skeelos2

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You have a point but I was thinking along the lines of the Tanks survivability due to hit points from a lucky alpha. However your point stands.

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It's an interesting question. I mean, that's kind of what the testing is all about isn't it? If we have a hard time thinking of tests that are biased in a tank's favor, that says a lot in itself.

I'm thinking that maybe Lusca would be a test in a tanks favor. It can hit hard with area attacks and ranged attacks. I wonder if we can get the devs to give us a pet Lusca to play with for awhile?

Another possible test in a tanks favor might be a team made of:
1 Tank
2 Peacebringers
1 Blaster or Scrapper
1 Defender

The reason is that the team has lots of damage, but with 2 PBs you'll have voids, quants, and maybe a crystal or 2. I think that team will be far better off with a tank than any other AT.

Or maybe some of the TFs/Trials lean heavily in a tank's favor. Every team I can remember doing a TF/Trial with has wanted a tank.

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That's an interesting thought. What would be tests that would be biased in the tank's favor? Pocket defenders?

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Any s/l AV.

Pocket Defenders/Controllers

for two options

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Not sure about the def/trollers. Why would a test with a pocket def for a tank be biased vs a pocket def for a scrapper for instance?

Jagged:
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Ah! See a lot of us thought we were front line troops as well, but Statesman came along and put us right on that one. We are a Support AT (apparently)

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Tanks have always been a support AT because damage is everything in CoH. Aside from a few missions, you must do damage to advance and succeed, there is no other way. The job of the support ATs is to keep the damage dealers alive and doing as much damage as fast as possible. A tank is not a damage dealing AT, it is a support AT which just happens to operate up close and personal in melee range.


TomTrumpinski:
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I am not trying to prove anything, specifically. If I was, I would be worried about biasing the test.

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Why? The devs don’t worry about it when they test. Heh, just couldn’t resist.

As for enemies, I know you’ve pretty much ruled out Freaks, but you might want to reconsider. Maybe we should have them in there because they tend to be fairly easy for all types of tanks. They would make a good baseline I think. As for the others, I’d say if one of the things we might show is that any AT can be made into a tank with buffs, it might be interesting to see how well that premise holds up against strong debuffers.

I didn’t have time to check my alts last night, but I think I don’t have any that are in that narrow level range you’re looking for. I have some alts below 32 and some above 34. So that raises another question, are the tests going to be without any sk’s or exemps?

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The "consensus" isn't so much that Tanks aren't meatshields, its more that, if that's the role the devs want Tanks to play in the game, they've not provided the proper tools for doing so with a reasonable modicum of success. At least not one that makes a Tanks participation in a team environment more palatable that any other AT.

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The intent of the testing isn’t clear to me at this point. It’s somewhat difficult for me to keep on top of the separate discussions/opinions/decisions within the thread. I think TomTrumpinski wants to show that a tank can be replaced by any other AT in a team and the team will perform better - that’s how I’m reading his posts. I’m not sure if he’s saying that means a tank is still a meatshield or not, though he did say we had moved beyond the scranker/meatshield roles, without it being clear to me what exactly he’s pointing to as the tank’s role then.

To put it a different way, I think the devs haven’t changed their stance that tanks are meatshields, but what they mean by meatshields appears to have changed. Whereas before, meatshield meant take all or almost all of the aggro for an entire team, now it means take more aggro than anyone else on the team. So are we trying to show that the meatshield concept is still a good one, but the amount of team aggro a tank can take is insufficient? Or are we trying to show that the meatshield concept is obsolete? Or is it something else?

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Overall, testing with a bugged core power in a powerset invalidates the test. Wait until they get the bug fixed, then either include Invuln in the test, and if you've already run it, go back and test Invuln

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Certainly doing the testing with a bugged power isn’t the way I’d prefer it, but I think it’s better than ignoring invul altogether. Of course I don’t have any hard numbers, but it seems to me that invuls still make up a higher percentage of team tanks than any other primary. If we’re trying to demonstrate something that is applicable to all or most tanks, particularly in a team setting, then it’s kind of hard to omit Invuls, unless a convincing argument can be made that Invul w/o US will be a lot Ice. I guess it depends on how quickly the devs get around to fixing the bug.

Is the bug in Invic applicable to both the tank and the scrapper version? I don't know, but if so, then it is still a vaild test.

And yes, making an offensive build and a defensive build does put them back in the skranker/meatshield roles, and that's exactly the point. As far as I know, no redname has come out and explicitly said that a tanks role is no longer to be a meatshield. It seems to me the first thing to do is to demonstrate that a tank (other than a Stoner in Granite) can no longer fulfill that role on a continuous basis. Just because the consensus on the boards is that tanks aren’t meatshields doesn’t mean the devs agree.

If you leave out Invul because of the Invic bug, how are you going to demonstrate where tanks stand? What I mean is, I think you need to be careful that the testing doesn’t reduce to demonstrating limitations of a specific set.

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I think this is a good idea, DO as far as it goes, but I think the pentad team is a bit too small to get the most out of it.

Now, we might consider a six-person team to start with one of each AT plus a Peacebringer. This will kick up the mission difficulty by +1 and provide even more flexibility.

One of the more important things to look at from an anecdotal standpoint is how the roles of the other ATs shift depending on who the sixth AT is. Does the team suddenly get safer in some cases? Is so much damage being handed out that the team walks through the mission? Is aggro not a problem anymore with one AT?

I also like the level 32-37 range for a starting area. Each AT has it's level 9 Primary but no Epics nor level 9 secondary.

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The testing sounds like it might be interesting, and depending on the timing etc, add me to the list of possibles to help out.

The very thing that is so attractive about CoH is the variety of builds, and that is going to make it very difficult to get any meaningful results unless your goals are very specific and well defined.

This is a post where Statesman affirms the roles of each AT:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...art=7&vc=1

Note that it is dated 5/25/05, which means that is the breakdown of the ATs with I5 and ED in mind, because of this post which says ED was in mind since March 2005:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...o=&fpart=1

So if both of those posts are true and correct, then the role of the tank is still to be meatshield. It also says that scrappers specialize in soloing. I think you should keep the initial testing as simple as possible. Namely, put together a 4 man team:
1 Blaster
1 Controller
1 Defender
1 Tank

Use an Invul/SS tank and use a build that is as defense oriented as possible. Then use the same team but build the tank as offensive oriented as possible. Hopefully, this will give some idea of whether it is the tanks primary or secondary which is providing usefullness to the team. Next, use the same tank and build it for soloing and do the test again. Lastly, replace the tank with a MA/Invul scrapper built for soloing. I suggest Invul/SS and MA/Invul because they are about as similar as you're likely to get.

A comparison of those results should give you an idea of where to branch off in your testing.

You violated your own rules for the thread Salesman. Just what exactly does the reduction to mob accuracy have to do with Ice Tanks that doesn't also apply to all other ATs? Or are you saying that these reductions to mob accuracy apply solely to Ice Tanks as some sort of super secret inherent power that Ice Tanks have?

Oh, and the only time you can honestly say I'm crying is after I've been slicing onions.