Mongoose22

Just a quick note, the third thumbnail for Avro Arrow (Overall Male Winner) isn't linked to a larger image.

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2. After analysis, Scrappers CAN NOT reach the same levels of resistance as a Tank. Regeneration, though, is a small concern.


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I don't think the max resistance was so much of an issue. Rather, the question is, do you need more resistance than the scrappers get? Is the resistance that tankers can achieve overkill?

More importantly, though, I think the big issue with Invulnerability (besides the thing about Unyielding Stance and immobility, as you've already noted) is Invincibility. That is, is the ability to achieve the high level of resistance available to Inv scrappers/tankers combined with one of the best defense powers in the game in Invincibility, which also gives an accuracy boost and a a provoking effect, too much? Is the stacking of high resistance and situationally high defense outperforming the other scrapper or tanker options, most of which focus on only resistance or defense?

As for Regeneration, I personally think the healing should be spread among more of the Regen powers, not just in the all-powerful Instant Healing. Tweak IH down a little, pump up FH and Recon. This will smooth out the Regen scrapper leveling progression.

And lastly, is there any word about adding a little resistance to Super Reflexes? I'd take a ratcheting back of perma-Elude play to get some resistance before level 38...

Great thread, have had this one bookmarked for ages. It might be useful at this point to catalog which powers have not been documented. Here's a list of the toggle powers organized by power set. Powers marked with an asterisk (*) are unverified by Vennom, including a couple I put in from posts to this thread. Powers marked with a pound (#) are in more than one power set and possibly could have different values depending on which set they're in. Blazing Aura in particular is likely wrong for either the blaster or tanker version, since blasters have lower endurance usage (although tankers had that changed, too). Powers with question marks, of course, haven't been documented.

Biggest holes I see are for Ice and Stone tankers, Dark Armor, and Radiation defenders/controllers.

BLASTER SECONDARIES
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Devices
-0.35 Targetting Drone
-0.29 Cloaking Device

Electricity Manipulation
????? Lightning Field

Fire Manipulation
-0.75 Blazing Aura #
????? Hot Feet #

Ice Manipulation
????? Chilling Embrace #


CONTROLLER PRIMARIES
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Fire Control
????? Hot Feet #

Ice Control
-1.46 Arctic Air

Illusion Control
-1.42 Superior Invisibility

Mind Control
????? Telekinesis


CONTROLLER SECONDARIES
----------
Force Field
-0.38 Personal Force Field *#
-0.75 Dispersion Bubble #
????? Repulsion Field #
????? Force Bubble #

Kinetics
????? Repel #

Radiation Emission
????? Radiation Infection #
????? Enervating Field #
????? Choking Cloud #

Storm Summoning
-0.76 Snow Storm #
-0.76 Steamy Mist #
-0.94 Hurricane #


DEFENDER PRIMARIES
----------
Dark Miasma
????? Darkest Night
-0.75 Shadow Fall *

Force Field
-0.38 Personal Force Field *#
-0.75 Dispersion Bubble #
????? Repulsion Field #
????? Force Bubble #

Kinetics
????? Repel #

Radiation Emission
????? Radiation Infection #
????? Enervating Field #
????? Choking Cloud #

Storm Summoning
-0.76 Snow Storm #
-0.76 Steamy Mist #
-0.94 Hurricane #


SCRAPPER PRIMARIES
----------
Spines
-0.73 Quills


SCRAPPER SECONDARIES
----------
Dark Armor
-0.39 Dark Embrace
-0.71 Death Shroud
????? Murky Cloud
????? Obsidian Shield
-0.39 Cloak of Darkness
????? Cloak of Fear
-0.12 Oppressive Gloom

Invulnerability
????? Temp Invulnerability #
-0.28 Unyielding Stance #
-0.28 Invincibility #

Regeneration
+0.56 Quick Recovery
+1.67 Quick Recovery (6 even SOs)
-0.77 Integration
-1.54 Instant Healing

Super Reflexes
-0.38 Focused Fighting *
-0.38 Focused Senses *
????? Evasion


TANKER PRIMARIES
----------
Fiery Aura
-0.75 Blazing Aura #
-0.38 Fire Shield *
????? Plasma Shield

Ice Armor
????? Frozen Armor
????? Hoarfrost
????? Chilling Embrace #
????? Wet Ice
????? Icicles
????? Glacial Armor
????? Hibernate

Invincibility
????? Temp Invulnerability #
-0.28 Unyielding Stance #
-0.28 Invincibility #

Stone Armor
-0.35 Rock Armor *
-1.13 Mud Pots *
????? Rooted
????? Brimstone Armor
????? Mineral Armor
????? Crystal Armor
????? Granite Armor


INHERENT POWERS
----------
+1.67 Normal Endurance Recovery
-0.35 Sprint


POOL POWERS
----------
Concealment
-0.38 Stealth
-1.51 Invisibility *
-2.98 Phase Shift *

Fighting
-0.22 Tough
-0.20 Weave *

Fitness
+0.42 Stamina
+1.25 Stamina (6 even SOs)

Flight
-0.22 Hover
-2.03 Fly
????? Group Fly

Leadership
-0.45 Maneuvers
-0.46 Tactics
-0.44 Assault

Leaping
-0.08 Combat Jumping
-0.54 Super Jump
-0.32 Acrobatics

Speed
-0.53 Super Speed
-1.15 Whirlwind

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We'll also be tuning down Trolls and Outcasts even more - to make them like Skulls and Hellions (fewer powers, etc.).

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I dunno, I like the new Trolls and Outcast minions. It's the lieutenants and bosses that are nasty.

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3) The underlying issue pointed out has been that, while scrappers could pick up powers to raise their defenses to tanker levels, there was no corresponding way for tankers to reach scrapper damage levels. Now, as usual, there were too many arguments at the extreme in any discussions on that, but the slot usage was not enough to balance things out (although it did make it closer than some extremists would admit to). Adding in a controlled, tanker only way to help redress the damage potential difference to target levels, at the same time as giving a much more comic-book feel, is an exceptional solution in concept - we just have to hope the implementation lives up to that.


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Outside of Invulnerability, I don't know of any scrappers that can actually, truly match tanker defenses, and Inv scrappers still have to delve into the power pools for their resistance (and IMO Inv in both archtypes is overpowered anyway). So I don't think it's really true that scrappers can get to tanker defenses. Rather, it's more that the game doesn't require more than scrapper defenses to get by in melee, so tankers say, hey, what makes us so special then? As they're upping the difficulty level, maybe that will change.

There's also the idea that resistance is perhaps too stable a defense to make tankers and scrappers who rely on resistance different. 90% resistance is always 90% resistance, so tankers that can exceed 90% just have waste, because outside of the rare resistance debuff, the excess is just thrown away. If the game scaled resistance somehow so that 90% base resistance doesn't always block 9/10 of damage against harder opponents, similar to debuffs scaling by opponent level, then having over 90% would be more useful, as insurance against resistance scaling.

And if they do it as damage/tick, I again express concern about what powers they assign it to, because here AoE has a large advantage due to damage scaling, unless they restrict the damage bonus counted on AoE as damage done per opponent and not total damage done.

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I mean, does your damage build for each successive attack on the same enemy, or does it build over the course of a single battle? If I fight and kill three enemies, and then run over to another group ten feet away, do I lose all my accumulated power? None of it? What?


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Essentially, each hit (if successful) will give you a short term damage buff. Different powers would have different buffs; but if you could string enough hits together you can "peak" your damage.

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Yep, druggie Tankers trolling for things to hit. Wonder how AoE will be handled here, especially constant emitting toggles like Icicles. Free continual damage booster? Will the bonus only be applied on actively used attacks and not toggles or, say, a Burn patch?

I wonder how the timer for extra damage is going to be calculated, though. If it's a cooldown timer between hits on enemies, I can see Tankers exhibiting druggie-like behavior, flitting from scrub minion to minion so they can get their one-shot "hit" and keep their damage high.

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If testing shows that Tankers are able to solo AVs, then something would need to change. Of course, most of the AVs I've seen might have been some sort of Tanker, considering how high their defenses are. Hmm, tank-vs-tank...

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Make all AVs do Psionic.

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As promised, I've been looking into the issues facing Tankers; I thought I'd explain the direction we're going. As we analyed it, Tankers have two very valid concerns (aside from the issues with specific power sets):

1. Without Provoke, they are not a real Tanker. Those people who enjoy the MMP role of "meat shield" have trouble holding aggro properly.
2. The Tanker's defense stats can be matched by a properly slotted Scrapper - but the Tanker can not approach the Scrapper in damage.
3. The Tanker doesn't "feel" like a comic book Tanker should. And frankly, this one really, really bothered me. Because our game is a comic book MMP.

So - here's the solution we're going to try internally. We went through a ton of possible solutions, and we weighed each one against how well they answered the three points above as well as how long it would take to get done.

1. Tankers will get a "provoke" like AOE effect on their melee attacks. The more a Tanker lands his blows, the more and more mobs he'll attract. The bonus here is that it's not exactly like Provoke (it's not ranged) - but it makes a lot of sense. Some huge monstrosity is bashing the heads of a villain group - they're going to get more and more concerned about taking him/her out....

2. As a Tanker lands more and more blows, he'll start doing more and more damage. The longer the fight, the more powerful the Tanker becomes. I can't say that the Tanker will do as much damage as a Scrapper - but it'll certainly be more than he does now. This ability really gets to the core of a comic book Tanker. He's extremely powerful - but at the start of a fight, he holds himself back some. As the battle progresses, he lets loose....I prefer this system to a power because this way it's inherent. It's simply the nature of the Archetype. And it also sets the Tanker apart from the Scrapper's criticals.

Of course, the thought in your minds must be....WHEN?...I'm afraid I don't know. First, we need some code for this. Then we've got to test it thoroughly. Finally, it'll go on the Test Server for awhile to gather data and impressions. This is going to take some time; but I thought you'd like to know at least where we're going, even though we don't know when we'll get there.

Feel free to comment!

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(Isn't that actually three valid concerns?)

Anyway, those sound like good changes for providing the comic-book feel to the character. Now enemies have a valid reason for focusing aggro, too, because if they don't eventually get rid of that slow-moving rock over there, it'll eventually get stronger...

Two questions, though:

One, wouldn't this make tankers more like the boss-killers? After all, fighting stronger enemies takes longer than whacking minions, and if tankers hit harder the longer they're in play, they would look like the better bet against high-level bosses and the occasional AV, since they can take it, and, if they wait long enough, dish it, too.

Two, is this going to exacerbate the herding mentality? Because if damage increases over time, it's even more incentive to go round up a large group of enemies while waiting for damage to rise, then whack them all at once with the new extra damage on an AoE attack.

You're talking about the live servers, right, Statesman? Because if you're talking about the test server, that just sounded like a convoluted way to tell players to look for more bugs.