Jack.... I take it all back. All the comments about you not listening to us, all the snipes about Staesman being an Epic AT, thus making you blind to real tankers concerns.
I didn't think you could renew my faith in you, but that just did it.
The one and only problem I see with this is since battles are so short in the 30+ game, tankers aren't going to see that damage build-up much. However, you have said you are going to be looking into AoE issues. On seeing this, I beleive you may just do it.
Just please, don't delay this till the NEXT Update. I understand coding and testing take time, but the longer the current situation stands, the fewer tankers that are going to be around by the time any changes go through, save for some of us tanker die-hards (no pun intended) that will play a tanker no matter what.
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As promised, I've been looking into the issues facing Tankers; I thought I'd explain the direction we're going. As we analyed it, Tankers have three very valid concerns (aside from the issues with specific power sets):
1. Without Provoke, they are not a real Tanker. Those people who enjoy the MMP role of "meat shield" have trouble holding aggro properly.
2. The Tanker's defense stats can be matched by a properly slotted Scrapper - but the Tanker can not approach the Scrapper in damage.
3. The Tanker doesn't "feel" like a comic book Tanker should. And frankly, this one really, really bothered me. Because our game is a comic book MMP.
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This is SUCH good news. As the instigator of the now-famous tanker scrapper war over defense caps, I am especially thrilled to see #2 acknowledged by a dev. Statesman, thank you. I also love the PBAOE provoke idea for all tanker attacks--in fact, I first proposed that at least a couple months back.
In short, WOOT.
I was just thinking.
Would this be denoted by lets say a Rage bar? It might take some longer to "cool down".
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I mean, does your damage build for each successive attack on the same enemy, or does it build over the course of a single battle? If I fight and kill three enemies, and then run over to another group ten feet away, do I lose all my accumulated power? None of it? What?
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Essentially, each hit (if successful) will give you a short term damage buff. Different powers would have different buffs; but if you could string enough hits together you can "peak" your damage.
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Why not give tankers a RAGE bar that indicates how much of a bonus they are getting, have the RAGE bar go up from damage taken and damage dished out then you get special abilities that pop up when you have enough rage you can then unleash on something, thats how tankers are in the comics. Whats that you want to nuke the hulk? go ahead and whatch him after it happens
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Good point - both the AoE inherent taunt and the increaseing damage need a very mild, but obvious visual clue as to their occurance - nothing terribly obscuring, but perhaps the existing provoke/taunt SFX could be used, as well as a RAGE message that flashes when your damage gets upped, similar to how scrappers get a Critical message - and for the tankers, a rage bar that shows how far upped you are and when you come down...
I'm excited!
53 Bots/FF/Mace Mastermind | 53 NRG/FF/Electricity Defender | 50 Time/Dual Pistols/Soul Defender | 50 Demons/FF/Mace Mastermind | 51 Necro/Dark/Soul Mastermind | 50 Thugs/Time/Mace Mastermind | 50 Ice/Ice/Arctic Tanker | 50 Plant/Rad/Earth Controller | 50 Illusion/Trick Arrow Controller | 50 Gravity/Force Field Controller
Yes, I like Force Fields.
I wonder how the timer for extra damage is going to be calculated, though. If it's a cooldown timer between hits on enemies, I can see Tankers exhibiting druggie-like behavior, flitting from scrub minion to minion so they can get their one-shot "hit" and keep their damage high.
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I mean, does your damage build for each successive attack on the same enemy, or does it build over the course of a single battle? If I fight and kill three enemies, and then run over to another group ten feet away, do I lose all my accumulated power? None of it? What?
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Essentially, each hit (if successful) will give you a short term damage buff. Different powers would have different buffs; but if you could string enough hits together you can "peak" your damage.
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Wow, now it's a balancing act:
Acc?
Dam?
Rech?
Any chance of more than six slots per power? 
An impressive concept for the solution. I look forward to helping test this out when you folks are ready.
And, as others have said, thank you to all of Cryptic for keeping the players "in the loop" as you have.
Does this mean the damage cap for tankers will be raised?
Feel free to correct me if i'm wrong but isnt the damage cap on all attacks 300% of the base? If thats the case will your proposed changes still be limited by this cap?
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Buff to Tankers + no nerf to Scrappers = Great job devs.
Good luck Tankers, I hope this happens for you guys.
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How cool is that for you tankers and scrappers!!
I applaud the proposed changes to the tankers it is a great fix. good job.
My question is the speed of combat, since I am now lvl 29 tanker, I have found blasters will destroy a foe before I can aproach. The only thing I can do is play cleanup. I don't know if this has been addressed in this thread or not
Great idea, guys.
I love the direction you are going.
My tank always runs in first to get all the aggro, and I'm constantly spinning the camera around to make sure no baddies are going for my team, and if so, I try to aggro them off.
The design changes you are discussing definately make me feel more like I could perform my role better.
Keep up the good work! 
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I mean, does your damage build for each successive attack on the same enemy, or does it build over the course of a single battle? If I fight and kill three enemies, and then run over to another group ten feet away, do I lose all my accumulated power? None of it? What?
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Essentially, each hit (if successful) will give you a short term damage buff. Different powers would have different buffs; but if you could string enough hits together you can "peak" your damage.
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Yep, druggie Tankers trolling for things to hit. 
Wonder how AoE will be handled here, especially constant emitting toggles like Icicles. Free continual damage booster? Will the bonus only be applied on actively used attacks and not toggles or, say, a Burn patch?
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2. As a Tanker lands more and more blows, he'll start doing more and more damage. The longer the fight, the more powerful the Tanker becomes. I can't say that the Tanker will do as much damage as a Scrapper - but it'll certainly be more than he does now. This ability really gets to the core of a comic book Tanker. He's extremely powerful - but at the start of a fight, he holds himself back some. As the battle progresses, he lets loose....I prefer this system to a power because this way it's inherent. It's simply the nature of the Archetype. And it also sets the Tanker apart from the Scrapper's criticals.
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This somewhat worries me. It will most likely be minor or else it will be too large for the better tanker sets. One of the larger problems with Tankers are the imbalance between the diffrent sets. But if the idea is to add a bit of fluff similar to the 5% crits of Scrappers, then its not likely to be more then minor.
After chewing on this a bit I have one major question:
How will Provoke duration be handled since we cannot slot taunt duration in our melee attacks.
or will we be able to?
This sounds very promising. I especially like that taunt is not artificial, but driven by a (semi)real threat.
I'll hop on TS and test it out the very second I'm able!
Huzzah!
(Yes, I said, "Huzzah!")
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I mean, does your damage build for each successive attack on the same enemy, or does it build over the course of a single battle? If I fight and kill three enemies, and then run over to another group ten feet away, do I lose all my accumulated power? None of it? What?
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Essentially, each hit (if successful) will give you a short term damage buff. Different powers would have different buffs; but if you could string enough hits together you can "peak" your damage.
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I was hoping you would do it this way, and not with some form of 'fill-up' bar (which could get horribly abused in gameplay) - the only thing I would be careful of is making the bonus long enough to be useful to all secondaries (Axe is the main one I am thinking of here, being a bit slower than the others). With the promised toughening up of higher level combats (just make them as proportionately difficult as the new Hollows mob groups, that would be perfect 
) Tankers of all forms are looking to be coming into their own at last.
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Essentially, each hit (if successful) will give you a short term damage buff. Different powers would have different buffs; but if you could string enough hits together you can "peak" your damage.
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When I first read this I was indifferent, but when you think about it, then its a really really cool idea.
It will make it a lot more fun to be a tanker, which can be quite boring at times. Suddenly you can think a lot more tactically.
For example the Fake Nemisis use their invulnerable FF when they get really low on health but it takes a few seconds to form. So if you plan your fight really well you can hurt him somewhat and then suddenly turn on him when you are really worked up and down him before the super FF works.
Also I think you should considder implementing this for tank boss'es. Right now you basically ignore them until the end of the fight (unless you are an invul tanker/scrapper of course) but if they get increasingly stronger if you leave them alone then you have to use more tactics against them making the game more challenging (without using more of that damned CC )
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That change will not do much good in a group setting at higher levels. The combats don't last all that long.
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That will also be changing soon.
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How soon States?!! I have a lvl 37 Inv/En tank and I can go toe to toe with 42-43s as all other tanks can. It would be great at higher lvls if we actually had to use some tactics in a mission instead of just running in and smashing.
I hope you are not just increasing mob health but also increase the amount of villians in a solo mission. It is much more fun when you have to worry about debt then just trying to find that glowie.
Once again love the changes coming up.
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2. As a Tanker lands more and more blows, he'll start doing more and more damage. The longer the fight, the more powerful the Tanker becomes. I can't say that the Tanker will do as much damage as a Scrapper - but it'll certainly be more than he does now. This ability really gets to the core of a comic book Tanker. He's extremely powerful - but at the start of a fight, he holds himself back some. As the battle progresses, he lets loose....I prefer this system to a power because this way it's inherent. It's simply the nature of the Archetype. And it also sets the Tanker apart from the Scrapper's criticals.
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This somewhat worries me. It will most likely be minor or else it will be too large for the better tanker sets. One of the larger problems with Tankers are the imbalance between the diffrent sets. But if the idea is to add a bit of fluff similar to the 5% crits of Scrappers, then its not likely to be more then minor.
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An easy way to fix these issues is as follows:
Work out the peak Scrapper DPS. For simplicity, stick with melee attacks. (Sorry Burn Tankers, you get no love aside from better aggro.) This peak is now the maximum all Tankers can hit.
ALL Tankers. The less-damaging secondaries take longer to get there, but all tankers can reach Scrapper damage eventually.
This in no way dethrones Scrappers as the kings of damage, since they get their huge numbers right from the start, and Criticals are gravy on top.
All tanks, regardless of secondary, now have the potential to be slaying machines. Eventually. The more damaging sets get there quicker, but they tend to reach peak less often as the foes go down sooner.
Nice, eh?
Ok the Damage and the Provoke, but what about Scrapper defenses ?
Sounds like a good plan Statesman.
I was actually discussing with some friends the other day about how in comics Super Strength Heroes tend to hold back their full power as they feel out the enemy - you usually want to arrest/capture the bad guy - not snap him like a twig.
I was looking at having the Tanker secondaries effect the damage resistence of the more tough bad guys - sort of like the Super Strength Tank holds his strength back when fighting a Crey Medic but when he fights the Crey Power Tank he unleashes his full strength and in game terms ignores a percentage of the damage resistence that the Crey Power Tank has (was looking at say halving the damage resistence).
But your plan sounds like fun as well - good work.
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2. The Tanker's defense stats can be matched by a properly slotted Scrapper - but the Tanker can not approach the Scrapper in damage.
Feel free to comment!
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Not true if you are a dark armor scrapper, since our armor doesn't stack. Since you are making tankers more offensive, can we make armor stack so scrappers are more defensive? Tankers will get more offense the more they hit/longer they fight; scrappers will get more defense the more they hit/longer they fight.
If that doesn't work for you, then I'll wash your car (and Geko's too!) if you let me stack 2 dark armor toggles (just 2, not 3, not asking for the world here). 
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Not for nothing but Ice and Stone tanker have armors that don't stack. If they chance Ice and Stone then I am all for seeing Dark Armor gets a similar change. It wouldn't be fair to make DA protection stackable while there are tanker sets that cannot stack.
Captain Booth - Necro / Storm Mastermind
Operative Cole - Soldier of Arachnos
Tango One - Fire / SS Tanker
I like it! Thanks Statesman
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California Smog(CoV)
Far Rider
Durango Dave
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That change will not do much good in a group setting at higher levels. The combats don't last all that long.
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That will also be changing soon.