Johnny_Butane

It's worse than that. As I hear it, the Green Lantern movie started out as a Flash film.
A Flash film they wanted to do as a comedy...starring Jack Black as the Flash.

Then it mutated into a Green Lantern movie with Black still attached, and they were going to play it like The Mask, with Black using the ring for all kinds of wacky cartoon props and gags.

They switched characters because at the time they intended to precede it with a Justice League movie spinning out of the Superman Returns and Batman Begins movies.They wanted the Flash for it because his effects were cheaper to do than having a Lantern on the roster. They even cast and photographed several lesser known actors in costume as a promotional thing to drum up interest.

Of course, when Superman Returns didn't do so well, the suits balked at dumping money into a super hero team movie (because how could THAT ever make money?) and Justice League was scrapped. So, they scrambled some re-writes to turn Green Lantern into a 'serious' movie to compete against Iron Man and cast Reynolds, as you said, to be their Tony Stark of the DC universe.

And this is why Hollywood is an evil machine that eats souls and turns them into concentrated fail.


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Before Brutes existed, Tankers were the only AT with super strength and invulnerability. They were for years the only heroic AT that reflected those kinds of characters. The developers said, and I have the infamous quote and am not going to bother re-posting it, that Tankers were supposed to.

Not to mention, Statesman, our expy of the big blue boyscout, is a Tanker. Also a Tanker is Hero 1, and many of the other "bricky" pastiches in the game.


Beyond that, it's in the zeitgeist:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/02...se-of-tankers/

Brutes, on the other hand, have always been more closely associated with another character:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/01...ase-of-brutes/

And you must admit, Brutes fit him exceptionally well, like a pair of ripped purple pants. And Scrappers, for the sake of argument, fit very well with their patron and comic counterpart (their icon on the character creation screen even goes 'Snikt!'):

http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/12...-of-scrappers/

Tankers don't fit as well with their guy, but only for the fact they lack the punch and juice needed to "cut loose" ala the World of Cardboard speech. Turning it around, he certainly fits Tankers better than Scrappers or Brutes. Tankers get SS and always have, for one thing, unlike Scrappers. And he doesn't have have raging anger issues like Brutes. The attitude and the rest of the concept is already there in Tankers, the mechanics just needs to fall into place better. That can be remedied, and that's what I'm trying to see fixed.


To reiterate: the devs said Tankers were supposed to represent those powerful characters from comics. The devs even made their big good, flag waving flying brick a Tanker. And most players and even people only semi-familiar with the game, seem to associate Tankers with big blue too.

In practice, Tankers only fall short of this ideal because they got needlessly kneecapped for offense. Take care of the damage cap, and maybe give them something for flavor for the people who're asking for that, and as far as I'm concerned they'd be 'fixed' and as reasonably like their comic counterparts as Brutes and Scrappers are to theirs.


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Almost any Tanker, pretty much regardless of build, currently hits the damage cap with a single Kin on their team.

Even if we ignore Kin, it's almost a given to happen on Leagues and it will only get easier when Hybrid and Amplifiers hit and ever easier still as time goes on.

As I said, I'm not 100% against a flavorful mechanic unique from Fury that helps non SS-Shield-KMs see the difference the cap change would make solo. But I insist that the damage cap needs to be fixed, and it should happen either first or in tandem with that.


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Very. In fact, that is almost assuredly what they were thinking when they created Fury for Tankers.

But the problem with that is, in truth our Tankers don't have overwhelming power to ever "stop holding back". Supes gets to say that because he's got the goods to back it up. His dials go to 11.

Our dials don't go to "11". They go to ((0.8*X)*4)*1.2
Lower than anyone else in our "League".

And he doesn't 'cut loose' on nameless Parademons, or garden variety bank robbers. And he especially doesn't shrink away from the big guys who can take it.

I agree with you that link is what Tankers should be all about. But they're not, and that is why I'm not going to quit on them.



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I don't think that all Scrappers have the same survivability as all Tankers. But, to run with your analogy and phrasing, I insist that there's a discrepancy between the "spreadsheet" and the "scoreboard". Enough of one that there is some wiggle room to justify Tankers getting a damage cap increase, rather than just bringing Brute caps down (either resistance or damage).


I am against strengthening Tanker AoE capabilities. I don't think that fits with them conceptually. Tankers are not bullies that choose to unleash their power on groups of peons and are inept at fighting tougher foes. If anything, they do the opposite in comics and other media: unleash their power on the hard targets and hold back against the mooks. Indeed, the fact that Tankers shrug off mook attacks so well and can often ignore them is the reason they would put their attention and power into putting down the big threats.

I also don't like it because it only encourages farming, which is a big problem I see Tankers presently being abused for; players running them like Tractors, taking them back and forth across a farm, slow but steady and safe, usually to bankroll their Brute's IO build.


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This I can answer. Yes, having to maintain Bruising does sacrifice your personal DPS. The Tanker himself gets less of out of Bruising than anyone else attacking that same target because they don't have to modify their attack chain to use their T1 every 10 seconds.

Bruising is still a net gain for the Tanker in most cases, but it's three steps forward, one step back.

Bruising is currently never "resisted". It is uniformly a 20% increase to damage the affected target takes regardless of level, con or powers.

For the purposes of discussion, I treat Bruising as 20% straight damage addition to a Tanker. Despite the fact it requires maintaining and disrupts attack chains, and doesn't do a thing for the Tanker's AoE. It has advantages that offset those drawbacks. Like helping the rest of the team, and buffing any pets the Tanker may be packing solo. That's specifically why I let the AoE discrepancy with Brutes slide when I was figuring where I think the Tanker damage cap should be, relative to Brutes.


I'd like to point out that as of Going Rogue, there's no such thing as a "heroic" or "villainous" AT anymore. Save perhaps the HEATs and VEATs.

Brutes are not automatically evil or savage, nor are Tankers automatically selfless or the team's Big Daddy.



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I am. I've suggested increasing a Tanker's damage cap to 545%. That would, if my math is correct, put their single target damage (after Bruising) at the cap around 90% of Brute damage at their cap. Tanker AoE damage would still lag behind, but shy of adding Bruising to all attacks, or removing it altogether, there's nothing that can fix that.

I think that this is fair, considering only 10% max HP separates a Brute from a Tanker defensively at the caps.


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Tankers have 10% better max HP at cap. That's way too close for the damage difference.


Two things. One: Stalker changes actually made them more like Scrappers in a few ways, and everyone agrees Stalkers are better now. Different doesn't always make something better, or more popular.

Second thing: Would you accept Tankers getting their damage cap increased if they also got a mechanic that was distinct from Fury?


The Tanker's only advantage is 10% max HP at the cap. At that point, it's almost not even perceptible. But ultimately, it's not even really a question of qualitative value. It is a quantitative fact that the Brute's caps are better than a Tanker's. They are undeniably numerically superior.


You haven't been acting like it, IMO. Telling me to give up on Tankers and play Brutes. Making excuses for Brutes.


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I want exactly one change: to have the Tanker damage cap raised. To 545%, if my numbers are correct. I'm willing to negotiate for less than that and meet half-way with Brutes and Scrappers seeing some reduction.


I don't honestly believe in the devs. What I mean by that is I could have as strong a case for buffing Tankers as possible, but I don't trust them to look at that fairly or give Tankers what they deserve. Tankers have been the butt monkey of the melee ATs for a long time. They were ripped off for Fury and most of the people who cared about Tankers measuring up to their comic counterparts either left the game or jumped ship to Brutes. Subsequently, I view anyone making excuses for Brutes while arguing against Tankers as extremely incredulous.

In short, I'm not looking to bend over backwards for support from other forumites or the devs and I never expected success. But I'm just too damn obstinate to give up.


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I'll repeat something Redoptic said on the other page:


Tankers existed first.

They were the AT given powers like super strength and invulnerability before anyone else.

They were the only heroic AT there to represent those kinds of heroes from comics for most of the game's lifespan, from Day 1 until Going Rogue launched.

So why should Brutes represent those characters better and Tanker be denied it?

Especially since the core concept of Brutes, Fury, was swiped from something intended for Tankers?

And frankly, Tankers have paid their dues. They got to watch as Brutes came blue side and took over their territory and competed for aggro, But on the flipside, Brutes never had to fear Tankers edging them out of damage dealing.


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OH YES, he is.

His fighting capabilities are nothing to write home about his offensive contribution to defeating whatever threat is at hand is negligible. He serves his team primarily as a distraction, to draw fire, and he is little more than a tackle dummy that gets back up. That is CoH Tankers, as they are currently.


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I find all three flavors of Performance Amplifiers extremely "offensive".


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I don't care what you think damage is or isn't supposed to be modeling. I know what the Tanker having low damage means to me. It's translates to "you are inept at arresting and defeating bad guys".



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You do see characters like CoH Tankers in comics. They're almost universally joke characters.

http://www.comicvine.com/butterball/29-54440/
http://www.comicvine.com/mr-immortal/29-2486/
http://www.comicvine.com/cf/29-40997/
http://www.comicvine.com/turtle/29-60027/
http://www.comicvine.com/blob/29-3182/

And I'm reminded of Colossus from the Ultimate universe. He got the whole "turn into living metal" thing as his mutant power, but not the super strength. Poor sap could barely lift his arms, let alone walk or be of any use in a fight. He ended up hooked on a dangerous drug to increase his power.



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Yes it is, and the example I used, of the plodding knight in heavy plate, is EXACTLY the justification the majority of the games use for their 'tanks' having poor offense. That or they're stuck holding a shield. Other genres tend to avoid that. In a sci-fi game, you tend to have their "heavy" class with a powerful cannon or rocket launcher. In Team Fortress 2, nobody would call the Heavy Weapons Guy low damage with his chaingun. Military games with actual tanks don't replace their main cannon with a peashooter. It's primarily fantasy hack and slashers and their derivatives that you see the plodding and weak low damage decoys that CoH Tankers currently embody. It has NOTHING to do with emulating or respecting the superhero genre or trying to adapt its conventions to a game and everything to do with playing follow the leader and outdated and silly design. Tankers demonstrate exactly how much the devs don't get superheroes or comics, or at least don't care to do the genre justice.


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It's not a big enough role, or one compelling enough, for most people to have an entire AT dedicated to at the cost of all else. Especially since we have three other ATs besides Tankers that are intended, at least in theory, to share aggro and 'tanking' duties. It's also a role that gets less important with every single buff, temp power or whatever added to the game that makes every AT tougher.

It's also not a role that has anything to do with superheroes. You're unlikely to find the world "aggro" in any issue of JLA, Avengers, X-Men or Spider-Man. The trinity, pulling, tank and spank, has absolutely nothing to to with this genre. Super hero fights do not generally work like that. There was NO dedicated low damage tank or healer in the big climax fight in the Avengers movie that everyone though was so cool. The conventions of the super hero genre should not be throw out because copying some silly and primitive model of combat from a dungeon crawler was the thing to do 8+ years ago.
Tankers are not knights so weighed down with their shiny attention grabbing plate armor that they can't swing their sword properly.



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That ship has already sailed.

Sailed and crashed into a bunch of jagged rocks and then exploded in a fireball. Then the captain spat on what was left.


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That sounds redundant. It goes without saying the vast majority of bears are naked. Save for the ones with those tiny hats.


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I doubt it's as straight forward and uniform as either multiplication or addition.

My point stands: Scrappers can and do get a considerable amount of survivability out of their secondary. I'm willing to wager their actual survivability isn't truly 75% that of Tankers, that across the board they don't faceplant 1.33 times more often than a Tanker does for all content in the game.



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I agree with you that the developers threw important super hero conventions out the window in the name of DnD-esque cliches and tried to hammer something into a fantasy MMO mold that doesn't fit. Positron always said he was a big superhero fan, but he doesn't act like he understands the genre and its tropes very well.

At NO PONT did the big fight in Avengers resemble a tank and spank with everyone but Hulk, Cap and Thor sitting off to the sides, picking off alien invaders. There were NO @#$%ing HEALERS! None of their strong guys hit like little girls.

I disagree with you that Tankers have to be written off. That they can't do justice to the classic superhero brick and heavy hitter. They don't currently. But they could, they can, and they should.


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Lets' assign an arbitrary "survivability" number to a fictitious defensive set: Carp Armor.

Carp Armor gives 100 units of survivability on a Tanker, and 75 on a Scrapper.

Follow?

Now, lets introduce Carp Melee. Carp Melee has a lot of disorient adds an additional 50 survivability units to both a Scrapper and Tanker.

The Tanker's total survivability, combining both what they get from their primary and secondary power sets would be 150 (100+50). The Scrappers total would be 125 (75+50).

125 is not 75% of 150.


I don't think Tanker base damage should be increased. Just the cap. To 545%, if my math is correct.

And even if you did raise the scalar for Tankers to .85, the Brute cap would still be too high. Brutes would still need to be brought back in line, either by lowering either their damage cap or lowering their resistance caps.



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That isn't necessarily true. I want to play Blasters, but I can't bring myself to stick with one because they have a lot of problems.


That is a generalization. One that isn't true for many and wrongly assumes that anyone who plays a Tanker ONLY wants tank and be poor to mediocre at everything else.

You also assume that being completely specialized at "just tanking" at the cost of being able to do anything else is an interesting and "worthwhile" enough niche for most people playing this game. Considering Tankers aren't the most popular AT overall and more generalized ATs are, that assumption would be wrong.

Anecdotaly, most of my Tankers exist because for the majority of this game's lifespan, and for the majority of the time I've been playing it, Tankers were the ONLY option for certain power sets if you were on a certain side.

The fact that side swapping exists now is irrelevant to the fact that I've invested years in some of these characters. I'm not re-rolling because they let Brutes have their cake and eat it too; because they deny Tankers the same offensive potential as Brutes while allowing Brutes to have the same defensive potential as Tankers.

That wasn't fair before they turned Brutes loose on Blue side, it's still not fair now.

As for tanking itself, I certainly don't mind tanking and filling that role for a team. What I DO mind is that unlike Brutes who also tank, that's ALL I can do and I'm punished for doing it with crap damage.


There are people who would argue that's incorrect while alleging Brutes are stealing aggro from Tankers because of their superior damage.

The percentage of people playing Tankers in this game isn't 90%. Not by a long shot.



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I disagree.

Again, this is incorrect.

Here is the problem: Not 100% of your survivability and damage mitigation comes from your defense, resistance, HP or regeneration. A huge portion that can't be ignored comes from secondary effects on your attack set. Stuns, knockdowns, etc. As an example, Foot Stomp is a huge form damage mitigation. Generally speaking, these powers and effects are the SAME on a Scrapper as they are on a Tanker (or the same on a Brute and a Tanker). War Mace, all the stun Mags and durations are identical, as another example. In a few cases when they're not exactly the same, they're still way more than 75% of a Tanker's values on a Scrapper.

Since Scrappers get the same amount of mitigation out of these powers as a Tanker, and this goes towards their total survivability, the truth is a Scrapper's actual survivability is closer to that of a Tanker's than those "75%" numbers would suggest alone. This goes for Brutes as well.


This is incorrect. Tankers are actually lacking in AoE last time I looked at the numbers. Bruising reasonably brings their ST damage close (but not right) to 75% of a Scrapper at the cap, but their AoE lags behind.

No, actually they're not. That's why I said that if Tankers don't get their damage cap raised, Scrappers should have to take a survivability hit along with Brutes.


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