Ultimus

Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane

I tend to look at it like this.

When I'm running my Brute solo and hit a rough patch, I pop a purple inspiration or two and I'm laughing. Or a green or an orange for that matter. I don't suffer any damage penalty of any kind and I don't faceplant.

When I'm running my Brute on a team or league, I'm buffed, healed, still have access to inspirations, and I'm still not faceplanting 96% of the time. And if I'm with a Kin or some Leadership buffs, I'm outputting sick damage. And I know that no matter what new Incarnate powers or IOs are coming down the line, I'm only going to get better offensively and defensively. I feel like, comparatively speaking, the sky is the limit for this character.


When I'm running my Tanker solo, I don't faceplant either. But I'd have to mainline reds for the whole mission to perform as well as the Brute.

When I'm running my Tanker on a team, I'm not faceplanting 98% of the time. I'm not dealing sick damage. I'm against the damage cap with one decent Kin or some Leadership buffs. And I feel like unless an Incarnate ability or IO set arrives that alters damage caps, I'm not really ever going to deal sick damage and probably not even get much better and pushing 98% survivability to 99% is pretty hollow in light of that. I feel like this character has no real future or growth potential in any way I'd want to take them.



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Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus

I'm not convinced they actually need a buff.

I think a lot of players take their massive base mitigation for granted (or downplay it), underestimate their melee contribution in relation to that mitigation (even though they aren't high end damage dealers) and assume that every situation will be fully saturated buffs to the caps.

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus

So, basically a pointless "buff" for Brutes since none of them could ever actually hit that cap.

Good start.




On top of their mitigation, it's too much.

We have Buff/Debuff ATs already, and they aren't gigantic sacks of un-killable HP.

Their attacks could also get more debuffs put in place like bruising. Something akin to Tanker attacks cripple their opponents.

Originally Posted by Rajani Isa

To verify you are hitting the primary target (and getting the defensive bonus) but not seeing bruising take effect?

It shouldnt have a cooldown, it should just not stack.

Originally Posted by dugfromthearth

I'm confused.

Is there some content that a defender can debuff that a corr cannot?
Or that a controller can control but dominator cannot?

There is "can" and there is "better"

I find that the boards are full of arguments about a small fraction of the player base and what is theoretically possible, and requests to change the game for everyone to cater that small group.

Any argument involving IO sets is invalid unless your solution is changing IO sets

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus

And if you buff the Brute defensively to the point where their base mitigation matches a Tanker's, then their offense will need to be nerfed to compensate.

I never want to see that happen.



IMO Tankers are already too survivable to add buffs and debuffs to the AT. They don't need this.

Originally Posted by mauk2

So, World of Walking learned not to screw players from COH, en?

Took them long enough.

In general, though, i view your notions with extreme skepticism.


The superhero genre is very fluid, but the one thematic thing is, every toon is unique.

Your suggestions go against that core thematic, sorry.

Any improvements to tankers should make them MORE unique, not less.

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus

This game is not World of Warcraft.

This game doesn't require any AT to get any content done.


Having specific ATs for things, just makes some of those encounters smoother or easier.


Case in point - I've run wildly successful (read: surprisingly smooth & fast completion) all VEAT BAFs & Lambdas, not an aggro holder in sight.


What you seem to want is to push this game and its ATs more towards WoW and less like CoH, my opinion is that this is an absolutely horrendous idea.

Originally Posted by boppaholic

Flavor should come at a balanced cost. If you allow each AT to have the same hp/res/def, how do you balance the flavors? What level of utility is even with damage? What level of buffs balances with utility/damage? And how do you keep it balanced across all soloing and teaming content? How does it balance with stackability? It a team of 8 debuffing tanks could be made, say good bye to defenders, they won't ever be needed again.

Originally Posted by boppaholic

I'll need verification of this. You are correct that the AV will take 400% more damage than it would had it not been debuffed with -400%. But that doesn't mean the AV is capped yet for -res.

As for the purple patch, I'm not sure. It might not be affected... but then I'll probably need a refresher as to why it is considered extra beneficial that the AV is applying the debuff to itself as opposed to the tanker applying it

Originally Posted by boppaholic

When was the last time a defender or corruptor took an enemy to their resistance cap and it mattered? For the most part that level of debuffing is over kill. And against an AV with the purple patch, you would seriously have to push to get them there. You do not have to seriously push to get a brute to a tankers survivability

Originally Posted by boppaholic

Really? We're using character creation window as evidence for why all hp/res/def caps should be the same?

Let's face it, what you propose is a nerf to the tanker. Resistance, hp and defense is an absolute cap. If we use the same cap for every AT they would be exactly the same at cap. We cant do this for other things, like say everyone now gets the same damage cap. That would hurt all ATs that have lower damage mods (so now brutes would cry foul if it was capped at 500%).

The different mods and caps are to reflect the specialties of the respective AT. Just because an AT can tank doesn't mean they should be able to at the same level as the AT who is supposed to specialize in it. A corruptor can buff, put they shouldn't be able to buff to the same level as a defender. And defenders are not suppose to be able to do the raw damage of a corruptor. Sure, both can blast, but the defender will never blast better than the corruptor. So why is it that the tank can never do the damage of a kheldian or brute, but you believe they can be allowed to maintain the same survivability of a tank? Your reason is to introduce niches. Brutes do damage. Khelds do utility/morph. Tanks do debuffs/buffs. Beyond the resistance debuff, what can a tanker do in terms of buffing/debuffing that makes sense to super heroes or comics? How would captain america Bbws able to make his team do more damage?

Edit: I apologize for the lack of fluidity of ny arguments. Typing this post from a cell phone makes it difficult to keep pace with the thoughts I want to articulate. If I don't make sense, I'll reiterate my arguments more clearly later on. Until then, I hope this suffice

In the end, very little needs to be done. So proposing ideas that are a radical change will never be seriously considered by the Devs. We just need to find where in the fundamental things that are off balanced that need to be tweaked. IMO the best ideas had to do with small damage buffs or better aggro control. It sounds like the aggro formula tweak isn't an easy fix. But those two fundamental ideas are the best proposals I've heard that could actually be implemented and it would generally appease the tankers without a heavy outcry from other ATs. The game has had tankers for 21 issues, since the beginning. The people still love them and still play them. Everyone who has made suggestions here love them, otherwise they wouldn't play them. There are some shortcomings, but balance will not come from an overhaul. It comes with fine tuning

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

If you are thinking in terms of presenting a case to the developers, your initial problem will be with the assumption that tankers, brutes, peacebringers, and warshades are "tanking classes" that all should all have the same tanking potential under buffing. The Tanker is the singular "tanking class" as such, and on the red side the canonical role of tanking was split between brutes and masterminds. Both peacebringers and warshades were given the option to act as pseudo-tankers in their design, but not primary tankers. Their resistance caps are indicative of that, not errantly set too low for a genuine tanker class.

So why specifically peacebringers or brutes should be normalized as "tanking classes" and not, say, scrappers or VEATs, would likely appear arbitrary to the devs.

Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn

Ultimus,

One of the reasons I'm kind of against the idea of making Tankers into melee buff/debuffers is that it's one are where I think that the Devs can make a new AT. Basically, I've seen calls for a (de)Buff/Melee AT before. If we make this kind of change to Tankers, and then get a new AT that is a (de)Buff/Melee AT, then Tankers are back in their current situation.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison

The problem is that very few enemies ever get to 1% health. It's all too often that minions are one shotted, and LTs will be sent from about 25% health to dead.

Originally Posted by boppaholic

Differences between Brutes and Tanks:
While Solo:
I think they are close enough. Brutes do Scrapper damage while still maintaining taunt to keep baddies near them. They also have scrapper level resistance and defense base mods but have the potential to get up to tanker level resist caps. It is harder to get to the caps while solo, whereas a Tank will be able to cap easier or maintain a 33% defense and resistance improvement over a brute with identical slotting. This 33% survivability plus bruising is very much a reasonable tradeoff to fury.

My argument is for teams (or leagues) where it is NOT difficult to reach your cap. Let's say you have a couple of buffers on a team, the difference between survivability of the Tank and Brute are no longer 33%, it's practically nil. The Tank will still have higher hit points (but the percentage of HP advantage isn't much), they are both capped defensively and they are capped in the same resistances (resistances the tanker couldn't cap would still maintain an advantage, but it will be less than 33%). In the end, for typical group play you will see brutes at practically the same survivability levels as a tank. Perhaps not quite as high, but high enough to where they practically can't die. Either way, your defense is the same. But you know what else makes for great defense? A great offense. A tank can't give you that. A brute can. A brute has a hard time getting to it's cap in damage unless you have a kin or a whole lot of buffers, but they will always have a much better offense than a tank. For instance, say you have a tank and he's exactly buffed to his cap. His damage modifier would be .8*4 = 3.2. Let's do a best case scenario for the tank here, let's say he was buffed to exactly 400% so no saturation. With the same enhancing and buffs, but let's assume 70% fury, would have the brute modifier as .75*(4+1.4) = 4.05. That's over 26% improvement over a tank, and this is the best case scenario for a tank. The brute can still continue to climb linearly to .75*(7.75) = 5.8125, which means the brute can potentially climb to over 81% more damage than a tank can possibly do at cap. By doing more damage, you kill faster, which makes you more survivable. So whatever the slight edge in survivability the tank MAY have still had in terms of resistance and HP, is actually wiped away by the fact that the Brute will kill faster thus taking less attacks and damage per mob.

When forming a team, if you have some buffs, you have no need for the tank (with the right IO builds, you don't even need buffers to make brutes nearly on par with tanks in terms of survivability). A brute will do everything a tank can do defensively (other than punchvoke), but will give you 26-81% more damage over a CAPPED tank. You form up a team and people will just go brutes over tanks because they want that extra DPS with nothing lost. This was why outcries for tanks getting boosts or brutes getting nerfed first began. But the devs did change that in a way that makes sense and really does even it out, and that was adding Bruising (so way to go Devs, awesome work as it works thematically and was a simple solution - as opposed to most ideas in this thread). Bruising made the Tank allow the WHOLE team to do 20% more damage on a single target (so Brutes are still best by a lot in crowds, but Tanks are there to take down the really hard AV/GM with ease). Wow. That makes up the 26-81% the one brute would have given you over a damage capped tank.

So Bruising fixed the team issue I mentioned before. Now when I see teams form, they desire a tank. But here's the deal, one tank is all you need. You don't get any more benefits of 2 tanks over 1. After the 1st tank, you fix up your teams with as much DPS and support as you can muster. I don't think this is a problem though, because I like the idea of variety in teams. X-men weren't all Wolverines, or all Cyclops, or all Storms, but a mix of all sorts.

So where am I going with all this? Well... Scrappers, Tanks, and Brutes are actually pretty balanced across each other in both Solo or Team settings (in my opinion). Before bruising I would have said Tanks are completely shafted in teams when Brutes were going around doing their main job but better. Now, it does feel more even, but it feels like Tanks are still slightly below the level of Scrappers/Brutes (again, my opinion). The reason I feel this way is because of the "what does more of the same AT add to the team?" question. Between these three ATs, if you were making a team you would definitely want one tank for bruising (and overall superior survivability), but after that you don't want another tank. You could go with more tanks, but the gains are diminishing (in comparison to what another AT would offer you). But when given the opportunity for multiple scrappers and brutes, their DPS values are gravy, and there is no diminishing return (again in comparison to what another AT would offer you). *A side note, Buffers/Debuffers/Controllers have huge returns on multiples as their stackability makes them absolutely dirty, and could get rid of any need for a variety in their teams - just picture what a team of 8 fire/cold corruptors would do to anything that got in its way, is there a team of 8 scrappers that could muster the same worries?*.

So that's it. I feel like Tanks are slightly less valuable than a Scrapper or Brute because of the diminishing returns theory. But solo, or team, a single tanker is on par I say with a Scrapper or Brute. Overall, I don't think there is any need for a change to tanks, especially not the overhaul suggestions that have been brought up in the thread. If anything, a slight (very slight) damage boost to tanks I think would even out the diminishing returns theory (so it's not so diminishing, but not necessarily linear with Brutes/Scrappers). Otherwise, I liked what someone said before (and I paraphrase) ... you don't need to fix close enough. (I think the line was something like "Perfection is the enemy of good enough").

So there's my reasoning for no change to the ATs. I can understand a very slight change. But we're talking what... 25-50% damage cap increase at most. It's simple. It's only a gain to potential, so it's not an immediate change (an increase to the .8 modifier would be an immediate increase and one I don't like as much). And the damage fits a bit more with what a Tank make's you think of. I think of a hulking hero who can lay a smack down. Sure, maybe he's not as lethal as a scrapper or brute, but you would have to believe that the power of a tanker should be able to do more than what a defender or controller is capped at.

But if a tank can't get a slight increase to the potential damage that they can output. The next argument is reasonable to think, well should a brute have the same resistance potential as a tank? Maybe, maybe not, but it's why I asked the question. But after reviewing deeper as you've made me do, I am more convinced now that the Devs know what they're doing and the balance across ATs is there.

Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn

Ultimus and Bop,

I think I know where you two are going, but would you mind giving me something a little bit more condensed to add to the front posts? I want to make sure I capture your ideas well.

Originally Posted by Aett_Thorn

I can't find my old post on this, but I had at one point proposed a change to Tankers which gave them a power similar to Domination in terms of how it was used. Called something similar to "Battle Commands," it built off of a Tanker's inclination to lead the charge.

Basically, Tankers get a bar that fills up as they are attacked, like a combination of Fury and Domination. When in the 90-100% range, Tankers can click on a new power that was an minor AoE team buff, but affected the Tanker with a stronger buff. While the team may get a decent recharge, EndRed and +DMG buff, the Tanker got a much stronger one. In this way, it would help the Tanker out while solo, but would also help them out on teams. Having two Tankers on the team would mean that they could alternate this buff, or stack it.

Originally Posted by New Dawn

In the bottom part you've lost the Dwarf forms on the Khelds.

But despite that I have very little problem with the way things are now.

I am an attention ***** on a tank, so really the only problem I have is with Brutes getting all the attention vs an AV because "they can" rather than because "they're preventing the team from being compromised" and a Tanker not necessarily able to do a thing about it.

I do trust the Devs a hell of a lot and as a player of all ATs I currently see things as rather fair. Different ATs can assume different roles but just simply ain't as reliable at a role that is another ATs main role. Mileages will vary.