longer and is overall quite usefull.

The synergy is now an instant cast which does make the synergy better. That being, the instant cast synergy doesn't justify making the skill cost so much more. I also think that pierce armor is better for dps than the undaunted taunt synergy in 1.6.

The reason to use the undaunted taunt is that it costs magic so it doesn't have to compete for resources with deep slash, piercer armor, absorb magic, rolling, running, and blocking. The other reason to use the undaunted taunt is that it is ranged and can therefore help get important initiative in fights with many enemies that are at long range.

Though I would like the synergy to be removed in total so that the skill can be made to have as low as possible of a cost, I understand that it is an undaunted skill and should therefore have some synergy component. Players shouldn't be thinking that radiate came up and is now a hindrance, but it, slip away, and charge atronarch have remained troublesome for quite some time. I have a feeling that radiate will still give that feeling to players, even as an instant cast, but now the tank has the extra stress of the taunt costing more resources.

Mantic0r3 · March 2015

I didn't argue against your point btw^^

And to be honest the heavy debuff from pierce armor is more valuable than the radiate synergy so that cant be the reason for the heavy cost.

On my DK tank I just did one vr dungeon on pts but there I would rather chain+pierce armor a mob than use inner rage which is kinda stupid ^^

MissChiefx · March 2015

I agree. The cost is far too high. Tanking vDSA with very limited use of a ranged taunt when trash mobs can turn and one shot my DPS is going to be more stressful than it's worth. It will lead to people not playing the end game content you all worked so hard to create, or coming up with more ways to cheese the mechanics.

The 8/10 rounds of a blue Nightwood Staff of Crap as a reward is bad enough, but dealing with 12 adds on speed zigzagging and crisscrossing each other while I'm trying to keep my team safe from their uppercuts of death AND not being able to taunt more than 2 of them from range is going to turn me gray.

Please reduce the cost of this skill. Tanks kind of got the nasty end of the stick so far as it is, don't take away our most used skill

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Personofsecrets · March 2015

A goal should be not making warlock necessary for tanking content like vdsa.