Aett_Thorn

Understood. As soon as Carp Melee is put into the game, I will accept my penance.

Really? You're saying that Storm, Traps and Ice are worse for soling than Emp? All of those are pretty well suited for soloing, and a Traps Defender can take down a GM solo (so could an Cold Defender, probably). How the heck are you ranking these?!

Same here, sadly. Am I surprised that it went the way it did? No, not really. Still was hoping it would just be a quick post, people would read it and move on (i.e., just a quick, informational post regarding current comments by the Devs). Do I mind that it went the way it did? Not really, because it has sparked some good discussion.

Wow. Wake up on the wrong side of the forum, this morning? My last comment was in jest, hence the little smiley face. Did I think that this could happen? Yes, of course. Did I hope that it wouldn't? Also yes.

And, given the Dev comments that sparked this, I am betting that SOMEONE would have started a thread like this even if I didn't, and may have started off more controversial. The point of the OP was merely to say that the Devs might be looking at Tankers, and to inform people that the Devs never promised that they would do anything or actually look at us, only that we may be next on the list. That's not something that has no value, especially when someone with as many posts as I have has seen Dev comments taken completely out of context before.

Was I trying to play backseat community manager? Absolutely not. I was just trying to relay accurate information to the community it would potentially impact. Why is that a bad thing?

Icicles is very fun, and is a great place to put the Might of the Tanker +Res proc. That proc is a great boon for Ice Tankers, who have little resistance natively. Do you have any idea for a secondary in mind? I was toying with creating an Ice/Mace Tanker the other day (ended up going Ice/Dark, but might reroll). The combination of the KD/Stuns and the -DMG/-Rech from CE seems like a good mix of survivability tools for every situation. Ice/Dual Blades also seems like an interesting combo, if you can find a sword option that does make them look like icicles.

Actually, this one got started to try to prevent exactly this discussion that is happening. Little good that did.

^This. Revamp Boomtown or Crey's Folly before revamping Faultline again.

I've joined a few of them below level 35, but yeah, you do gain the best benefit if you can get the V-merits out of it.

I don't believe that anyone here is talking about bringing Brutes back into balance at the top end is the ONLY part of the equation for buffing Tankers. I think the point is more that if three of the 4 melee ATs are in rough balance, and one is not, that bringing the out-of-whack AT back into balance is a good first step.

Tanker problems (at least for me) stem from several old decisions that weren't very good at the time, and problematic to fix now. So changing them might not be the best idea, so you have to shoe-horn in a fix for Tankers. Brutes and Scrappers getting Taunt durations that are as long as Tankers' is problem number one. Because of how the Threat formula works out, Tankers having lower damage, but similar TauntDurationRemaining is why Tankers can't always hold aggro versus these ATs, and why those ATs can hold aggro well enough that you don't need a Tanker (and no, I'm not advocating that any team should NEED any single AT, but it can be a valid concern at points).


But beyond just giving Tankers more damage, there is almost no consensus on what exactly Tankers need in terms of a buff. Do they need more aggro capture tools? Better aggro capture tools? More debuffs? More survival? The ability to resist unresistable damage? Is it just certain sets that need help, and not the AT as a whole? End Reduction on attacks and armors? Look at the Consolidated Tanker Improvements thread. We're all over the freakin' place.

Quite honestly, I'd want to see the Dev's numbers on things, but I know I won't get them, before I'd make any suggestions. I'd want to know exactly where the problems are, if there are any. Are Tankers dying 25% less than Brutes over the whole game? Then we might be fine on survivability. Is the damage fairly consistent across teaming levels, or do Brutes have a huge bonus there in actual gameplay?

Without knowing exactly where the problem is, it's really hard to suggest a solution. and since even the Tanker community doesn't find a common problem, no solution we provide will fix everyone's problem.

As has been said multiple times in this thread alone: solo, there isn't THAT much of a disparity between the two ATs. However, in a high-buff scenario, Brutes are a clear outlier in performance, meaning that they have more than enough survivability, and very good offensive potential as well. Basically, they have almost-Tanker survivability and more-than-Scrapper levels of offense. That is one of the problems. This is why when people talk about bringing Brutes back into balance, they talk about reducing caps that they would almost never hit solo. This wouldn't impact most solo Brutes (except those that famr specific enemies, but again, the Devs probably don't care that much about performance in those specific circumstances), but would have an impact where the problem exists.


Do Tankers have a survivability edge over Brutes at the caps? Yes. But it's not that big. Do Brutes have an offensive edge over Tankers at the caps? Yes, which they should. But the difference on Offense is much higher than the lower survivability gap is. Basically, the question becomes what percentage of survivability are Tankers over Brutes base and at the caps? What is the percentage difference of offensive potential between the ATs at base and caps?

Brutes are around 75% as survivable as Tankers at base, and if HP is the only difference at the caps, then maybe about 90% there. Offensively, we have to assume a reasonable level of Fury, because there's just too wide a difference there. But I'd say that a Brute doing 125% Tanker damage is lowballing Brutes, but we can use that. But at the caps, Brutes are doing WELL more than that when compared to Tankers.

So, the problem becomes that in high-buff scenarios, Brutes close the survivability gap on Tankers, and GAIN on offense. This is where people see the problem. Compare other ATs to the Tanker, and the relative values stay about the same, maybe a few percentage points here or there. But Brutes are a clear outlier at the caps.


And this isn't even taking into consideration the effect that offense has on your survivability. If you can take out enemies faster, they will do less damage to you.


The discussion is taking into account both potential scenarios: the solo character, and the character in the high-buff scenario. Solo, the two ATs are about right, thought Tankers may need a slight buff there as well, I'm still not entirely sold, but it's possible. But at the caps, Brutes are better than pretty much every other melee AT.

Trick Arrow and Poison could definitely use some help. Just getting the buff/debuff radii normalized would be a good start, plus all of your ideas for TA.

^This.

Ice Melee has ONE power that is holding it back, and that's greater Ice Sword. Change it to Dominator's Ice Slash, and the set is basically fixed. Reducing Ice Patch's cast time would help, too. But it suffers from one of the worst reputation lags in the game. It got "fixed" years ago, but has just never caught on since. It was never a popular set, despite cold damage being very lightly resisted in the game. And it works quite well with Invuln, Shield, SR, and Willpower, who can leverage the sleep part of Frozen Aura.

While Ice Melee isn't THAT bad, that is the real reason Brutes didn't get Ice Melee/Ice Armor when villains first appeared. The slows and controls mess with Fury generation the same way that Dark Armor's mez auras interfered with Fury, but Brutes kept that.

The problem was (and I can't believe that after this long, I STILL have to repeat this) that Ice Melee at the time was horrible. Frost had a terribly small radius and range, and it was the set's only AoE damage, because Frozen Aura was only a sleep, and a bad one at that. Ice Melee's only real benefit was Ice Patch for mitigation, but with ED and target caps coming for it, Ice Melee lost a lot of it's strengths.


Now that Ice Melee is fixed, it would be fine for Brutes. Ice Melee still needs a few minor tweaks to make it great, but it's good as is.