Decoy Totem

"

Mark_GGG wrote:

"

Zayl056 wrote:

I couldn't help but notice the "if taunted" part of your answer. I assume it means that when the totem taunts ennemies it is not a 100% chance to taunt?

No, I was merely being explicitly clear that I was talking about a necro that had been taunted by a totem, and that that was the point at which the taunt affected it's behaviour. There is not chance to taunt, any monster in range has the totem set as it's aggro target.

Ok, so that's how it works. For some reason, I thought that "taunt" was meant to force a target to attack the totem(in this case).

To summarize, since the necro is not forced to attack the totem, he can choose to stay still if he wants to.

I guess the necros just have a very low chance or range to engage in melee combat.

I might just be a noob, but when I used it, I half-expected it to pop up at my character's location. And then I realised I could target it like most of the other skills. Perhaps there can be an UI element/display for it?
Or perhaps change the tooltip slightly?

Also, sometimes it will fail to cast, but I don't know if it was a LOS issue or maybe if I just didn't understand the range of it.

You used to be able to have 3 of these totems up at a given time all with high life. It was extremely overpowered, but now it's at the other end of the spectrum. I think it needs quite a bit more life myself, or be made larger to help block projectiles.

After reading all the posts so far I am sure the mechanics will eventurally be sorted out. I just wanted to speak about additional issue more towards the actural Graphical nature of Taunt in general. I find The large orange pulse like ripple intensly large and when partied with friends or public people alike the visuals of combat it self becomes messy and rather off putting considering the taunt graphics is even taunting me from whats going on.

The graphics are nice, but I feel its alittle large and overwheilming, The taunting warcry is fine, but I generally feel the Totem should Taunt with a Graphic thats scaled down to suit its nature.

Over all Good Job Always liked Totem//Aura Twisting Mechanic

Galihurst

Decoy Totem is useful, I know I use it mainly for large packs, like the blood apes in Act 2 to pull some heat off my Marauder for a moment, so I can deal with them in reasonable numbers. lol

It dies extremely fast at lower levels, even without it being packs like that. However, it does its job (imo) in buying some breathing room for my melee. I rely heavily on Heavy Strike and Ground Smash/Pound (need to read what its name is for certain, feel stupid keeping on saying that. XD) and the ice/fire reliant attacks.

So, mostly single target, close range skills. Still, I cannot say about higher levels until I get there. The low level parts seem okay, at least solo.

I like the idea for this skill, but it does seem to die quickly. Granted, I've only got it to level 6 or so. Still, when I compare it to shockwave totem, which seems to last longer, damage enemies AND draw attacks, it seems sort of useless. I'd like to see it have a bit more life.

Why does this skill fail so often? When I cast it, it seems about 40% of the time it doesnt come out to play on the first cast, sometimes i have to cast it 5 or 6x before it will spawn. This has led to some pretty hairy situations.
Does it have an innate fail mechanism built in, is it bugged? glitched? or lag causes it to misfire maybe?
It seems like some days Decoy totem has to have all its stars lined to reliably spawn on the first cast.
Is there some strange object collision algorithm at play here? maybe its overly sensitive to hidden broken pillar parts or uneven ground? its clear that line of sight is important but its failing in wide open spaces often too.

Im lev 47 Shadow atm

I use this skill A LOT - mostly because it saves my ass when a group of strong mobs come out. I put this totem and when mobs go attack it, I just throw for example Fire Trap at them. Works really nice ;)

The thing I would change is to make for example 50% immunity to taunt for champion/mini-bosses, and maybe 70% for act bosses.
Because atm they are attacking the totem and I really dont have any difficulty killing them. Except for act 2 last boss - his lasers/smash make it a little harder :P

"

Psychofrump wrote:

Much as I hate to say it, I think it's a little over-powered.

I would say it's very overpowered and allows to take down almost all targets easily (at least in Mercilles when I started using it recently). That includes most bosses who possess no threat to the player once the totem is cast.

I'd suggest to improve monsters AI so they change the target to the player once they are attacked.

Another solution is adding a cast delay for it like 10 seconds. The time could be shortened to 8 seconds at the gem quality 20%.

"

Kokoro wrote:

I would say it's very overpowered and allows to take down almost all targets easily (at least in Mercilles when I started using it recently). That includes most bosses who possess no threat to the player once the totem is cast.

I've been using Decoy since I was level 5 on my now lvl 53 2H Marauder in Merciless (the gem is currently level 14, commiserate with my level). I don't really agree it is overpowered, nor do I believe it is too weak (if kept properly leveled). I do however believe the gem to be a virtual necessity for my personal play style (which may imply it is overpowered, or just imply that I'm not very good ;-)). Unlike other posters, I've never used more than one of these at a time and I find the totem in merciless lasts for a good 6-10 seconds of fighting against most mob masses, which serves it's purpose.

"

I'd suggest to improve monsters AI so they change the target to the player once they are attacked.

To some extent I thought it was already the case that a monster would eventually turn on me if enough damage was done (i.e., a threat model, whereby my threat was overcoming the totem threat), but that may have just been my perception and/or a result of me beating/knocking them away from the totem so that I was the closest thing for them to hit. I agree a threat model (if it isn't too complicated/expensive in dev resources to create) would be ideal here, but do not agree that just a single hit should be sufficient to overcome the totem threat (it should be cumulative, and the longer a player allows a totem to taunt on a mob before a player engages, the less likely that threat is to be overcome).

"

Another solution is adding a cast delay for it like 10 seconds. The time could be shortened to 8 seconds at the gem quality 20%.

Sorry, I hate this one. Cast delays drive me nuts. The one nit I already have about PoE is it's combat sluggishness, I wouldn't want to add to that by introducing artificial slowdown mechanics.