Lacrymosa
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Quote:That's what I thought a bubbler was when I first played the game(Jean Grey). And while a bubble defender or troller can "tank", I would like to see a Steel skin shield then a Bubbler tank. With all that said, Energy Aura does the same thing, but doesn NOT look the same. Would I like a giant bubble over my tank?, no. Even if it came in a myriad of colors.Originally Posted by Rangle_M_Down
A few months ago someone made a passing comment about tanking a mission with a Force Field toon. (I believe it was a defender but I couldn't find the post to confirm) It got me thinking; what would a tank force field armor set look like, and would it be viable in this game? Since I couldn't get the idea out of my head, I spent a bit of time looking at the base numbers of the current armor sets and the “force field “ like powers currently in the game already and came up with a set of ideas. I apologize if someone has already mentioned an idea like this; a couple of days looking through the forums didn't result in my finding anything similar.
Along the same lines of what looks to be happening with the new Earth Assault set, I grabbed powers from a number of existing sets. In coming up with the final numbers for some of these powers I looked at how the defensive number differences between primary and secondary powers have been set up in CoH with their 100% vs. 75% effectiveness. If the power I'm grabbing was originally a secondary power I bumped up the defensive numbers to reflect it now being a “primary” power, with one exception that is noted below. I'm going to use the original names of the powers I'm grabbing just to make it easier for both myself and the reader to find the powers I'm talking about. If this set were to be made, I imagine the names and animations would be updated to reflect the “new armor set”. These numbers are based off MIDS ver. 1.4 so if I'm off base, sorry. (I'm not as good with the COH numbers as others in this forum and will certainly never claim to be.) These are also un-enhanced numbers. I'm thinking this maybe a bit overpowered where it stands, but figured it might be a nice starting place for a very rough, rough 1st draft. So, with those quantifications, here goes:
Tier 1:Peacebringer-Shining Shield/ Warshade-Gravity Shield: .26 end/sec. 30% smashing/lethal resistance.
Tier 2: Brute Electric Armor-Lightning Field: .52 end/sec. Minor DOT, small -end on target. Taunt/damage aura. (obviously you wouldn't want the animation for this the be the same, but it's what the power does that I'm looking for.)
Tier 3: Warshade-Penumbral Shield: .26/end/sec. 30% fire/cold resistance, 20% toxic.
Tier 4: Brute Energy Armor-Entropy Field: Status protection- .26 end/sec, MAG 10 vs. kb/ku and repel. 10.4 vs sleep, stun, held, immob. 10000% resist kb/ku/repel. Defense debuff resist: 17.3%
Tier 5: Blaster Devices- Cloaking Device: .26 end/sec. 2.25% defense all. 35ft. Stealth. (this is the one power from a secondary that I would lower the defensive numbers. I'm thinking that with the tier 8 power I've included having this at 5% un-enhanced would make this set too over powered. Even going lower with the defensive numbers might be needed.)
Tier 6: Warshade-Quantum Shield: .26 end/sec. 30% energy/negative resistance.
Tier 7: Brute Energy Armor-Energy Drain: 13 end/click. +25% end, 3% health/Target. 13.5 sec. duration, 60 sec. recharge. Second taunt aura. (this will certainly help with the over all endurance cost of the set)
Tier 8: Defender Force Field-Dispersion Bubble: .52 end/sec. +10% defense all. (I'd reduce the AoE of this from a 25 ft. radius down to a 5-8 ft. radius, similar to Shield's Phalanx Fighting.)
Tier 9: Defender Force Field-Personal Force Field: .26 end/sec. 75% defense all, 40% resist all but toxic. 120 sec. duration/120 sec. recharge making it just like ice armor's hibernate. (Like the other PFF's, you can still move, but you can't affect/attack the “outside” world. As per the minimum to hit chances, they can and will still hit you.)
I'm sure one of your first thoughts as you've looked at this was probably “Man, that's even more endurance heavy then dark armor!” and you'd be correct. Even if one of the armors was changed to an auto it would still be more endurance/second than the dark armor set running all of it's auras. I'm thinking/hoping the Tier 7 power:Energy Drain, helps greatly with this. Endurance costs for the powers would probably need to be tweaked anyway. Of course people may choose not to get some of the powers, similar to how some choose not to get the resist energy/elements from invincibility or all the aura's from Dark Armor. Again, this is a first rough draft.
In return for the high endurance cost, you've got a base for an armor that sits with defenses in the Invincibility range. Although not as good as Ice Armor's or Shields primary areas of defense, it gives a wider range of coverage which would allow for greater flexibility for IO bonus enhancement choices. It is fairly close to Willpower primary defensive numbers, but lacks WP's regeneration and recovery numbers. It shouldn't step on the toes of Granite armor's defensive numbers. Resistance wise, the closest comparison would be to Dark Armor's resistances without the higher psionic/negative and lower energy/toxic numbers.
There you have it. What do you think? How would you tweak it? Would you play an armor set like this if it existed in the game? Does it look as overpowered as I think it might be, or is this workable? -
Quote:Let it be known that this is with an IO WP. But if you're going to say WP can tank multiple AV's, so can Granite with enough IO's. They both can have high defense and res with IO's. I go with Granite since it already starts "godly" (lvl 32), where as in one has to make WP godlike. I would love to see a video of either in an "Ironman contest". See who dies first on multiple AV's.Originally Posted by MrLiberty
Just my opinion but :
End game WP >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> End game Stone tank.
WP can achieve insane survivability with capped HP, huge amounts of regen, soft capped defenses, etc. The OP mentioned not being worried about herding up Tempest Quay... well a properly built WP can do it just as well as a well built stone tank. The only thing you have to worry about is toxic damage (in both cases) as there is no toxic defense. Powerforge recently tossed up a video of his WP/WM tank rounding up 10 or so Random AV's (All kinds of different damage Tyrant, Black Swan, BaB's, Citadel, Infernal etc) and basically AFK'ing in the middle of them. So as far as being "Tough enough" a well built WP will more than handle anything the game has to offer.
Stone can spend most of its efforts trying to overcome massive penalties to damage, recharge and movement where WP can achieve that same "Immortality" that stone has as well as push ahead in Damage, Recharge and movement.
The *biggest* weakness of WP is as already mentioned, the taunt aura. But between taunt and gauntlet you can perform just fine.
I still give it to Granite in a case using either IO's or SO's, seeing as both can reach high regen numbers (Rooted included). Till a video is made it's all just guess work. -
Quote:Its pointless to bring up a "matchup excuse" i to fight on the same levels as comic tanks, as even Lt's can take down the life of a CoH tank. Hell Bosses can bring down the life of CoH tanks. My point is that the OPTION of even having that much power isn't even given. Brutes are as close as we're gonna get.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
Correct.
But for the purposes of equating those fights to PvE in CoH, each one of those battles were against EB and AV ranked enemies.
Supes, Colossus, Ben Grimm or the Hulk aren't using their full strength on minions and LTs like typical Metropolis bank robbers.
Bosses, EBs, AVs and GMs are another matter though, and conceptually speaking, Tankers should be bringing them hell.
[QUOTE]My personal opinion is that Taunt + Gauntlet aren't as redundant and Gauntlet + taunt auras. Both grab eneies as a PBAoE. From what I can see, Gauntlet is intended to be the little bit extra that helps keep enemies on you should a Scrapper with a Taunt aura be thrown into the mix. I don't think Gauntlet would be necessary however, if they just made Tanker taunt auras better.
I can see reasons why they did it via Gauntlet, but that doesn't change the fact the two are a little redundant together in some cases.[/QUOTE ]
Agreed.
One of the few?...not really. Many of my friends who play MMO's and have played CoH, don't feel very "Super". Especially with the whole "Take a train" aspect. If the only thing to super is a Granite tank, then theres a huge problem. Of course anyone can use the excuse of IO's, but if you need IO's to become "super" then why bother?. You're telling me you wouldn't like powerful tanks?....talk about self-degradation, it's sad that you think tanks in CoH are "fine" just the way they are.Quote:You're one of the few it seems. Castle doesn't seem to see a reason for it. Maybe you could explain it to him in a PM sometime. 
Best tanks in an MMO?, close but not number one. A protection Warrior out classes any CoH tank. We're talking about 15K+ life on a warrior compared to 1800-3200 life on a CoH tank. That and the ability to hold any number of enemies via Thunderclap makes Warriors statiscally better.Quote:CoH Tankers are the best tanks in any MMO I've seen. They hold aggro better and survive easier than similar classes in other games.
The problem is, the devs make them pay for helping teams, conceptually and with decreased soloability.
Soloability-wise, in other games the extra survivability of the tanking classes is an asset solo. In CoH, it's largely wasted and redundant. I'll bet if you trimmed 15%-20% of survivability off of Tankers, they'd likely solo just about as well. What holds back Tankers solo is damage. Scrappers and Brutes have less survivability than Tankers out of the box, yet they solo better. Their survivability is lower, but it doesn't slow their soloing the way Tanker damage slows theirs.
Conceptually speaking, comic Tankers are tougher and they deal a lot of damage, albiet usually slower and concentrating on one large foe, unlike characters like Wolverine and Daredevil who are often fighting 100 ninjas at once. CoH Tankers don't get to have the great damage. That's the forced trade off they make for doing their job on teams and being good at it. Scrappers and Brutes really don't pay a price conceptually for their team role. Speaking as someone who has multiple 50s of all three ATs in question, that never struck me as a fair deal and it never will. Not that some other ATs don't have concept issues, but I feel the ones with Tankers are the most easily fixable and I feel most AT should and could stand to be a little more super and closer to their comic counterparts.
It really doesn't matter anyway, since power scaling can go both way's. But then you have to realize what you're dealing with here. Maybe once the dev's see how powerful CO's tanks are , maybe then the Tanks in CoH will get a power upgrade. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Plusone
I'm considering building a Merc MM and am wondering why they seam to be the bottom feeders of the MM world? I see in the comments of posts often that Mercs suck, but I've not found any actual post detailing why. They seam like a decent ranged bunch of grunts, and are supposed to have some good AoE. What am I missing?
Mainly due to Vets who know how unloved S/L damage is. As its the most resisted dmg in the game. Of course this doesn't mean that they can't kill, obviously. Just that damage wise some would rather have , energy, fire, or even lethal dmg. Bots kill extremely fast when they get to high levels. But it all varies when the secondary is involved. It's safe to say, that if its debuffed, it will be killed fast. I enjoy that they stay ranged and don't run in. Best AI goes to Mercs on that note.
Another could be the lack of mez protection. It never really bothered me, but you catch it sometimes. A mezzed minion always makes you a tad angry. Of course I've gotten a Nin/dark without any problems. Lastly, there's nothing "outworldy" about them. They're just humans. Just soldiers. The same could be said about Thugs, but they come from a mindset where gangs and mobsters are seen as "cool". I've seen a lot of players say that mercs are "too normal", so it doesn't really surprise me. -
Quote:You don't teleport to increase or "get the best of your defenses". You teleport to get to the next group....Maybe you posted that wrong. Regardless, I have made an Invul, Fire, Ice, and WP tank. And still find Granite fun. If your really bothered by the need to get around using teleport than really, you need to learn how to play. It's not that hard. By your own admittance, you don't like teleporting, fair enough, but if you think that makes a class dull or boring then you really havent grasped the concept.Originally Posted by Failsight
Mind you, despite soft capping defence for both being possible, both sets have very mediocre defence debuff resistance such that Granite's capable resistances do play a significant factor in survivability.
Mind you, I'd still rather play an end game WP than an end game Granite. Having to teleport all over to get the best out of my defences isn't exactly my idea of fun. If I wanted to do that, I'd play my Warshade in Dwarf form all the time.
And in any case, I'd rather be playing my Shields or Invul characters. Mobility, great taunt auras, "good enough" (IMO) survivability, especially with IOs...no penalties to speak of. -
Quote:Key phrase here, "WITH IO's". Pretty sad that it takes entire sets to match up to a certain tank class. Flawed a bit?, yes. Regardless, if where speaking of non IO usage, Granite takes it. Of course, Granite takes it even with IO's.Originally Posted by Sarrate
This needs a clarification - base WP may be weak to alpha strikes, but a WP with Tough/Weave and especially IOs (which I think the OP means with "end game") is not.
One correction, WP does have a weakness - it has a extremely weak taunt aura. It is only ~9.25% the duration (1.25s) of most (13.5s), and 7.4% the duration of the rest (16.875s). If you're fighting up level enemies, teamed with other taunting characters (Scrappers/Brutes), moving around (short duration falls off), etc you will lose aggro if you're not paying attention. All those situations can be overcome, but it is far more of a manual set than others.
I'd consider that a very significant downside; for that reason the set is not for everyone.
If you can work around that, then no, I don't think Granite's penalties are worth it after factoring in IOs. Yes, in most situations a Granite Tank is more survivable, but the situations in where the difference is meaningful are few and far inbetween. The only one really coming to mind is tower buffed Recluse - but a well built WP is still up for the task.
Keep in mind I have no hate for Granite or anything like that. When I look at the two sets and what they can accomplish with IOs, I think WP is the victor (if you can manage aggro). -
Quote:He must be new to the game if he thinks Kin's don't "heal". I have healed TF's and AE''s with my /kin troller just fine. I'm assuming he has no idea what Fulcrum Shift is and how powerful Transference is. Regardless, you should have stated this to him and proved him wrong. "The hardheaded always need to feel it, to believe it".Originally Posted by Amberyl
So the other day I'm sitting around in Atlas, bored and wanting to kill some time, so when I hear some guy broadcasting a LFM for a 52 AE boss mission, I send him a tell saying sure, 50 fire/kin controller, toss me an invite.
The guy (a 50 tank) sends me a tell back saying, "We need heals only."
Once I'm over my "..." reaction, I send him another tell, repeating, fire/kin. He replies no, they just need a healer.
I almost offered to come along and trail the team spamming Transfusion on autofire, doing nothing else, but I decided I wasn't that bored. -
Quote:Four out of the nine Defender AT's are or come with heals/buffs/debuffs. The other five are debuff/buff sets. Of course some are fun to play, others just suck. The main problem with most, is that even if you bubble or "shield" the team, someone will always get hit more than once. Thanks to aggro cap, it doesn't help the situation if there's only one tank and more than one group of mobs.Originally Posted by electric_emu
Seriously. I don't think I can pass through Atlas Park or Cap Au Diable without seeing "AE team lf Healer!!" What's more, someone will usually say "we need a healer" when I'm on an AE team. AE has created a new generation of noob, the kind that think the only type of worthwhile Defender is an Empath. Also, no one seems to realize, anymore, that a Controller possesses Defender primaries (albeit weaker version).
I know these people existed before. But why do they ALL have to come to the surface at AE? I'm getting tired of explaining that ANY type of Defender can be just as effective, even more effective in most cases, than an Empath. I've been asked "Do u heal???" when joining an AE team on my FF/Rad. And I've seen countless Rad/* and Kin/* overlooked because the leader "Wants a healer." What the hell? Is AE killing the Defenders?
I've seen this sort of talk even from high-end Brutes and Tanks (you know, soft-capped Shieldies, etc). Hell, I've heard DEFENDERS say "we need a healer." Why, oh why can people not see our usefullness!
Well, Defender board, what's there to do other than roll an Empath? =/
/endrant.
So mitigation of life points is always requested. Especially now with the lvl 54 boss farms. I prefer both a bubbler/shielder of some kind, and a "healer". I love pretending im "different" from the "other" player when I pick a set, but I rather play the role of healer for my team. It's not really a matter of usefullness, Vet's know how good debuffs and buffs are. But sometimes you need that one strong heal.
My advice; Play a kins, strong heal and buffs. Or Play a Rad, debuff king, small heal. I know, you have the right to play whichever class you feel, in turn, people have the right to kick you or not invite you to they're teams. AE boss farms are Empathy and Kins riddled, start your own team and play door missions and or banks. -
Quote:Granites where the first "Regen" tanks (Rooted's regen), so for me , life was very comfortable. Granite is a "Tank's Tank". Reduced dmg, recharde, and slow. Meant for purely standing in the middle of the fray and taking all the damage. WP akways felt like the "Invul without rainbows" to me (regen included). It's a good AT especially since its has Psionic defense and res. Ultimately, the weak aura and "need" for quick recovery was never my bag.
So I've read some very mixed views on comparing the two defensive sets. Some have said Stone is clearly better as you can softcap defense and cap S/L resistance as well as getting your other resistances mighty close. Your only weakness is Psionics. Others have said that Granite is far too crippling to be considered better than WP. Willpower, after all, gives more endurance recovery, an auto-boost to max HP and very well-rounded defenses (including the achilles' heel of Stone, Psionics).
So what I'm asking is which set is better, and why? I don't expect to get a definite answer, as opinions will vary, but I want to know what people think.
To clarify, I'm talking end-game, all-round effectiveness. So don't go saying "WP is better off in the beginning" or something similar. I want Granite's obvious weaknesses accounted for. Also, I'm not seeking "which is better in extreme situations" answers. Because when it comes down to tanking a horde of monsters in Tempest Quay, Granite clearly gets the nod.
Of course, my original was....you guessed it, my Rock Tank. The obvious still remains, Granites will always be favored by more people than WP. I don't mind looking like a Golem as with any other AT you look the same...so its pointless to bring that up. Even if I16 brings color customization , some colors will just be fan favs. But I digress
Granite FTW. -
Welcome to the world of Ice tankers. Typical advice; Grab Tough/Weave(which you already have) and spam Energy Absorbtion. It's that simple if you wish to ignore/not use any IO's. EA is your very best friend with an Ice tank. Six slot Hibernate with three recharges(60 sec cooldown) and either three heals or three Endmods. Three heals is a bit overkill so I would go with the endmods. Either way, EA and Hiber are you're bread and butter.
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I'm glad thats just opinion, it would suck if it were fact.
15 second god mode vs a 2 minute god mode?.....it pretty much speaks for itself. You're just looking for an argument aren't you?. -
Okay...I have a Regen and a WP and both don't "need" stamina. I use certain IO's to help with that. Never ran into a problem so far. The difference, I don't use stam as a crutch.
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[ QUOTE ]
MoG is much better than Strength of Will.
[/ QUOTE ]
False. Are you serious?, you do know that MoG lasts a total of 15 seconds...yes you do get a default total of 70% defense to all damage, but its for 15 seconds. SoW lasts for 2 minutes. and stacks with the resistances already at hand. I'm guessing you never played a WP or have no idea how strong SoW is. Is it skippable? yes, isn't every power?. Of course there have been plenty of people who have skipped Unstoppable, this doesn't make them smart for doing so. -
Maybe if we were using I8 rules, and no IO's existed, WP definitely. But since IO's, its been easy to softcap defense therefore making Regen the winner. WP has the regen rate, but lacks the big heals. On the other hand Strength of Will beats MoG by a long shot. And of course the mitigation.
Of course one can also IO out a WP to have crazy mitigation and high regen rates. I still have yet to see a vid but if regen can do it, WP should be able to pull it off.
Werner nailed the whole IO'ed Regenier
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fed6bf3a...&playnext=1
That being posted, I'm sure a full IO'ed out WP could do it with ease. Now if we're talking about just SO's?. Then obviously WP.
WP>Regen (No Io's) -
[ QUOTE ]
Illuison is a good primary for soaking up alpha's but only once you get phantom army - prior to that you have to lean on decieve a lot
[/ QUOTE ]
QFT. -
I see this alot from Scrappers. My best advice?, make a regen or WP scrap, or use end redux's. Stam is pretty nice to have, but its only pivotal for Tanks and DA users.
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Good luck, pending on server your bound to hit atleast one AE team, but if you refuse to even play on said team, its still easy, people still run TF's and PI Freakshow farms. Hell , I'll run you myself if you're on Guardian.
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Werner pretty much nailed this, and heres proof;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDeiiX_ODpE
"My attack chain is Smite -> Midnight Grasp -> Smite -> Siphon Life. The alternate chain is Smite -> Siphon Life -> Laser Beam Eyes". -
Ill/Rad
Earth/Rad
Its safe to say anything rad at this point.
The controller AT is pretty much a "safe" bet if you don't aggro everything before the tank. By that I mean spamming soft aoe holds on every mob before the tank. Rad is pretty strong when all the debuffs line up even then I would tell you to be careful as many have died, trying to be the "tank". -
I'm working on a 5 year old rig with a Geforce 4 mx440....so you can probably imagine. And I still run fine, with 2 gigs of ram and a duo core. Yes I can run CoH, and CoV quite well, I can even run Age of Conan and WoW(of course).
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I'm just glad we got the "Reichsman Punch".
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So you don't care for my attitude?....ok, now that thats been posted we can all keep carrying on with our lives. But I'm glad we can agree , that BS was a bad choice.
I'm sure someone can come up with a reason why its suitable, just like many believe Regen is better than it once was, that doesn't stop it from being completely erroneous. -
I love your Icon, great movie. David Bowie, whats not to love.
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Rationalize lol, said the person with 11k in posts. Take your own advice there buddy.
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Here you go; http://www.youtube.com/user/WernerCoH
SR for the win, but really any good mastermind can handle it.
Bots/FF
Thugs/Poison
Bots/Traps
SR Brutes.