Circeus_NA

Thanks

Yeah I suppose its a tactics thing mostly, and you're right, nothing will ever sleep with pots on - assuming everything is in range. Salt Crystals has a large AoE, likely beyond that of pots (seems to go beyond Chilling Embrace for example), and with the way AoE hit/misses works, there's a good chance you'll hit something outside your range.

My suggestion for anyone is copy twice to test, and try out both.

As for myself, I'm still trying to figure out an Ice/Stone/Stone build that I'm satisfied with (none to date have done it for me long term yet). So your comments on the Stone Melee side while food for thought, are identical to most of my feelings about the powers - other than Taunt, which I'm still not sure I want to ditch or keep.

Is the fact that it dropped to only 5 really your only reason for not taking it now, or is there more to that? Do you have any situations where you've missed it? I'm particularly concerned about vs AVs/Monsters, which is the place I've always found Taunt most useful.

Great guide neo. I have one though towards epics. Stone Prison, is not all that great. I suggest taking Salt Crystals over it. It can sleep a Boss, and its an AoE DEF debuff too. I don't rely on it too much for the sleep, but having played with both, I find it more useful.

An interesting thing I noticed by accident when demorecording is this...

1) Start a Demo

2) Quit to Login

at this point the demo is still recording

makes for some interesting things

Well done RM.

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What Statesman says here is true by and large .... Tankers can still tank by the strictest of definitions.

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And he's also admitted that anyone can Tank. So if Tanking is supposed to be the realm of Tankers, and anyone can Tank, then what again is so special about Tanks? (possible answers that have been disproven by these conversations: agro management, and higher health)

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What I think Statesman needs to do is play a Tanker for a solid 2 weeks, everyday (same Tanker). I would highly suggest him starting with an L20 Tanker.

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I think he specifically has to play all 4 primaries from 10 through 20 as well. He's really completely crippled Tankers in this level range, and its in many respects due to the ordering of the powersets, and in some cases (Ice comes to mind) where some powers are simply too weak in some respects.

Then he should try 20+ on each Primary as you say.

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Just wanted everyone to know that we are planning changes to reduce hospital camping. I'm not going to say it will never happen, but we should be able to cut it way down.

I don't have an ETA at this point (holiday season and all).

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If its not a big huge bubble around the hospital that just melts and/or repels all opposing forces, then whatever else you try won't work.

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The goal of the game is to make sure there isn't an ideal team composition. So, yes, a Scrapper, with buffs, can tank, but not as well as a Tanker. Why? Because 1) a Tanker starts with higher resistances/defenses and 2) he has Punchvoke and thus can manage the aggro better.

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Re (1): doesn't matter, Defender and Controller buffs are so strong, and the differnece between Scrappers and Tankers defenses is so narrow that when viewed in terms of buffs that can be applied, the difference becomes a non-issue. When it takes just as much buffing and/or healing to keep a Scrapper alive to accomplish the same task, which is where the game is right now, the difference in initial values and caps become meaningless. So the Scrapper becomes the better choice because they can contribute more damage.

Re (2): But the question isn't does he manage agro better, it becomes does the fact that the Tanker can manage agro better matter. And the answer again is the fact that he can becomes meaningless.

It is true that pre-I5 a Tanker may have overshadowed both Controllers and Defenders too much. But now Controllers and Defenders overshadow Tankers too much, and are also capable of making other ATs overshadow Tankers too much.

From Statesman on the Euro forums:

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I've responded to the tanker issue - I've played builds myself, described my tactics. I'll gladly try different builds and circumstances...but all in all, I feel a tanker can still Tank.

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And I still call BS. His one posted test involved using the broken version of Invincibility. He also completely glosses over the fact that when buffed, any AT can Tank, so what then is so special about Tanks?

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This is also something interesting that might include a buff for Stone (pre-Granite) and Ice:

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Why did defense need to be scaled back so drastically?

Here was my goal. Have every type of build able to play on Heroic with perhaps one defeat on groups of all sizes, and do the same on Invincible with at most a handful of defeats. Also, Tankers needed to tank, and Scrappers needed to survive long enough to contribute. We tested and arrived at our numbers.

But there is an issue with Defense as a whole; it doesn’t scale. If we make it balanced at +4 levels, it’ll be absolutely awesome at even con. We’re looking into some things that might even this out (as well as even out the minion/lt./boss issue).

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...but it is Statesman looking into this so it could actually mean a nerf...

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Well an interesting note on this point. In my last email exchange with Statesman where we were running numbers, he explicitly told me that something like this was in the works, that he could not elaborate more, but that for purposes of Accuracy in the calculations we should assume that all mobs were minions.

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Ballista is a Toggle Dropping *******!

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Yeah, he is. He was designed to be as close to a Player Hero as we could make him. How do you guys like the Toggle Drop on him? Is it too nasty or does it add a nice challenge?

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Don't much like it. You need to keep PvP mechanics, especially ones that are highly controversial, out of PvE no matter what.

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FSAA doesn't exist anymore as of the last patch (8 Nov) now theres "anistropic rate or something like that" and it doesnt fix the split screen problem anymore. ATI graffics bites the dust again.

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FSAA appears gone for ATI cards in the option window, on a system with an NVIDIA card its still there (have two systems each with one type of card in it in house).

Anisotropic Filtering is a completely different beastie, and not related to FSAA. It affects textures and should not affect Frame Rate technically speaking.

FSAA is Full-Scene Antialiasing, and its purpose is to clean up edges on polygons (basically speaking).

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I really like Foo's AV concept.

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I got the entire Praetorian arc to do with my tanker yet. If you want we can line 'em up one right after the other.

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On my lv50 Blaster I'm sitting on Dreck (just got it, so don't you goi pointing fingers you), Giovanna, and I think Dominatrix.

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I thought Tankers were the "supported" AT.

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Yes, the line for your truss is forming now, don't miss it!!!

My wife plays, and has played as long as I have, which goes back to the 1st wave of beta invitees for CoH. So potentially, outside of people at Cryptic/NCSoft, we're the couple who's been playing the longest.

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Council, CoT, DE, Rikti, Crey, Nemesis and Freakshow.

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Two of my favorite mobs to test against are Nemesis and Rikti.

CoT and DE would be good because there's a lot of oddness incurred from all the buffs and debuffs and mezzes flying about.

Freakshow you can skip, they're covered by the others really attackwise.

Council, other than the one cold attack that some have, and the potential for negative damage output (Galaxy and Vamps) you can probably skip. Negative will be covered by Energy from Rikti.

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I've seen a lot of complaints about this so I brought it up before we went live. We changed it so certain toggle effects fade out but it didn't make it into live. Dark Armor shouldn't be so bad anymore once this gets updated. The same goes for Mud Pots.

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I can attest that you guys will love this once it goes in. Glacial Armor has already had this treatment, and I swear its like magic to my eardrums.

Hmmm... actually, I'll love it too, as my next and line to make the climb happens to be a BS/DA Scrapper.

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Is the bug in Invic applicable to both the tank and the scrapper version? I don't know, but if so, then it is still a vaild test.

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Affects Tanker, Scrapper, and Brute.

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Just because the consensus on the boards is that tanks aren’t meatshields doesn’t mean the devs agree.

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The "consensus" isn't so much that Tanks aren't meatshields, its more that, if that's the role the devs want Tanks to play in the game, they've not provided the proper tools for doing so with a reasonable modicum of success. At least not one that makes a Tanks participation in a team environment more palatable that any other AT.

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If you leave out Invul because of the Invic bug, how are you going to demonstrate where tanks stand? What I mean is, I think you need to be careful that the testing doesn’t reduce to demonstrating limitations of a specific set.

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When the bug is fixed, Invuln not using Unstoppable will look/function a lot like an Ice Tanker. Only Invuln will be better at Smash/Lethal/Fire, and Ice will be better at Energy/Negative/Cold. Ice will be better at Solo play, and larger mob groupings and higher level mobs is where Invuln will outperform.

Overall, testing with a bugged core power in a powerset invalidates the test. Wait until they get the bug fixed, then either include Invuln in the test, and if you've already run it, go back and test Invuln.

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I think this is a good idea, DO as far as it goes, but I think the pentad team is a bit too small to get the most out of it.

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Don't kid yourself there. The pentad, and in fact any 5 character team is exactly the sort of testing the devs want to see. Especially Statesman.

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I consider it a miracle that he survived, let alone tanked after I5, let alone ED.

As a matter of fact, this example shows, more than anything, that Statesman is a Powerleveller.

(Just kidding, don't hit me with a giant monster.)

In any case, tearing up his example gets us nowhere, even if it might make us feel better for a few minutes.

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I just don't want people taking his example for gospel, because its as da5id said, its just a data point. Unfortunately, its a pretty bad one, and likely one you'd throw out in any true experiment.

As for his survival, its simple, every time he was running low on health (as in yellow or less) he would have most likely been dead considering he'd have had one third the DEF he had in his test.

Its not a matter of tearing it up, sometimes when something smells bad its just because its rotten.

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One thing I need from people is a list of things that would bias the test in the makeup of the rest of the team or the mission. I do not want to go to all the trouble to do these runs and then have our credibility shot by something we overlooked.

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You mean like don't let an Ice Tank stand near the other tanks during testing while they're running Chilling Embrace?

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6 50++'s of Damage Resistance puta us at 104% S/L DR according to Hero Planner.

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I'm pretty sure that with Granite and Stone Skin both 3 slotted for RES you can hit the S/L cap just fine.

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I think everybody, including Statesman, agrees that a Tanker should be able to do better than his specific example.

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I think its everybody except Statesman and the rest of the devs that agree to this. That's my concern. Its like he has tunnel vision and Tankers are outside of his realm of focus.

Statesman pretty much implies by his example that his performance is as expected. That's fairly sad. Even worse that he knows he's operating with a bugged power that's providing too much buff, and he's still trying to pass off his performance as a good thing.

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- A Tanker should not be a better soloer than a Scrapper. As good, maybe, but not better.

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I somewhat agree with this. Problem is that right now, as a person who plays Tanks, Scrappers, and Brutes (well heck so far the only things I don't play are Warshades, Corruptors, and Stalkers), I can tell you that Scrappers and Brutes solo much better than any Tanker I've ever played. When you're solo offense counts a lot more than defense, my level 50 Blaster can attest to that.

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- A Tanker tanking for a team should take less damage from more aggro than any other single character. Yet, he should not be able to handle the whole spawn without help.

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How much less is the question right now. And its not one that's very clear. Its also not clear that this approach matters. If you're fighting 20 plus mobs and the Controller locks down half of them, is a Tanker really even a consideration?

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- A Team should want a Tanker along to take the aggro. But they should not need one so badly that they can't go out without one.

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Here's my problem. No team needs a Tanker is a good idea, but my problem is that it doesn't go both ways. While no team needs a Tanker, a Tanker needs specific team members to function. And in a team environment all the other hero ATs (Scrappers, Blasters, Defenders, Controllers, PBs, WSs) all have larger roles to play now, to the point where they all overshadow what we do. They either do the same or better damage, and they have ways of outdoing our defenses.

The game currently makes Tanker powersets moot. And I have serious problems with that. If a Tanker is going to have marginally better defenses only with higher health and caps, but much less damage, why would anyone bother to play one over a Scrapper or a Brute? You can get less damage, yet contribute more to your team overall as either of those.

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He "tanked" 1/3 of a spawn for 7. He took up a little more than twice his share. On a team with any sort of non-melee AT i'd expect any scrapper to at LEAST do this much. I think it's pretty clear that states' grand vision for tanks is nothing more than scrankers who draw a little more aggro than the vastly more offensively effective scrappers.

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And again, for clarity, he did this on the live servers where he's admitted (to me in email, not yet to the general public) that Invincibility is bugged giving three times the buff it should be.

And he said he was comfortable with the performance from the test above, yet Invincibility is about to get that bug fixed (he's also told me this in email).

So the test is mostly completely invalidated by that fact alone, because its meaningless to say that something is working well and as intended, but at the same time know you're about to cut it off at the knees yet again.

So I mostly find the example demeaning for the Tanker AT as a whole.