Shadow knight aggro

[DeathsSilkyMist]

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yeah, we're very much on the same page. I prefer to call it pointless rather than dumb simply because such spam isn't hurting anything, either. +5-8 or so aggro per minute very much is pointless because in no world will it ever make a difference. It's too small a value. Neither is it hurting anyone though in a single-tank environment.

I took a look at my logs, which cover a few years of me playing off and on. Most of these logs were low blues (39 to upper 40s). 9000 taunts yielded about 4500 successes. Taunt seems to have roughly a 50% success rate in that situation when the skill is over 200. You aren't just getting a +1 to hate every 6 seconds. You are also getting a passive 8.33% chance to taunt a mob automatically at the right time. The 8.33% is 50% divided by 6 seconds. That is certainly not pointless in my book. This is especially true since you can just put taunt/disarm/beg/bash/slam on the same macro in single tank situations. SK's only have 5 fast cooldown combat skills, which is the same number of lines in a macro. It takes very little effort to get that 8.33% chance.

As I said before, you can always switch between taunt spam and targeted taunting as needed due to it's 6 second cooldown. In a group where everybody is playing correctly, agro loss is fairly rare to begin with. If you are at the point where the Enchanter is grabbing agro every 30 seconds, you need to figure out why that is happening, instead of relying on taunt to fix the problem. I think that might be the disconnect here. People don't seem to realize that you shouldn't normally be in a situation where you are using taunt often in a targeted situation. That is yet another reason why taunt spam generally isn't going to have a large opportunity cost.

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I like Jimjam's notion that it may help an inexperienced tank who can't tell if he has aggro or not against rooted targets. That didn't even occur to me. I've done this job so long I've long since developed a sense for whether or not I'm generating sufficient threat and can't "think like a newbie" anymore. That's a fair use for it, then, in that situation for less-experienced players. That's the forum at its best--seeing ideas I would not think of on my own.

Agreed!

Originally Posted by Danth [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Closest I get to "taunt spam" is I'll more or less spam it on mezzed creatures (NOT my primary target obviously--lot of target-switching going on) to try to keep threat on them. Years ago I used to tag mezzed creatures with 0-damage spells, but that tactic grew too mana intensive when the P99 enchanter meta changed to spamming low-rank mez that memblurs constantly, hence wiping out my efforts. Taunt doesn't work as well--but it's free, and free is important in that environment. Still isn't necessary and could be called pointless work on my part, but I like to save the enchanter as many hits as I can since rune spells cost some money and my abilities cost nothing.

Indeed. Taunting or using shroud of hate/shadow vortex on mezzed mobs is a good way to build agro before it breaks.