No real tankers in AE?

Yeah, you can survive almost anything. Yeah, sooner or later you will probably kill the whole spawn. Do you really really really want to take that long to kill something, when a dynamic duo taker/blaster could kill the whole thing in 5% of the time? If you really want to game that way, enjoy.

PS, if you really wanted to game that way you would probably not be reading this post, since most of it refers to tanks on teams.

Rylas, I really do not want to argue with you over whether a blaster can kill faster than a tank. It seems like you are saying you built your tank in a way to emphasize damage. But are you assuming that the blaster has not slotted up with I/Os for rech/dam, etc.

Rylas its purely a matter of game mechanics. Blasters (really) only have one function. Tanks have 2. call it what you will, play it how you want: Survival + Damage. Yes they do damage.

Unfortunately for tanks there are debuffs/defenses/resistances. Since a Blaster is only concentrating on one job, and all their tools focus on that (plus doing more base damage) they can focus the rest on accuraccy/damage/rech. A tank cannot effectively do this.

And yes, statistically over a large sampling I believe an effective Blaster/Tank team will kill 20 times faster than a lone tank. (large sampling he said)

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It is times like this that I wonder what would happen to the player teaming dynamic if the game went archetype-less. It was interesting watching people try to figure out how to ask for a tanker in CO when at the beginning players were not even in complete agreement on what constituted a "good tanker" without the archetype label to use for guidance. Eventually, it became "have one of the passives on my personal list of good ones, and a heal, plus reasonably good gear."

I've noticed that sometimes people will complain even when the team is otherwise functioning perfectly fine if they perceive that a specific player is "not pulling their weight" based specifically on that player's interpretation on what that archetype is supposed to contribute. Its interesting to me that the archetype label serves as a double-edged sword in this context: it provides a structure for organized teaming, but it also penalizes players seeking to leverage archetypes in unconventional ways. I wonder what benefit you'd get from decoupling role from archetype. Which is to say, I wonder what would happen if everyone started off flagged as "generic" and then when they were making their character regardless of archetype they could flag themselves, in a manner comparable to LFT flagging, as "advertising" themselves as "aggro control" or "damage" or "control and debuff" or whatever they thought they could contribute to a team. So even if you roll a tanker, if you want to play a damaging tanker you could still advertise yourself as "melee damage." In fact, that would be the *only* thing other players would see unless you specifically told them, so they would not know if you were a "tanker" or a "scrapper." That would be nobody's business but your own, comparable to enhancement slotting.

At least this way, there's no "false advertising." If you want to play a damaging tanker, then you advertise youself that way. People would pick you for teams within the same context they picked scrappers advertised the same way: melee damage. There'd be no uncomfortable surprises that could cause friction.


Probably a crazy thought.

Nice idea Aracanville.

As far as Fallsights belief that a tank and a blaster will kill 2-3 times as fast as a tank by itself. Wow. So you believe adding a blaster is the equivalent to adding a tank, or maybe 2 tanks? Talk about hyperbole.

When I said over a very large sampling I was considering, say 1-40 levels of regular playing. I believe a taker/blaster duo, set at +0/x1 for all missions 1-40, would kill at 20 times the pace of a tank solo. By this I mean count the number of mobs/divide by time in combat. Does not include loading time/transport/buying/selling. Just pure how long did it take you to kill. What I am counting on is the various types of critters you will encounter over a very long time. A tank solo will inevitably bog. A blaster, say a Fire/Mental blaster might come up on a fire resistant mob. But the tanker partner will almost certainly have a different damage type, plus the Fire will not have to worry about agro, so even though against that mob he is nerfed, he can take the extra time needed to lay into them again. The solo tank will encounter many things soloing to 40 that will make certain mobs unholy to work against. Debuffers, resistant to his damage type, end drainers, etc. The duo will be more flexible, and able to work around problems that confound a solo archetype that is (let's be honest) not the most flexible in the game. All this will add up to sprinting through mobs for the dynamic duo. For the solo tank, a steady plod with occasional bouts of OMG this is gonna be slow.

Rylas, wow. You are really upset. And wrong.

My argument as I have very clearly restated above, and have been saying all along is levels 1-40.

You gave me one scenario of a tank with shield charge and sould drain. I stated that it cannot be that way through all 1-40 content, and even if it was you would not have the powers that you referenced until well after 2nd level.

Take a pill.

1 Tanker at levels 1-10 is going to go at about the same speed as the baslter, if he takes a decent amount of his attacks. Since he can't really control aggro at that point, adding a Blaster isn't going to help all that much. Certainly not 20 times the speed of the Tanker alone for levels 1-10.

For levels 10-20, the Tanker does have the ability to hold aggro a bit more, but isn't able to survive a whole lot of it at this point. At least the level 10-15 point. Without some support, he is going to have to go slower, even with a Blaster friend along, because he'll need to rest up a bit between fights.

At level 20-30, the Tanker comes into his own, and at this point, can really shine with a Blaster friend. The Tanker has gotten most of his defenses, slotted them up with SOs or some IOs, and has had a chance to get a few more attacks. He has the ability to hold and generate aggro, and survive it. Here is the fastest point comparison between the Tanker and a Tanker+Blaster.

At level 30-40, the Tanker has a good amount of his attacks slotted up, and the endurance to use them. At this point, the comparison between the Tanker and the Tanker+Blaster pair begins to level out again, since the Tanker would be doing better on his own than the level 20-30 Tanker. However, at this stage, the Blaster begins to find out that the Tanker needs to hold aggro even more, because a few rogue shots can kill him. This means that the Blaster needs to wait a bit longer for the Tanker to get aggro before he unleashes. This slows down the team vs. just the Solo tanker.

At level 40-50, the Tanker has his attacks and defenses fully slotted, and can tap into Ancillary Pools if he wants to. This will increase his solo speed versus that of the Blaster+Tanker combo. However, the Blaster also gets to use his Ancillary Pools to get some defenses, which help him out. Still, the offense of the Tanker I think goes up more than the defense of the Blaster, so it's still a lot slower than 20 times as fast as the solo Tanker.


ALL of this completely ignores again the combination of Tanker and Blaster, versus what kind of solo Tanker you're talking about.

And yes, I was comparing two Tankers versus a Tanker and a Blaster, because anything else would be comparing apples and oranges. Any other AT brought along will speed up the Tanker than if he was by himself. That is obvious to anyone. However, I was trying to point out that it's not 20 times greater, and that you aren't really making a valid comparison, since at that point, I CAN say that a second Tanker can increase the killing speed just as much as another Blaster. ESPECIALLY when we take a look at various power sets.

A Shield/Elec Tanker, set for +2/+4 for instance, will certainly not increase his leveling speed by 20 times if he brings along an Energy/Ice Blaster. He might not even double his speed there.

Meanwhile, a Stone/Ice Tanker, at level 20, will definitely notice an increase in killing speed if he finds a Fire/Psy Blaster.

my blaster likes to help the tanks hold aggro by targeting through them.

Rylas....got ya. Didn't think about the mods locking the thread. Won't happen again.

You guys are really getting upset. Aett made some decent points. In my opinion most of the rest of what was said was just shouting noise. What really amazes me is that I started down this line of conversation to illustrate the synergy of blueside teams, that the sum being stronger than the parts. What I have encountered is a shield wall of "Tanks don't need nobody." The scenario I have pointed too is valid, and I might be off on the multiplier. So what? From what I have seen most people responding to this have two problems. 1) Cannot admit that blasters do significantly more damage than tanks. 2) Cannot understand mathematics.

Example:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shuckins To paraphrase your statement about 1 tank/1 blaster force multiplication: "Using this combination, a tanker's damage will be improved upon by 2000%."

Okay, I have laid this out at least 3 times, once very explicitly.

(1 tank) vs (1 tank + 1 blaster), So, even if the blaster did the exact same damage as the tank (And that has been alluded to more than once by my distinguished associates in conversation) then you are already at 200% damage. blinks. yep.