Interesting note: there's already a thread in the scrapper forum complaining about this proposed change: link
Guess it's not too surprising.
Holy Crap! The damage build up and the built in provoke are amazing ideas!
Now THIS is why I love this game!
The devs listen, they test, they plan and they try to do the best they can for the greatest number of people.
I wish you well in your testing and thank you for your efforts!
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Its only possible at levels 40+ as else it requires far too much sacrifice in offensive powers.
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Sorry Znail, its not true. An invuln Scrapper sacrifices nothing to achieve 90% in lethal/smash, fire/cold and energy/neg energy. In fact it frees up 5 slots TI and 4 slots from elemetal and energy resistance. You can 6 slot up to 10 powers after you slot properly for perma-Unstoppable, RPD, elemental and energy resist.
Yes it does take till lvl 40, but eventually most players will be at level 40 or more. Only the most casual players won't make level 40 in a year. The hardcore players have multiple toons at 40+ already.
So it needs to be fixed. I am just curious what the plan for that is.
Overall, this sounds fantastic. As has been said before, buffing one archetype without nerfing another (Scrappers) is definitely the way to go.
This post certainly reinforces that the developers care about maintaing both balance and the unique flavour and coolness of a super-hero MMORPG.
It seems to me that this tanker fix will likely go hand in hand with an across the board increase in foe difficulty. As it stands now, the post-30 game is [apparently, I'm only lvl 26 at the highest] far too easy. So, to make these changes worthwhile, fights will have to last longer.
Which sounds fine to me. Hopefully, it'll encourage (rather than force) more diverse grouping, and overall provide a better game experience.
Can't wait to try out the changes, though I will. 
This sounds great...
The first hero I rolled was a tank because the AT's description best matched my playstyle and personality... but I deleted him because IMO he didn't live up to the description.
When I think tank, I think of The Thing, Colossus (my favorite) and The Hulk.
Your planned mod will breathe new life into the AT for me. I have a shelved lev11 tank that will now get more play.
Thank you.
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1. Tankers will get a "provoke" like AOE effect on their melee attacks. The more a Tanker lands his blows, the more and more mobs he'll attract. The bonus here is that it's not exactly like Provoke (it's not ranged) - but it makes a lot of sense. Some huge monstrosity is bashing the heads of a villain group - they're going to get more and more concerned about taking him/her out....
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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YES.
Egad, man, I was even going to PM you to suggest something exactly like #2. Complete with game mechanics reasons (i.e.: the more protracted the fight, the more a tanker is needed) and the genre reasons (brick heroes don't use their full whammy on every single thug).
This may even work out for PvP later, as the risk of just leaving the tank alone (since he's so hard to kill and so little of a threat) in the beginning is now something to consider. Well done.
The concepts are great! I look forward to seeing the way the numbers work out.
Fears: Will accuracy enhancements become more important to tankers than damage enhancements? Will mezzing become even more rude to tankers, since it denies them their precious damage inertia?
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Its only possible at levels 40+ as else it requires far too much sacrifice in offensive powers.
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Sorry Znail, its not true. An invuln Scrapper sacrifices nothing to achieve 90% in lethal/smash, fire/cold and energy/neg energy. In fact it frees up 5 slots TI and 4 slots from elemetal and energy resistance. You can 6 slot up to 10 powers after you slot properly for perma-Unstoppable, RPD, elemental and energy resist.
Yes it does take till lvl 40, but eventually most players will be at level 40 or more. Only the most casual players won't make level 40 in a year. The hardcore players have multiple toons at 40+ already.
So it needs to be fixed. I am just curious what the plan for that is.
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That still limits it to level 40+ and a Tanker has even more slots to spend on other things. This is a problem with Unstoppable, not with Scrappers.
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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.
So - here's the solution we're going to try internally. We went through a ton of possible solutions, and we weighed each one against how well they answered the three points above as well as how long it would take to get done.
1. Tankers will get a "provoke" like AOE effect on their melee attacks. The more a Tanker lands his blows, the more and more mobs he'll attract. The bonus here is that it's not exactly like Provoke (it's not ranged) - but it makes a lot of sense. Some huge monstrosity is bashing the heads of a villain group - they're going to get more and more concerned about taking him/her out....
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.
Of course, the thought in your minds must be....WHEN?...I'm afraid I don't know. First, we need some code for this. Then we've got to test it thoroughly. Finally, it'll go on the Test Server for awhile to gather data and impressions. This is going to take some time; but I thought you'd like to know at least where we're going, even though we don't know when we'll get there.
Feel free to comment!
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I love you!
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Does this mean the damage cap for tankers will be raised?
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Doubtful. Remember, he said you're not going to equal scrappers in damage. Why would he raise the dmg cap just for one AT?
"I have heard of a place where humans do battle in a ring of jello." -Teal'c.
Statesman = dreamy.
*swoon*
Well from a SS point of view with an attack 6 slotted with SO's and rage running you are only 20% away from the cap as is. Admittedly this will help other secondaries more than us (especially Ice) but with the current enhancements on test server to SS (specifcally Knockout Blow) I cant complain in the least.
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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.
That will also be changing soon.
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Statesman, you've been hinting at changes "coming soon" to deal with lack of challenge at the mid to upper levels for quite a while now. We're clearly talking about the AoE damage issues (ala fire blasters) and the idea you've tossed around about upping minion hp's. But honestly, when is "soon" in your mind? I've been hearing this for weeks now and I don't see anything in update#2 which addresses AoE damage or minion hp's. I'm afraid that if your idea of soon is a couple months from now a lot of my SG will have left the game by then because of the balance inequalities.
Sounds awesome Jack. This really sounds like the character I made when I first started the game. 
I think I saw a post elude to this already, but would that mean we slot our attack powers with Accuracy in order to do more damage? We wouldn't want to miss in order to increase our damage the fastest, or I guess the cap would be raised/lowered depending on Damage slots as well.
Also, another fine tuning thing will be how fast the "enrage" (or whatever you want to call it) lasts. Say I take on a group and beat them while still landing my hits. I move on to the next group. Should I still be hitting as hard as a few seconds ago, a minute, 5 minutes, etc..... How fast the drain is to damage to time...
The Dark Blade
"I've felt your mouse on me before, you perv...." - Troy Hickman
Paragon Wiki
Just wanted to say that I can't wait for these changes to be tested and hopefully implemented, great job and thanks a lot for the updates!
Yes, this sounds like what I want! I certainly think a comic tanker should be holding back. One gorup of Hellions shouldn't be exactly like the next one (even if in game terms they are, from my character's perspective they are not).
Of course, in light of the fact that you're making fights focus on -1 to +1 cons, I guess we should ask if eveyr tanker and scrapper defense is going to be nerfed? Becasue how else could you manage to make such fights challenging to us? I don't want to see every villain and his brother propping Hurricanes...
I would be concerned about AoE powers as I am sure you can forsee. The max damge will be reached very quickly and sustained if AoE has an equal dmg increase as a standard attack.
In addition I see that there is a potential for 1 tanker to draw the agro of many bad guys and continue the amount of damage output for a long period of time. This could be a lot of fun, but it could also be very boring. If 1 hit kills against even con is the result then a combat for a tanker becomes less threatening. 1 hit killing several even con that agro to you from across the room and down the hall will make for a quick, easy, and possibly boring mission. If it's assumed 2 or 3 tankers are working a mission then I believe there may be too much agro on the team of tanks. However, if they are 1 hit killing the badies then the threat is less impressive.
The concern about who is the boss killer is, IMO, a minor one. As a scrapper I like to keep the badies off the defenders and controlers while chewing my way through the bad guys. Usually the blaster targets the boss and gets a lot of agro because of it. If you take note of where the most amount of damage comes from you'll most likely find the greatest percentage comes from the minions. I've changed my stragety to gak the minions first then gak the LTs or bosses. I've noticed I live a lot more often with that strategy.
I forsee a large challenge set forth to the dev team. Best of luck and I look forward to seeing and testing it in the future.
What's going to happen to Tanker Taunt?
My alternative is make it into a huge taunt-effect "Build Up" which works on Challenge, Provoke, and all inherent taunting melee attacks.
Or else a PBAoE.
Or is it just meant to be a power that almost everybody skips.
awesome, hopefully this means my new tanker will be able to solo better than he does now =)
Sounds cool 
Will we see these changes in update 3?
Violence has its own economy. Therefore, be thoughtful and precise in your investment.
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Statesman, you've been hinting at changes "coming soon" to deal with lack of challenge at the mid to upper levels for quite a while now.
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Right after Expansion 2 goes live.
I must say that change #1 is more than welcome. I wouldn't go so far as to say it will make provoke unnecessary, but it will certainly help lighten the load.
#2, eh, I might have been excited about that two months ago. Since then I have had the chance to level up a scrapper and see how well built they are, almost tailor made for the comic book brick role. Is this change really going to give tankers a comic book feel? Guess we'll have to wait and see. I have serious reservations about how this would be implemented. How will AoE attacks scale, and trigger damage buffs? What sort of caps will be put in place to limit tanker damage? I still think most of those looking for a comic book style brick will be searching for something more after this.
Lets face it, tankers are the meatshields. They are quite good at it, and I don't know many scrappers that could tank the way a tanker can. At this point should we really try to shoe horn tankers into something they were not meant to be, the way scrappers were shoe horned into the boss killer role?
Even after this goes in, I still say the best way to get that comic book brick feel is to allow more cross archetype sharing of powers. A SS scrapper will still be what many people are looking for, and would certainly solve the problem of not being able to feel like that comic book brick.
This change is already a move to make tankers MORE like scrappers to make people happy. Why not just allow us to be scrappers to begin with? The mechanics may be different but giving tankers a damage buff per successful hit accomplishes the same thing that criticals did for scrappers, raises your damage over time. Making the two archetypes more similar seems silly to me at this point.
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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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So, now Hasten will become as pervasive for Tankers as it is for Scrappers.
Well, I like the changes, but I still hate Hasten. (I don't hate it, I just hate 75% of all characters having it.)
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Statesman, you've been hinting at changes "coming soon" to deal with lack of challenge at the mid to upper levels for quite a while now.
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Right after Expansion 2 goes live.
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Hmm, that sounds good as then we can see the effect this has first as this may make Tankers needed again and lessen the need for additional changes.
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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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Ah ha! So Accuracy will become a more important buff?
No problem there...