Johnny_Butane

How would that work exactly? The second a Tanker moves to an enemy, they're being attacked. Solo, this does nothing. On teams, this does nothing (unless a Brute has momentarily stolen aggro).

It's kind of like in Mystery Men, with the kid who could turn invisible when no one was looking at them. So Tankers would be great fighters...as long as they're not fighting?



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To repeat myself:

I'll settle for the cap being raised*. Then at least Tankers can mainline red inspirations if they want to, or wait for a +Dam Destiny power to come along.


*And by that I don't mean "raised 5%", I mean their maximum damage potential brought into line with Brutes, factoring in Bruising and the 10% more HP cap.



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I wish someone else who was better qualified and more effective would.



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LOLTankers. Roll a Brute.



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No, it's not.

The devs just buffed Stalkers because they had issues. They didn't tell people to roll Scrappers.

I have several Tankers with years of commitment put into them. I also have several Brutes. I have a couple Scrappers, but only one Stalker. Having played all side of the melee argument, it's my opinion the game penalizes Tankers unfairly in some ways, especially compared to Brutes. Namely, the issues I have explained many times about defensive and offensive potential. Given the development history of Tankers, Fury being developed for them but hijacked for Brutes, I feel that, yes, Tankers are owed something. Furthermore, they don't reasonably reflect their comic counterparts as well as all of the other melee ATs do (and in a comic book superhero game that DOES matter). They also don't line up with their official description when it comes to "dishing out all kinds of damage" and being "devastating hand to hand" combatants. And I don't care if that description is old; the other melee ATs live up theirs, if not exceed them, and the fact that Tankers don't and haven't for so long just makes it worse, not more excusable.

And, what angers me the most, is that so many people took BandX's advice. They gave up on trying to get Tankers fixed and defected to Brutes both when CoV launched and when side switching became a reality. Well I still give a damn, even if the people who used to support Tanker reform took off. So, if I have to be the diehard holdout, call me Captain Ahab.


That's kind of you, but really, I don't care about convincing anyone at this point. If I annoy you, again, that's why we have an Ignore feature.


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You damn hippies. If you hate America so much, move to another country!



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It's a silly reply to what I thought was a silly suggestion. The developers are well aware of what I have to say about Tankers. As I said in an earlier post, they either don't care or they don't have the time/resources to do anything about it. Neither of those situations are going to stop me from trying to get the issues with Tankers looked at, especially until there's an actual commitment by the devs to do something. Because if I don't, who will? If it annoys you, consider it a form of civil disobedience. You know what you can do to help make it stop.


The original purpose of this thread was pretty much rescinded by the OP.There was nothing to "take over". Since then, the thread evolved into a general discussion of melee balance as a whole, of which Tankers and their issues are a part of.

Lastly, if you really don't like what I have to say or pictures (that you think shouldn't be allowed in a visual medium for some reason :\ ), there's an Ignore feature for that very purpose.



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?






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Before Lambda is completed we waltzed right in to the BAF and Neutropolis with no issue, and after Lambda it doesn't stop the thousands of IDF that show up in the trials following it. So, no, it really didn't give us any more freedom to operate from what I see.

As for portals, the Tin Mage TF sees players trash the one in Neutropolis and there's no further incursions after that.

With no portals, power or military hub, Cole's forces operate as strong as ever, if not stronger for the inclusion the the Olympian Guard.


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They claim to read the forums every day. They can post here if they choose to. If they wanted to enter into a dialogue, the door is, and was, always open.


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Fixed.



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In my opinion, the devs apparent views on Tanker design is pretty crappy.

They let Brutes share the same survivability caps as them, but Tanker damage caps have to be way lower. Solo, Scrapper and Brute survivability is plenty adequate, enough that they're the best soloing ATs in the game, that's a fact, yet Tankers are punished with less damage for having more survivability than that, even when it's superfluous. On teams, the devs let defensive buffs and heals get handed out like candy to Scrappers and Brutes, and on top of that they get the heat taken off of them by Tankers. The result: they see very little downside, solo or teamed, to not being as tough out of the box as Tankers.

If that wasn't enough, add some IOs so Scrappers and Brutes can softcap their defense and while we're at it, Barrier, Rebirth and level shifts. So Brutes and Scrappers get tougher and tougher relative to all enemies in the game, don't really give up any damage for it, and keep the same damage advantage relative to Tankers. So, when it comes to the melee ATs, really only Tankers have to trade damage for their survival. I don't find that fair, and if the devs do, that only supports my assertion that they threw Tankers under the bus years ago.



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If you can't do something right, don't do it at all.

Also, if production time was an issue for coming up with better scenarios, instead of doing SIX bad trials, they should have tried to do three good ones. Because heaven knows this Praetorian thing has dragged on long enough.

I got all my tier 4s on all existing slots running the BAF and Lambda. We didn't need four more trials that all cover the same range. Three good, polished well written and executed trials is what we needed.

And it's not like all of those trials made meaningful contributions to the storyline:

Lambda: We shut down Cole's big military hub. This had ZERO EFFECT on IDF that still show up by the thousands in trials that happen AFTER that (and show up better equipped than ever). It should have crippled his forces, and that's why it should have been one of the last trials, storyline-wise.

Keyes: No effect on anything.

The Underground: A long pointless adventure to find out a "secret" everyone already knew and pointlessly kill off someone who's death didn't really matter.

TPN: This trial accomplishing nothing was at least justified by the storyline, but still made it pointless.

Minds of Mayhem: How much you want to bet Seers will STILL show up in trials after this point?




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Wrong. Unstoppable.

Wrong. Tanker Unstoppable has the same crash as Brute Unstoppable.

Willpower is OP.

My Brute runs on +4x8. My meaningless anecdote is better than your meaningless anecdote because I had a German Shepard out at the time and everything is better with puppies.


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Tanker's don't really need (nor do I want) a straight damage buff.

First, I want the damage cap raised so pretty much all Tankers stop hitting it with a single Kin and some Leadership toggles on a team; that shouldn't cause you to not get the full benefits of Rage, Buildup or what have you. The fact that I can do it alone on four of my Tankers is incidental. This is also to bring them in line with Brutes who, like Tankers, are listed in the 'Tank' AT category. This is why I'm inclined to compare them more directly. And the fact of the matter is, Brutes having essentially the same survival potential as Tankers but way more damage potential is intolerable. The more buffs and Incarnate powers that are added to the game, the more relevant this becomes to ALL Tankers because they allow Brutes to access that survival headroom more and more, and puts Tankers ever closer to that damage cap which already isn't hard to hit. And despite the fact that some people here have called for it, I don't think MOST players want to see Brutes nerfed. I don't. I'd rather see Tankers fixed. So it's the Tanker damage cap that has to move, not the Brute resistance or HP caps.

When that is done, if people still want it, then a unique mechanic can be created to allow Tankers greater damage, because then all Tankers can get the full benefit of it without a Kin or Leadership making that mechanic pointless.


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I can't, because even before becoming an Incarnate, aspects of the BAF, Lambda and Keyes shouldn't have been the challenges they were, and only were challenges because the devs cheated me.

My Inv/SS Tanker isn't an idiot. If a BAF tower is attacking him, and somehow managing to seriously hurt him(which is an issue in itself), he's going to jump up there and smash the hell out of it. But I CAN'T because the devs cheated and made it untargetable/unkillable, unlike pretty much every other turret or gun in the game.

Not to mention the Mindwashed LTs completely ignoring control, Nightstar and Siege standing up to 23 players when I used to solo both of them (that's not a believable increase in power in such a short period of time no matter what story you pin on it after the fact).

The fact of the matter is, the BAF trial should have began and ended with two Incarnate SS Brutes grabbing Nightstar by each arm and making a wish. When that is a completely believable scenario given all past player encounters with NS until that point, that's a sign that the BAF probably isn't a "cosmic level challenge worthy of beings of godlike power", at least not for more than three of them.



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This, I agree with. Hindsight says an AT with a role as dedicated to tanking and just tanking at the cost of all else, as Tankers are, was probably a bad idea. Brutes strike the balance of tanking and damage that the modern game needs more than a dedicated aggro monkey.

This I don't have a problem with for three reasons:

1. Brutes need aggro. It fuels their Fury. They have a need to seek it out, and if they want it, I say let them take it. Because...

2. ...As long as the aggo isn't on the squishies, that's all that matters. The team's tanking needs are being met. Period. It doesn't matter if it's on the Brute on the Tanker because...

3. ...It's a self-correcting problem. If the Brute can't handle the aggro, he'll faceplant and the aggro will revert to the Tanker. Problem solved. If he can, then there's no issue at all because...{Go to 1.}


As for suggestions I've seen about making Tankers into force multipliers, no thanks. Don't make Tankers into something they're not at all and were never intended to be. Tankers tank and they do damage. If the former is not as much in demand these days thanks to Brutes taking some of the burden, it's time to look at the latter and beef up their secondary focus, not invent a third focus eight years in. If I wanted a force multiplying melee AT, I'd be playing a SoA. If I wanted to buff people period, I'd be playing a Defender. Don't try to invent Tankfenders just because some people find the idea of improving Tankers offensively so disdainful. I also say this because down the road, I would like a proper, non-VEAT AT with melee/buff-debuff capabilities, but I don't want it to be Tankers.



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That's why the scope and scale of the game world and of what and who we were fighting needed to grow before we got to even this far into the Incarnate system. We needed to move into a cosmic scale theater of operation.

But it didn't grow up, or out, it fell over sideways and now we're 'demigods' fighting OP palette swaps of the Freedom Phalanx and getting hit by rocks.


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Then, in light of that, personally I'd pass on the mechanic.

Brutes essentially get the same survival potential as Tankers, but way higher damage potential.

Brute regeneration, resistance, defense and MaxHP caps don't go down as their damage goes up. They don't make any sacrifice of survival potential for offensive potential they can be buffed both ways (offensively and defensively) at the same time. You can throw bubbles on them AND Fulcrum Shift them out the whazoo at the same time, all the time.

So, telling Tankers they have to choose one or the other wouldn't be fair.

So you've got a Tanker, with HP at 25%, telling people not to buff/heal him so he can leverage the damage, and beside him is a Brute with six different people buffing and healing him, full HP bar, and still putting out more damage.

No thanks.



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Yet you ridicule and scrutinize others for what they want.



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You get more from it with the right Alphas slotted. Nerve, Agility, Cardiac and Resilient buff Barrier.


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I don't think that's a bad idea, not bad at all, but there's two problems with it:

1. The devs don't seem to like to recycle old mechanics that didn't work just to give them to another AT. Some time ago I suggested giving Tankers the old version of Domination, and I was told this repeatedly, and was told that it was probably especially true for the case of Domination.

2. Ultimately, any mechanic to give Tankers more damage is hamstrung by the Tanker's current low damage cap. No matter how many damage buffs you throw at it, a Tanker's KO Blow will only do a straight 633.5 damage. You can get there, now, with very little effort. One Kin and a SoA or two on your will do it for any SS, regardless of their slotting. Even if you're not SS, you're not getting the full amount from even Build Up under those conditions.

So before we start thinking up mechanics, the Tanker damage cap has to be increased because a lot of people aren't going to see as much from them otherwise. Unless, the mechanic itself moves the cap. Afterburner suggests a power can do that(?).

I'll setting for the cap being raised. Then at least Tankers can mainline red inspirations if they want to, or wait for a +Dam Destiny power to come along.



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To get Tankers fixed, yeah, I'll fight the world. "Hurr!" /em taunt



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