hrm.
raise your hand if you SOLO'd the terra volta respec trial during issue 4 as an invuln/fire tanker while the rest of the task force sat at the door - at level 32.
*raises hand*
mmm. good times.
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Johnny's arguments are weak:mediocre damage.
His metaphors are laughable:rodeo clown
He thinks all arguments are his personal territory:aggro monkey.
OMG Johnny is a tanker incarnate!!11!!1, which means that he is Statesman, which means that all his posts are a Nemesis style plot to create an mass exodus to his new project. em/faint
Welcome to Johnnyland folks don't bother looking at "real numbers" he contols the world in which you play.
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And here I thought I was crazy for having the same theory. I thought it was suspicious that a Tanker was defending Jack. Now we know and he will silence us.
It is a Statesman's plot.
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QR
The day I'm not out-damaging half the Scrappers I meet while managing aggro for a team the entire time is the day Tankers are overspecialised.
Scrappers in all but a few build combinations are single target specialists and can't really pull off much more than that, beyond taking the odd alpha strike. Meanwhile, Tankers often end up far more balanced between single target and AoE while being able to take alphas and manage the aftermath. In that way, shouldn't we say that Scrappers are far more specialised than Tankers?
The beautiful thing is that Scrappers are, as they should be. It's the required essence of Scrapperlock.
Brutes fall somewhere in-between. They only reach Scrapper-like damage levels when the priority is on them on a team (either they are being buffed or are taking enough and landing enough attacks to keep Fury up high). The more balanced a team, the less a Brute contributes.
So no, overspecialisation isn't a Tanker's "problem," it's simply that J_B hates managing aggro, yet likes the name of the AT.
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I'll readily agree that a lot of Johnny's arguments are logically invalid and hyperbolic, but that doesn't mean you should respond in kind.
If you're out-damaging half the scrappers you meet, you're likely..
* Not meeting a lot of scrappers.
* IO'd out.
* Just playing with bad scrappers.
Tanks don't deal more damage than scrappers, on average. The distinction between the two is fairly noticeable, especially in the shared sets. (82.6 vs. 58.7 Scrapper/Tanker Smite damage, before enhancements and things like criticals)
And even if you *are* doing more damage than a Scrapper, chances are if you're also managing team Aggro as you say, your damage is likely being spread out amongst multiple enemies to not have a noticeable impact (hit, change target, hit, to maximize your use of punchvoke), or you're having gaps in your attacks while you use Taunt.
I'm also fairly sure most Scrapper secondaries allow them to take alphas for teams without too much trouble. And in a team environment, what support they might need is likely there. They're certainly not 'squishy', and they can certainly handle the aftermath.
I don't see how you can say Scrappers are overspecialized at all. They're a more balanced version of offense and defense which allows them to have personal survivability and team-aiding offensive capability which makes them one of the most independently functional AT's of the game.
Meanwhile, Tankers are a decidedly Team-oriented AT which is meant to manage aggro. They can solo all they'd like with minimal risk, but then the pace which they can set is distinctly sub-par to what most consider preferred, and certainly is below that of what Scrappers can do.
And though you say Tanker's problem isn't overspecialization, Brutes have the same inherent Tankers do, with the *only* change being that it is single-target instead of a five-target cap. The same duration and taunt magnitude. They also have fury. They also have taunt auras (which are, for most sets, the big thing) at the same magnitude and duration as tankers.
Johnny might be crazy, but that doesn't make everything he says crazy. Of course, given how much he talks, I can totally understand if you decide to stop listening because you just don't want to try to sift through it all to see which part is worth listening to.
There's one area where a good player using a tank can outstrip a scrapper for damage - in using the superior survivability of the tanker to leverage better AoEs in missions. On the other hand, there's no need for that with hazard zones around - I did the same thing with a blaster, after all.
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This forum played a big part in directing Tanker changes
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Yes, for good or ill it has in the past. And now it enforces a status quo and gangs up to attack and suppress people suggesting changes that don't agree with that status quo.
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Attack and suppress in this case can be read as disagreeing with Johnny's stance that tankers need yet another damage buff to make them complete.
"I am a Tank. I am your first choice, I am your last hope." -- Rune Bull
"Durability is the quintessential super-power. " -- Sailboat
If you want a Tank with more damage, go roll one with Shield Defense. See? Everyone's happy.
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If you're out-damaging half the scrappers you meet, you're likely..
* Not meeting a lot of scrappers.
* IO'd out.
* Just playing with bad scrappers.
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The average scrapper being played isn't the kind that solos arch villains. The most min/max'd tanker absolutely outperforms average scrappers in every way. The reverse is also true, though.
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If you're out-damaging half the scrappers you meet, you're likely..
* Not meeting a lot of scrappers.
* IO'd out.
* Just playing with bad scrappers.
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It is indeed a combination of what a few other posters have said in response:
Talen_Lee:
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There's one area where a good player using a tank can outstrip a scrapper for damage - in using the superior survivability of the tanker to leverage better AoEs in missions.
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Battlekin:
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If you want a Tank with more damage, go roll one with Shield Defense.
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Dersk:
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The average scrapper being played isn't the kind that solos arch villains. The most min/max'd tanker absolutely outperforms average scrappers in every way. The reverse is also true, though.
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My SD/SS in particular is what I'm talking about, but my Inv/SS has also been known to wipe out enemy spawns faster than quite a number of Scrappers (neither of my Tankers use purple sets or damage procs, btw). Obviously, where the average Scrapper will outperform my Tankers is when taking on single hard targets, like many Bosses, and EBs and above. However, due to better AoE (and I pretty much always build for AoE on Tankers), I'm not being erroneous, nor am I exaggerating when I say that I am indeed out-damaging half the Scrappers I meet--which I really thought wouldn't surprise anyone, since it means the other half is out-damaging me.
And I really thought I said so in my original post.
In any case, I was making a semantic argument to answer what I think is a semantic argument for J_B: "overspecialisation" really doesn't exist in this game unless you build for it (i.e. the day Repeat Offenders becomes about sitting back, buffing teammates, and not attacking is the day I get worried). It's just as easy to build the other way while still utilising the aggro management function of Tankers. Thus, "not a Tanker problem."
And on a final, side-note, even though I love my Scrappers, I think they're highly overrated. As has been said already by Dersk, only particularly well-built Scrappers are going to be soloing AVs. Most Scrappers in the population (of the game, not the boards) will have their rears handed to them by that AV in much less than a minute.
Nope. Wasn't it just your hero, Jack Emmert, who agreed with you?
The man who's been trying to get a backdoor sequel to this game done for years? Undercutting what was, until fairly recently, his own company in doing so?
Two snakes from the same egg, it seems
*pointy* 
There is no such thing as an "innocent bystander"
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Johnny might be crazy, but that doesn't make everything he says crazy. Of course, given how much he talks, I can totally understand if you decide to stop listening because you just don't want to try to sift through it all to see which part is worth listening to.
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I totally understand this point. Once upon a time you could get a useful perspective out of JB discussions if you could get him to identify the core problem. The reason I really can't take any of his tripe anymore is that he still has nothing new to say. He likes to use meaningless fallacies of logic such as "least damaging melee archetype" or meaning less comparisons between comic book design and game design. I also find his tactics of distorting quotes and quoting out of context nearly as reprehensible as his name calling. JB has lost sight of the goal of these debates that is making Tankers more useful, and better balanced within the game as the game evolves. JB merely wishes to be right about everything and if the solution or conclusion is not his it must be wrong and therefore attacked. Since "Going Rogue" was announced and JB made public his decision that he is going to CO as soon as it comes out, he has become even more combative and has stopped adding useful dialogue tho the discussion besides ranting "I'm Right, told you so"
So to save those forum readers who do read all of these threads including JB's posts I want to save everyone a little time and post the ideas from past discussions with JB that arguably MAY have some merits.
1. Tankers (and indeed all AT's) have fewer options or options of poor quality, past selection of primary and secondary power selections for increasing damage. I suggested a while back giving tankers the same level of benefit from leadership pool as Defenders or Controllers. Other suggestions have been made including but not limited to a stacking damage resistance debuff inherent, a Domination style inherent (JB's idea) that would multiply damage and aggro radius when active. Also suggested a battle stance system allowing tankers to lower mitigation to increase damage.
2. All AT's have available a great number of defensive mitigation options allowing increased sturdiness. This decreased sturdiness reduces the value of Tankers defenses
3 Multiple tanks on one team may actually lower rewards per hour due to lost damage that is not offset by the increased survivability. It has been suggested that tankers increase the spawn size of missions by a larger amount than other characters to compensate. I think this came about due to a discussion with Arcanaville but don't quote me.
4. Since this game does not follow the Holy Trinity concept for most instance design tankers are overspecialized and redundant in most parts of the game.
I personally call shenanigans on this one. I have yet to run across one team in all my years of play that did not feel more secure with a good tank leading the charge. Even if the mathematics of the game support tankers redundancy to some degree the psychological benefit of having a Tanker taking the alpha is real, if not quantifiable,
In answer to the original post. I think that going rogue is a great thing for the future of Tankers in this game. Red side Tanks will be a much sought after commodity. I think if going Rogue hurts anyone it is protection spec Brutes and Scrappers. Though I do think that this damage is minimal because you rarely turn down tough damage regardless of AT. I think Redside LRSF runs would love to have a stone tank leading the charge.
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1. Tankers (and indeed all AT's) have fewer options or options of poor quality, past selection of primary and secondary power selections for increasing damage. I suggested a while back giving tankers the same level of benefit from leadership pool as Defenders or Controllers. Other suggestions have been made including but not limited to a stacking damage resistance debuff inherent, a Domination style inherent (JB's idea) that would multiply damage and aggro radius when active. Also suggested a battle stance system allowing tankers to lower mitigation to increase damage.
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I also want to add to this that the problem above isn't something you can fix at the power pool or IO sets level. The simple fact is the ability to get more damage is easier to balance on some ATs more than others. It's got to be done at the AT level from what I see, and since the Tanker is the AT that's affected the most by the problem, they are what needs changing. With respect to this, the system works fine for all the other ATs.
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I totally understand this point. Once upon a time you could get a useful perspective out of JB discussions if you could get him to identify the core problem. The reason I really can't take any of his tripe anymore is that he still has nothing new to say. He likes to use meaningless fallacies of logic such as "least damaging melee archetype" or meaning less comparisons between comic book design and game design. I also find his tactics of distorting quotes and quoting out of context nearly as reprehensible as his name calling. JB has lost sight of the goal of these debates that is making Tankers more useful, and better balanced within the game as the game evolves. JB merely wishes to be right about everything and if the solution or conclusion is not his it must be wrong and therefore attacked. Since "Going Rogue" was announced and JB made public his decision that he is going to CO as soon as it comes out, he has become even more combative and has stopped adding useful dialogue tho the discussion besides ranting "I'm Right, told you so"
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Perfect summary and the primary reason that I ignore most of his arguments, even if they do have some merit.
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JB has lost sight of the goal of these debates that is making Tankers more useful, and better balanced within the game as the game evolves.
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I don't want to be part of a goal to make Tankers better aggro sponges and shove them further into a rut they should never have been designed and forced into in the first place.
These "debates" are anything but. Exactly as I said before, you've got a collection of players here enforcing a status quo. There's no progress to be made from that because they don't want progress.
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Since "Going Rogue" was announced and JB made public his decision that he is going to CO as soon as it comes out
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Correction. I'm going to try the game the second I can. I'm going to leap at the chance when someone offers me things these devs would never deliver and demonstrates they've been listening to like minded criticism and complaints. I'll greatfully entertain them vieing for my attention and money after being dismissed and insulted by these devs.
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he has become even more combative and has stopped adding useful dialogue tho the discussion besides ranting "I'm Right, told you so"
[/ QUOTE ]
What would you have me add?
"Year 2.5 Despite a lot of talk, nothing's changed with Tankers. Except it seems the devs have done exactly what I've always hoped they wouldn't and now they're going to introduce another melee AT blue side can can tank well enough for 90% of then content in the game and also gets to make Tanker damage look even worse in comparison. Go devs."?
.
Back to the original question:
Personally I think everyone develops personal choices and comfort levels when it comes down to AT's and given the opportunity to play tanks redside, anyone who enjoys playing tanks will give it a shot. I know I will. Same thing with playing a heroic Mastermind and Brute, or a Controller/ Blaster going afoul. (sigh, altitis will strike again)
In the end it will come down to how much you like or dislike the content you're playing and how well the AT you're playing does with that content and your play style.
For me, my pseudo aggressive play style works well with the tank mentality. I like jumping in with both feet first, but I'm not huge on bouncing around the room single target to target most of the time. I like the -range on taunt, ie. "Come here yah bums so I can wack yer heads".... 
Throwing darts at the board to see if something sticks.....
Come show your resolve and fight my brute!
Tanks: Gauntlet, the streak breaker and you!
Quote:
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Originally Posted by PapaSlade
Rangle's right....this is fun.
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I always love how JB continuously forgets about the buffs to Tankers that have happened even recently. They're just not the improvements that he wants, so therefore they aren't buffs.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
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Quote:
JB has lost sight of the goal of these debates that is making Tankers more useful, and better balanced within the game as the game evolves.
I don't want to be part of a goal to make Tankers better aggro sponges and shove them further into a rut they should never have been designed and forced into in the first place.
These "debates" are anything but. Exactly as I said before, you've got a collection of players here enforcing a status quo. There's no progress to be made from that because they don't want progress.
[/ QUOTE ]
So you don't want Tankers to have aggro control abilities. You just want them to hit hardest and take them most damage. Right you want tank-mages, got that. Game design 101 is never allow Tank-Mages period. Closest you can get is a Scrapper. Go roll a DM / Invul name him Brick and call it a day Johnny.
[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
Since "Going Rogue" was announced and JB made public his decision that he is going to CO as soon as it comes out
Correction. I'm going to try the game the second I can. I'm going to leap at the chance when someone offers me things these devs would never deliver and demonstrates they've been listening to like minded criticism and complaints. I'll greatfully entertain them vieing for my attention and money after being dismissed and insulted by these devs.
[/ QUOTE ]
Really good luck with that. We are all hoping you get your chance sooner rather than later and enjoy the game.
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What would you have me add?
"Year 2.5 Despite a lot of talk, nothing's changed with Tankers. Except it seems the devs have done exactly what I've always hoped they wouldn't and now they're going to introduce another melee AT blue side can can tank well enough for 90% of then content in the game and also gets to make Tanker damage look even worse in comparison. Go devs."?
[/ QUOTE ]
I am not going to bother listing all the changes made for Tankers again, since as I stated before it doesn't matter to you if the changes made are an improvement because they are not the changes YOU would have made. Really your arguments remind me more of a child throwing a tantrum because he only got 1 toy instead of 2.
Question for you Johnny. Since Scrappers can tank most of the content of the game and Brutes can tank most of the content of the game. and Brutes are coming to blue side and Tanks and Scrappers to red. Therefore by your own approximations the minority of the game that requires a Tank is still safe blue side since Brutes and Scraps are still a little disadvantaged in these areas. Furthermore for difficult content red side say (LRSF anyone) there is now a heavier tanking option than a /stone brute. Can you explain to us again how Tanks will not proliferate on red-side simply to fill vacuum without losing ground on blue side, due to the small amount of content that necessitates a tank remaining unchanged?
QR
Geez, another drama thread in the tankers forum? C'mon guys/gals...not even the defenders forum is made up of such drama llamas.
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QR
Geez, another drama thread in the tankers forum? C'mon guys/gals...not even the defenders forum is made up of such drama llamas.
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The Defenders likely figure they're due to be looked at after Domms are done getting theirs.
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QR
Geez, another drama thread in the tankers forum? C'mon guys/gals...not even the defenders forum is made up of such drama llamas.
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The Defenders likely figure they're due to be looked at after Domms are done getting theirs.
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Unsubscribe button over there ---------------->
Use it already.
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So you don't want Tankers to have aggro control abilities.
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They already have aggro control abilities. They control aggro so well it makes more than one of them largely redundant.
The problem is THEY'RE NOT the heavy hitters they should be. They're NOT what one would resonably expect from characters with powers like super strength and invulnerability, especially when compared to Brutes and Scrappers.
If you can't tell the difference between me suggesting things like the Tanker Domination proposal and calling for a tank-mage, you're the one failing Game Design 101.
Here's a little FYI. Brutes have demonstrated you can be more survivable than a Scrapper, and be able to hit harder than them some of the time. A Brute has Tanker resistance caps, more HP than a Scrapper and he's capable of hitting MUCH harder than the Scrapper at times.
How is that any different than my Tanker inherent proposal suggesting Tankers could hit harder than they do now some of the time? It's not.
Few argued my proposal was stright up over powered or unreasonable and I don't think ANYONE thought it was going to turn Tankers into tank-mages. But it allowed them to be heavy hitters.
And had it fallen on the ears of devs who gave a damn about the AT's conceptual failings, I suspect it would have gotten more consideration.
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So you don't want Tankers to have aggro control abilities.
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They already have aggro control abilities. They control aggro so well it makes more than one of them largely redundant.
The problem is THEY'RE NOT the heavy hitters they should be. They're NOT what one would resonably expect from characters with powers like super strength and invulnerability, especially when compared to Brutes and Scrappers.
If you can't tell the difference between me suggesting things like the Tanker Domination proposal and calling for a tank-mage, you're the one failing Game Design 101.
Here's a little FYI. Brutes have demonstrated you can be more survivable than a Scrapper, and be able to hit harder than them some of the time. A Brute has Tanker resistance caps, more HP than a Scrapper and he's capable of hitting MUCH harder than the Scrapper at times.
How is that any different than my Tanker inherent proposal suggesting Tankers could hit harder than they do now some of the time? It's not.
Few argued my proposal was stright up over powered or unreasonable and I don't think ANYONE thought it was going to turn Tankers into tank-mages. But it allowed them to be heavy hitters.
And had it fallen on the ears of devs who gave a damn about the AT's conceptual failings, I suspect it would have gotten more consideration.
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i'm guessing here that the basic problem with you is that you have absolutely no clue about how mmorpg's work.
regardless of what comic book hero any class is based on, it's still a class. this is still a class based game. and for that to work you have to have the holy trinity of tank-heal-dmg
doing the lrsf red side has always been a nightmare for villains. myself i've only done it twice - and both times we had a granite brute and kin corruptor. because brutes have the same defense numbers as scrappers. so basically - we tanked it with a granite scrapper who has single target gauntlet.
if you want tankers to do bruiser levels of dmg, they have to lose some of their tankiness. they have to lose survivability somewhere. they would have to lose gauntlet because if tankers could do bruiser levels of dmg, have their current survivability AND gauntlet AND if rogue means swapping sides at will - that would effectively kill bruisers.
maybe your problem is you want to play as your favorite comic book hero and realize you cant. when i bought the game, i envisioned playing exactly like Booster Gold. turns out...i cant. bummed, i made a scrapper.
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it allowed them to be heavy hitters.
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and to reiterate this point home to you - the game has heavy hitters. those heavy hitters dont have tank level defense (not counting exotic io slotting). they dont have tanker hp. they dont have aoe gauntlet.
you need to explain how it will not be bad for overall game balance to give tankers dmg on the same level as brutes or doms or corruptors or stalkers or scrappers etc. without in turn retuning what makes them tanks - namely the higher base values on all their defensive primaries. i dont care if you have some super idea (in your mind) of tankers getting some short duration buff that gives them those 'heavy hits', because you would be taking away from the other at's. why can you not get that through your thick skull? concepts take a back seat to game balance. as we would tell scrappers at launch who took everything out of the primary and nothing out of their secondaries - concepts only take you so far.
heavy hitters. whatever. come back when you have even a small clue about how insanely difficult it is to have even the smallest hint of balance in mmorpg's.
Still haven't found that Shift key yet?
Keep looking! It can be a tricky little scoundrel!
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Still haven't found that Shift key yet?
Keep looking! It can be a tricky little scoundrel!
.
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still looking for mankrik's wife or thrall's chamber?
i realize it's because any reasoned argument that pokes holes in your MEMEMEME posts fluster you to the point that your only recourse is to go on the attack.
clearly someone needs a new box of animal crackers, some milk and put down for a nap.
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you whine a lot for someone who didnt play a tanker before issue 4
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You're insulting for someone who doesn't know what a Shift key is.
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why would i waste the effort on someone like you?
have you found mankrik's wife yet?