Johnny_Butane

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I understand that complaint, it's been repeated many times over the years.


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That should be an indicator of something.

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But Scrappers have been "boss killers" for five years and Tankers have been at home in mobs of enemies for five years. This isn't going to change.


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Scrappers having a slightly better chance to Crit against a Boss and up is the only thing anyone can point to as being evidence that Scrappers are supposed to be "boss killers". If you're going to dig up four year old quotes as proof of this, I'm going to dig up four year old quotes as proof that Tankers are supposed to be "devastating hand to hand combatants" and are supposed to have earth crushing damage like the Hulk.

Scrappers are all around killers. They excel at damaging everything currently.

But the point you seem to miss, is improving Tanker single target damage, to any con, Boss or otherwise, doesn't take anything away from Scrappers. Scrappers would be just as good at killing Bosses as they ever were.

And Scrapprs are going to have to share the damage dealing limelight with Brutes and Stalkers (the latter being much better Boss Killers with their true ST specialzation), so the idea of "stepping on the toes" of the generalst of melee damage dealing at this point with Tankers having improved ST damage is ludicrous.

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Tankers are the team powerhouse like Colossus, the Thing, etc. but they are filtered into a game, where all the characters must be balanced.

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That's correct. The devs just need to create the right balanced mechanic to allow them to play and perform like the heavy hitting power houses you agree they're supposed to be.

Instead of giving them all out better general damage to every enemy con in the game like a Scrapper, which would clearly be unbalanced considering their survivability, how about giving them less obtrusive single target damage to some of the rarer cons, like Bosses, EBs, AVs and GMs?


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The game is already pretty easy for Tankers, adding more damage just makes it easier.

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And adding better AoE just makes them better tractors for farming. That's something the game and Tankers don't need.

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But with powerset and archetype proliferation, I do believe Tankers/Scrappers/Brutes could use some tweaking to keep them a unique experience. Making Tankers more Scrapper-like makes them less unique.

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Then they can get a unique mechanic that's not Criticals or Fury that allows them to be heavy hitters and closer to their comic book and CoH lore counterparts.

Great_Briton said originally and Starsman agreed:

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What seems obvious to me is that the Tankers - if we follow established Comic Book mythos - are designed for heavy damage one-on-one. The "Slug It And See" fighters. They're not particularly well-designed for fighting the masses. The X-Men send in Colossus to take out the single larger foe, for example.


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I'm firmly behind that to the extent that I think Tankers need to be better at taking out the single big bad by laying down the massive hits and they do not need to be better at slaughtering masses of lesser foes.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g5...avyhitters.jpg



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I would say the HULK doesn't give a rat's [censored] about who or what he's hitting when he gets pissed.

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The same Hulk who shields a puppy from a falling robot, shares Hostess Fruit Pies with random groups of children and tolerates Rick Jones, one of the most annoying sidekicks in history?


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Say Stars, how about tying the con of the enemy being targeted into the damage boost? Tiny extra damage for minion, respectable extra for EB, massive boost for AVs and GMs.

A) It fits with the concept of holding back less on the bigger opponents who can take it.

B) It's a risk vs damage thing. Scrappers are more at risk than Tankers from most enemies, so they get higher damage in general. Tankers are more at risk from higher con foes then lower con foes, they could maybe get more damage against the former.

C) Just as ST damage is less obtrusive to Scrappers than a flat damage boost, less of a buff against most enemies would be even less so, IMO. You could then give Tankers a higher damage bonus then you could if it affected all cons of foes evenly.


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this takes away from what stars is saying... it's up to the tank to decide who to throw the gauntlet down not the "system"

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No it doesn't.

The Tanker still decides who he opens up on, but how much he opens up on them could be con based, as befits the concept.

No self respecting Tanker would fully cut loose on a minion. Ben Grimm doesn't put all his might into punching a simple bank robber just to see them explode into a find red mist.


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Starsman, have you considered proposing a more limited version of this idea? Something like this:

All Tanker single target melee attacks would apply a stackable -10% resistance for 10 seconds and do +20% damage vs EBs, AVs, Monsters and Giant Monsters only.


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I'm not against the idea of Stars' idea being a blended damage bonus and -res debuff. That would sweeten it slightly for me.

But speaking realistically, 10s of stackable -10 res isn't as fair for sets with slower activation times and could easily be overpowered on sets with shorter times.

SS with enough +recharge for a seamless chain of its first three attacks could be rocking a sustained -80% res debuff if my math is right.

A -80% debuff per Tanker is too much in my opinion. Maxing out at something lower like 20% is too little in my opinion.

A stacking -5% 10s debuff would be about right. You'd want to err on the side of keeping the duration at 10s to help Tankers who don't have their chains filled out yet.

The numbers need work, but I like the idea myself. I'm betting Starsman doesn't, as he said before when -res debuffs were suggested.



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In all honesty, for a while I felt that Tanks got completely ripped off with Guantlet, but now that I play a tank, I can see heads turn when I do aoe attacks, I see the usefulness. The problem is that every attack power already has a taunt feature in it, not only on tanks, but brutes as well, so when brutes get the same auto power as tanks PLUS fury...that is when the balance is broken.


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Few if any will dispute Gauntlet's usefullness on teams.

The fact is, it does nothing anywhere else. In PvP it's pointless and solo it does nothing.

It's not an exciting or flashy power, either visually or gameplay-wise.

Regarding Brutes, Fury and their ST taunts, Tankers did get ripped off.

Fury was designed with Tankers in mind. It was intended to solve the very problem we're still complaining about today in threads like this. I don't think Fury was the optimal solution, or even that it's something Tankers should have now. But the fact remains, Brutes got it and they got a watered down version of the inherent they did give Tankers. I call that a rip off.

It's been perfectly acceptable for Brutes to have both and have the same survivability caps as Tankers and higher damage caps since day one.

Who is it going to make happier if the devs take anything away from Brutes? Not Brutes. Not me. Not most Tankers I've talked with.


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Thing is, scrappers aren't "as survivable" as tanks. Can they be made to survive situations that tanks could? Absolutely, but they won't have the same survivability as a tank just as tanks putting out the amount of damage needed to defeat the same enemy as a scrapper doesn't make them as damaging as scrappers.

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Survivability is a binary thing. You survive, or you don't. Once you're above the threshold level of survival, and have some buffer room, more survivability isn't really helpful.

Damage for the most part isn't binary. In most cases, it's a question of time. Time to defeat an enemy. How much time to clear a spawn. Unless your're dealing with something with high regen, then it's binary to a point. Either you either have enough damage to over come it's regeneration, or you don't. Once you cross that point, more damage just gets better and better. Until you get to a point where every one of your attacks can 1 shot anything in the game. Bosses, AV, the Hamidon. But no one can ever get near that point. So in other words, more damage is always better than less.

Scrapper survivability threshold is high enough to solo most of the content in the game. And for the most part, anything they survive they defeat it faster than a comparable Tanker would. That margin of stuff in the entire game a Scrapper can't survive but a Tanker can and can defeat it is pretty narrow and fuzzy. Much more narrow than the Tanker/Scrapper damage gap.

On teams, Scrappers are even more suvivable because they're likely to be supported by teammates.

Given this, and the fact it's much easier in the game to build for better survivability than to build for more damage, is it any wonder why a medium damage AT with high survivability could be considered at a disadvantage to a high damage AT with medium survivability? It's very easy to start to close that survivability margin. Not so easy to do the same for the damage gap.



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I understand the conceptual reasons for wanting higher single-target damage, but when it comes to separating Tankers from Scrappers and Brutes, I believe AoE is the way to go.

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Why? Because it's the niche no one else wants?

There are lots of conceptual reasons for Tankers to have better ST damage than they do. There are less reasons conceptually to justify better AoE.

If Tankers are "holding back" for fear of hurting people, they wouldn't be unleashing it on masses of lesser enemies in AoE attacks. Guys who specialize in fighting guys weaker than them are bullies by my definition. Be it Giant Man or Colossus or the Thing, the lesser enemies swarming them are the ones they are going to use extra care on. The big bad is the one they cut loose against.

You say you understand this conceptually, but you don't act like it.

For non-conceptual considerations, there are more reasons to improve Tanker ST damage than to up their AoE.

Tankers hurt for damage most in the lower levels, before AoE really comes into play. You're not fighting large crowds then and on many sets the AoE attacks aren't in play at that point.

As it's been noted, Tankers already leverage their existing AoE and their scaling defenses very well. We don't need to be making Tankers better farmers/tractors than they are.

AoE does more in a team situation. We don't need Tankers doing much more damage on teams than they do because Scrappers are already hard up for a role on teams. More ST damage on Tankers is less obtrusive to Scrappers in a team situation and will only really come into play with an AV. Many teams already have a Tanker along to tank the AV, so I don't see it as stealing a Scrapper's spot at that point.

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Tankers are melee Controllers and I think that should be played up.


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Says who? Not me. The official description I'm looking at on the CoH website says Tankers are "devastating hand to hand combatants." I happen to think that should be played up.

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Not that I don't think the idea of "tagging" an enemy for extra damage is a bad one, I think it's neat. I'm just not sure if it's appropriate for Tankers in this game.

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In my opinion it's more appropriate than them having low damage but not as suitable as it could be in the suggestion's current state.

I'm hoping Starsman keeps working on it.

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In short, I have no idea what anyone is getting at with this line of thinking...

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The point is, there a good number of people who find Tankers conceptually lacking due to their damage output and a number of problems Tankers have that are a result of their lower damage and current implementation.

The devs could make Tankers more faithful to the lore counterparts and to their comic counterparts, make them more fun to a greater number of people, fix some of their other issues to boot and still have them work within the boundries of game balance.

So why shouldn't they?



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Say Stars, how about tying the con of the enemy being targeted into the damage boost? Tiny extra damage for minion, respectable extra for EB, massive boost for AVs and GMs.

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I suggested that on page one.

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I missed that.

To Stars' response:

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Its not entirely a bad idea to have the bonus be slightly higher for EBs, AVs or GMs, but I'd never go past 30% if so as that would suddenly jump into scrapper territory.

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So why aren't Scrappers being survivable enough to solo content intended for Teams with Tankers like AVs and hazard sized spawns treading on "Tanker territory"?

How are Brutes and Stalkers being blueside not treading "Scrapper territory" either?

My response is that melee damage isn't the exclusive domain of Scrappers, just as survivability isn't Tankers'. Scrappers should get used to sharing "their terriroty" and complaint-wise have no leg to stand on as long as they can stand up to foes they were not intended to be able to and polish them off faster than the guys who were.



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Say Stars, how about tying the con of the enemy being targeted into the damage boost? Tiny extra damage for minion, respectable extra for EB, massive boost for AVs and GMs.

A) It fits with the concept of holding back less on the bigger opponents who can take it.

B) It's a risk vs damage thing. Scrappers are more at risk than Tankers from most enemies, so they get higher damage in general. Tankers are more at risk from higher con foes then lower con foes, they could maybe get more damage against the former.

C) Just as ST damage is less obtrusive to Scrappers than a flat damage boost, less of a buff against most enemies would be even less so, IMO. You could then give Tankers a higher damage bonus then you could if it affected all cons of foes evenly.


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then can you explain why invul is ok to buff to s/l cap with tough and fire is not?

cause im STILL trying to figure out how you justify that one

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Fiery Aura is a scranker set, so to speak. It trades some mitigation for additional offensive capabilities.

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Some of it's mitigation IS it's offensive capabilities, aside from meaning you defeat enemies faster before they damage you as much. That's partially why Burn makes enemies run away and stop attacking you for a while. That's a from of mitigation. An annoying one perhaps, but still...


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Statesman isn't a Tanker. He's an Incarnate.


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Incarnate is an Origin, not an AT.

He's a Tanker.

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Hero 1 was a Scrapper. He was a Broadsword/Invuln Scrapper, I believe.


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Incorrect. The CCG lists him as an Invulnerability – Energy Melee Tanker.
That's also how the comic depicts him and also the powers he has in game, with the exception of his new Rikti-tastic psionic abilities.

The CCG also has Statesman unsurprisingly as being the cover boy for Tankers.

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Back Alley Brawler was known for his toughness.

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As are comic Tankers and CoH player Tankers. He's also known for his brawling and extensive fighting ability, as are comic Tankers but not so much CoH player Tankers.

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Citadel definitely tries to keep the foes on him over others, and is known to be a Tanker.


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Which is odd because Paragonwiki identifies him as a Blaster. He's got the Energy Blasts (ones Tankers don't get) on top of his Energy Melee and is set to fight at range. He's got an Energy Aura shield as one of his signature powers however, which may have lead to confusion.

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I believe that Primal Earth's version of Infernal is the same way.

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Both Infernals kind of cheat with their very MM like Demon Summoning abilities, but all things considered, I agree, he'd be a Tanker.


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<QR>

One of the big misconceptions (I think) to playing this game is rolling up a Tanker and expecting to be Super Man or The Thing or Colossus.

This isn't City of Marvel or City of DC, but City of Heroes, and the game and context must be confined to that for purposes of role play / lore discussion.

For the same reason rolling a Wizard in EQ never produced Gandalf or Merlin.

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Ok, look at the game's lore. The Tankers in the CoH lore aren't low damage decoys like player Tankers are.

Statesman? 'Nuff said.

The Back Alley Brawler? He's not the "Back Alley Distraction". In the lore he's one of the best fighters in the world. No one would qualify Tankers as that that with Brutes and Scrappers around. He'd likely be an EM/SS blended Scrapper if those sets existed for that AT in the begining. Go into any server's Broadcast and ask if people think Tankers are awesome fighters. Go to the AT forum the next time there's a Scrapper vs Tanker vs Brute discussion.

Hero 1? Same deal.

I can't even think of any others. There's aren't a lot of Tankers in the lore because people don't want to read about low damage decoys. The two prominent Tankers are the ones that break the rules of the AT and are more like real comic Tankers who have some offensive might. That should be a red flag for the devs. That should be one of the many things that would make them "believe something is necessary" for Tankers.

Still, nice try by Starsman. As I said, let me know if you have any other ideas.



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I propose 80% to 84%, you still think thats hitting like girls.


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Yes I do because there are other characters in the game with the same powers that go way beyond that.

And when all is said and done, those characters survive just was well as Tankers in MORE than 80% to 84% of the content in the game they will experience solo or teamed.

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I don't miss the point, (specially I cant miss the point of a point I make)


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You did and you can, obviously.

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We are not playing some one of that level of power, so we are not holding back THAT much, we still hold back not because we are "wusses" but because tankers "care" about others (why we tank and protect.)


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Care about what? Obviously not knocking over a building because even when not holding back they're not hitting nearly that hard.

Care about the robots I'm smashing in an open field? Or the Rularuu grunts I'm smacking around in another dimenstion? Why hold back against them? The Brute and Scrapper obviously aren't. When they cut loose it's impressive. When the Tanker cuts loose it's still greatly inferior to them.

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you don't even want a comic book tank

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And you do? From here it looks like you want the same mistake of a fantasy MMO convention we have now with a 20% ST damage boost.


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Because the comic-type tanker, even if he can't do more damage than the comic-like scrapper, tends to be more concious than the scrapper.

Example of a tanker holding back would be colossus knocking back people.
An example of a scrapper would be wolverine slashing the guts out of anyone just because they looked at him funny. Scrappers are deadly, and they don't hold back.

Tankers don't have to be deadly to still hold back.


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And this is why I wont back this suggestion.

Not only are you still saying Tankers must hit like girls even when not holding back, they also have to be scared about it as well.

There's no point in them holding back their power when their power is still dwarfed by Scrappers, Stalkers, Brutes and Blasters.

You miss the entire point of the "holding back" concept. Tankers wanting to keep themselves in check when they've got the potential to destroy little guys like raging Brutes makes them prudent. Them being gun shy when they're still only packing a BB rifle just makes Tankers timid wusses.

If you can't execute that concept with this suggestion for balance considerations, then I'm not going to back the suggestion. Let me know if you come up with a suggestion that allows for the proper implementation of the concept.


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If the Brute reaches Tanker survivability only through outside buffs, Tanker damage should only reach Brute levels through outside buffs as well. Tankers buffing their own damage to Brute levels isn't well balanced.

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First, I'm not advocating Tankers hit at high as Brutes at peak damage. Speaking purely conceptually, it should be lower than that but higher than a Scrapper's damage though.

But a couple of counter points:

-A Tanker buffed to the max both offensively and defensively is still dealing less damage than a Brute. They may share the same theoretical survivability caps, but the Brute wins in Max theoretical damage from his higher damage caps.

If you're going to bring outside buffs and max limits into this, the Brute trumps the Tanker currently.

-Let's say a Brute averages 75% Fury. Let's say a Tanker could temporarily match that level of damage on his own. The Brute can still go beyond that level of damage by maxing his Fury and from outside buffs. Correct?

How is that any different than a Brute using his tier 9 to temporarily meet Tanker levels of survivability? Yes, a Tanker can hit their Tier 9 and get more survivability than a Brute + T9, just as the Brute can max out their Fury and get more damage than the Tanker and even have a higher damage cap.



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Also, I wish you had presented this at a better time and not when all the devs are in San Diego.

They dismiss my threads, but would consider yours if they were around to see it.

They may still see it, but why hurt your chances needlessly.



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Serious response now.

1) Your rationalle for why this should be done wasn't good enough when I used it, so why is it now?

Once again, this is me being Devil's advocate and trying to get you to strengthen your argument.

2)

You say that:

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when Superman decides he is really going to let it all out against one foe, he really goes out at it. He will pick his target, usually a very tough foe, and just go wild, mostly because the foe can take it, off course.

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and

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I’d say scale damage 1 against him

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and also

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Two tankers focusing on the same foe, though, will not go past 20% because this is an on/off thing, not a +damage deal.

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These three statements are contradictions, if I understand what you're trying to say.

First off, I don't think a 20% damage buff will increase Tanker damage to Scale 1 levels, especially when slotting is taken into consideration.

Second, a character with super strength "going wild" and not holding back in this game, would translate to a Brute at near peak Fury. This suggestion for Gauntlet wouldn't put a Tanker into that range of damage. They would still be doing sub-Scrapper damage, even before Criticals if I understand you correctly. How does that demonstrate Tankers are "holding back" their true strength?

"Don't tick me off or I'll unleash my awesome power...which is still below the base power of the other melee ATs."

I mean, if he's not hitting harder than a Scrapper, why would he even hold back?

This is why I opted for a short duration of increased damage. Because you could go beyond Scrapper levels into the higher tiers of the Brute range.

Then you can say that both Brutes and Tankers are capable of shaking the pillars of Heaven, just like their comic counterparts. Provided the Brute gets pumped up and angry enough and provided the Tanker cuts loose.

If I understand the level of damage increase your suggesting, I don't think it's enough to show Tankers have any kind of awesome offensive might they're holding back, or to even give them a reason to be holding back to begin with.


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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.



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They look sharp?


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You win today's Internet.



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People who feel entitled to abuse others, simply because they can.


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What is that old saying about glass houses?



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Why is Rage better than Build Up?

The short answer is because the rest of SS sucks.
The damage per activation times of KO Blow and Hurl and the sheer pointlessness of Hand Clap should make that self-evident.

Should Rage stack?

Nope. As one of SS's loudest proponents I'll admit it really shouldn't. But if they did something about that before fixing the other problems with that set, I'd say something. Also, I don't think a tripple application of rage is possible.

What other factors balance against Rage?

Despite having Rage and suffering penalties, other sets outdamage SS for both short term and long term, as well as AoE and ST damage, and said sets do not have extra penalties like Rage's crash.

In addition to this, as others have pointed out, SS is Smashing damage based. Smashing damage is moderately to heavily resisted by most enemies in the game. Unless you plan to only ever fight DE Crystal enemies, every chump in a bulletproof vest will be crapping all over your damage output, and you're penalized just the same no matter who you fight and how (in)effective you are with Rage.

In conslusion:

The sword of Damocles hangs over the SS set and Rage. When the devs begin to port it to Scrappers, they're going to have to look at Rage again. There's a good chance "fixing" the set for use on Scrappers will give Castle "ideas". I don't often like Castle's "ideas" about SS and melee sets in general. Despite having problems and even room for improvement in the set, nothing good lays in the future for SS IMO.


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Kind of like how someone hopped up on PcP can demonstrate feats of 'invulnerability'.


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I think you guys used that excuse already as the reason why Willpower Brutes can stand in a crowd of Romans hacking at them with swords indefinitely and not have their HP move but "Invulnerability" Tankers get whittled down.


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I strongly suspect Defenders will be the next AT that gets dev attention. If not on their own, as part of a joint package with Corruptor tweaks.

Why do I think they're both due?

There's simply no other AT besides Tankers that really warrant attention that hasn't already gotten some recently, and I think we're more likely to see VEAT buffs before that happens.

In regards to Defender playability, I think they suffer from the same problem that affects every hero support AT that isn't a Controller; the devs think they should suffer solo for their role on teams. In other words, if you don't have a offense oriented primary, you're SOL.

The catch is that when teamed, Defenders multiply each other's effectiveness extremely well. Defenders and Controllers stack better than Blasters, Scrappers or Tankers stack. Such is the nature of buffs and debuffs.

So any solution for Defenders to increase their soloability would have to have zero(or next to zero) impact on their teaming functionality.


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