SoA=The tank mage?

Combat power of a force of n units that can direct fire onto a point is proportional to n^2 its an old result. In this games case AoE throws that off as its lethality scales with the number of targets

So Controllers/Dominators/Defenders/Corruptors AREN'T tankmages?

Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler you *******!!!!

Squishies don't fit the tank part, sorry.

Squishy? Watch who you are calling squishy.... squishy.

This answers your question for me.

Basically, Tankmage equates to something like the Paladin from WoW. Oh, look, I might die; Invincible Bubble. Wait and heal. Go hit stuff. Oh, I might die. Lolbubble. Rinse, repeat.

At least thats the way I understand it. Giving a Blaster Hibernate on a 30 second recharge cycle and as part of their primary/secondary would be tankmaging.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

While the video might seem impressive to someone unfamiliar with game mechanics, it's plain obvious the aggro cap is 17, and sure enough if you take a look romans keep "forgetting" the player as FB aggroes new targets. Not only that but at some point the player targets a roman and it's an even con (+0). Romans aren't terribly threatening at range as they just use one weak S/L attack, except for the engineers throwing a burn patch (which they don't seem to use on flying targets, or maybe this is because the player is moving ? I don't use fly much). Despite all that, the bubbler is taking a significant amount of damage and you can see his life bar goes down to 60-70% at one point. That's only in the first minute, after that his team comes in.

In one minute, taking significant damage on +0/x8 at range against a faction without ranged debuffs using S/L damage is what I'd call squishie, indeed.

We're probably also running into some definition issues. "Tankmage" is usually used to show something is broken and unbalanced, with nothing to challenge it at all... part of me would quibble if a Hibernate cycle or bubble equates to Tankmagery, as you were challenged by something enough that you needed to "hide" for a bit. To my mind, a Tankmage flattens opposition and receives none in return.

But yeah... Paladins. Not sure if they're still that way, but there was an annoying one that kept trying to gank my Troll mage when he was resting. I'd beat him to where he had to bubble constantly, then run off like the cowardly backstabber he was. I'm not sure they are like that anymore, since the one time I played WoW more recently my own Paladin couldn't do the same so much.

Where's the Mage part?


^ This. If any AT in the game counted as a true TankMage then the devs have failed.


So in answer to the OP : Nope.

I think we're using a slightly different definition of tankmage. Might also explain some of the squabbling in this thread about "balance". To me, a tankmage doesn't automatically equal OP. I defined mine above as a character that is very tough (tank) and has ranged, AoE damage, ala fireballs (mage). I'm fairly sure that was the original origin, but have morphed into anything that's OP.

Now that I'm curious as to the exact origins of the term "TankMage", I did some googling and found this. Dunno how legit it is (I never played MUDs all that much), but he specifies CoX and the term. I was a little off-based about the ranged damage part, but the origins of the term doesn't have the OP connotations, though nowadays it clearly does.

So with that in mind, if the intent of the original question was to ask are Crabs or other soldiers OP, no. Can they be made into an excellent balance of (ranged, AoE) offense & defense, and easier than most other classes? Hell yeah.

As far as I know that is the original origin. The thing is it was in games/systems where mages had much superior firepower than anything else, while also being extremely weak in pure damage mitigation. The ultimate meaning was always "best defense + best offense on one solo character", or at least that's how I understood it since the beginning.

If you think about it even blasters are pretty damn sturdy in this game, able to make multiple machine gun hits as soon as level 1. It could be argued everyone in this game is a tankmage, compared to other games - or nobody is a squishy ; however, saying that doesn't highlight the damage mitigation difference between a SO blaster and an IOed out tanker, so I think it's best to use the term as something relative rather than a ranged damage + armors checklist.

The original concept of the Tank Mage revolved around the idea that if you could kite, keeping foes out of melee range, while still having the defenses of a meleer; you could avoid any counterattack, while the few times you blundered into melee range would not last long enough to be a threat. The phrase once used in the development of this game was "kite with impunity". On other words, the traditional Tank Mage uses range to make itself effectively immune to damage.

The reason such a combination was effective was because, in MMOs which relied on forced teaming, such a combination could solo. A team needed a "tank" and a "mage", and if you were both you obviously didn't need the team.

In modern MMOs, such as this one, there is a higher number of ranged attacks wielded by MOBs, and they are more effective as well. Thus, staying out of melee becomes less of an issue for survivability. Thus, the "Tank Mage" has evolved to encompass ANY combination of high damage and high survivability, whether in melee or not. In the traditional sense, due to intentional design by the devs, only the EATs are Tank Mages, but in the modern sense, every one of the ATs, given the proper circumstances, could be described that way. There is no "class" in this game that lacks either the damage or the survivability to progress without having to rely on a team.

In truth, ATs with high damage have lower defense, and ATs with high defense have low damage. ATs that are capable of both damage and defense, like Defenders, Controllers, Corruptors, MMs, Kheldians and SoA, usually are not equal to either the "pure" Blasters or Tankers in their damage output or defense. So unless you want to use the term in regards to a particular AT being "overpowered", I would simply call a Tank Mage a hybrid of Ranged and Defense which is good at both, but not superior at either.

Honestly, while SoA are better "Tank Mages" overall than Kheldians, Kheldians have the additional ability to shift into a specialized Tank or Mage form on the fly. I agree this would appear to be a handicap to the pure "Human Form" Kheldians, but that is the way the AT is designed. And Kheldians do have less of a team support role, and more one of direct damage.

I will add that that link has somewhat of a PvP focus and is set after CoV came out, and thus doesn't really reflect the "Tank Mage" concerns of the early CoH development. In the terms he is talking about, most COH ATs are Tank Mages, and certainly Defenders are. However, Tankers are no so crippled in damage output that they can't solo, Scrappers are not Rogues, with no effective defense, Blasters have SOME damage mitigation (even if it was mainly control powers at release) and so on.

My main point, though, is that originally the concept of the "Tank Mage" revolved around soloing, since if you were a tank and a mage at the same time you didn't need a team. By his own admission, Defenders can't do these things unless you group them in a team where their buff/debuffs stack. So in essense, the devs got around the Tank Mage problem by radically weakening the Tank Mage Archetype (the Defender) but allowing them to support each other to become a team of Tank Mages.

Putting it another way, the traditional Tank Mage is Ranged/Defense, but the non-EAT equivalent here, Ranged/Buff-Debuff only allows you to apply the Defense to someone else. The stacking of powerful buffs was also very much unique to CoH, and isn't really that prevalent on other MMOs. Neither a Tank nor a Mage is really a Buffer. (Usually, the Healer fills that role, with that very limited type of buffing, heals)

It has morphed and you cannot control it! Mwahahahaha!

Anyone, it's a fun discussion. Whenever I have heard the term Tankmage tossed about, it was for something that was completely unbalanced and in the terms I mentioned above. It seems more useful in that sense, really, as being able to have some defense and offense but still be balanced isn't really a bad thing. Tankmage usually has a negative connotation. Ah well, you learn something all the time!

No, Soldiers of Arachnos. This is the generic term for ALL arachnos troops. Widows, and spiders.

No disadvantage? Uhm... yeah... Tell that to Mister Regen Scrapper who's getting whacked around for 400 damage per hit by eight rikti. Melee combat is far more dangerous then ranged combat in CoH.

That, and if you look you can see that the defenses are all through the roof. I think I can icons for nearly every single +def pool power except stealth. And the engineers are using the burn patches I see. It's just that the patch seems to not spawn in the air.

Ah, the failure of humour, again

But, meh. By the definition usually used, I would equate 'Tankmage' to 'OP'.

A character slotted to the gills with IOs and purples is, for me anyhow, the exception, because such characters are not the norm. Its a char that is a 'Tankmage' right out of the box that is OP to me. Which none of the CityOf AT/Sets are.

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Well, the problem is that while at high level, that Scrapper might be shrugging off the ranged attacks like they're nothing, and having trouble facing the greater damage of the melee attacks, the squishies are being hit by the ranged attacks and taking just as much damage as the Scrapper in melee. After all, the squishy doesn't have that much protection.

So if the squishy is taking 400 damage per hit at range and 4000 damage per hit in melee, it doesn't make that much difference. You're talking about the difference between dying in one hit, or dying in two or three hits. Unless you've got the Defense to keep those hits from coming close together, which is gonna take some IO slotting, you're still gonna die. And you might still die of a (un)lucky streak anyway.

Really, the "range is a defense" argument only applies to the "Tank Mages" of the game. Blasters and Dominators protect themselves from damage by either holding the foe, or killing it before it can kill you. And sometimes standing back and plinking from a distance can land you more damage than taking a chance and trying for a high damage melee attack.

Whoosh...is the sound of the discussion going over your head.