Paniac

Focus has a huge amount of benefits in PvP, imho, and is the sole reason I chose Claws over any other Stalker primary. After playing my L50 Claws/SR Scrapper for over a year, I knew when I saw Claws in the Stalker list what I wanted.

However, part of me was hoping Claws would remain low-key and not raved about too much. But I guess that's just the selfish part of me coming out

Btw, Focus suppresses the same as any other attack. The opponent is free to return fire if they're able, but from the OP's description, the opponent is defeated by the Focus attack. I'm actually a fan of suppression, however. Getting out of a fight should be difficult and take more intelligence than it takes a monkey to hit a key on the keyboard and SS away. Our AS attacks actually need looked into as the suppression appears to begin as we start the AS animation which means we become unsuppressed sooner than any other attack. This makes for a lot more hit-and-run AS attacks.

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Statesman

Here is my two cents. Your basic answer is correct, the tank has to be able to jump in and grab aggro long enough for others to act without fear of instant death (what happens if most other ATs start a fight). From what I have seen most tanks (granite excepted) can only do this succesfully on a team that has at least one defender or controller who can somehow buff, heal or take aggro away from the Tanker. Now MOST big teams have a person to fit this bill. However, it is possible to end up on a team (particularly a midsized one 4-5ish) with an excess of blasters and scrappers, and no one who can help with the alpha strike problem. This happens more than occasionally, since these are two of the more popular ATs. The upshot is things are not horribly broken, but you can run into intractable situations. One possible solution is to add some combination of +def, DR or healing to a tank for each team member over 3.

THz

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What I see here is that you want a Tanker to perform equally well in a team of Scrappers and Blasters as they would in a team that consisted of a variety of ATs including Defenders and Controllers. The problem with that is Defs and Conts would no longer be needed at all. If further CC and damage mitigation are not necessary, why recruit an AT that is going to be useless and/or bored in your party?

The ATs and the entire game is balanced so that everyone has a purpose. If you are in a team that consists of a Tanker, Scrappers, and Blasters then look at the LFT list and find a Cont or Def to add to your team. That's what they are there for.

Build your teams in the same way that you would build your character. Ask yourself what you want to accomplish and what do you need to gain/lose in order to get there.

I realize this has been posted already both in this thread as well as in others, but I'm responding truthfully since you asked.

Our role has not changed although our tactics may have. I'm not going to say that I can "solo AVs on Invincible" or any such malarky like that. But I play an Invul Tanker and I have not changed tactics at all (I cannot speak about any other Tanker primary as I have not had sufficient experience with them post-ED). Each of my defenses has 3 slots of the appropriate Enh. I also have Taunt, Provoke, and the two Fear powers from the same pool as Provoke (I forget their names atm). These latter powers are all 6-slotted with either Taunt Dur, Acc, Fear Dur, Recharge, etc. I have two melee powers in my secondary but I rarely use them. Between those 4 powers I can generally keep 100% aggro on me instead of my team and I have no problems taking the damage and surviving.

With that said, I realize my playstyle and the manner in which I have fun is not for everyone. Not everyone enjoys being the "taunt-bot" type of character (although I would strongly argue that I'm a lot more than that considering I'm in the best position to watch the flanks, look for adds, call out for particular powers to be cast, etc). But the Tanker role can still be the same as it always has been if so desired.

For the majority of players, they also want to be able to do a bit of "smashing", to steal a term from the Brutes. The Tanker's Gauntlet ability allows for this to also function as a limited taunt so as to mitigate the decrease in CC that comes from choosing to hit instead of Taunt. That along with the increased damage that Tankers are doing these days (which is kinda ludicrous imho, but that's for another thread) gives Tankers much more versitility in a group than it used to be only a year ago when we could truly only be taunt-bots and meatshields.

I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that our role has become increasingly diversified over the past year but you have to build your character to perform the role that you choose it to fill, no differently than someone who wants to play a "blapper" or "scraptroller" has to do. The important thing is that your team understands the role that you fill and can quickly learn to work together under those conditions.

Yes, I can still take damage and control aggro for a team as an Invul Tanker but I have built my char around that concept. Those that build damaging attacks into their build are going to saccrifice some of that damage mitigation and/or CC from their build in order to do so. Build your character for the role you want it to fulfill and understand what you give up for what you gain.

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Well when my favorite Hero comes to Mpls or Rochester Mn let me know ok!
/sigh

No body cool ever comes to the midwest anymore!

Rook

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Try living in St. Louis. We're like the anti-blackhole of conventions and gatherings.

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You *think* ?

What if it's not that ?

I guess I can go back to regedit and switch to another value.

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You're awfully demanding for someone who signed up for the French beta and can't even speak the language.

I must say, I've just discovered the Shards with my L42 Scrapper and I love the place. I only leave it now when a SG mate needs help with something. After about 2 hours of exploring and getting to the Storm Palace wormhole/vine (which I can't enter until L44), I got pretty good at the jumps (I actually leave SJ on for better flight control) and know my way around pretty well. Overall, I love the Shard and have given up on my "regular" missions back in Paragon City. At this point, the only thing I'd ask for are more variety of missions and possibly more "mole" locations. 'Course, more zones are always nice too.

- Pan

I don't think those of you asking for the "purple patch" rollback or for increased amounts of mobs really understand what you are asking for here. We would have a system where the color-coded evaluation system is meaningless other than "anything not purple is not worth fighting". You have gotten used to looking for these purple con'd mobs and are incapable or unwilling to retrain your mind to accept that you are going to be doing the same exact thing as you are right now except for the fact that the names of the mobs will be in a different color.

After Statesman's proposed changes, you will have the same exact difficulty with the same rewards fighting -2L to +2L mobs as you have right now fighting +L2 to +6L mobs (or thereabouts). The only longterm effects this will have is in the color of the mobs' names that you look for in the street and possibly the location of where you will hunt these mobs (which will only increase your overall hunting grounds). In inside missions, this will spawn the same mobs as we have now, but will make them much more challenging.

For those of you trying to compare this to the comic books and the fact that Batman and Spider-Man can take hordes of goons with guns, keep in mind that this would be the equivalent of these 2 superheroes fighting mobs well, well below their level. It'd be akin to a L30-something (or maybe even L50+) running around Atlas Park arresting Hellions. The main difference here is in the comics, there is a reason for the heroes to be fighting "low level" street crime. In this game, there is no incentive for us to do so (and probably shouldn't be or the low lvl players would have nothing to fight). When it comes to the "higher level" villains in the comics, Batman and Spider-Man aren't fighting 30 at once. When fighting against something more similar to their level of experience/training/skill, they are hard pressed to take on 3 at one time.

To summarize, I just wanted to point out to everyone that in a sense we're all talking about the same thing. The end result will be the same as we currently experience (give or take). Sit back, relax, and let them work on their game. When the changes go into the test server, we can test it there and make comments.

- Pan

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As soon as you look on it as levelling is the goal and therefore street sweeping is the way to achieve that goal, you have stopped playing the game that was designed for you.

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This is the heart of what I have been trying to tell folks. This is not a "min-max powerleveling, get to the top as fast as you can, level is all that matters" type of game. If you're trying to play it in that manner, you -will- be disappointed. This is a story-driven, comic book based game. Your character develops through time by generating stories and having a past that one can reflect upon, not by getting bigger and better armors and weapons.

There are other games out there that are designed more around character "building" (for lack of a better term). There's nothing holding folks to this one when there's probably one better suited to their playstyle.

- Pan

Can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm agreeing with Icarus on this one. What I do not want to see here is some corporate bullnosed system that is designed to generate maximum capital and minimal expense. We have enough Microsofts out there already and don't need anymore. Let the developers create a game that they want to create. It's their dream, don't ask them to discard it simply for your enjoyment.

If they stick to their "vision" and build the game they want to build, there will be people to play the game and pay their salaries. Might be the difference between $50k/year and $200k/year, but for those of us who aren't money-grubbing corporate hounds, the chance to build and play the game of your dreams is worth much more than that difference.

My summary: Feel free to critique the game and offer suggestions and advice, but don't ask the authors of this work to make changes in order to generate more income or to fit the game to your desires or even the desires of the majority. It's their work, let them write it how they want. If you aren't enjoying it, then find something that you do enjoy. As someone else mentioned, there's plenty of MMO's out there to choose from.

- Pan

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The attitude of gaming that requires you address this kind of question sorta chafes my butt a bit. You know, the whole powergaming concept of how many dps can you pump out

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I'm with you on this, Civil_Liberty. I once helped run/develop a game where we completely removed all numbers (except health/End and then only if you brought up your char screen) and it made it so much more of a non-statistical game. I like numbers in my sports simulations, but not in my RPGs. 'Course, I realize that move would alienate all those powergamers out there. It did in the game I worked on. But then we didn't miss them either

- Pan