Archimedes

Here's more proof for you, Circeus. I hope that you don't mind I borrowed your post, Robot_Lawyer:

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Ok, from the moment i made my ice tank i knew that to tank the Eden Trial was gonna be one of the ultimate tests. Well, I just got done with and yikes....it was pretty rough. In response to Geko's remarks on Energy Absorb and to anyone of who has been debating the balance between the ice set and the others I say, make no further comments on ice armor until youve tanked the Eden Trial. That one TF alone is full of obvious reasons why Ice is just not the set the numbers say it is. From auto hits to overcoming defense with DE eminators, it's all there. And while I tend to side with the Dev's on most of the issues, playing the Trial tonight makes me a little confused how Geko could think EA might still be overpowered. What? Even with the EA on live (im writing this pre issue 4) that final room was a huge mess. There were so many eminators dropped that even with EA almost every attack was hitting me--for full damage of course. The critics need to understand how easily defense is overcome in this game. And every baddie in the trial was only +1 to me. I stand in utter confusion...what do the devs see that I do not?

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Here's a link to the original on the Tanker forums.

The sad thing about this whole discussion is that we (the ice tankers) have been saying these kind of things since beta. And yet, for the most part we continue to be left out, eternally the red-headed stepchild of the tanker powersets.

Overall, the patch on test puts Ice further behind. Not only is our best ability capped, but Ice Tankers are now also susceptible to Fear and Confuse effects. Plus, with all of the new -regen powers in the game, one of the main methods of Ice tanker damage mitigation took a hit; Health.

More and more, it feels to me like the devs just don't understand their own game. And we're one of the powersets that has to suffer for it, because of this.

I'll state it again, for reference:

Resistance >> Defense.

Defense scales with the level of the enemy that you face. Resistance does not.

There are more defensive buffs (including one whole powerset that does nothing but give defensive buffs, Force Field) than resistance buffs, and a good portion of the resistance buffs come in the form of PBAoE auras that put the defender/controller in danger of drawing aggro/being hit by the enemy.

There are defensive inspirations (Lucks) but no resistance inspirations.

So, to answer your question: No, EA is not invincibility on steriods. Invincibility gives both a defensive AND accuracy both per enemy within its aura, while EA only gains defense. Yes, EA steals end; but that too scales with level, and it has no effect on monsters or AVs, even with an end drain slot. I would hazard it would take 3-4 end drains to have any effect on either of these class of villians.

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The power is still quite massive, and probably still too powerful.

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Please, don't try to be funny.

Everyone knows that resistance >> defense. Defense scales with level, while resistance does not. It's because of this fact that Ice Armor will always be considered the weakest of the armor sets available to tankers.

And now, to top it off, you make it harder for Ice Tankers to cap their best skill? Your reasoning is flawed. It's extremely rare for a tanker past L30 to face anything but orange-conned or better, even while soloing; anything less is simply boring.

As long as this sort of thinking continues with the developers, Ice Armor will never be as good as the other sets.

If you want to point fingers Sable, I'd suggest to start with all of the SS tankers that run Rage double-stacked; they were doing it to avoid the total end drain that came with Rage 2.0, as well as to increase their damage and accuracy even more. By doing this, they skew the numbers the devs get from their data-mining; because they see that many SS tankers use Rage in this manner, they figure it works.

This is a fight I've already given up as being a non-issue. They're not going to budge on it, which is why HC is slowly becoming an alt as I work other characters up to replace her.

The Brawl Index has long been held as to not being the best resource for finding out how much damage a set can do. It doesn't take into account animation times (since the true times aren't fully known), or help find the optimal attack chain.

As far as SS compared to other sets is concerned: having grouped with every secondary available to tankers, my feeling is this: only Ice and Mace are in more need of love. Every other primary, in both the short term and over the long haul, outdamages these three sets, as well as having overall lower endurance costs. Plus, none of them suffer from the 10 second self-root+phase that users of Rage have to deal with.

These are the points that I feel need to be addressed; however, I've long gotten past the point where I believe the devs are listening anymore. It's not because they don't care; it's simply because, in their eyes, they feel that since Rage is a situational power, it should have some sort of penalty. By their numbers, they see plenty of people using Rage; but they are either unaware, or are turning a blind eye, of the bug that allows a SS tanker to avoid the end cost at the end of Rage by stacking it. Because of this, their analysis of the data is skewed.

As long as SS tankers continue to double-stack Rage, the 10 second downtime will never be corrected.

Which is the reason I barely play HC anymore.

From talking with other SS tanks both on the boards and in game, you'd be in the minority, Icen.

Most SS tankers I know either barely use Rage anymore, or are either going to respec out of Rage or have already done so.

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It should be simple to create an IM client that did not execute code sent through it, did not allow opportunities for buffer overflows, etc. The security holes that have been relating to IM clients have to do with links to browsers, sending files, and so forth. Merely opening a chat interface so lines of text can be sent from within CoH to outside CoH and back would not be a security risk if done with reasonable care.

Everquest has had an IM client for a long time (EQIM). It's an unstable, crashing-all-the-time piece of junkware, but I have yet to hear of a security problem it created for the EQ servers or clients running it.

In the workplace, IM clients can allow a lot of productivity gain as people can discuss their plans in a group setting without leaving their offices and computers. It also creates its own record. In many ways superior to frequent meetings.

Stop the IM hate

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I'm far more worried about DoS attacks causing the servers to crash due to the generation of traffic, and the threat that, with the way most people tend to use the same password for everything (despite the many times security analysts advise people not to do such a thing), user's passwords to the game being compromised and having their accounts hijacked.

And that doesn't even count zero-day vulnerabilities.

Heck, if Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2k3 is still vulnerable to a LAND attack, I'd hate to think what might lurking out there that would attack through an IM client.

Oh just shut up. Don't bring your narrow-minded 'tanks must have taunt to perform' mindset into this thread. The whole reason punch-voke was introduced was so that those people that did not want to take provoke and/or taunt did not have to do so. Between punchvoke and the ability to slot primary abilities with taunt enhancers, there's very actual little need for Taunt other than getting the very occasional stray.

Agreed.

I never had any intention of participating in Hami raids. I hated raids in E&B; they were just lag-induced slideshows where I died repeatedly and where I got outbid by everyone else, because I was a casual player in a small guild and couldn't afford the loot.

Now in CoH, we have a lag-induced slideshow where I stand to get HOs that won't do my main a bit of good, due to +def caps.

Yay. One more reason not to waste my time with PvP.

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Still here...been busy with visitors this week. Plus - we've got E3 around the corner and, of course, City of Villains (though I'm not saying anything other than "this year" for a time estimate).

And I've been working some on the Arena (playtesting) and even Issue 5 stuff. Oh - and whatever comes AFTER City of Villains. Wouldn't you like to know that?

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No, I'd rather like to know when things that're obviously not working in the game right now are going to be addressed.

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Why have the Devs gone to such lengths to give SS Tanks a disadvantage that almost cannot be worked around?
To me that seems entirely counter to the concept of a "game" and the Defender in me objects to this more than the Tank.

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This is easy. The old Rage had basically no drawbacks or they could be fairly easily circumvented by the power gamers, but your non-powergamers were the ones most affected.

Now everyone gets the same drawback that can not be gotten around.

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How is using your status protection (which you would be using anyways, since without it a tank doesn't last more than 5 seconds without it) to help mitigate Rage 1.0's drawback to a limited degree make all of us (and there were very many, even people that never read the boards knew about this) make us powergamers?

What's more, it was never a guarentee. I had to develop very specific strageties for using Rage against big groups of enemies; they didn't always work, which is one of the reasons I have all 3 debt badges on my tanker. But even with these strategies, I didn't use Rage all that much, except against the big boss at the end of a mission.

If you're being sarcastic and I'm missing it, then I apologize, Futurias. But I'm feeling the same way Sable does. I barely play anymore, because this is so frustrating.

No.

No.

NO.

You do NOT realize the amount of security holes that are opened up with instant messenger programs. I know quite a few people IRL who've had their entire networks shut down by virus/Trojan horses/worms/etc brought in through IM.

No. Keep IM type applications AWAY from Global Chat.

Oh, and just to add a little salt to the wound...

If you fellow SS tankers think Rage sucks now, wait till PvP.

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all this for a measily 25 End cost and 10 sec down time (which in that down time i press my self activation toggles i.e. dull pain, haste, do a little of running around (invince is good aggroer) and im back to fighting....i have noticed however the -def seems to be a little more than 5%.....

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Actually you're incorrect about one thing, the aggroing part of Invincibility doesn't do squat during those 10 seconds. (Easy enough to test on a grey con - stand next to it without aggroing it, use rage, wait til it runs out and activate invincibility. You'll notice that invinc won't aggro them til you get your attacking ability back.)

This little fact is actually the ONLY reason I'm respeccing out of rage as soon as I can, I don't really mind that much not being able to attack or taunt, but being completely unable to use even invincibility for aggro control during this downtime isn't working for me.

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Quoted and highlighted for empathsis.

The original reason that Statesman stated that they were changing Rage was because so many SS tankers weren't using it.

Well, they've now made it so that for many of those that have it, either use it a whole lot less (like myself), or are removing it from their builds (such as Rose).

The people that don't have it aren't in any hurry to pick it up.

Congrats States. You've made Rage truly situational. Hardly anyone takes it or uses it.

No offense guys, but to open Global Chat to be accessible by IM type applications would open up a host of security issues.

No thanks.

Not a blast Goldie, just a minor correction

The numbers I've seen most quoted for the accuracy buff for the two skills:

Build Up: 50%
Rage: 40%

Obviously these are unenhanced, but this begs the question:

Is it because the fact that most people put more recharge enhancers into Build Up (to make it as near perma as possible), where Rage users have the freedom to slot one or two to-hit buff enhancers (I have one in Rage, plus two rechargers) yet another 'buff', at least in the developers eyes?

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Hardly anyone at all has complained about no damage for 10 seconds. But what most people across the board have agreed upon is that tankers should still be able to Taunt or have taunt auras during the crash (even if the taunt is reduced a bit). At least then you wouldn't have to go through button-mashing annoyance every two minutes or feel like an inanimate sack of meat.

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Quoted and highlighted for empathsis.

While I do appreciate Statesman taking the time out of his busy schedule to answer my PM, his answer still left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

I don't care about the damage boost; it's the fact that I cannot work to protect my team if I use Rage that bugs me the most.

I'd have to say I agree with this assessment 100%. But Statesman seems pretty set in his thinking of how Rage should work.

Just get rid of it, and replace it with Build-Up. At least that power can be used without penalty.

Just got my response from Statesman to my post. Short, sweet, to the point:

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Rage is a situational power, not one to be used constantly. Therefore, it doesn't undermine the Tanker's primary roles.

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Given his response, and the results of testing by others, it does seem that the penalty is not quite as harsh, so I'll be trying to get some testing in this weekend (kinda hard since, as most weekends, I'll be working).

Most tankers aren't having the same experience as you, Fei.

Case in point:
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Point: The Tanker's role is to control enemy aggression.
Point: Rage's downside temporarily negates the tanker's ability to control aggression.
::Therefore:: Rage makes a tanker LESS effective.

Case study:
Last night my 29 tanker was running with a 33 blaster and a 21 Defender /sk'd to 28. We were running the blaster's missions. Difficulty was heroic.
We were fighting 33's and 34's.

3 times last night during the middle of fights, Rage's penalty kicked in. Due to the inherent LOW DAMAGE (this is what it says during Character Creation) I had not done enough damage to enough foes to keep aggro locked on me during the down time.

The result? Team wipes. Both my compatriots were unable to escape fast enough when the group of 5 enemies suddenly lost interest in me and charged them, especially with there being no way for them to know that I was "down" fast enough for them to change their attack patterns.

The current state of Rage 3.0 makes Super Strength tankers far less useful on a team. And since Super Strength is just about THE LOWEST damage of the Tanker Sets, soloing is far harder for a Super Strength tanker than for say, a Fire or Axe tanker.

Conclusion:
Current Rage makes Super Strength an unviable build for both team and solo.
This by definition is "broken".

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On an emotional note, this pisses me the hell off, as I am a 90% team player. Great. I made a team friendly tank all the way to 30, and now he can't effectively team if I wish to do anything other than stand there and be a taunt-bot...
... Taunt-botting makes me feel OH SO HEROIC!!! Doesn't it you?

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He's not the only one, either. Rage 3.0 does not work, especially in pick-up teams where people don't know or understand each other's playstyle. Rage needs to be made so that it is useful in both solo and team play, while keeping it balanced. Right now, it falls far short of doing so.

Something occured to me last night, that makes me question the real reason why Rage was altered.

Let's look at Hasten, a power most people use and slot up to make it perma:

If I make Hasten perma'ed, I get the equivalent of 2 recharge reduction SOs, saving me 2 slots that I can apply elsewhere, and allowing all of my skills to recharge faster than their base times, all for the cost of one power pool slot and 4-5 slots with recharge reduction SOs.

Now, apply the same logic to Rage 1.0:

If I make Rage perma'ed, I get the equivalent of 1 accuracy and 2, almost 3 damage enhancement SOs, saving me 3 slots that I can apply elsewhere, and allowing all of my attacks to hit harder and more accurately than their base values, all for the cost of 3 slots with recharge reduction SOs, without hasten or 2 slots with recharge reduction SOs, with hasten.

Next, apply the sort of thinking that was going on that caused Unstoppable to get altered to its current form:

If I make Unstoppable perma'ed, I can use a respec to move all the slots I had in my passive and/or active resistances and put them into my attacks, allowing me to hit really hard.

Now take that same sort of logic, and apply it to what Rage 1.0 allowed you to do, given my previous example:

If I make Rage perma'ed, I can use a respec to leave my attacks with only two slots, filled both with endurance reduction SOs, thus allowing me to attack using very little endurance, all the while still maintaining enough offense and accuracy to allow punch-voke and Taunt to maintain aggro.

Could this be the actual reason why Rage was changed, and why Statesman said this?

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Many players complained about the stun at the end of Rage because it turned off toggles and left them helpless. At the same time, hardcore players with perma-unstoppable or Unyielding were able to avoid the Stun effect. Thus the casual player was getting penalized and hardcore player wasn’t getting the desired penalty. We're still looking at the issue - so feel free to post your thoughts & ideas!

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Please feel free to poke holes in this idea; in fact, I really hope someone does poke a very large, legitimate hole in this theory. I don't want to be right.

Well. we shall see what Statesman has to say. I sent him a copy of my post via PM.

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3. Some people don't mind the traditional role of a Tanker as a meat shield, other do. Most importantly, however, is that people seemed not to like to be a "provoke bot". It appeared that a Tanker's role was to sit there, take damage, and occasionally hit Provoke. A Tanker's attacks were nice, but pretty much an afterthought in the grand scheme of things. Well, that's not much fun after all. Provoke is fine; but the Tanker's attacks should be MORE important when combat gets started in holding aggro than shouting at various mobs.

4. The Burn change is a little too inconsistent with the role of a Tanker. A Tanker wants to keep aggro, not chase them away.

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A Tanker's role is to protect his teammates. That's what we'd like to optimize. At the moment, a Tanker is virtually undefeatable. In other words, a Tanker can take ENORMOUS amounts of damage. That's great for the Blasters, Defenders and Controllers who wouldn't otherwise be able to survive the encounter.

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These quotes are your own words, Statesman. I highlighted those specific parts for a reason. The changes made to Rage undermine these very sentiments that you expressed back in, in the 'My Morning with Geko' thread.

So, what happened? Why the sudden disconnect here? Why are Super Strength tankers being put into a position where their main method of providing more power to their attacks (something you yourself said a Tanker should be doing more) then makes it so that they cannot do their jobs as you stated in the 'Yes, I've been reading the boards' post?

I'm honestly confused, and would like to know why it is that you and the dev team seem to keep switching which side of the fence you're sitting on?

GOD(****)IT DEVS!

Are you people even listening to us? We told you we didn't like Rage 2.0, and yet it went in anyways.

Rage 3.0 went on test without a single comment from you guys. We told you, time and time and time again, that the penalites were too harsh, that they prevented us from doing the job that you said was our main responsibility, which is to take damage.

Are you guys just ignoring us out of spite? It sure as hell feels like it.