Johnny_Butane

I didn't say that. Re-read.

Presumably, the plan was to adress some of the issues Starsman has pointed out earlier in this thread. As also pointed out, Bruising doesn't take care of some of them very well.

I would hope part of the plan for Bruising was to give something to solo Tankers to make them more than just slightly safer Brutes with fail damage. In which case, yes, I do think the impact of Bruising should be felt by all Tankers.

There didn't seem to be a common denominator of who noticed Bruising making an improvement and who didn't. The beta boards seem to be gone now, but from what I recall I read post from people who I know build well saying they did notice a change for the better and people who've posted looking for build help saying they didn't, and vice versa.

I personally tried out Bruising extensively on a very expensive l50 Inv/SS build, a l10 WP/EM, a l28 Fire/SS and a l5 SD/DM and couldn't really percieve a change from Live. I even ran some loose trials with the Inv/SS to see if the number of attacks needed to drop a l50 Rikti Boss had decreased any. It hadn't from what I saw.

So I stand by what I said before. Some people notice an improvement, some people don't.


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As Bunny points out, that change wasn't really equally relevant to all Tanker sets. Keep in mind that it was a buff to the max HP cap. My Inv with Dull Pain and accolades can get there, but I didn't notice a considerable difference.

But to be fair, it was intended to offset the issue with Brute caps, not to improve Tanker survivability all around. That said, do I really have to say which cap of Tankers I think they should have adjusted instead?

I've stated before I don't think Bruising is crap, but aside from my own personal hangups on it, it's got some problems like Starsman points out.

Personally, I don't see an improvement with it. It being on a T1 makes it a wash as far as DPS for some builds. In fact, between the beta boards and here, I've see about a 50/50 split of people who think it's wonderful and people who see no improvement at all. Take from that what you will.

Like you say, it's not only relevant to Tankers.

Hear that sound? It's Masterminds and Brutes rolling their collective eyes with a groan.

And I see no added fail (beyond missed opertunities), but I also see a ways to go for Tankers. Down the road however, I see fail for Tankers, especially with what I expect from the Incarnate system and the content that comes with it.


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I agree. Tankers being conceptually screwed over is not imaginary at all and is as real as Scrappers not having a downside to them solo or on teams, which is a huge flaw in the design (although not one Scrappers mind in the least).


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With the arguable exception of Controllers (in the late game at least), those ATs actually do make a sacrifice in soloing ability. For the most part, they don't get to solo very well then coast on a team when they're feeling lazy. And even if they do coast when I'm tanking, I hardly envy them when they're not on a team. In other words, they don't get their cake and eat it too, unlike Scrappers.

I'm well aware. That's why I'm not riding Brutes too hard until the smoke clears and we see where they actually do stand now.

That doesn't change the fact that Brutes still solo better than Tankers and still get the same cut of team rewards as anyone else, which is what I was arguing there.

O noes! The richest, most popular and best soloing AT in the game has something to be worried about for once! Good thing it's just an imaginary threat and the devs will bend over backwards for Scrappers.


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First I'd just ignore Tankers alltogether. Then I would buff Scrapper damage. Then I would wait a couple years and add a system that allows Scrappers to soft cap their defenses without really losing any of their damage. Then I'd give Tankers an inherent effect to their T1 that buffed the damage of Scrappers they were teamed with even more, while the Tanker continues to make sure the Scrapper never faces a disadvantage solo or teamed.

Oh wait, that's what I would do to increase the imbalance. My mistake.


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Brutes get to tag along on those same TFs and get the same cut of the rewards of the Tanker, whether they work as hard or not.

I don't see the current situation with the melee ATs as being very balanced or fair at all. Scrappers and Brutes would disagree, I imagine.


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It could be until now that a lot of the new content catered to Invul's strengths, or was at least neutral to it. The ITF is an Invul's playground. The Khan TF, less so (but that TF gets fewer runs).

As for those environments you point out:

RWZ: Cheif Soldier swords do massive damage to those weaker against S/L. The Psionic threats, while annoying, can be identified and dealt with. There's relatively few of those per spawn. My quality Inul almost thrives on ship raids.

Shard: The Shard is, as always, hit or miss. There's nothing I'd rather jump into a crowd of Honored Brutes with than an Invuln, but Wisps are always going to be an issue.

Tina/Maria: Actually, the old arcs were kinder to an Invul. The new ones less so. From what I gather, it's for a number of reasons:

-While there's about as many enemies using exotic damage as before, it's much more potent now. Stand in the black puddles of death from the new Anti-Matter Clockwork for an example.

-The new mobs (Clockwork, Warworks, etc) abuse AoE like crazy. The aforementioned death puddles mean you can't even depend on grouping for +def, because as soon as you get them around you, you're standing in massive DoT from something or another's attacks. This not only makes your survival harder, it makes keeping teammates from being damaged more difficult.

-Those mentioned mobs above often come with Seers, and unlike the Rikti, there are copious numbers of them. The Seers also like to scatter, run far and return in a bit to psi snipe from range. Strangely, Taunt and the -Range didn't take care of this problem for me.

-Some enemies appear to be bugged and spawning incorrectly for the difficulty settings. Running at 45 with +0 1X I was seeing purple LTs and Bosses some spawns. That obviously can't be WAI.


Of course, I noticed that in addition to all of that, the enemies often stacked -regen, so these arcs may be a nighmare for WP as well.


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That Tankers get the short end of the melee stick. Not that it's even really open to disagreement.


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So, lets say the Brute stalls out at +1 8X, and the Tanker can do +3 8X.

Factor in that those 2 extra levels will diminish the Tanker's damage and increase killing time even more.

Now consider than Inf for defeated enemies is small potatos. The real money is in rare and purple drops.

Even if the +1 enemies don't reward as much inf, they still drop purples. Drop rates don't increase as the enemy level increases, AFAIK. So, even though the Brute can't do +3 8X, he'll be carving up those +1's faster and completing missions faster than the Tanker who's operating at +3 8X.


Brute still wins with better rewards vs time invested.
Tanker earns slow fights and empty bragging rights for slowly chipping down +3's.



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Yes, mostly.

There is no Supes vibe here. Now now anyways. He can actually do damage:
http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g5...ane/supes1.jpg

The last round of buffs were a little while ago. Invul's upkick didn't start right then. If anything, its popularity has gone up in part because of people burnt out on WP. Inv is a different animal than Shields and so I don't think that drew many away from Inv.

Also, the (perceived?)decline in PvP may have helped Invul's PR. The set is just plain better for PvE.


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Tankers don't need better aggro control. They already control aggro better than anyone else in the game. ONE can lock down the aggro of an entire team-sized spawn themselves. That's more than a lot of Controllers can say. More than that is simply not needed. The only legit reason to want more is to deal with ambushes or adds. But THAT is what a second Tanker or Brute or MM is for.

After that, the only reason to want increased aggro control is to make Tankers better for herding and farming. No thanks. Tankers are already abused this way too much. People treat these Tankers like Tractors: slowly but steadily moving back and forth across a farm.


Glad you figured that out yourself.

On teams, I've never found my survivability wanting if the team is supporting me the way I do them. There are already many options to give tankers a lot more survivability if they want it. More survivability wont make my Tankers more fun to solo, nor do I think it would help them better be "devastating hand to hand combatants" with "irresistible force" who "dish out all sorts of damage."

I've never had any problem with my Tankers being able to "proudly stand in the front lines of battle in order to protect their comrades". It's the other side of the AT's description coin I feel Tankers fail to live up to.


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Well said. It's nice to see someone who likes Tankers, but doesn't have rose colored glasses on.

Yes, it's not just IOs. Have a quick look at pool powers. Take a look at how many can increase survivability vs increasing damage. There's many of the former, and they're found in most of the pools, and few of the latter. There's arguably two decent powers in all of the pools to increase damage, Assault, and Hasten. Assault isn't all that worth it for the endurance it burns and Hasten only increases damage indirectly. There are a couple others, but they're very situational for increasing damage.

You'll find this with accolades and temp powers as well. Lots of options for more survivability, few for damage increases. Tankers are disadvantaged to the entire power system.

Does adding more +dmg options for all equally really help the situation? Not really IMO. Example: give a Scrapper more damage and he'll kill stuff even faster before he can even take damage. Survivability goes way up when all the enemies are dead.

The problem isn't really the power system, though. The problem is the design of the Tanker AT. If it is disavantaged by the realities of the system, the problem has to be fixed at the AT level if it's going to be fixed. Until then, the fact remains in a game where more survivability is easy to come by and more damage is relatively hard to get, the AT with the most survivability out of the box is always going to be at a disadvantage.


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The arcs/contacts are still a bit of a mess Live at the moment, or at least as of yesterday.

-Maria is still giving out the OLD Marauder's Cell mission with old dialogue, old 'street punk' enemy group, the NEW Marauder model with OLD dialogue still referring to Cole as Tyrant.

-Siege's one-off mission can't be working as intended. He looks like the old Siege, but his bio says he gave up that body long ago. He's using Warwalker attacks, and concequently is unbeatable for a lot of people because as an EB his fast recharging self-heal goes off at 10% HP and he heals to 50%. Take him down to 10% again and he repeats ad infinitum.

And some other stuff I've been /bugging since Beta.


Also, the new arcs can't decide if they are trying to be sequels to, or retcons of, the old arcs. You can't have it both ways. You say:

So the old story line is supposed to still be in continuity in addition to the new ones? So why are the new missions so similar still? The old and new arcs play out way too similar for them to be "new events". Why were they all goatee evil and calling Cole Tyrant then and not now? Why wouldn't that same cavern be the FIRST place Maria sends me to look for Statesman because that's where they were able to hold him last time?

The new arcs could work as retcons to the old arcs with some dialogue adjutsments. They don't work well as new stories or sequels because they are way too close to the old stories.


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Is it really a victory when nobody gains anything?



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Speak for yourself.

In comics, the "tank" characters are usually quite potent offensively. Nobody would call Colossus or the Thing poor offensively.

And then there's also tanks like this...



...that also pack a heckuva punch.



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A Shield Charging Scrapper with Build Up does(did?) that much to like 8 guys at once without a Kin.



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Seeing as how it's all three browsers, and for various folks, I doubt it's something on our end.

Tell me, just as a thought, are any of you *not* in the Loyalty Program? It seems like this started happening to me the day the Beta forums appeared for me.


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What would be an example of such content?

More powerful enemies?

That only punishes Tankers. They're the ones who take the brunt of the harder hits or debuffs, but times eight. If the Tanker is doing their job, the team doesn't even feel it. Such enemies are also usually tougher defensively as well. So then Tankers not only get to take more damage, they get to deal less damage as well.



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@brophog

I think they're reaching desperately. There's something "wrong" with the Tanker AT. Nobody can agree on what that is or what the solution could be.

I really think the problem is overspecialization in the AT. Aggro management in itself is a way too limited task to build an entire AT around. Also, in my opinion, it's very simplistic. Tankers do the job well, as well as any AT should ever be able to handle a job itself, but that doesn't make the job always fun or interesting.

@Dechs
Not just support heavy teams decrease the Tanker's relevance; now with the presence of Brutes, Mastermind pets, these ATs take some of the aggo heat, plus they also bring other things to the table that the Tanker does not.

If Tankers are already overspecialized, improving their aggro-handling side is clearly not the solution. This is why I balk at raising the aggro cap. The only purpose that would have is to better allow herding for farming purposes. I do not know if that's the OP's intent, but that is the likely result.

Now in my opinion, the melee ATs each do two things to different flavours. They've got an attack powerset and they've got a defense powerset. If improving Tankers defensively doesn't help them and improving their aggro handling capabilities just furthers their overspecialization, the remaining option is to improve their offensive capabilities.



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I'm all for that.



The devastating and irresistibly powerful punch of a tank is something I wish Tankers had.


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Yes, very good. I agree.

...and I've stopped reading.

The only reason to raise aggro caps is to improve farming.
No and goodbye.



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Just a side point: I remember seeing a buff to DDR as part of some Incarnate abilities. No saying at this point what the trade off for that is, however.


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To date, almost all of the dev's 'challenging content' has been like that. The STF, Reichsman's stuns and damage, etc. Now they promise content that's even harder. Forget midground, I suspect Recluse on the STF will be on the lower end of the new stuff.

Regarding softcapping Defense: I suspect any new enemies we'll be facing will heavily debuff Defense to counter that. The irony I see in that is, a lot of times that doesn't bother the softcappers and hurts people with only a medium level of Defence first; the first couple of -Def attacks hit, and then more land and stack causing Defense to cascade down to nothing. Meanwihle someone with high defense may never get hit with the -Def, or not hit often enough to start the cascade past the tipping point. Cimerorans do that. I've watched Invul Tankers without Tough or softcapped Defense get chewed up by them at the wall while a Scrapper who's softcapped but with much less HP and resistance walk away nearly untouched.

Castle may be willing to live with everyone having the same softcap, but he better have something planned to deal with situations like the above.


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