Sarrate

It's true, once one person innovates, others will follow. Of course, in this game it has been proven time and again that buffs/debuffs are king, yet people still insist on "healers." Just did an ITF today with one PUG guy. "We going to grab a healer?" was the first thing he said. *shakes head*

Well, I mentioned Taunt since you did. I personally think it is an invaluable tool and could never see myself skipping it (unless it was a solo character or something). You can get by without it, but I always miss having it for those corner cases. Of course, I'm an aggro *****.

At any rate, this is something for a completely different thread! Sorry for the small hijack.

Yeah, AV/GM regen was completely warped at the time. Not only that, but Lingering Radiation was the only unresistible regen debuff. Fighting AVs/GMs at that time really sucked.

I always thought Brute res/hp caps should be lower than that of a Tank.

The only (performance) reason I can think of to take Barb Swipe isntead of Lunge is PvP (where animation time dictates damage dealt). For everything else, Lunge is superior.

As you wish:

(Emphasis mine. Even Ice Melee, before the changes, over performed.)
Source (in case I botched the above quote tag)

You're right, this is all speculation. Until GR goes live (or several months/years after the fact), we won't know for sure who is right. Still, what would the forums be without speculation? *smirk*

Anyways, I highlighted two very important phrases.

• Current Content - I didn't mention future content before, but this is a very good point. While a Brute might suffices now, we have absolutely no idea what content will look like in Going Rogue. I do have a quote for you in this regard:
  
  
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by Positron (From a SDCC vid taken by Zekiran_Immortal.) "And we also want to bring a compelling new end game; everybody in this room probably has a level 50 or more, and wants something to do with them that's going to make them a more powerful level 50 - and with challenges that make current challenges in the game seem like a piece of cake. And that's really an area that we're focusing a great deal of development effort."

  It sounds like the players will have ways to make themselves more powerful (who knows how), but also face much more difficult content. How players scale compared the the content is anyones guess at this point, but I wouldn't be surprised if Tanker survivability really comes into play.
  
  
• Well built / well played - Again, I can't stress enough that I don't think this models the average player/group well. (I'm not saying that the general populace are idiots, but they aren't ravenous powergamers like a lot of forum goers are.) I have two bad habits:
  1. Inspecting people's builds
  2. Watching CoH videos.
  Why bring that up? It means that I notice a lot of builds that make me scratch my head. (Odd builds, odd slotting (which I reverse engineer from right clicking icons in groups.)) Not only that, but it's always interesting to compare, say, Smurphy duoing the ITF to a normal ITF that doesn't have an optimized team. (No offense meant to anyone in that video, btw.) I see a lot more vids like the latter than the former.

I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying. A well built / played Brute can replace a Tank in most cases in current content. I just don't think they're prolific enough to kill off Tankers.

I have to disagree with you on this paragraph. Your premise is that Controllers/Corruptors buff/debuff secondarily focusing on control/damage first. In my mind - that's exactly what Brutes do, focus on damage, not aggro. As I said, Brutes can do it, but I don't think it's as automatic as you make it out to be. What's very interesting is that you mention Taunt, which some Tanks are adamant on skipping when aggro control is their primary purpose. What makes you think that Brutes will take it?

The number of Brutes I see with Taunt is incredibly small. It's not a frequent build choice.

Agreed, the player base as a whole will 'dictate' whether Tankers go extinct or not. Powergamers will probably eschew Tanks for Brutes just like they'll pass up non-optimal sets. Brutes are definitely more open to power-gaming than a Tank is, but sincerely doubt most unlock their true potential.

I think I already covered this one.

To stamp out ambiguity, he. My avatar was the first character I really took to, as well as my first 50. (Don't play her anymore, though. My playstyle has diverged from what she offers. )

You're right; but I think the highlighted part is the real wrinkle in your statement, because not everyone is the "right player," probably a lot fewer than we think here. Brutes have the tools to replace Tanks, but I'd wager the majority are focused on damage and couldn't care less about aggro.

The second hurdle is that they'd need more buffs to be as strong as a Tanker. The good thing about Tankers is they're a lot tougher out of the box and don't require as much support to get things done. On a support light team (be it few support chars or few support who are operating optimally) the Brute will have more problems than a Tank will.

Will some Brutes replace some Tanks? Yes. Will all of them? I highly doubt it. I know I have no intentions of quitting mine.

As another point of view, there hasn't been a mass exodus from Defenders, despite what is said on the board about Controllers and Corruptors (post GR) being able to replace them while having more control / damage / etc. Defenders can be replaced, but they haven't been.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but "@Hamster" is AmazingMOO - that's his global name. I believe he talks mostly in VB. (I don't have VB on any tabs I monitor a lot.)


It's confusing that there is a "@Satanic Hamster" and "@Hamster". Ahh, ambiguity!

Just "Hamster" is AmazingMOO. He most certainly does post on the forums. He may not frequent the Victory Forum often, but he does post elsewhere.

Are you trying to say that the proc scales with max end? I'm almost positive it is a static 10 end regardless of what your max end is. According to City of Data, the end infusion uses the Melee_Ones table.

You could be right, and if so, could you provide evidence to prove it? (It's also possible I misread your post, in which case I apologize.)

*nod*
I can agree with that. The only time I think a time average of BU is even applicable is for AV fights. Even then, it won't be completely accurate since it could recharge mid animation / etc.

Hmm, shouldn't that be 1.32s with AcranaTime?

Also, are we sure that BU's duration is cut into by the entirety of its animation, or just a portion of it? ie: Does the buff start at time=0, or possibly time=0.5, etc?

1. Against minions Brutes break even with Scrappers at 56% Fury (+112% dmg), and against bosses at ~63.3% Fury (+126% dmg).
   
   Math:
   1.125 * 1.05 * 1.95 = ~2.3 dmg (This is the slotted Scrapper damage mod against minions.)
   
   (~2.3 / 0.75) (This is the equivalent Brute mod required.)
   ((~2.3 / 0.75) - 1.95) (This is the required +dmg necessary to break even)
   ((~2.3 / 0.75) - 1.95) / 2 = ~0.56 Fury (Amount of Fury required, 1% Fury = +2% dmg)
   
   
2. Technically, Brutes do not have above Scrapper mitigation - they have about 12% more survivability from their higher hp, but not mitigation. They have the same def/res mods as a Scrapper. (Caveat: Fire and Elec hitting 90% res to Fire and Energy respectively and resistance T9s.) At any rate, there are others who would agree that Brutes have too many perks. (Personally, I think they should not have Tanker mitigation caps. That should be the domain of Tankers alone.)

Woot!

I feel largely the same about DB. I have a DB/SR languishing at lvl31 because combos just... don't work for me. I loved chains in DAoC, but at the speed combat moves in CoH? Not so much. By the time I had a combo ready, the situation I was going to use it for could have changed. I know Des has told me "just ignore them, then." Whenever I tried that, it felt like I was ignoring the whole point of the set. Bah!

That said, I haven't ever gotten a Claws char above lvl12ish, either.

I was thinking the same thing. Hah!

Just a few notes::

Drones have +20% Accuracy. It's higher than usual, yes, but it's not anywhere as bad as, say, Rularuu eyeballs.
Whirling Sword is a melee attack, not AoE. It would check against the Drone's 35% melee def. (A lot of melee AoEs are flagged in this way.)

Scrapper single target attacks have an efficiency of ~12.03 DPE**. Death Shroud also has a DPE of ~12.03**. This means that killing an enemy with normal st attacks vs Death Shroud costs the exact same endurance. The big difference to using both is that you're dealing damage faster, thus consuming more end.

To put it another way, it will take ~35.8 end to kill a minion** either way, but by killing faster, you have less time for your recovery to offset it.


** These are unslotted numbers.

Lightning Reflexes is +20% rech, 40% rech/slow resistance, and +X% movement speed. It's a carbon copy of SR/Quickness with a different name, basically.

How do you figure that? It has the same duration / strength as Invincibility:

Invincibility:
Against All Odds:
The only difference is that AAO debuffs its targets - which actually makes it stronger than Invincibility. Compare that to Rise to the Challenge:
AAO is 13.5 times stronger than RttC. It's not even close.

Well, he did damage to at least one target with Foot Stomp, and the damage wouldn't change between targets. At any rate, since the damage floor is 10%, he should have done at at least ~6 dmg during the crash.

I haven't played my Ice/SS Tank in a while, but I'll have to keep an eye out for this next time I do.

If you're not attacking as a Tanker, then you're not contributing as much as you could to a group. That's extra damage the group doesn't need to deal and it's also extra threat (which is important when dealing with other taunting chars like Brutes and Invuln/Shield Scrappers) you're not generating. Not to mention attacking generally comes with a significant amount of extra mitigation in the form of controls/debuffs.

As mentioned above, a Tanker should be attacking as frequently as possible. That aside, what if you're solo where you have to deal all the damage by yourself? That lower efficiency becomes a very big problem.

The snide comment about AE and Accolades? Completely unnecessary and not an acceptable solution. Besides, one of the two +End Accolades can't be acquired naturally until lvl45+ because of Dimensional Warder.

Another way to look at it is buff/debuff stacking and mitigation scaling. Very moderate buffing can effectively make a single Tank immortal. Even 'lowly' Fire Tanks can be extremely durable when paired with, say, Sonic Resonance (perma res cap).

I can't help but wonder how content could be made difficult enough to make two Tanks desirable (or 'necessary') without completely crushing anything that wasn't a Tank. From a video I saw from SDCC, it sounds like they're putting a lot of dev time into character advancement / harder content, so we'll have to see where that leads.

I could be convinced of a lot of what you wrote here. I'd love to hear what kind of alternative mechanic you would have used instead of endurance. Yes, I know it would never be implemented at this stage of the game, but I like to keep my mind open.

I could agree with this, as well. If it is determined to be a larger problem than just Tankers, then I'd have no issues with a more general solution.

The problem is with efficiency, not the time it takes them to kill something. Damage is one factor of efficiency, while end costs are another. Efficiency is Dmg/End, afterall, so altering either will effect it. Let's compare Tanker efficiency to Scrappers since their damage is also very consistent. A Scrapper with a damage mod of 1.125 (ignoring crits) will deal ~12.03 dmg / end base; 31.27 slotted (3 dmg/1 end). A Tanker with a damage mod of 0.8 will deal ~8.555 damage per end; 22.24 slotted (3 dmg/1 end). A Scrapper can accomplish 40% more than a Tanker can with the same amount of endurance.

That statistic is completely time independent. Suppose, for a moment, that Tanker damage and endurance were increased proportionately to keep end efficiency the same. (0.8 dmg scale -> 1.125 dmg scale, 5.2 end per 1 scale attack -> 7.3125 end per scale attack.) The Tanker would deal as much damage as a Scrapper, finish fights just as quick as a Scrapper, but run out of endurance much faster.

A lvl50 boss has 2570.2 hp. A Scrapper would require 213.65 end to kill it base, 82.19 end to kill it slotted (3 dmg/1 end). A Tanker would require 300.43 end to kill it base, 115.56 end slotted (3 dmg/1 end). Again, that's time independent. Whether they kill in 10s, 30s, or 60s doesn't change that.

As illustrated above, they're aren't limited equally.

I'm well aware of what IOs and powers like QR/EA can do for end usage. The first Tanker I IOed was a Fire/Stone/Pyre Tanker. She can solo missions without even touching Consume, but in a prolonged fight (such as an AV) she can run dry despite ~3.4 eps recovery and 78% end reduc in her attacks... and she only has Fire/Plasma Shield, Blazing Aura and CJ.

I remember when I was leveling her before IOs, endurance was a major concern - and she had an end management tool (Consume), which most Tankers (Invuln, Stone, Shield, Dark) don't. The existence of IOs shouldn't preclude balance without them. (I argued baseline Shield could stand some love, even though I knew it would be powerful when powergamed.)

Not enough information. Who else was he competing against? All we know of from your post is Ice/SS, Fire/Kin, and Rad/Rad. What was the rest of the makeup? What was the level spread? How were they built? What about tactics? (ie: Were the other characters getting Fulcrum or not?)For all I know, it was an extremely IOed build competing against a group of characters still leveling up. That's not very compelling.

As for the second paragraph, if I was trying to powergame a group, I'd never have a need for more than one Tanker. A single one can hold more than enough aggro to make aggro holding of a second quite redundant. Even the 'leapfrogging' tactic isn't really necessary - I can do that by myself. When the current group is getting close to defeat I move on to the next spawn while letting the group wipe up the remnants of the last.


Keep in mind I'm not saying I would quit 2 Tank groups or anything silly like that. They can be great fun. I'm saying that multiple Tanks offer less to a group than other ATs.

Note: They added something to Test so that unless you're in Closed Beta, you won't be able to get to the character creator. That means you won't be able to look at it anymore. Actually, if you can, then you're in Closed Beta and can't say what you see there anyways.

This leak about CP was before they took Test down to add the above.