I just have one question.
Do you recognize that by making all mobs groups spam Holds/Stuns (plus endurance drain) over level 40 from outside melee range that you have effectively designed the rooted tankers out of existence?
Ummmmm sweet. I take back everything bad I ever said.
/e hides head in shame and wanders off looking for a deep hole. 
This really sounds great, I have an energy melee/invuln tanker and would love to see this. One of the things that annoyed me about my tank was the endurance usage of tanks, They used too much endurance, especailly fighting solo. I see that Update 2 will fix this, and with this also will make tanks fun to play.
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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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This totally rocks, I didn't mind doing the provoke thing, but I will definitely look forward to maybe getting rid of it and playing more like a comic Tank and the long drawn out battles against overwhelming odds =D.
My only concern is that I hope the aggro component of the attacks get a high degree of accuracy, up to even if you miss you still draw aggro. I use icicles along with SS punches now to also help gain aggro and I find against the higher level opponents (+3, +4) it is useless for that purpose because I miss too much and I still have to fall back on Provoke because the high acc of Provoke still lets me keep things off the head of my team. I have Icicles slotted with one SO acc, one SO end redux, and 4 SO damage. My SS attacks are all slotted with one SO acc also.
Great news StatesDude. That will bring tankers back up to the level where you can actually find one for teaming. Excellent. Thanks.
Ok, so the only possible reason to play a Tanker over a Scrapper is for this aoe taunt? He just admitted that a Scrapper can have the same defense as a Tanker. What am I missing here? Tanker should have at least 30 % better defense than the best Scrapper.
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Ok, so the only possible reason to play a Tanker over a Scrapper is for this aoe taunt? He just admitted that a Scrapper can have the same defense as a Tanker. What am I missing here? Tanker should have at least 30 % better defense than the best Scrapper.
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No he didn't, go back and read it carefully. What he said was accurate and very specific and does not mean what you think it means.
"The Tanker's defense stats can be matched by a properly slotted Scrapper"
Like I said tanker should have much better defense than the best Scrapper.
THIS SOUNDS AWESOME!
CAN I GET IT NOW? *chuckles*
All this with the quick fixes of update 2 ought to make tankers even more a blast to play! THANKS STATESMAN SIR!!!
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"The Tanker's defense stats can be matched by a properly slotted Scrapper"
Like I said tanker should have much better defense than the best Scrapper.
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50% more HP. Ah, but of course "HP don't matter"...
When HP don't matter, your defenses are too powerful, no matter what archetype you are. Besides, not all Scrappers are Invulnerability Scrappers. 
Curse you Jack Emmert.
Every time I feel justified in quitting this damn game, you come up with something that makes me want to resub.
I have to seriously say that I'm glad you found a way to offer some fixes to Tanks that makes the "Comic Book" feel even stronger. I just want to say thanks.
Okay, so when these changes come through, I'll have to add accuracy to my attacks, in addition to the Taunt enhancements I have to add so that I can once again get knockback.. hmmm... So my six slotted beheader will be slotted with one recharge, one accuracy, one endurance reduction, one taunt, and two damage.
Honestly, this seems like a perfect boost for tanks if you can pull off the coding.
Kudos to you
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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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Yeah I am a tank without Hasten and I don't like how everyone and their dog has it either. I think I could tolerate it if I could color the effect blue instead of gold. My Ice/SS build sucked so much end Hasten was just out of the question for me anyway and conceptually I didn't like it for my Tank. (Not that I don't appreciate all the ubery goodness of it, I either have or am working toward perma-hasten on all my other builds) Variety is a good thing...wish there were more pools with something really good in the first tier power like that.
Statesman - You've got a winner, here. I had been hoping for improvements along these lines, but wasn't sure how exactly they could be implemented. Truly, you and your team know how to finesse an idea to make it workable.
I would be sure to rigorously plan and test for how this would affect Tanker melee Cone and AoE attacks. I can easily see Tankers landing a number of blows to get a huge group of enemies surrounding them, building up their damage rating, and then letting loose with their AoE attack.
I like it a lot!
that said, I have a couple questions.
Is it your goal to get this out between update 2 and 3? or are we looking at 2-3 months with update 3?
I would really hope we could get tanks to the level of coolness you described before most of the tanks on out there reach level 50 the without it.
Also, now that you have sort of settled into a good plan for making tanks a great AT, will you be looking into some of the power set issues? such as super strength, Ice and stone tanks? if so would we be looking at one big tank patch?
I wouldn't mind waiting a few extra weeks for a major tank push if it meant all the power sets would be balanced as well.
One issue I haven't heard much addressed by statesman is the toggle dropping by a lot of mobs out there, especially post 40. When a tank runs in and gets stunned and then drops like a rock within 2 seconds... well.. they don't feel very super.
People have been working around this with teleport and unyeilding stance and unstoppable, but it doesn't feel very super. Mind you that's not a gripe, just a note that when people see that tank drop in 2 seconds because he got chain stunned and killed in 2 seconds, it doesn't make a very good ad for wanting a tank on your team. The only reason I bring it up is that you seem to be very open to making tanks more team viable right now and I thought that some stort of stun resistance would go a long way.
Thank you for reading. I really do like the changes and can't wait to see them in action. I'm just a little curious about some of the details 
Statesman, I absolutely adore what you and the rest of the dev team has come up with, I just still see one minor problem: Scrappers still can reach Tanker defense...
In your first post you said that even though this new ability to deal more damage over time, Tankers still won't be able to match Scrapper damage (which we shouldn't be able to do), but the Scrappers can still reach Tanker defense... So really all these changes do is increase Tanker damage and get rid of the necesity (sp?) of Provoke...
My suggestion would be that if Tanker max defense is say 90/100 (I'm making up numbers), then Scrappers max defense should be somewhere in the 70-80 range... Yea Scrappers will be pissed, but for the sake of game balance it has to be done IMO... You simply can't give Tankers the damage output of Scrappers as everyone knows, and if Scrappers continue to be able to reach Tanker defense, then the brilliant changes that you came up with are really quite useless because a Scrapper can still reach Tanker defense while dealing much more damage...
The only other thing I can think of is increasing the damage scale that mobs work on and then inturn increase Tanker defense... This way the Scrappers don't get a nerf, but their defense won't be able to reach Tanker-like effectiveness...
But nonetheless Statesman, the changes are great and I hope that everything goes according to plan...
there is a dmg cap.. And you know what.. if a tanker can over time get on par with scrapper.. eh why not? Cause right now my BS/INV scrapper is just as good as any tanker right now.. But I'm really looking forward to seeing these changes, sounds awesome.
I think I have given you DEVs/Designers a bad rap over your concept and implementation of the tanker. I knew that being a tanker would illustrate to you the problems inherent to the AT, but I am really surprised that you nailed it so well.
For the record, I am invalidated by a Spines/Inv scrapper in my group. She is tougher than me in the ways that matter most except, oddly enough, when it came to an AV battle. I was the one that could almost effortlessly stand up to the AV without fear.. (well, a little fear of the unstoppable timer, but i like risk). So scrappers can't ALWAYS fill the role of a tank in missions, and it looks like maybe, just maybe, we might be able to reclaim some of our tankability during hunts as well.
Anyway, thanks for listening Statesman, your proposal is proof positive that you not only listened, but are hearing correctly too.
I am a tanker, plain and simple. I can't do much else and stay interested. As a tanker, this game was quickly growing tiresome but now I can't wait for your changes, CoH has become fun for me again.
If a "properly-slotted" scrapper can attain tanker defenses, then I see no reason that a "properly-slotted" tanker can't reach scrapper damage capacity. That's wholesome yin-yang game balance right there.
The two ATs still have their roles defined by their inherent special abilities: scrappers crit things (primarily high-ranking things) and tankers aggro things.
I'd even be comfortable with letting a tanker with his maximum damage buff have more raw damage than a scrapper, since in theory ramping damage that high would be very situational. Scrappers, on the other hand, always have that chance to crit for double damage.
I have a few concerns about this.
1) Tanks damage from my experience isn't actually that much lower then scrappers if you invest the slots in them so adding damage per hit may be excessive. This does disallow criticals but from experience criticals don't pop up often enough to be relied on.
2) No one else seems to understand that the life difference of the tank compared to a scrapper does make a difference to what they can do yet it never gets brought up.
3) Scrappers end up investing a lot more slots into defensive skills (looking at invun scrap to invun tank) which I would have thought should balance that out.
Mebbe when the self-buff damage nears peak, there could be some screen shake, similar to the effect of a Stone tanker attack ... I love that hammah ....
Also, a little blurring of the fists/weapon, a little *BWOOOMPH!!* noise. Rar!
Just 3 things to think about in reply (do not take this as an attack in any way, just other things to think about);
1) Parsing damage from reasonably high (mid-30s) tanks and scrappers puts tanker damage significantly power than scrappers (far far below the 75% 'target'). At that time scrappers were, interestingly, running at less than 70% of blaster damage as well. I used to think exactly as you did until I went out and got some hard data.
2) Some of us do 
That is the main difference I was trying to get Ballzy to notice several posts ago, and that Captain_Silven did see, between what Statesman is actually saying and what some people think he is saying. As things are right now, HP doesn't matter a whole lot - that is going to change once the post-Issue 2 revamp comes into play. It is clear, however, that Statesman is aware of the HP difference, and the difference between having the same defence stats and being able to tank as well.
3) The underlying issue pointed out has been that, while scrappers could pick up powers to raise their defenses to tanker levels, there was no corresponding way for tankers to reach scrapper damage levels. Now, as usual, there were too many arguments at the extreme in any discussions on that, but the slot usage was not enough to balance things out (although it did make it closer than some extremists would admit to). Adding in a controlled, tanker only way to help redress the damage potential difference to target levels, at the same time as giving a much more comic-book feel, is an exceptional solution in concept - we just have to hope the implementation lives up to that.
Although I post mostly in the tanker forums, and I am a tanker first, I am very much a scrapper second and third (and fourth and fifth). If I felt these ideas would negatively impact on the play of my scrappers (one of each defence set) then I would be saying so, believe me. From my own data, parsing and experience, it would take a very large (and obviously too big) buff to bring tankers up to scrapper levels in practical terms.
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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....
Feel free to comment!
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Statesman, I have a concern about one of the upcoming changes.
Having restarted a second SS/Inv Tanker not long ago, Ive been recently reminded of how tough certain villain groups (Vahzilok) are to a lower level Tanker. A young Tankers ability to mitigate damage is nowhere near as effective as it can be later on in their career. Also, a Tanker is not fully a Tanker until level 20, and the closer he is to level 1 the more hes just a generic hero that is slowly transforming into his archetype. This is true of all archetypes between 1 and 20, as you know.
So, younger Tankers have the problem of only being partial-Tankers until theyve completed their shift fully over to the Tanker tables, and are facing very dangerous opponents (Vahzilok) during that time. My opinion has always been that around level 10-20 is the toughest range of levels in your game. Because of this, frrequently my new Tanker has had to rely on the tactic of spreading the agro around when facing some of these exceptionally difficult (Vahzilok) opponents, something my teammates have been very willingly helpful with and supportive of. Theyve seen how fast my health drops when, say, ten Vahzilok are spitting on me. However, they know if they use their powers to distract a fair percentage of those Vahzilok, I can manage a much smaller group of them and slowly but steadily take them down. They are also not exactly slouches in evading damage themselves, and know I can pull a villain off them at a moments notice if they get in over their heads.
At moments like these, it would be suicidal to use an AoE provoke, much less one that happens with every swing. If this kind of uncontrollable AoE taunting had been linked to my attacks, I would have most certainly either been visiting the inside of a hospital a whole lot more, or attacking a whole lot less.
I like what youre trying to accomplish with this move, I just want you to remember that younger Tankers (at least in the Invulnerability line) are not the indestructible machines that they are later on in their careers (especially depending on their slotting and the order of their power choices).
The inability to control when you do an area effect provoke (short of ceasing your attack, which is actually counter productive to your other mentioned Tanker change) has the potential to make life extremely dangerous for Tankers early in their career. Im not suggesting you drop the idea, simply that you keep this problem in mind when working out the details of this concept. Maybe itll be as simple as having the artificial AoE Provoke be very weak in effect at lower levels and grow in strength from there (which is pretty much how the artificial taunt on Tanker attacks works now). Im not sure, its definitely something that will need a lot of testing and tweaking to find that line between a young Tankers advantage and a young Tankers curse.
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One issue springs to mind, the role of scrappers as "boss beaters". Some of the longest fights in the game are against arch-villains, and most boss fights tend to be a bit long also--meaning tankers will be doing a lot more damage in those fights. Will tankers become the teammate of choice when taking on an arch-villain, due to combat length?
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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.
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I think this should answer your question. Take into account the fact that tanker damage, even with the "combat progression buff" will not surpass that of a scrapper and the fact that scrapper crits are getting a percentage upgrade against bosses and LTs and that role should be safe.
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One, wouldn't this make tankers more like the boss-killers?
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I think this would actually leave Scrappers as the 'standard' Lt/Boss-killers, and make Tankers able to be the AV-killers. Scrappers' damage would still be ahead of Tankers', so I doubt there's any concern of them losing THAT function.
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Two, is this going to exacerbate the herding mentality?
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This is what I am worried about as well, as it was the first thing that came to my head upon reading this idea.
Overall, though, I am quite smitten with the solution. Encouraging Tankers to actually attack in groups instead of just standing there shouting out ugly words at the enemies, while simultaneously fulfilling their 'damage magnet'-role. And enabling them to solo better while making them useful in long-lasting group fights. Is a great idea, soon as the details are worked out.
My tankers - Vulcan Frost and Alcatraz - give you a big kiss Stateman!