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These debates sound like cut-and-paste versions of the old Controller concerns that they were unnecessary because of the Tankers ability to control things, the arguments that got Taunt and Provoke to briefly require accuracy enhancements to get them to land.
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Those controller concerns were spot on. How can you tell?
How common was a total team wipeout, except for the tanker, and then the tanker being last man standing would wait for the team to come back from the hospital, in the middle of the enemies being attacked?
While cool when it happened, it really should never have happened.
If you would target through the tanker, the controller had no particular use for their control. There would be damage mitigation that a tanker didn't need, and so controllers were down to their damage abilities or second rate defender status.
The current tanker dilemma is a little different. Tanker damage is certainly overshadowed vastly. Tankers can draw aggro that a controller isn't mitigating, but needs a fair amount of support to survive said aggro. They also have little choice but to draw aggro (an option controllers have). Tankers are self buffing, but their buffs are weaker than Defenders, and don't affect multiple characters (defenders can't affect themselves).
Pretty much any character can draw aggro. With enough buffing, any character can generally tank (draw aggro and stand and take damage). A tank should be able to perform their function AT LEAST as well as a buffed scrapper, since a buffed tanker can NOT deal out damage as well as a buffed scrapper. This is most true in the high end game, but the more I read from the devs, the more it seems to me that they believe the high end game is simply not a priority.
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What it sounds like to me is that you are setting up tests centered around a meatshield role. This is okay for a single datapoint, but misses that that role is exactly the one that has shrunk. Certainly there is the contention that scrappers can perform as meatsheilds just as well, but more important is that a meatshield with our meagre capabilities can be replaced with a buffer who can render the entire team into pseudo tanks, thus making the meatshield role moot.
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Well, I understand this, but it gets back to Tom's main point - what else is there besides the meatshield role? If we're going to play like Statesman did and just taunt a few mobs while the team does their thing on the rest, do we even need to run tests? We already know a scrapper can do that, especially an Invuln one; or a controller can lock down those mobs. I guess I don't understand how testing anything other than the meatshield role will be useful.
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Well Tanks don't have anything else to do besides meatshield and scrank. But what I am saying is that another character, say a defender, could definately bring a lot to a team with a low level of existing support, that would render a meatshield moot. Meatshields are often not necessary, now more than ever.
If you set up your team/tests specifically to test meatshield and aggro control ability, you miss this important subtlety: It is not so much that we are no longer have the best potential to be a meatshield. It is that such a character is never in a situation where such a role is useful or where a tanker's abilities prove more than marginally more helpful.
/demorecord, while not gospel since it can be hacked, is a good tool for reviewing what really happened, and letting other sufficiently geeky folks figure it out too.
I agree that what should be tested here is team contribution, not meatshield capability. Does tanker damage help much or not? While we may "think" we know the answer to be "No," we may be surprised.
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I guess I don't understand how testing anything other than the meatshield role will be useful.
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I appreciate what you guys are trying to set up here really I do. Even testing the meatshield role is a moot point though I think. If Statesman's example is to be considered the new role of the tanker, we already know it is inadequate and bugged. He does too. It makes me wonder what else they have in store for us we don't know about yet that will make his example meaningful.
Lets look at what has happend the last couple of Issues. Many of us knew that if they nerfed tanker defenses it would lead to a domino effect of nerfing for the rest of the game. For instance say this post:
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from Nozybida 06/02/2005 Issue 6 - Today:
Yep, spot on. I laid it out on a thread on the tanker forum, but I'll say it here too.
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If you lower Tanker and Scrapper defenses all of the sudden it is going to be far preferable to have defenders and Controllers do the job. That'll lead to further nerfing of Defender Primaris and Controller Secondaries. Then of course Controller Primaries are seriously over the top for anything the team can reasonably fight, and as noted by Statesman fighting statues isn't fun. So we'll see controller Primary nerfs too. Of course Blaster, Scrapper, and pet Controller's offenses can turn mobs at the new fighting range into dust in seconds and again make Tankers and Defenders not very useful, so all of those will get nerfed to make the game "fun" again. Of course that would only serve to make Defender and Tanker offenses seem overpowered by comparison, so more nerfs there.
.
Now of course no one can even begin to think of taking on a full size group mission or dare to enter a TF so all the mobs will need to be adjusted or the spawn tables reworked.
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Also, the leveling grind is going to seriously draw out since we can no longer fight mobs where the XP and rewards are actually worthwhile, so either the devs would need to rebalance the rewards to the new fighting level or I guess they could simply let us wallow in the drudgingly long grind.
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And as should be expected all of this tuning will only cause new imbalances and require more "fun" tweaking. In the end at best, the entire super feeling of CoH will be lost. At worst they'll wreck the game.
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Look familiar? Looks like the results of I5 and ED to me. About the only thing I didn't get right there was them rebalancing the mobs to compensate.
Now, I think we are still in store for some major changes, changes that I think will revolve around offense. Even with ED in effect most of the AT's are simply able to defeat mobs too quickly for defenses to matter much except in extreme situations. I would predict many changes for offensively focused characters in the next Issue or two. If you make it take twice as long to kill things all of the sudden defensive potential and aggro control become pretty important.
Yeah, this is why I wanted to open the testing criteria up for discussion.
I like Bob's set of parameters on an instinctive level. It looks, though, like three different roles could be tested:
The meatshield role, arguably replaceable in all cases by an FF or Sonic defender....
The Scranker role, arguably done better by a Scrapper...
And the Statesman Tanker Role, which I am perfectly willing to forget about, since I hold that any tanker in the game right now can do that, probably better than he can, but in most cases doesn't want to.
One of the problems I see is that if the role is already defined in the mind of the DEVs and that the kind of results that States got on his team are seen as acceptible, we may not be able to come up with anything to counter it. It becomes a philosophical argument, rather than a numerical one.
What do you think on this subject?
[I can't believe I just agreed with Nozy on a subject, I need to wash my brain out with soap now.]
Mr. Lithuania
Jessica to Nathan in bed: "I'm not really bad, Isaac just drew me that way."
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I would much rather hear Cryptics explanation of our intended role and how they see us accomplishing it. Since we have obviously been wrong by their direction, I would really like for States and company to tell us what we are supposed to contribute to a team, and how that contribution stands out beyond all other AT's.
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Tankers manage aggro better than any other Archetype. They also have the highest combination of hit points and defenses in the game. Their role is to take the brunt of a spawn's aggro just long enough in order for the rest of the team to be able to eliminate the mobs.
Should a skilled Tanker be able to corral EVERY mob? With a lot of skill, it should be possible - but it's certainly not required to be a good Tank. As long as the Tanker can hold onto aggro so that his teammates are facing less than they'd normally face (i.e. 3 minions), then the team has an advantage. Namely, each teammate can quickly eliminate his opposition...and then come to the Tanker's aid at the end.
I just played a Tanker with the following group (actually, at the request of a PM)...
Inv/Fire tanker (32, SKed to 49)
Level 50 Elec/Elec Blaster (it was his mission, set on Rugged)
Level 32 Peacebringer (SKed to 48 or so).
Level 48 MA/Inv scrapper
Level 50 Fire/Kin controller
Level 35 Earth/empathy controller (SKed up to 48)
Level 49 Energy/energy blaster
We faced the Carnival of Shadows. Typically, I'd start combat by Taunting any Strongmen in the spawn. I knew that I could handle their damage best. I'd usually catch some other minions and lts. I'd end up with a good 1/3 of the spawn focused on me, while the rest of my group disposed of the others. Whenever I saw a teammate enter the red, I'd either Taunt the mobs off them or hit the mobs to get their aggro.
End result? Well, no one was that familiar with their builds. The Controller was defeated by getting too close to another spawn. The Peacebringer carelessly tossed off attacks and ended up aggroing too much. After those two defeats, we settled down and functioned fine.
Admittedly, my own health dropped down to a 1/3 several times. I'd get a little concerned, but usually I had Dull Pain ready.
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Tell us about 'Statesman' he is a Tank also yes?...does he suffer from all the nerfs/setbacks like the rest of us tanks?
Curious....
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Yeah, this is why I wanted to open the testing criteria up for discussion.
I like Bob's set of parameters on an instinctive level. It looks, though, like three different roles could be tested:
The meatshield role, arguably replaceable in all cases by an FF or Sonic defender....
The Scranker role, arguably done better by a Scrapper...
And the Statesman Tanker Role, which I am perfectly willing to forget about, since I hold that any tanker in the game right now can do that, probably better than he can, but in most cases doesn't want to.
One of the problems I see is that if the role is already defined in the mind of the DEVs and that the kind of results that States got on his team are seen as acceptible, we may not be able to come up with anything to counter it. It becomes a philosophical argument, rather than a numerical one.
What do you think on this subject?
[I can't believe I just agreed with Nozy on a subject, I need to wash my brain out with soap now.]
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I guess we are testing to answer two different questions here. You and Bob seem to be asking "How good am I compared to another AT at my job?".
I want to know "How much does a tank optimally contribute to a given team compared to how much another AT could optimally contribute to the same team."
The difference is subtle but there. I think the former assumes too much about the roles we are used to from before I5.
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It becomes a philosophical argument, rather than a numerical one.
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It certainly will come down to a philosophical argument. Statesman can make the numbers line up however he wants, and is working with numbers we don't even know about yet. There is no testing we can do now on Live or Test that can replicate whatever changes the devs have in store for us in I7, I8, etc.
Therefore the devs if they feel so inclined can simply throw out any data we provide as being inaccurate (they won't tell us that but that is what they will and have been doing).
Just like Bridger's post long ago on the Euro forums about Havok's spreadsheets. He said that while players can perform detailed anaylsis they can never replicate dev testing because we are only dealing with half the information.
Unless Statesman was kind enough to come here and provide us with some background data on upcoming changes so we can try and replicate that on the test server, whatever data we do collect can be simply thrown away as not being pertinent if it doesn't match up with what the devs want to see.
That is why you have to try and make it a philosophical argument. You have to set up expectations that the tanker AT should aspire to and how they should relate to their comic book counterparts.
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One of the problems I see is that if the role is already defined in the mind of the DEVs and that the kind of results that States got on his team are seen as acceptible, we may not be able to come up with anything to counter it. It becomes a philosophical argument, rather than a numerical one.
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Numerical or philosophical, I think that any data would be helpful. Part of the problem that I think we have with tanks is that we can't agree what can be done with what. We can say that AT "X" can replace tanks all day long, with no loss and perhaps improvement. However, with hard data we can show and decide whether or not to get behind the concept of doing whatever.
My chosen method (so far) has always been "Meatshield," but others might be "Skrank." Testing both is good, then for these two major camps.
If States really think his example is what a tanker should be expected to do teams are going to need a fistfull or a stoner with granite. I don't get the "tank things that I'm good against" and let my team deal with the rest thing.
Ok we need a fire tank because we know that council have fire. We need an Ice tank since council have energy and neg energy attacks. Oh and an Inv tank for all the S/L......
Heck with that kind of selective tanking you'd think single target taunts would be more handy. Prehaps we should ask for that back.
In truth I think it best we ignore this type of tanking for test purposes its silly and done simply to show that Inv (or any tank) isn't flawed in some situations where we can only tank foes we're good against.
I would suggest we do solo, 4 man teams, and 8 man teams. I would also suggest you have various team builds.
Like:
Tank
Blaster
Scrapper
Defender
Tank
Tank
Tank
Tank
Blaster
Scrapper
Defender
DEfender
Blaster
Blaster
Blaster
Blaster
You need to build teams as varried as possible. Another interesting thing would be to purposely gather some PuGs and see what the "average" person expects from a tank and how they deal with the meatshield vs skanker styles. Could be interesting.
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I would much rather hear Cryptics explanation of our intended role and how they see us accomplishing it. Since we have obviously been wrong by their direction, I would really like for States and company to tell us what we are supposed to contribute to a team, and how that contribution stands out beyond all other AT's.
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Tankers manage aggro better than any other Archetype. They also have the highest combination of hit points and defenses in the game. Their role is to take the brunt of a spawn's aggro just long enough in order for the rest of the team to be able to eliminate the mobs.
Should a skilled Tanker be able to corral EVERY mob? With a lot of skill, it should be possible - but it's certainly not required to be a good Tank. As long as the Tanker can hold onto aggro so that his teammates are facing less than they'd normally face (i.e. 3 minions), then the team has an advantage. Namely, each teammate can quickly eliminate his opposition...and then come to the Tanker's aid at the end.
I just played a Tanker with the following group (actually, at the request of a PM)...
Inv/Fire tanker (32, SKed to 49)
Level 50 Elec/Elec Blaster (it was his mission, set on Rugged)
Level 32 Peacebringer (SKed to 48 or so).
Level 48 MA/Inv scrapper
Level 50 Fire/Kin controller
Level 35 Earth/empathy controller (SKed up to 48)
Level 49 Energy/energy blaster
We faced the Carnival of Shadows. Typically, I'd start combat by Taunting any Strongmen in the spawn. I knew that I could handle their damage best. I'd usually catch some other minions and lts. I'd end up with a good 1/3 of the spawn focused on me, while the rest of my group disposed of the others. Whenever I saw a teammate enter the red, I'd either Taunt the mobs off them or hit the mobs to get their aggro.
End result? Well, no one was that familiar with their builds. The Controller was defeated by getting too close to another spawn. The Peacebringer carelessly tossed off attacks and ended up aggroing too much. After those two defeats, we settled down and functioned fine.
Admittedly, my own health dropped down to a 1/3 several times. I'd get a little concerned, but usually I had Dull Pain ready.
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So a good tank IYO is able to keep the agro of 3 minions and taunt off others when teammates get into the red? I think I see where the confusion is. I can play a scrapper that can do that!
My worry here is that the Statesman Tanker role is what the devs expect Tankers to do... and as this thread shows it's clearly perceived as not representing a meaningful contribution (and quite possibly turning to the detrimental). If this is to be the "redefined" Tanker role, and the extent of his contribution, we might as well not bother with the AT at all.
Scranking, while clearly suboptimal compared to Scrappers, has a bit more promise. One might want to limit such endeavors to smaller teams as Gauntlet in large teams may by itself gather more aggro than the Scranker might comfortably handle, but I think therein lies the Tanker's real playable avenue -- note that by playable, I certainly do not mean balanced. Tanker offense is much too low for this to be a truly worthwhile addition to a team, relative to another AT, but at least it's of some use. It also meshes well with the slotting ED forces Tankers into. Finally, it happens to be what a lot of would-be brick players originally wanted to do; let's not forget that even in the darkest days of Tankers, they were still fed by all the I-wanna-be-a-brick players, who might now turn more towards the Brute.
I think it's clear that the meatshield role is dead as a doornail, and was intended to die. I don't think this was solely a PvP decision, though that certainly factored in. Rather, the goal was to change the dynamic of a PvE encounter. I think the idea that each character is largely self-sufficient is genuinely brilliant, as it breaks the stupid EQ Holy Trinity, but in such a design, the role of a MMORPG tank is utterly superfluous. (I could point to the CoV archetypes at this point). This is a good thing; I like the idea of more chaotic battles where attacks aren't centered on a singular point of impact. But it's obvious that the Tanker's role will need to be re-examined in this light. He needs either an entirely new niche, or to share the Scrapper's to the extent the Stalker and Brute do.
Finally, let's not forget that it's not enough for an AT to be a zero-sum game to a team to be worthwhile; they need to bring actual benefit to the table to be considered. Defenders and Controllers let the group fight more than they normally would (synergy); meatshield Tankers don't anymore, so their presence is simply not useful.
Taunt-Bot is not tanking!
@bpphantom
The Defenders of Paragon
KGB Special Section 8
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My chosen method (so far) has always been "Meatshield," but others might be "Skrank." Testing both is good, then for these two major camps.
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Testing both of those is fine, however, if we design test to simply test those two aspects, it's not going to tell us anything we don't already know.
The question is one fundamentally of team dynamics, and the optimal performance of such dynamics. Assuming that a team dynamic is one that needs a meatshield/scranker is to already bias the test towards having a melee AT. It will illuminate Tanks vs scrapper slightly, but not much else.
We have to get past our I1-I4 preconceptions, and test the TEAM dynamics, with regards to what tankers bring, rather than just how we perform the old roles. Half the contention is the roles have changed.
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Taunt-Bot is not tanking!
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... no, it's not, even if for a span it was all Tankers *could* do.
I'm not sure what this has to do with my argument?
Certainly that's not a direction we want the Tanker to move in. 
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A reply to Tom:
May I request also that if/when you run your tests, you get some of the not-so-great tanks as well.
The all-star line up going to test this might set the bar a bit too high for lower lights, like myself
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Be my guest, Casshan. I plan to run my non-tanks in this testing set-up. 
"I never said thank you." - Lt. Gordon
"And you'll never have to." - the Dark Knight
Oh, I'd love to, but I'm afraid I'm going to be out of town with my fiance for the Thanksgiving weekend. *sigh* well, there goes my resume highlight "tanking dummy"
^_^
Still, if I can, I'll get on ... my tank is 39, though ... Inv/EM
Say, that reminds me ... not to get too crazy-wacky here ... but should we also be testing secondaries, or will that not make a difference? Not to be a wet blanket, but if we're figuring what we "bring to the table," that's also wide and varied ... and it would be synergistic to the capabilities of the primary, wouldn't it? Or am I just using big words meaninglessly now ^_^
IME, an illusion controller makes a fine meatshield once the team adjusts to the different strategy involved. Thank goodness an illusion controller is my third main.
It isn't even all that much different than tanking. You use the Decoys to grab the aggro and absorb the alpha; they can get soft aggro for a minute, and attacks do them no harm at all. You use the Spectral Terror to defend the squishies, including yourself. The Decoys do some damage, and so does your Phantasm; by the minute or so that the Decoys run out, you get another Terror, and with ED semi-randomized slotting for recharge the Decoys will be back soon enough.
My character also makes heavy use of Deceive, which is valuable if a mob breaks free and goes after one of the squishies. So there's even a Provoke substitute of sorts, and Deceive is much more fun.
My Illusion controller is /Empathy, which gets her self-heals and team buffs. /Radiation is another popular pick.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
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A reply to Tom:
May I request also that if/when you run your tests, you get some of the not-so-great tanks as well.
The all-star line up going to test this might set the bar a bit too high for lower lights, like myself
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Be my guest, Casshan. I plan to run my non-tanks in this testing set-up.
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I'd be average right? No level 40+ tanks in my line up.
I think we really need to have an idea beyound the extremes of Scranker and Meatshield.
What percent of the damage should the tank divert from the team to him/herself?
What percent of the teams damage should the tank be responsible for?
To me those are the questions that we seem to dancing around. I mean so we agree that 1/3 of the incoming damage is to be the tanks job, and say in an 8 man team his out going damage should be 12.5%. Ok then can he do that on a team? Can someone else do it better? Is he doing enough if that's what he does?
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A reply to Tom:
May I request also that if/when you run your tests, you get some of the not-so-great tanks as well.
The all-star line up going to test this might set the bar a bit too high for lower lights, like myself
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Be my guest, Casshan. I plan to run my non-tanks in this testing set-up.
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I would glady volunteer my level 32 earth/storm controller I have yet to find any combination of tanks that can keep aggro off of her.
Some tank builds do not allow enough deversity to actually be of any value after I5 + ED to a team. The more specialized tankers seem to be near the level that States was mentioning 3 minions + your own 3 minions = 6 minions. That doesn't seem very tank like when Tankers where looked at as being Boss killers a while back. thanks to I5 + ED the Scranker has a place now where they can do more damage, if they are one of the more diverse retarded builds (Invul, Stone, and Fire Primaries), Ice on the other hand I have been able to respec myself to stay at the strong end of tanking. My DPS has dropped a fair amount, but over all I can still handle a large number of minions, Leus, and a few even to +1 bosses. Why because Ice has deversity so they can endure these hardships that trouble fellow Tankers. I sympathize with Invul, Stone, and Fire primary tankers as they are fun concepts, but it seem to be clear that Diversification is NOT what is entended at all as people cannot diversify many Primary and Seconday power pools, as well as Tirtiary pools. This leads to and will lead to people finding out what powers sets work best over all and everyone will play that and not concepts.....So long diversity. As I love Ice / Ice come see me sometime and I will show you ED working for a diverse build that can use them. 10 +3 minions, 4 +3 Leus...I can tank them all day, or atleast as long as it take me to kill them...which is close to all day :-p
Careful with that Nerf bat States when swing towards me, to many think there is Ice hate out there, and all I did was use the system you guys have been working towrds since I4 right?
I'd be happy to help with the testing.
Sir Zane (Lvl 50, Inv/SS/Nrg Tank);Atomic Jake (Lvl 50, Kin/Rad/Elec Defender)
Nikolai (Lvl 50, DM/EA/GW Brute);Raging Stallion (Lvl 50 MA/SR/Weap Scrapper)
Archmage Tristam (Lvl 50 Ill/Son/Psi Controller)
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-g=C800:5
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A reply to Tom:
May I request also that if/when you run your tests, you get some of the not-so-great tanks as well.
The all-star line up going to test this might set the bar a bit too high for lower lights, like myself
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Be my guest, Casshan. I plan to run my non-tanks in this testing set-up.
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I'd be average right? No level 40+ tanks in my line up.
I think we really need to have an idea beyound the extremes of Scranker and Meatshield.
What percent of the damage should the tank divert from the team to him/herself?
What percent of the teams damage should the tank be responsible for?
To me those are the questions that we seem to dancing around. I mean so we agree that 1/3 of the incoming damage is to be the tanks job, and say in an 8 man team his out going damage should be 12.5%. Ok then can he do that on a team? Can someone else do it better? Is he doing enough if that's what he does?
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I think one of the things that has definitely changed is that the tank's role once was seen as taking nearly 100% of the damage for a normal team (in extreme cases for more than one spawn) and that is no longer feasible now. It is also clear that 33% is their current expectations. The philosophical impasse that we are at is that that is too low a number for a majority of the current tanker population. The meatshield role in the old world is dead.
The difference between a skranker and a non-optimally slotted scrapper is hp--again not an optimal role for them.
One thing I've only heard mentioned once or twice (and one of those times by Statesman) is the role of the Monitor.
What does any kind of healing defender, controller or corrupter do? They monitor the condition of their teammates at all times and make sure that their health does not drop below a certain point.
They additionally, and rightly so, bring more to the table than that. Certainly, they are much more than healers, even if they're mistakenly seen that way.
Perhaps one possible new role of the tank is to provide a constant stream of damage while monitoring the condition of the rest of the team and handing out the taunts that are required to keep them safe?
If we cannot survive more than part of the aggro that is available, we could possibly *select* the aggro we want with a specific purpose.
Not writ in stone, guys, just tossing out an idea.
Mr. Lithuania
Jessica to Nathan in bed: "I'm not really bad, Isaac just drew me that way."
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However given that I think varying the team composition is an essential component for the test. At least with teams of varying support/control/damage levels are necessary to see how tanks behave in each situation. Of couse the more variation we need, the harder it will be to find enough people with enough toons to test everything.
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We may need two different tests. I wrote my post under the assumption that we were testing whether a tanker could be effectively replaced by other ATs. If we're also going to test how each tank contributes with different types of support, we should probably keep those tests separate.
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Well that's the thing, HOW is another AT going to replace a tank? It's important that we don't set ourselves up to only test based on the old 'roles' as it were because the premise is the old roles are no longer valid. A tank without support is a fundamentally different thing currently than a tank with support.
How and which AT can replace tank will likely vary heavily with support potential of a team.
What it sounds like to me is that you are setting up tests centered around a meatshield role. This is okay for a single datapoint, but misses that that role is exactly the one that has shrunk. Certainly there is the contention that scrappers can perform as meatsheilds just as well, but more important is that a meatshield with our meagre capabilities can be replaced with a buffer who can render the entire team into pseudo tanks, thus making the meatshield role moot.
In other words, we are testing for the performance of the optimum team dynamic for each setup, and does a tank ever increase that level of performance. Not "how well does X meatshield". (Tanks are indeed the best meatsheilds, there is no question. But there are two caveats to that: 1) With the meagre level of meatshielding one can perform without support, is having such a role even a good idea? 2) with a lot of support, having a meatshield is useful, wouldn't a scrapper do only marginally worse, but yet bring significantly better offense)