Imbue & Mantle Proc Diversion?

[Bjond]

We know melee and ranged diversion has no effect on imbues and mantle procs, but what about spell diversion? Has anyone with a very strong agro-yanking imbue build checked spell diversion to see if it works? What about mystic or general (dark or SD) diversion?

Flippy raid bosses are a serious problem. It's hard enough getting a newbie melee to turn off defensive stance. I don't have any advice for imbue flippers other than "TR into something else", which (imho) is a real nasty "solution" to the problem, especially for builds that take a lot of effort to gear.

 

[rabidfox]

What about mystic or general (dark or SD) diversion?

Some people will say that it works on imbues, some people will say it doesn't. IIRC devs have at one point mentioned they thought imbues weren't being reduced by any threat reduction or they weren't certain if it was. I don't know of any player that's actual 100% certain of anything mechanics-wise for imbues (and other proc'd damage) and threat.

 

[Bjond]

Some people will say that it works on imbues, some people will say it doesn't

Yeah, that's as I feared.

IMHO, threat reduction bugs are probably top raid bug (or should be). At least, I don't know of any others that can kill off half a raid when someone is just doing the right thing by making their DPS stronger.

Hmm. If you have an imbue and have dark diversion, SD diversion + Dark Diversion is 50% to all. That should be enough reduction to keep it sane unless (of course) nothing works.

 

[Fisto Mk I]

Hmm. If you have an imbue and have dark diversion, SD diversion + Dark Diversion is 50% to all. That should be enough reduction to keep it sane unless (of course) nothing works.

My shuri-monk have 80, SD + Shiradi +DD. He regular steal aggro from non-imbues tank with only 13-15 imbues (+DwM). Seems reduction just not work for imbues.

 

[Mesmerin]

This life I have both -120% ranged and spell threat, but am still pulling agro with the repeater as an artificer with 21 imbue die, so I would say it's not working at all for imbues currently (if it ever did)

 

[Randomdude1223]

Does anyone know if spell damage threat reduction affects imbue damage? There's conflicting information about whether imbues are considered spells. I'm playing an Inquisitor with decent ranged threat reduction but high imbue dice. Despite not dealing much direct damage, I still pull aggro from tanks and other players who clearly do more damage.

 

[Bjond]

I'm playing an Inquisitor with decent ranged threat reduction but high imbue dice. Despite not dealing much direct damage, I still pull aggro from tanks and other players who clearly do more damage.

I know for certain that ranged threat diversion does NOT work for imbues. I have a low-damage INQ with tons of imbue damage that yanks agro all the time. Testing shows it does about 35% of the DPS of my real ranged char (mostly physical & sneak), which rarely pulls agro. They have similar ranged threat reduction.

IMHO, the most insidious part of this bug is that the only work-around for players is "TR into something else".

 

[Tilomere]

Doesn't diplomacy put you at the bottom, so if you just keep hitting it the gap between you and the top will grow over time, allowing larger and larger burst periods? With an Inquisitor auto-diplomacy, it should be trivial (unless one is wasting the auto-diplomacy procs, in which case a character deserves to pull aggro and die due to not utilizing available game mechanics on higher difficulty content?)

Or am I missing something?

 

[Bjond]

Doesn't diplomacy put you at the bottom, so if you just keep hitting it the gap between you and the top will grow over time, allowing larger and larger burst periods? With an Inquisitor auto-diplomacy, it should be trivial (unless one is wasting the auto-diplomacy procs

INQ pulls it anyway pretty quickly. The auto-dips *should* be hitting, but they also don't seem to be having any effect. However, I rarely play that INQ anymore now that I have a real caster available for sunburst/etc..

I do mash dip when my tank is pretending to be dps, but his "dps" doesn't include imbues. It's huge for a tank, but maybe 1/3? of a real DPS; ie. not a good test for diplomacy mashing.

 

[Svirfneblin]

All I know is when my warlock switched off the light imbue in enlighten spirit I pulled a lot less Aggro.

 

[Bjond]

Doesn't diplomacy put you at the bottom

Just did a v.quick test on that and the answer is "no"; test was my shelter-bot intimidating and my dps attacking while mashing diplomacy. Bot intimated and was doing autos (itsy-bitsy dps). DPS yanked it off, diplomacy never ever faced it back to bot.

If dip put you on the bottom, the bot would have been top at least briefly after every dip. However, if diplomacy only matched the least agro, then it would have had the observed effect. So, it might require 3+ in a party to "work".

Fresh bot intim would yank it back briefly (1s?), but that's the only thing that would get it back to facing the bot again.

TBF, I haven't been paying much attention to diplomacy recently (my dps have -threat and only one v.low-dps char is imbue-based). What I recall from when I was paying close attention to diplomacy is that it has a rather broken feel versus it's stated effect. There are a couple places I can recall it working: big pack of quest critters with full party (dip puts them on "someone else") and raid with an intimidating tank (mashed dip seems to keep it off the masher).

 

[Mindos]

Intim/diplo seems to follow timed rounds?

 

[Tilomere]

Ok, so that means high end dps should expect to also tank pug raid bosses. 300 PRR 3k hp outside of reaper as dps requirement for top end dps builds, which amusingly brings us back to exactly where we were before stat squish because they didn't squish raid bosses. Time to turn defensive stance back on and just ignore threat reduction.

 

[PraetorPlato]

Just turn up the skulls Threat management against intim-tanks stops being an issue around r4 assuming you're at -90+% on front number. LH stuff is really hard to reduce enough, r1 really depends on how many imbue dice you carry.

Ok, so that means high end dps should expect to also tank pug raid bosses. 300 PRR 3k hp outside of reaper as dps requirement for top end dps builds, which amusingly brings us back to exactly where we were before stat squish because they didn't squish raid bosses. Time to turn defensive stance back on and just ignore threat reduction.

 

[Tilomere]

R10 doesn't reduce damage enough to hold aggro off my dps build so I had to rebuild it as a tank.

Just turn up the skulls Threat management against intim-tanks stops being an issue around r4 assuming you're at -90+% on front number. LH stuff is really hard to reduce enough, r1 really depends on how many imbue dice you carry.

 

[Tilomere]

IMHO, threat reduction bugs are probably top raid bug (or should be). At least, I don't know of any others that can kill off half a raid when someone is just doing the right thing by making their DPS stronger.

Sometimes it is the right choice to increase dps beyond tanking aggro, sometimes it is not. Building for the encounters and other characters you will play with and playing appropriately for your build are both metrics of skill. Would you like to see both skill requirements eliminated, so building for max trinity-role space dps at a given tank threat and playing at a max trinity-role space dps level at a given tank threat are replaced with the simpler always build and do max dps always?

Normal trinity gameplay also involves tanks having to build for and play at a balance point between tankyness and aggro (dps). Do you also want to eliminate this skill requirement and gameplay choice for tanks by eliminating aggro from dps?

Do you also want the nerfs that would accrue if players aren't bound by aggro and as a result increased average dps for dps, and average tankyness for tanks, resulting in mobs needing increased hp and damage against players?

Do you also want the entire game attack speed and RoF overhauled, as faster attackers would be able to achieve their builds full higher dps instead of being capped by aggro to similar dps of other styles of combat. Instead of soft-capping combat styles by aggro, we would have to hard cap everything. Nerfs, nerfs everywhere!

 

[Bjond]

Normal trinity gameplay also involves tanks having to build for and play at a balance point

The problem here is that stated functionality does not work (negative threat). This means you can't build for the balance point. You find it after sinking tons of time into a build because you think it will work.

There comes a point where SSG can't simply shrug and say "oh, time to TR" or "you should have done more testing". It's not on us to test every last feature and every single behavior statement in the game, or it shouldn't be.

 

[Contessor]

Yeah, that's as I feared.

IMHO, threat reduction bugs are probably top raid bug (or should be). At least, I don't know of any others that can kill off half a raid when someone is just doing the right thing by making their DPS stronger.

Hmm. If you have an imbue and have dark diversion, SD diversion + Dark Diversion is 50% to all. That should be enough reduction to keep it sane unless (of course) nothing works.

I have seen only certain. Raid bosses flip with spells. And the wierd thing is that it is dependent. If a tank is intim but not actively attacking, I always take aggro almost immediately and intim doesn’t return it, neither does diplo. Now in that same scenario, a group of melees are also beating and I do similar damage, I don’t see a turn to my damage and aggro stays on the tank. Go figure. I contend intim is just buggy. But this likely is something behind the imbue threat issue.

 

[Tilomere]

Hmm, that suggests bosses have multi-target aggro tables, and if they can't execute secondary attacks on reasonable secondary aggro targets, they charge them, so in such a scenario if your caster was in melee range for secondary attacks it wouldn't flip aggro, but your caster would eat the secondary attacks instead.

This isn't necessarily a rebuild dps effect though. It's not a new effect, so players can plan for it before they start their build. Tanks could also rebuild for holding aggro through dps.

 

[Tilomere]

The problem here is that stated functionality does not work (negative threat). This means you can't build for the balance point. You find it after sinking tons of time into a build because you think it will work.

Part of building is the time spent optimizing from what you initially think will work to what actually works. For sure it takes longer, but that doesn't mean it can't be built around. (Charisma based diplo inquisitor standing within diplo range of target, or a PUG tank build such as linked above.)