PorkchopXpress

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There's just no excuse for this power to be so lame.

Act: 2
BI: 1.3888 sm/.5 en (1.8888 total)

Horrible.

Let's look at comparable powers, either pool powers available without prerequisites or first powers for other tanker primaries:

Gash is better
Scorch is better
Frozen Fists is better
Stone Fist is better
Jab is better (Although jab is as weak, but has a much faster activation)
Bash is better
Air Superiority is better
Boxing and Kick: both better
Flurry, believe it or not, is better from a dps standpoint (act 3/bi 3.18)

In short: Barrage is the worst attack in the entire game. Fix it, please.

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Is it because the upper tier powers are so good?

Honestly I would be VERY careful in asking for the Devs to look into this set at this point. I do not believe you or many of my fellow Tankers would be very pleased with the results. If Barrage is boosted you can be darned sure that something else will get dropped.

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Everyone always goes nuts over my DPS with my SS Tanker, they damage extremely well and AoE etc.. why not go with it? I see what your saying but put a couple slot in Rage and Put Time reducers in there, and Voila Rage 24/7 you can't wait for 5 seconds every like 4 minutes but then you have the dps of ascrapepr prety much with your Tanker DEF. With stamina JAcked nad HAste as well, your a machine of destruction. SS is a great set and I've had eneergy it's great but completley different.

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Yeah SS is good < Level 41. Once the cap is raised and you start fighting level 50 blasters with more smash/lethal resistance than you, well then you know you should have went with EM or DM.

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It will be funny to see these same people come back onto the boards post cap raise complaining how their smash/lethal Primary doesn't do #*#&%*#%&# in PvP. (assuming of course they will do some PvP to experience it firsthand)

Been there, done that with my axe when the arenas came out and Epics were taken. I still don't know how the Devs could even begin to balance these attacks to make things fair, but I guess that makes the ol' truism stand that PvP will never be balanced.

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SS is nice cause you get knockout blow so early but i agree that concept would normally be the only reason to chose the other primaries

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Indeeed, the reason I don't include DM or FM is because they have their own reasons to be on par with EM. (DM has NICE utility and FM has some good AE/Fire damage)

Personally, it seems to me that Stone Melee/Super Strength might be underpowered? Unless someone can share their insight who has played EM and SM or EM and SS?

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Without reading the 7 pages (ie I don't care THAT much about this pretty obvious topic) I hope someone also mentioned the PvP aspect of this. That makes the discrepancies between the 3 sets (add Fire as well) HUGE. Bigger than HUGE. HUMONGOUS!

Seriously, an EM Brute vs any type of melee can stack Disorients on top of its less resisted Energy damage so if/when it detoggles a Tank/Brute/Scrapper etc they are screwed. What is comparable with SS and Stone????? I've made this point with a Tanker and my axe. When I finally detoggle an EM tanker my knockback sure as Hell isn't waiting there stacked. Plus his Energy is doing more damage than my smash/lethal can ever hope to dole out. (well, as long as he has the basic armors and isn't some type of very odd build) I'm not calling for nerfs by ANY means - Hell, I have an EM/Fire Brute and like it the way it is. But like so many other things in PvP it isn't even close to being balanced.

Also, if you think SS is underpowered now you should have seen it pre I3(approx.). It has already gone through a few bumps to bring it to the level it is. That level is now on par with Stone Melee/Axe etc, but still leaves something to be desired to the big dog of Brute/Tanks.

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Okay, so I'm not sure what you are saying here. That locking down one/third of the spawn is enough for a Controller, but not enough for a Tanker? If it isn't enough for a tanker, why not?

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I think the problem with it is, that controllers can do more than just lock down 1/3 of the mobs. A *lot* more. I think of my illusion controller friend (I have not ever played a controller past level 10 or so). He got to 50... Illus/Rad. In a typical go at a large spawn:

1. He group invises us (= buffs us)
2. He accel matabolizes us (= buffs us even more)
3. He summons a pet that follows him around.
4. He turns invisible, runs into the middle of the spawn, and flashes them, locking (let's say for argument's sake) 1/3 of them down. His pet(s) that are following him, now go after a few more with an AOE etc.
5. He heals and single-target holds as needed.

Meanwhile, as a tanker, what can I bring to the table?
1. Lock down 1/3 of the mobs and...

....?

Do a little damage? Not enough to be worth even mentioning, really. Beyond that, what do I do.

The problem is the controller can lock down 1/3 of the mobs plus do a bunch more things for the team, including occupying another chunk beyond his 1/3 with pets and single-target lockdowns. All with zero (or near zero) chance of aggroing because he holds (aggro = zero during the hold) or his pet gets the aggro.

Meanwhile, at best I can lock down, and slightly damage, the guys "stuck" to my tanker.

This is why I think tankers are complaning. The only thing they could do was keep things stuck to them, so when keeping things stuck to them becomes hard or less effective, it's a major nerf.

The controller meanwhile, going from full spawn to 1/3 spawn lockdown, still has tons of other stuff he can do.

F

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Yeah, I've been saying this since before ED hit. Now with the I5/ED combo my Earth/Storm 'troller on average can do a much better job of providing for a team than my tanker.

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To me the taunting seemed to be more an after thought then an actual tanking practice. Reactions that are slow like that seldom save the person in time. This is how I attack a spawn. This is not gospel or a "must do" strategy just the way I work.

1: Quick scan of the spawn. Sappers, Mezzers, Bosses in that order. Pick the target and plot its death in 3 attacks or less.


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Thats great and all, and similar to the old attack plan from Beo.......but States was pretty clear in his vision. We should apparently be targeting ONLY the smashing/lethal dealers that we actually have resists to and letting the team take care of defending itself from everything else. The example seemed pretty clear on that. I would expect our remaining Elements/Energy resists to be nerfed again any time.

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I watched close to a billion influence get turned into prestige yesterday.

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Get about 20 prestige out of that?

Well put Tom. (well, the 2nd half at least)


I also would imagine that most "old time" tankers will move on, at least for the short term (if we hadn't already!). The new age Tanks have already shown in several recent posts that they don't feel as if anything is wrong. Of course most of those were high level Stoners, but still...

It is funny - I have said over and over that everything is cyclical. Before I4 hit Tanks were almost always the low AT on the boards as far as posters. I think that translated very well into the game - meaning that we were possibly the least played AT. I4 brought the great tanking explosion with everybody and their brother rolling a tanker. Especially the PL'ers or people that wanted to cut corners and make it to 50 as fast as they could. I vividly remember starting a thread remarking that I checked the forums one day and there were more people in the Tanker forum than any other AT. Unheard of up to that point! It was like the great California gold rush, the secret was out and everybody wanted to be us.

You can now see that those people were the first to bolt from the "new" tanker AT. The old schoolers that were around before we became the FOTM are the ones still trying to fight for some level of respect to return to the powers. In 3 months when I7 finally hits we will inevitably once again be the least played AT out there (at least in CoH). Maybe once we hit bottom again, then we can start to rebuild.

Hopefully.

I feel sorry for States sometimes.


He comes here and posts his results, probably in very good faith - and hoping to possibly help us to reach some AT determinations and move forward.

What he gets is a verbal beatdown that his tanking A) sucked and B) that the AT sucks. Well, both are probably true , but at least he tried. Maybe this will help to promote some future dialog amongst Devs and players about the seemingly widespread discontent amongst the Tankers AT.

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i have an AV Experience thread floating around that highlights this really well. in particular, PorkchopXpress and AmericanSpirit both submitted reports battling a +2 Nightstar. they were both Inv/Axe tankers. they were both on teams, one a 4-person team with two controllers, a blaster and a scrapper. one a 6-person team with a scrapper, a controller, two blasters, and a defender. one of them couldn't survive without US and had to retreat when US dropped. one of them tanked Nightstar with little difficulty. i think it makes sense for us to have to apply different tactics in different situations, but it becomes frustrating when its not clear the particulars have changed.


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Watch it there Tiff! I was playing the controller that had to jump in and "tank" the AV, damage the AV, and simultaneously do everything I could to keep the squishy Tanker alive. Not that I could have POSSIBLY done any better than the high quality Tanker we were using, but lets keep the facts straight. I was the one in the corner LAUGHING at the retreating tanker. (albeit, while simultaneously worrying for the future of my fave AT)

Let me point out one thing, and that is history does tend to repeat itself. I don't want to cry doom, but in I2s larger teams it was sometimes difficult for a tanker to be wanted over a scrapper. The thought process (as stated by an above poster) was that with multiple players to buff a melee player - you may as well get one that will be providing a lot of offensive output for the team as well as taking the initial aggro. I mean hell, if you are gonna be required to have a controller/defender combo anyways - why not pick up a scrapper over a tanker to take the brunt, then help clean up?

I don't expect it to get so bad that you see Tankers holding "will aggro for food" signs, or a bunch of people ever posting they can't find teams anymore (yes, I do recall those days on this forum) but sometimes it has to get worse before it gets better.

And in the meantime - I'm gonna go SMASH!



*bah, Geko got that point out before I could finish my post

Also, I fully agree now with the poster referring to Controllers and aggro control. My controller is now better at maintaining it for larger teams than my tanker. And that is not right.

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If Ice is the new standard, perhaps we can get some idea of what Ice Tanks do for a team? Any of you out there care to comment?

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If Ice is the new gold standard Tom - the best way to help your team is to roll up a controller. No jest. Not being humorous.

At least with my earth/storm controller I can still affect massive control and manage aggro for a rather large team. And that is WITH my rather annoying pet that tends to use ME as the meatshield. I realize that sooner or later my controller will probably be nerfed again, but my hope is that by the time it happens the Fragiles in this game will have revolted causing the Tanker AT to once again get bumped back up to what many of us deem as "useable". (yes I realize that is a sliding-scale determination, but one that many of us don't feel the AT currently meets)


Soo, my take although not the hopeful outlook that many are looking for, is that if you want to still control a big battle - roll up a "controlling" controller. And as many on the boards have suggested (Myrm most recently), park your tanker until changes are made.

Infinite Darkness

Infinite Darkness!

The villains are taking over Champion.

A supergroup for villainous mature players.

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I'll pop in here so you guys have a new target.

The original Task Force Datamine took 3 months to finish. That was to go over 2 months worth of data.

We now have 18 months worth of data. We looked for a more effecient solution, but our estimates still come out at 2 years to datamine and get you your badges.

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You guys better get cracking then.

Two kids now = no more extremely lengthy TFs for me. (well that and the wife complaining after EVERY single one)

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Dave Williams likes Issue 5. That was the extent of our Issue 5 discussion. Another audience member started to talk about I5 a little, but I asked a question on a different topic right after that to avoid degeneration into the same stuff we all read here on the forums. I'll leave Issue 5 discussions from GenCon to other posters that may have talked about it with the NCSoft guys. I avoided the phrase "Issue 5" like the plague, myself.

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I find this disappointing, as some fruitful discussion may have resulted with the ability to get immediate feedback. I mean, I can understand not personally wanting to discuss issue 5, but doing your best to make sure no one else gets to either?

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Yeah, I bet the other five people were really upset.

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New Villian Groups:
Cabal and Red Caps

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Hmm? Anybody have any additional info on this? First I've heard of new villian groups.

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Curiousity is piqued! Please divulge your secrets.

I was asked to place this in the guides section.

Hopefully it can help some up and coming tanker someday.

Herding: A Brief Look at a Practice Used by Tankers in a Team Setting

I was asked to post this in the Tankers Guide thread. Maybe it can help out some up and coming tanker someday.

Herding: A brief Look at a Practice Used by Tankers in a Team Setting

Beowoolfe of the Infinity Council!

alright - now that was cool States. Now please someone acknowledge that Unstopp to blasters has the ability to alter the balance of the future of this game.

States will there be any changes to the Shadow Shard dimension. I know you said you were going back to some of the older locales, but didn't mention any further tweaks to the newer ones. It is a good idea with some neat aspects but there are never, EVER more than 3 people in it when I venture in. Sure this makes it a great place to go solo, but surely it could be so much more. A few minor adjustments might alleviate some of the crowding in PI and other places.

*Sighs

A potentially awesome post tragically derailed by the mindless masses. I really doubt we will see any more questions answered at this rate.

I'm not going to read all 7 pages of this to see if I'm being redundant but States said tonight that it will be AFTER Update 3 is released. Sad but true.

The vigil continues.

Alliance chat = awesome news!

And Victor - man you are looking like a forum stalker now, just chill a little and your question may be answered. I know from experience that people tend to purposely ignore those that keep nagging.

Thank you very much for the updates every so often States on what the crack staff is up to. It goes a loooooong way to calming the anxious mobs.

Excellent Ven!!! I sometimes even forget about the jump/taunt trick. Nicely stated approach that should help some of the younger tankers out there get a good feeling for their AT and expectations.