New Tanker Inherent

Angel Red
"We're heroes. Fighting injustice is the thing we do." ~Rebel Scum

Of course, something that I continue to suggest whenever this topic comes up: Give Tankers Vigilance. It actually suits them quite well, when you think about it.

Of course you can with EotM, but that accolade isn't exactly something everyone has, much less on every toon. And sure, it wouldn't help stoners too much, but I know WP (who are really only high in smash/lethal/psi) and Invuln (smash/lethal) would love to have some more energy resist. (I use this as an example--other builds have weaknesses that such a power could help). Of course, you are completely right on the inspiration part, though.

That said, no. it's not neccessary at all. I like the vigilance idea, but since a tanks (typical) job is just to keep aggro (dishing out damage is a secondary goal), they really shouldn't be losing endurance that badly anyways.

I couldn't think of anything more useless on my WP/SS. No thanks. I like Gauntlet exactly as it is. I would only change the AT by buffing the defense/resist caps, and that's only after seeing what happens with GR. I'm guessing that brutes will look preferable to tanks in the late game due to similar defense/resist caps, with the added bonus of fury.

I have both the Tanker and the Brute, same character, C-001, you might remember her.

The Brute's numbers are worse, actually. Due to issues with the damage cap and damage scaling and fury, Rage doesn't give nearly the buff on the brute as it does on the Tanker. The big hit to the brute is that while Brutes can hit 700% damage cap, Shield Charge is done as a pseudo-pet, and thus can only hit 300%. Shield Charge is far and above more devastating than anything Super Strength has to offer (though footstomp is nice). On top of that, Rage's damage bonus is heavier on a Tank because they have a higher base damage. So my point here is...

Shield/SS Tank is stupid, stupid powerful, and many of the other tanker builds are no slouch either. Yes, some are better than others, but that's the way sets work. Shield/SS is also... not particularly survivable, all its mitigation rather poor (except death. Death is good mitigation.) A Stone/Dark tank is going to find his damage a bit lacking, sure, but he's also going to be immortal.

It figures that someone would want to make Gauntlet optional.

Tankers have the Gauntlet inherent because not enough Tankers take Taunt.

It's the Tanker Archetype's punishment for not fulfilling the purpose of the Archetype.

If you don't have Taunt, you aren't a real Tanker. You aren't the "big man on the team" without it.
Gauntlet is not a substitute for Taunt. Gauntlet just makes you hold more agro than you would without it. And, apparently, the agro that Gauntlet generates is apparently too much for some Tankers - if they are looking for a way to avoid it.

That's a bad position to hold, though, as not all Tankers have these sets, and even the ones that do aren't always built for double-stacking Rage. This is an outlier example and should not be the base line.

Furthermore, the problem with Tankers is not raw damage per se, at least not from where I'm standing. Rather, it's a problem of efficiency, as by far the most common complaint I've had and heard relating to Tankers is running out of endurance before you can fell big targets or lots of targets. Granted, that can be worked towards, but as compared to the high-damage ATs, even Brutes, Tankers just spend more energy for less feedback. They have the staying power to take it, but the drain is higher just the same.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I mostly meant in addition to Gauntlet. But, more importantly, not all Tankers get Quick Recovery. Nor does QR instantly negate the potential usefulness of Vigilance in a panic situation anyway. If anything, it would provide pseudo-endurance drain resistance to Willpower in certain conditions.

I wonder when will people learn that buffing everything else, instead of nerfing the clear outlier is a terrible way to balance a game.

I wonder when people will stop trying to ask that brutes be nerfed without recognizing the role they play redside.

Moderate tanking skills needed? check
Good Damage output needed? check

Why?

1) Fury is only effective if you can survive the aggro.
2) How various archetypes blend redside is quite different than blueside. Damage output is typically shared with all AT's redside without a clear-cut role of a DPS blaster class. Stalkers maybe - but most sets aren't AoE focused.
3) Furthermore, the only reason a brute can tank at a level similar to a tanker is usually due to IOs. A lower base HP and base defenses really make a big difference in survival. Just ask stalkers.

New vigilance first.

FWIW, the only nerf I've ever called for was to lower Brute defensive caps somewhat. And I'm well aware of what role they play (and what role they were originally supposed to play, alongside MMs).

Please re-read all the posts.

Heck flipping /jranger!

Nah. There'd be a tradeoff someplace. Probably in resistances/defense. I like my defenses where they are right now.

Yeah. It'll be worse for tankers since their attacks are mostly their secondaries. You'll have a class that STILL isn't doing butt-tons of damage because it's:

A: Running out of End.
B: Doesn't have enough attacks to make a viable chain yet.
C: Still doing crap base damage.

In other words, being even MORE crippled by giving us a weak-sister Fury.





Sorry. Don't care for it.

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Care to explain what I missed? Most of this topic isn't even discussing tank vs. scrapper but focusing on specific powersets.
Here's what I saw that was relevant:
(Emphasis mine)

From this post I can compare this with yours:

So, these numbers are arbitrary based on your sense of various sets, which upon further reading I see this:

Which you then completely ignored that you were also off on the scrapper's defensive values.

Furthermore, by comparing select sets, you're getting a very skewed impression. Especially since you picked SR and WP. SR with IO's is incredibly powerful. WP with IO's has a similar level of performance. You will likely find that comparing Fire Aura on tanks and scrappers might change your opinion.

The real reason you're seeing that is because of how much IO's change the balance of the game.

Then I see posts like this:

That leads me to think that maybe, you're not giving tanks enough credit on their damage either.

This is a better position to take. It's the DPE on tanks that is a concern. Rather than increasing the damage, reducing the endurance cost would make life better for a tank.

So what, exactly did I miss?

I think I remember that. Was that in Bill Z's results topic?

I think a lot of it has to do with the balance comparisons of specific sets.

Scrappers lose a lot of benefit from sets like Fire and Elec because of their 75% cap while brutes don't. That 15% drop in the hardcap really makes a big deal for sets like this, while other sets, such as WP, SR, and SD really don't suffer as much.

Yup, tankerminds with disposable pets would drive me crazy. Though, come to think of it, I don't recall exactly what role was intended of brutes originally.

For me, I could stomach a 5% drop in the hardcap, like khelds. But any further and I think it would really hurt those resist sets in the same way that they are for scrappers.

In any case I think I over-reacted and read into your post as a call for nerfs, which wasn't the case. My apologies.

Okay the reason it was made an inherent in the first place was because of the way people were treating taunt powers in the first place.

While tanker damage isn't SPECTACULAR, there's nothing inherently BAD about it.

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I would have to agree with this sentiment overall. The only problems I ever see with Tankers are DPE and team based redundancy. The first isn't that bad of a problem in my experience because Tankers can generally last longer in a fight thanks to having better survivability contributions per point of endurance spent, but the second is a bigger problem because Tankers get redudant faster than any other AT in the game. You can always use more damage or more support, but you really don't need more than one guy to focus all of the fire on himself. There isn't much need for another Tanker after the first unless the first Tanker isn't capable of doing his job (i.e. getting aggro and not dying), at which point the first Tanker isn't pulling his own weight.

My personal solution for this is to simply give Tankers a "secondary inherent" that causes all of their powers to deal an additional 25% damage to any target that isn't currently targeting them. If there are multiple tanks on the team, then the second is going to be dealing a bit more damage to let him fulfill a "damage" role to go along with being an offtank. If he's the only one on the team, when the Shield Scrapper steals agg because the Tanker didn't slot Taunt for taunt duration, it'll be a bit easier to pull it off because the Tanker is dealing a bit more damage.

Personally, I think it addresses some of the logical reasons why Tankers would be getting aggro in the first place. It doesn't make much sense for enemies to attack a Tanker just because he's there and punching lighter than the other guys around. If anything, it would make less sense because he's taking less damage and dealing less damage. It does make a decent bit more sense to attack the Tanker if he's going to break your face in if you don't start attacking him. He demands your attention. If you don't go along with that plan, he's going to make you regret that decision. The Scrapper is going to hurt no matter what, but if attacking the Tanker is going to lighten the damage load a bit, it makes sense to focus on the guy who gets hurt less.

Just to nitpick, but the four roles of 4th ed. D&D don't really apply to the confines of CoX. Each role has 2 primary functions that define it as such. Defenders have the ability to mark (and the ability to enforce those marks with reciprocal damage) and superior survivability. Strikers have superior single target damage and target choosing capability (whether through superior range or superior mobility). Controllers have area effect abilities and status effects. Leaders have buffs and the ability to heal.

Tankers and Defenders easily fit into the Defender and Leader roles respectively, but the Blaster, Controller, and Scrapper ATs don't fit into any of the D&D roles quite as well because they don't have quite the same focus. Blasters have substantially more AoE than a Striker would have in D&D because Strikers are all about taking out a single specific target, which means they're something like a Controller meets a Striker. Scrappers make a decent case for being Strikers except that they don't have superior mobility or target choosing capability, which is part of the Striker hallmark: they're more like a Defender meets a Striker. The Controller AT isn't an easy fit for the Controller role because, while the Controller AT has substantial ability to provide mez effects, they don't provide much AoE damage and they provide nearly equal support to a Defender. Controllers are almost equally split between the Leader and the Controller roles, thanks to almost completely lacking a real ability to provide one of the big benefits of Controllers.

Actually, you're a bit wrong here. While a target can only be marked by one target at a time, a Defender (or anyone else that generates the marked effect) can have any number of targets marked at any time. Fighters have the option to mark any target they make an attack against so simply making a close burst 1 attack will mark every nearby enemy. Wardens have the specific ability to mark every adjacent enemy as a free action once per turn. Paladins and Swordmages are restricted from marking more than one target with their baseline capabilities, but Paladins are capable of marking other targets with powers that generate divine sanction (i.e. short duration, unrestricted divine challenge) and Swordmages have feats in the paragon (double aegis) and epic tiers (total aegis) that allow them to mark multiple targets along with a number of powers that specifically allow them to mark additional targets.

The bigger advantage of having more Defenders in D&D is that Defenders don't just tank: they provide substantial damage on their own and having more around means that you can spread out the damage in a more effective manner. Unlike in CoX, even a buffed Defender can drop if he gets aggro from every enemy on the field because hits are much more brutal than they are in CoX.

I had this idea a while ago when I was discussing with a friend of mine what really defined the various roles in 4th ed. and how 4th ed. dealt with the logical problems of the guy in armor being the preferred target. Defenders in D&D actually have the highest damage potential of any of the roles because of the potency of their reciprocal damage (i.e. the damage they deal if you don't attack them when they're telling you to). This is limited by the fact that a target can choose at any time to prevent this bonus damage (with a few exceptions like an assault Swordmage marking then running out of range of the marked target so that they can teleport in and beat the target's face).

This works pretty much exclusively because the target is controlled by the GM that is capable of making intelligent (though not too intelligent if he's playing a stupid monster) decisions and weighing the various factors on the field. An MMO wouldn't be able to manage with a system like this without some stronger AI (most likely involving randomization and comparative chances of various actions based on situational modifiers) which would necessitate substantially more server effort.

The benefits of giving Tankers the system as I described it was that it provides a logical basis for Gauntlet to operate off of, gives Tankers a bit of a damage boost on team, and prevent redundant uselessness while on a team without making them an automatically preferably choice to other damage dealers thanks to having lower damage scalars. In reasonably sure that determining whether a target has you selected is already possible (think reverse placate), so all it would require would be a single check through a binary function all in order to determine if the attack is going to deal extra damage. It would take about as much server effort as calculating Striker crits.

The single target choosing capability is designed into the functionality of the class's powers. Rogues do not get a whole slew of AoE effects and they actually get a remarkably large number of abilities that allow them to maintain combat advantage. If you can leverage combat advantage against a specific target, you're obviously doing something wrong. Barbarians have their single target focus built into their attacks. Their target choosing capabilities are built into their additional mobility. Mobility is a way to pick a specific target to take out because it allows you to get into the back and take down protected Artillery monsters that the Defender would have to spend 6 turns getting to. Sorcerers, on the other hand, are not the AoE monster you act like it is. Sorcerors have AoE damage assigned to them as a secondary functionality. They still operate best when they're using their much more substantial single target powers to take down hard targets.

There is bleed over through the roles. This is why you can make fighters that inflict status effects with the best of wizards or clerics that take damage just as well as paladins and are just as hard to kill. The only role that doesn't have significant bleed through is the leader because you just can't make up for the ability to increase healing surge efficiency.

The Striker role is not defined by Sneak Attack, Hunter's Quarry, or Warlock's Curse. Those are simply mechanisms used to accomplish the purpose. The purpose is not simply damage. A Wizard can quite easily outdamage any of those classes with saturated AoEs which even the Sorcerer is incapable of equaling (because Wizards have larger AoEs). The role of the Striker is to make their damage arrive on priority targets so that they can restrict the tactical options of the other side. The Striker either blasts the leader, artillery, or other monster that the other side's strategy is based around from range or uses their substantially better mobility to get themselves there. Once that is done, they move on to other targets that the rest of the team is tying down.

Just looking at PH1 powers (if you want, I can site more from any other book you'd care to mention), Ranger's get all kinds of attacks that allow them to shift. Hit and Run is an at-will power that allows them to disengage without penalty and Nimble Strike allows them to shift 1 before or after the attack. More than half of their encounter attacks allow them additional movement to go along with an attack. Compare the number of powers that a Ranger gets that allow him to move with the number of powers that a Wizard gets that allows him to move. Wizards get a couple utilities. Rangers get a plethora of powers of all types that let them get into superior positions while they make their attacks. Even worse, just check out the MP2 for the Marauder which is based on charging from target to target like the Barbarian.

First off, Druids are the worst controllers from an AoE standpoint and Sorcerers are the best strikers from an AoE standpoint. Comparing the two isn't altogether fair, since you're ignoring the additional benefits and costs associated with those powers, much less those classes (Sorcerers are striker sub controller for AoE whereas Druid is controller sub defender/striker with emphasis on mobility). Sorcerer AoEs that can compete with Controller AoEs on a point for point basis require that Sorcerers be in melee (Storm Sorcerers have substantially lower damage dealing capabilities than Draconic Sorcerers). Sorcerer AoEs are also smaller. When Wizards are getting access to area burst 3 AoEs, Sorcerors are still using area burst 1s. When Sorcerers get area burst 3 AoEs, Wizards are using area burst 4s and 5s. Magnitude of an AoE isn't the only thing that matters. When you get to higher levels, the size of an AoE matters just as much because not everything clumps up nice and happy.

I think getting off-topic is getting to be something of a trademark of mine in these discussions.

Except that in CoX, enemies can't choose to ignore them. It's a function of predictable AI. A more clear statement would be to say that allowing Tankers to deal more damage to targets that aren't attacking them is a good idea.

I wholly admit, it's just an educated guess, but I've always thought it was fairly clear that Brutes were just exaggerated Scrappers. Same basic role, at least. And both get single target taunting capabilities and can act as pseudo-Tanker. Plus Brutes even get built-in Scrapperlock.

I can't really say I agree with that (though I did consider making Brutes their own category with 80% cap), but the apology is appreciated.