Why Pick Ogryn's Loyal Protector over Indomitable + Attention Seeker?

[TwoTonTuna]

Indomitable and Attention Seeker just overlaps with so much of Loyal Protector's functions.
Are your buddies getting swarmed? Bull Rush over to them, knock everything down, and then bash mobs with Attention Seeker to get their attention. BR will even let you dash toward that one guy who's isolated from the team, which LP cannot let you do.

Are distant gunners/shooters/shotgunners plinking your team from all angles while mobs block your way? You won't reach them with LP's maximum range of 12 meters. BR, however, lets you barrel through the mobs to get right in the faces of the shooters. And even without BR, all you need to do is pick Attention Seeker, raise your shield, block their bullets, and wait for the shooters to come running up to you.

All this while Loyal Protector has a 45-second cooldown while Bull Rush only has a 30-second cooldown. All this means I really don't see the point of picking LP over Indomitable no matter how hard I try to theorycraft it.

[Carl Sagan's Killer Bone Marrow]

Shield can block gunfire, and the taunt on block works. No better way to shut down a gun than forcing them into melee from long range.

[TwoTonTuna]

Originally posted by Carl Sagan's Killer Bone Marrow:

Shield can block gunfire, and the taunt on block works. No better way to shut down a gun than forcing them into melee from long range.

My point exactly. You don't need Loyal Protector for that, just Attention Seeker. In fact, Bull Rush works even better than Loyal Protector because BR lets you close in and force the shooters to switch to you

[boss_429s]

Most of the middle tree is a waste of time anyways. Box of bombs is the only decent (and mandatory) pick cause it allows Slam and Soften to both be taken.

Flip side is the complete idiocy of Payback Time being gate kept by Attention Seeker. Takes about 10s of looking at the middle tree to see switching Hard Knocks and Attention Seeker would provide additional build fluidity.

FS ruined some spectacular ogryn builds by putting the taunt tree down the middle. I'm convinced FS can't find their own arse with 2 hands as evidenced by the past 3 weeks of patches/releases.

[Carl Sagan's Killer Bone Marrow]

Originally posted by TwoTonTuna:

Originally posted by Carl Sagan's Killer Bone Marrow:

Shield can block gunfire, and the taunt on block works. No better way to shut down a gun than forcing them into melee from long range.

My point exactly. You don't need Loyal Protector for that, just Attention Seeker. In fact, Bull Rush works even better than Loyal Protector because BR lets you close in and force the shooters to switch to you

Honestly, I dont know the names for the skills because there are too many of them, but the middle tree is fine, if a bit one dimensional. It offers a lot of team based utility, which for some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reason drives this fanbase up a wall.

[Kalergi's Top Guy]

After playing as an Indomitable Attention Seeking Shield Ogryn for a while, Loyal Protector feels extremely useless in comparisson, no matter the difficulty.

Its range means you'll usually pop it against melee threats, but its unnecessary unless you and your squad is so bad that they can't even cleave against poxwalkers. Attention Seeker can basically grant you similar results if you just, push enemies around a few times.

Worse yet, Indomitable works better for clutch moments and is more useful against melee elites since it provides stagger and mobility on demand, allowing you to not only create breathing room, but also freely pass through dozens of foes to reach your allies or objective.

And LP feels terrible to use against ranged threats because you know that you might as well not bother since it ain't gonna reach them. I noticed that as an Ogryn, I only need aggro generation where my squad underperforms. And when it underperforms ranged units become the main bane of the squad. And as OP stated, shield and Attention Seeker actually WORK during such situations, unlike LP.

Frankly speaking, I don't even know why you would need LP to take the heat off of your team considering the selection of Ogryn melee and guns. Even if you don't want to use a shield, all of them excel at short range destruction and CC. No one can hurt your team if you just cleave through them with a big knife, blast them with a few bursts of your Ripper or explode them via Rumbler or Kickback.

I would use LP if it had like 100m range against gun-wielding units and 12m range against melee units lmao

[TaKo]

pros:
taunts all enemies within an 8/12m radius, no need to be actively blocking or pushing them
no stamina cost since you wont be pushing or blocking
potentially gives your team +25% dmg vs affected targets
longer duration of 15 seconds

cons:
long 45 second cooldown between uses, taking the perk to reduce it locks you out of the debuff node
shorter potential range compared to attention seeker for gun enemies that would be baited into melee

personally i prefer indomitable + attention seeker with a slab shield(i never bothered to check if attention seeker works vs shooters without a shield)

i could see it justified to buff LP a bit, bring cooldown down to 30 and give the user some general DR during it, maybe bump the cooldown reduction node too

[Toltage]

I can't recall if the Indomitable charge works for drawing monstrosity aggro, but the taunt definitely does (aside from Daemonhosts of course). I'd argue there can be some horde scenarios you can turn around by activating taunt to buy everyone else some time, faster than you would be blocking/pushing with the shield for Attention Seeker alone. Certainly would help others focus on killing off specials hiding around hordes since they'll be at lesser risk of getting hit by some random chaff from behind.

All that being said, charging through a horde also makes some sense, in a more aggressive approach. You won't necessarily hold their aggro this way but they'll be on their ass for any follow up, and most likely bleeding, while also giving you more mobility. So your call.

[Shining_Darkness]

You take it for the 12m radius of +25% damage for everyone against targets it grabs. That is nothing to sneeze at. It makes literally everything melt due to your entire team being made 25% better for the duration. Monster? Gone. Crusher/mauler pack? Deleted all while making sure your allies can focus on damage instead of defense meaning they can make even greater use of the extra damage. The 25% applies to you as well so if you aren't attacking after the taunt that is why you aren't feeling the relevance. You take that and the other earlier +15% damage to things you have damaged and suddenly everyone is getting two fairly sizable damage boosts (I don't know if they are additive or multiplicative, I would assume the latter).

[boss_429s]

Originally posted by Carl Sagan's Killer Bone Marrow:

It offers a lot of team based utility, which for some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reason drives this fanbase up a wall.

Which is fine; play how you want.

The problem is -where- this utility is located.

[Vandrick]

You need to try the combination of LP stagger + dmg buff + skullcrusher + big ogryn grenade. Switch from melee to grenade, drop grenade, should auto switch to your melee with skullcrusher, use ability to trigger max stagger stage and 25% dmg Amp, grenade explodes for 34-38k boss damage since it uses skullcrushers nonsense +100% damage on max stage stagger. Oneshots chaos spawn if they are brittled

[EyeDissTroyKnotSeas]

Originally posted by TwoTonTuna:

Indomitable and Attention Seeker just overlaps with so much of Loyal Protector's functions.
Are your buddies getting swarmed? Bull Rush over to them, knock everything down, and then bash mobs with Attention Seeker to get their attention. BR will even let you dash toward that one guy who's isolated from the team, which LP cannot let you do.

Are distant gunners/shooters/shotgunners plinking your team from all angles while mobs block your way? You won't reach them with LP's maximum range of 12 meters. BR, however, lets you barrel through the mobs to get right in the faces of the shooters. And even without BR, all you need to do is pick Attention Seeker, raise your shield, block their bullets, and wait for the shooters to come running up to you.

All this while Loyal Protector has a 45-second cooldown while Bull Rush only has a 30-second cooldown. All this means I really don't see the point of picking LP over Indomitable no matter how hard I try to theorycraft it.

Indomitable makes a really good perk out of reach entirely, and makes several take more points to get to. Pulling a horde towards you and cranking up the damage they take from the ult alt talent definitely has its worth for a tank-type build, and you can make Ogryn pretty much immortal in hordes when your team is free to pick off specials.

Not to say Indom is a bad perk, far from it. Especially for a goregryn build. Light up that whole side of the tree, it's all good.

[Arani]

Originally posted by TwoTonTuna:

Indomitable and Attention Seeker just overlaps with so much of Loyal Protector's functions.
Are your buddies getting swarmed? Bull Rush over to them, knock everything down, and then bash mobs with Attention Seeker to get their attention. BR will even let you dash toward that one guy who's isolated from the team, which LP cannot let you do.

Are distant gunners/shooters/shotgunners plinking your team from all angles while mobs block your way? You won't reach them with LP's maximum range of 12 meters. BR, however, lets you barrel through the mobs to get right in the faces of the shooters. And even without BR, all you need to do is pick Attention Seeker, raise your shield, block their bullets, and wait for the shooters to come running up to you.

All this while Loyal Protector has a 45-second cooldown while Bull Rush only has a 30-second cooldown. All this means I really don't see the point of picking LP over Indomitable no matter how hard I try to theorycraft it.

Try them out in practice and you'll see it works out quite differently. :> The tank build is my new oggy favorite build, and I regularly hop on my oggy exclusively because of that. It's not OP like PBB with Ripper II, nevermind psykers (cough Void -> Surge cough), but rather sits in a perfect yet strong place imo.

In practice, it doesn't quite go as you described at all. Loyal Protector doesn't mention it, but it does massive stagger in its radius that interrupts everything. It also comes with Just Getting Started, which reduces its CD by 2.5% for each stagger, something you'll be doing absolutely constantly both with your attacks and pushes (shields have a massive push radius btw), which also support Attention Seeker. All in all, Attention Seeker is in a great place as a talent, as it offers the utility option for off-tanking as you said, while it also truly shines with Loyal Protector. Indomitable is an excellent ult ofc, but can't match a 12m radius AoE stagger and taunt on demand with a realistic CD of 10-20 seconds or so, depending on the action. The stagger-reliant CD mechanic also has wonderful synergy for your need, since the more and stronger enemies there are, the more stagger you'll be putting out and the faster the ult will become available.

Ultimately with the combination of shield, Loyal Protector and Attention Seeker, you can be constantly grabbing aggro from both ranged (by blocking them, even just sliding in front of your allies being shot at briefly) and melee, while liberally spamming the ult whenever you need to to make sure all directions focus on you no matter how overwhelmed your team is.

There's also tricks to the shield itself: The shield special is far more reactive than the animation suggests, letting you just tap it quickly for that one sniper shot or mauler/crusher/boss strike, and go right back to those heavy attacks. Its first heavy attack in chain does about +125% more damage than the second one, while being ideal for headshots. Brutal Momentum adds 15% dmg on weakspots and killing strikes have infinite cleave, pairing very well with Crunch. So if you just cancel into that instead of spamming full chains, you'll be dishing out godly amounts of damage on everything. Its push+attack is also crazy good with a powerful overhead swing going straight for the head, while the preceding push itself both controls the targets around the thing you want to hit, while proccing all the talents like aggro & extra damage & CD reduction with blessings like Skullcrusher for +20% dmg. Remember also that while the shield only blocks ranged from about a 120 degree angle in front, it blocks melee from all directions. Using that, and with blocking reapplying taunt, you can basically force the enemy to focus on you indefinitely.